Author: cpb

I’ve always liked this shot of a stormy wave breaking at The Presido in San Francisco. The Presidio is a former U.S. Army base, located at the perfect strategic point to engage someone who’s trying to invade the United States 75 years ago. But now it’s the future and no one invades anyone big anymore, so The Presidio is now merely a pretty tourist spot. My sister lives in Oakland, and she took me across the bay for a visit in 2017. The bay was angry that day, my friends.

I had to work a little “magic” on this image to make it fit this poster, since it’s so big. The effect makes it look almost like a painting, which is just fine with me.

Took the boy to Fenway last Sunday for a game against the Tampa Bay Rays. Despite Boston having the best record in baseball, and Tampa Bay being Tampa Bay, the Rays have Boston’s number. Starting with the game we went to, where the Red Sox were shut out on two hits for the 4-0 loss, Boston went on to lose three straight. They then started winning again, only to lose to Tampa again by a lopsided score the other day.

Even before moving to New England, I was a nominal Boston fan. I loved reading about Ted Williams and what a quirky, heroic figure he was, and as luck would have it, I read a huge book about him in 2004—the same year they finally won a World Series for the first time in several generations. Now that I’ve been here awhile, and my sister and brother-in-law (Oakland A’s fans) openly mock me for being a “fan,” I guess I can count myself among the Boston multitude.

I shot the above photo with my 200mm lens, the most reach I currently own. Betts was playing right in front of us, so my best shots are of him. I wasn’t able to get him actually catching that fly ball, though. Even shooting at 1/4000th, I got a ton of frames before the catch and a ton of frames after. Baseball may get a lot of crap for being a “slow” sport, but when something actually happens, the ball and the players who have to chase it are very, very quick.

I’ve had an occasional obsession with fake miniature photographs. Creating them without a tilt-shift lens is more an art than a science. I never know what photos will work and which won’t. The above photo of my friend Rob playing golf was taken by another of our friends as he waited to tee off. Rob posted it to Facebook, and when I saw it, I knew it’d make a good fake mini. I downloaded the pic, processed it in Lightroom and Focus CK, and sure enough, it works.

I took these from the plane coming home from Cabo, and they should have worked better than they did:

They’re amusing, especially the little Mexican neighborhood, but the rest don’t quite work. They’re faded and gritty, and I don’t like how I had to bump the contrast up and do a bunch of other detrimental stuff to counteract the bright Tex-Mex sunshine.

Part of the problem is what I’m shooting through: reinforced aircraft window. It’s (mostly) great at keeping people from getting sucked out of airplanes, an not bad for looking through. But shooting through it is a drag. Also, since you’re moving fast in a jet, even setting the shutter speed at 1/4,000 there’s so much motion it’s hard to get crisp images. You’re also moving fast, and in order to get decent images at all you need a telephoto lens. And guess what telephoto lenses don’t like: movement, something bouncy planes have in abundance.

I did a real estate shoot in Ashby, Mass., today. It was a vacation home on an unnamed lake, and the place certainly had seen better days.

I crossed back into New Hampshire at the town of Brookline. I love how the states here are so small that you can cross in and out of them within twenty minutes. I had to do a reshoot for another company last week, which required me to drive from school to York, Maine. The route dove down into Massachusetts to I-495, then to I-95 back into N.H. Because the Granite State has the shortest coastline of any in the Union, less than 15 minutes later I was in Maine. If I wanted to hit all six New England states and wanted to risk a ticket, I probably could leave home after a late breakfast and be back home for an early supper.

I liked this sign, along with the little township marker at its base.

The debut issue of my comic book The Designated Hitter is out, and a Kickstarter effort to get the second issue up and running went live today. Boston-area artist Brian Bicknell and I are raising $3,000 to produce The Designated Hitter: Inning 2. 

There will be nine such “innings,” and I originally just wanted to pay for one, and maybe kick it around to publishers and conventions and so on. Brian, on the other hand, suggested going the Kickstarter route, one Inning at a time.

We have thirty days to raise the funds, or Kickstarter cancels the project. On the other hand, if we go over the $3,000 target, we can use the extra money for extra printing costs or for “stretch goals,” such as extra “innings” or even a hardbound collection of the issues under one cover.

Kickstarter donors receive premiums, including copies of the comic, signed poster versions of the cover, and more.

Update: The Designated Hitter didn’t quite do as well as Brian and I had hoped. We raised just over $600. Back to Class B ball! Time will tell if Inning 2 ever sees the light of day.