420 Racers

Here's one of the Annapolis Yacht Club piers on Spa Creek, near sunset in mid-August 2003. The boats are small racing sailboats used by high-school-age Junior Sailing Program members for instruction and competition.

One of my more nautically-inclined friends, upon seeing this photo, told me that these small boats are called "420 racers," referring to the boats' length in centimeters. For use in competition, this little fleet is ideal; since the boats are all the same, winning is a matter of seamanship rather than equipment.

I took this photo from the drawbridge spanning Spa Creek, which separates downtown Annapolis from Eastport. Over the years, I keep coming back to photograph this nicely-lined-up set of racers from different viewpoints, time of day, and seasons.

Snowy 'Z'

This is part of the Maryland WWII Memorial, covered in freshly fallen snow. The memorial, dedicated in 1990, sits just below an older overlook on a hill looking down over the Severn River, US Naval Academy, and the rest of Annapolis.

Pink Neon Time

I took this photo of a neon-clad clock during a lunchtime stroll on an overcast day in 2003. It's one of my favorite photos, and proof that you don't need a fancy-schmantzy, gigapixel SLR to take a decent photo - I used my first digital camera, a Canon A40 Powershot with all of 2 megapixels.

Every time I see this photo, I here the 1967 song, Incense and Peppermints in my head. That song was a big hit, just around the time I started college, by Strawberry Alarm Clock, arguably the first psychadelic rock band. Being an engineering student, I was to busy to be psychadelic, but I always liked the song. And my neopsychodelic photo, Pink Neon Time just reminds me of Strawberry Alarm Clock.

Happy Mistakes - Digital Style

This article was originally posted on The Lost Blog
on May 10, 2004.

Since I've been shooting almost all digital for the past year, there have been a few times when I've made what I call a happy mistake. By that, I mean that I mistakenly did something wrong, like moving the camera during exposure, but it came out right, or at least pointed me in a right direction.

Because I was using a digital camera, I was able to see my "mistake" instantly on the LCD screen, and that got me thinking about experimenting some more with the same "mistake."

In this first photo, Grate Expectations No. 2, I was shooting some colorful autumn leaves on an aluminum grating when I accidentally moved the camera during the exposure. "Hmmmmm... that's interesting!" was my reaction a second later when the swoosh of color showed up on the little display. I took about 30 more exposures, moving my camera this way and that, trying to get different effects. This is one of the two that I think came out well.

The second photo is one I made just recently at BWI airport when I took my Uncle Joe to meet his flight home to Birmingham. With time to spare, and being overgrown kids ourselves, Joe and I headed to the observation lounge, where there were all kinds of aircraft parts and displays. I spotted the backside of one of the displays, black pegboard with light shining through and a jet-black, modernistic trash bin in the lower left corner. I thought the pattern of holes was pretty cool, so I figured I'd try an exposure. The shutter speed indicated 1/15 sec, so I held my breadth and snapped the shutter ... but in another "mistake", I forgot to stop chewing gum. Whoa! the movement of the camera made each row of holes look like a caffeinated cardiogram. I tried a few more shots, and came up with this image, Half-Specs.

I don't think all this would've happened in my pre-digital days. First of all, I wouldn't have seen the "mistake" until days, weeks, or months later. Then there's the effort of having to schlep back to the scene of the accident to try to recreate or improve upon the first shot - all the while, not being sure of what I was producing. And in some case, the original scene would no longer be there - like the colorful autumn leaves on the grating.

Let me know if you've got some "Happy Mistakes" that you're proud of!