defocus·blog

Four Score and Seven: Gettysburg

The arctic cold wave mercifully lifted last week, so I took the opportunity to take a quick trip out to historic Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Visiting in January meant it wasn't crowded, and winter hotel rates allowed me to stay in a decent room at a surprisingly low rate. I didn't even bring a digital camera, so you're seeing this the requisite week and a half later for Kodachrome processing.

Gettysburg National Military Park marks the site of the most famous battle of the Civil War with more statues and monuments and plaques than you could possibly count, some placed by veterans of the battle in honor of their fallen comrades. A car tour is mapped out and well-marked, visiting all the highlights in the park, which surrounds and mingles in with the actual town of Gettysburg.

I think this is a uniquely American experience; the battle was one of the more significant events in our country's history, but the context would likely be lost on a foreign tourist. High school history tells us what happened here: it was the “high water mark” of the Confederacy, the turning point of the war, and 51,000 Americans were killed in the three-day battle. To put that number into context, a bit more than 58,000 Americans were killed in the entire Vietnam war.

The Pennsylvania memorial is biggest.

The landscape here is covered in monuments. Every unit that fought here is memorialized, with numbers of casualties listed: the small numbers are oddly more powerful than the large, a unit of some dozens of men, half or more of whom fell. Units were organized regionally then, so when names are listed alphabetically, it's brother after brother, like some kind of family roster, unit by unit along the Union and Confederate lines. Cannons are placed in the battle's many artillery positions, and statues of significant participants are strategically placed at the sites of their heroism.

It's one thing to read an abstract, written account of the battle, but standing where it took place is another. The terrain is now as it was then, and I can easily imagine what the soldiers saw. Every account of the battle notes that General Longstreet predicted Pickett's Charge would have taken a miracle to succeed, and was a tactical blunder, but standing where it happened, I can see what Longstreet saw: that the Rebels were going to get cut down.

Little Round Top is particularly fascinating. This hill, on the Union left flank, was possibly the most important position on the battlefield, and standing atop it, I can see why: it commands a view of the entire valley, and much of the battlefield. A statue stands atop a large rock, of Brigadier General Gouverneur K. Warren, the Union chief engineer, looking out across the valley. During the battle, General Warren discovered that this hill was undefended, and saw Confederate forces ready to attack the Union flank; he rushed to find soldiers to hold the hill, probably saving the day for the Union.

I can see what General Warren saw: that tree line where the Rebels were is within sniper range. Confederate sharpshooters using scoped rifles could shoot a man on this hill from a concealed position. Suddenly those big rocks look very important.

General Warren on Little Round Top

Standing at the bottom of Little Round Top, I can see what the Rebels were up against. It's not a large hill: it rises about 150 feet from the valley floor. But the rocky terrain makes it formidable. I wouldn't want to climb this thing without anyone shooting at me. This was an important hill indeed.

A real Civil War buff, which I am not, could probably spend days here.

Gettysburg, of course, is also the site of the Gettysburg National Cemetery, where soldiers from many wars are laid to rest. The dedication of this cemetery was the occasion of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Nearly a thousand unknown soldiers are buried here.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract.

Well said, Mr. President.

Pete Souza's Year in Pictures

White House photographer Pete Souza has shared an 82-image Year in Pictures set on Flickr, with some of his favorite moments from the first year of the Obama presidency. As we've come to expect from Mr. Souza, this is some great and fascinating work, and you really should check it out.

In this image (click to enlarge) they are, surprisingly enough, not watching Avatar; it's a 3-D commercial during the Superbowl. Also, this is apparently what a White House Superbowl party looks like.

Have I mentioned lately how much I want Pete Souza's job?

Scanning Color Negatives: A Method

Thus far my approach to scanning color negatives has been to play with it until it looks reasonable. It was time to sit down and figure out a better method.

The thing about color negatives is that there is no reference for what the image is “supposed” to look like: not only is the film a negative, it's got the orange mask. But one thing that is certain is that I want to start with as faithful a representation of the film image as possible.

I seem to have worked out a method. I make no claim that this is the best of all possible approaches, or that I won't figure out something better later, but it seems to work.

The Dance of Death

If you drive on the highway for a while, you will see people do some astoundingly dumb things around trucks. Among the most baffling is one I call the “Dance of Death.”

You've probably seen the Dance of Death: the driver of a car pulls out, without signaling, to pass a tractor-trailer. But once alongside the truck, inexplicably, horrifyingly, he matches speed with it and cruises along next to it, mile after mile, a spectacular reminder to all nearby that half the population is below median intelligence.

Does he not ponder the consequence of the slightest mistake? Does he not feel the turbulence conspiring against his steering? Does he not, just for a moment, hope to see the rays of tomorrow's sunrise?

No, he does none of these things; instead he careens down the highway, locked in this horrible dance, doomed to defeat without his opponent noticing his presence: an ant to the truck's boot, a lifeboat to its tsunami, George McGovern to its Richard Nixon.

You hang back, plotting a sudden yet perfect maneuver to avoid the fiery mass of molten metal, like Tom Cruise in Days of Thunder. You plan what you will say to the investigators: He must have been suicidal, officer. It's as if he wanted to die and take us with him.

Eventually, the trucker speeds up, or slows down, or gets the hell off the road, and our friend calmly, slowly drifts back to the right lane without signaling. As you pass him, you can't resist looking, to see what sort of fellow this could be. Regret sets in – you oughtn't have looked! – as you read the sign in the window: “Baby On Board.”

Home Color Film Processing

With the 75-year Era of Kodachrome coming to an end this year, I'm faced with the dilemma of what color film to use. I've pretty much settled on switching to Kodak's Portra and Ektar color negative film, which gives me a variety of speeds and types to choose from, all of which seem to be quite good.

There has long been a common feeling among photographers that color negative (C-41) film is for amateurs, that “real photographers” shoot transparency (slide) film. I've been guilty of thinking that way at times myself. But a lot of the disdain of color negative film comes from the fact that people are having it processed at mini-labs and printed by automatic machines that try to “correct” the images, which tends to mess up our results and prevent us from getting exactly what we want. But why do we, serious photographers, think it's normal to rely on automatic lab prints, anyway? Would we dream of doing that for our black-and-white work?

Kodak doesn't think C-41 is only for snapshots. Portra and Ektar are professional films, and pro wedding photographers used Portra happily before they went digital, a fact that has escaped the notice of the “C-41 is for snapshots” crowd.

People think C-41 processing is complicated and difficult, and that no one does it themselves unless they have a full-fledged (and expensive) darkroom. Although it had been years since I'd processed C-41, I learned to do it in school, so I wasn't intimidated by it, but somehow I let that old prejudice infect my thought process.

If you have a professional lab near you that can process your film and do a good job, lucky you. I don't. My first thought was to mail it off to a lab, which is relatively expensive and takes a while. Then I considered bringing it to a mini-lab at a drugstore or at Target and have them do processing only, no prints. But that is problematic these days. Consumers aren't shooting much film any more, so mini-labs are not in good shape: they do a few rolls per day, with entirely untrained operators, so you risk questionable equipment maintenance, bad chemicals, scratches on your negatives, and clerks who don't understand the idea of “process only” and will be reluctant to do the work without you paying for prints as well. And, really, they want you to shoot digital and make your prints for you from that, so they don't have incentive to do a good job with film.

So, after flirting with the notion of trusting my film to Target, I decided there was no reason I couldn't just do it myself.

C-41 processing is easy. If you are already processing black-and-white film, you can do C-41. It's only slightly harder, and doesn't require any equipment you don't already have, and you don't need a darkroom.

Searching the web for information on C-41 processing mainly turns up a lot of forum threads alternating between “it's hard” and “it's easy.” Good information, starting with what chemistry to buy, is more scarce. So I decided to write up some easy, no-nonsense instructions for anyone looking to do this for themselves.

Home Processing of C-41 Color Negative Film

Portra 400nc developed in my bathroom

Pepsi Throwback Is Back

Back in April 2009, PepsiCo released Pepsi Throwback, which is Pepsi made like they used to make it, with real sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup. The stuff was so good, and so many people told them so, that they stopped selling it after eight weeks. We all know the fate of good products, right?

The good news is that Throwback is back, as of yesterday, 28 December 2009. The post I made about it at the time has been getting a lot of Google traffic for the past two days from people trying to find a place to buy some.

As they did last time, they are threatening to take this wonderful product away from us after another eight weeks. Also as with last time, I get the impression that this is one Pepsi executive's pet project that no one else at the company cares to see succeed: it's even more difficult to find this time, and there seems to be even less publicity (and there was almost none last time). After looking in three different stores I finally found one lonely 12-pack on the shelf at Stop & Shop. It's got the old-fashioned red, white, and blue packaging this time, though they may also be using the blue packaging as well.

I'm not sure about the packaging, or anything else, because although there is supposed to be a Throwback website, it's been down since at least yesterday.

If you're on Facebook, you can join the Pepsi Throwback group there, where some people are talking about it.

Pepsi has a poorly-implemented store locator you can use, but it is definitely incomplete, so check your grocery stores even if they aren't listed. The store I found it at is not listed. My old post has more information about the product itself.

Also of interest may be Pepsi Natural, which is made with real sugar, but it's only available in ten cities because the folks at PepsiCo hate people who don't live in Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Las Vegas or New York, and don't want their money.

Update: Now that I've consumed a bunch of cans of this stuff, it's clear that this is a different formula than the one we had in the spring. It's still good, mind, but it absolutely doesn't taste the same and isn't as as good. Others are noticing the same thing and reporting it on Facebook. Dang. Why must good products always be ruined? It's almost as if they want the product to fail, to validate their use of high-fructose corn syrup.

Update 2: The Throwback website is back up.

Lightning: The Hidden Danger

When I travel, I go by car if at all possible. This isn't because I'm afraid of flying – I admit to being uneasy about it, but I also know that, statistically, it's not horribly dangerous. I don't like flying because it's a miserable experience, you can't bring anything you want, you don't see anything on the way, and a variety of other reasons.

Now, with the Christmas bombing attempt on a commercial airliner, people are afraid of going out in a terrorist attack on an airplane. Nate Silver, master of statistics, ran the numbers and found:

Therefore, the odds of being on given departure which is the subject of a terrorist incident have been 1 in 10,408,947 over the past decade. By contrast, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are about 1 in 500,000. This means that you could board 20 flights per year and still be less likely to be the subject of an attempted terrorist attack than to be struck by lightning.

So relax, you're more likely to be struck by lightning than to be in a terrorist attack on an airplane!

Wait – really? Yes. Did you know that you're more likely to be struck by lightning than killed by a tornado or a hurricane? You're more likely to be struck by lightning than killed in an amusement park ride accident, or an accidental plane crash. Your child is more likely to be struck by lightning than abducted by a stranger.

Wow, this lightning stuff is dangerous. Aren't we worrying about the wrong thing here?

You're more likely to be killed by lightning than a falling coconut (falling coconuts only kill some 150 people per year), a shark attack, a dog, a meteorite, or, I think, any kind of terrorist attack at all.

The National Weather Service actually has a lightning safety website, and even a slogan: “When thunder roars, go indoors!” Who knew? Why is this danger being kept from us? What are they hiding? Some facts:

• Virtually all victims of the lightning menace are outdoors at the time of the strike. Stay inside.
• If you're close enough to hear thunder you are within the lightning's striking distance. Run away!
• 70% of lightning injuries and deaths occur in the afternoon. Sleep really late.
• Florida has more lightning strikes than any other US state. Don't go there.
• The Democratic Republic of Congo has more lightning strikes than any other country. You probably weren't going there anyway.
• Being under a tree is the second most frequent activity during which to be struck by lightning. Trees: bad. Chop 'em down.
• Lightning often strikes in the same place twice. Don't listen to your mom.

So, don't worry about someone bombing your airplane. You've got far more serious threats to worry about!

Neon

I am perversely attracted to neon. The bright light, strong color, interesting designs, and the way they bathe the scene in saturated color. When I see a nice neon sign I just want to point my camera at it.

Often I feel silly doing it. Where's the creativity in taking a picture of a sign? But, like sunsets, it may usually be easy, but I like the resulting images. Crank open the aperture to get some nice defocused backgrounds, and away I go. Lots of them end up on the proverbial cutting-room floor for being boring, but I end up with lots of images I rather like.

If you point a camera at a neon sign you're getting a lot of light, and probably fooling your light meter to boot. You probably can't guess the right exposure, but using automatic mode and dialing in a stop or so of overexposure usually gets it right.

It's best to do this at night, of course. I am as much a “night person” as you're ever likely to meet – I think the technical term is “vampire.” At night the city is full of light and shadow, color, mood and mystery, all of which disappear in the harsh light of day. I try to capture the mood of the city, the experience of the nighthawk, the life the city takes on after midnight.

Shadowy figures bathed in neon light; what are they doing? Where are they going? How do you get the shot, at a tattoo parlor of all places, without creating a confrontation?

This is one of my favorites, taken outside a bar; I call it “Pickup Line.” In New York City bars, smokers are welcome to light up in designated areas known as “outside.” This has created a whole new social scene, as the sidewalk becomes an extension of the bar, a place for quiet conversation with an automatic ice-breaking topic. I wonder how many people smoke more, or haven't quit, because of the new habits created by this policy.

What sort of place lies downstairs, beneath the glow, open so late? Would you dare enter? The neon sets the mood of the night, the color, the energy, the mystery. Ugly sodium vapor lights can't compete.

This shot attracted one of the most random comments I've ever gotten on Flickr:

This Spartan Bail Bonds storefront is the nicest window display on 81 Baxter Street, in Downtown Manhattan opposite the Manhattan criminal court and the Manhattan Detention Center jail. Situated between Little Italy and China town the owner keeps the windows and sidewalk clean and clear. For a bail company this storefront really brightens-up the street 24 hrs a day 365 days a year unlike the other store fronts on the block which are mostly dingy and dirty.

I guess it's true, but I've wondered since it appeared why someone chose to post such a great caption on one of my photos. Perhaps he, too, is a vampire, and simply appreciates some nice neon light.

Such A Fine Sight: Winslow's Route 66 Plaza

Last summer I wrote about stopping in Winslow, Arizona, the town made famous in the song “Take it Easy” by the Eagles. I lamented the fact that Winslow isn't a very nice place, and wondered why they couldn't take advantage of their fame and Route 66 connection to benefit the town.

Well, the news came a couple weeks ago, but I missed it until now: ground has been broken on Winslow's years-in-the-planning Route 66 Plaza, which will extend the Standing On The Corner Park into the area formerly occupied by the JC Penny's store that was destroyed by a fire.

After the site was cleared, the remaining walls, one of which bears the mural, needed to be stabilized. And now, finally, the plaza will be built. An arch will be tunneled through the wall, leading to a walkway made from “actual Route 66 concrete,” extending from a mural of Chicago, tracing the Route 66 route westward and ending at a mural of the Santa Monica Pier. The park, of course, will feature 1950s-style neon. A Route 66 logo will cover the intersection of Kinsley and Second.

No word on when this thing will be finished, but I'll make sure to pass through next time I'm in the area. In the meantime we have the artist's rendering, and my photographic rendering of what it looks like now.

Read more at AzJournal.com and RoadsideAmerica.com.

Verizon MiFi Firmware Update (on a Mac)

This past summer I reviewed the MiFi 2200 “portable hotspot” on Verizon Wireless. Now, stuck at home, I haven't been using it much, just for the occasional outing, so I never bothered to look into the firmware update that became available about two months ago.

You may have heard about the snowstorm we had in the Northeast over the weekend. It was quite epic. And, probably not at all coincidentally, Verizon's DSL service has been non-functional, apparently for my entire town, for a couple of days now, which leaves me using the MiFi for internet access at home. So, I decided to look at this firmware update.

If you're using the Sprint version of the MiFi, you can update the firmware from the administration interface. But because Verizon hates you, their version doesn't have this feature. The firmware must be updated from the VZW Access application with the device plugged into your computer via USB.

You may recall the VZW Access application from when you got your MiFi. It's Verizon's “connection management” software, and it's an unmitigated, worthless piece of garbage. Luckily, at least on the Mac, you don't need this software installed at all in order to use the MiFi – only to activate the device initially – and I recommended immediately removing this turd from your computer after doing so, because it isn't just an application, it installs tentacles all over your system, including kernel extensions. It can't even set up a connection for you unless you're running it on an administrator account.

So now you're thinking that, okay, you'll just have to reinstall this software briefly to do the update. Well, not so fast. Verizon doesn't just hate you, they really, really hate you, so the Mac version of VZW Access does not offer the ability to update the firmware. That's right: Verizon offers no way to perform the firmware update without Windows. Don't even bother installing the latest VZW Access version on your Mac to make sure this madness is true: I just did, and it's true.

(Seriously, why does Verizon insist on having the best cellular network in the country? Everything else about them sucks mightily. The only reason to be with them is the network, but unfortunately it is so much better than any other cellular provider that it's a very compelling reason.)

But if, as many Mac users do, you have a Windows installation running in a virtual machine using VMware Fusion (or another similar product, probably) then you are in luck. You can update your MiFi's firmware from a Windows installation running in VMWare. Read on for instructions.