It was thought that the early forbearer of Halloween – Samhain – happened on the night that the Pleiades star cluster culminated at midnight.
While, the current midnight culmination of Pleiades isn't exactly on October 31st, I thought it would be interesting to capture this on October 31st during halloween festivities.
I was privileged to speak with Will Robinson-Smith w/ local FOX 10 today about today's announcement regarding Drone regulations.
Listening to the news cycle, it seems like there is a good bit of pre-over-reaction concerning the idea of a drone registry.
At any rate, today's announcement is like so many others regarding drones.
"Something is coming, we just don't know what, yet but we do know when: before Christmas." :)
Having a drone registry isn't a terrible idea, promoting responsibility amongst drone owner-operators is a good thing.
In an ideal world, drones would be no-more regulated than a hobbyist ultra-lite powered glider. If a Drone registry makes the folks in Washington feel better about the increasingly-crowded skies, then so be it, it certainly sounds better than a full-on-pilot's license and there is something to be said about how officially-recorded personal responsibility can encourage safe-and-responsible use.
The Challenges as I see them:
1) Tracking ownership of any purchase has proven a bit problematic to the Government. (Think: Gun registry). Do they really have the infrastructure in place to do this? The answer is, No, not yet. When you purchase a gun you fill out a transfer-form. But, there is no national database for those transfers and those transfers do not cover person-to-person sales. Same situation is ahead for drones.
2) Officials have had a tough time defining drones. They use weight, operating altitude, method-of-use to help define them but these aren't complete. Defining what separates a so-called drone from a typical model aircraft is important. Might I suggest range-capability, 1st-person view capability and flight controller features as a starting point.
3) Who actually enforces a drone registry? Doesn't seem on the face of it that this will be at all feasible. Who stops and asks me for my drone registration? Is that highway patrol? Seems like they are busy enough. FAA Regional offices? How much does that cost the tax payers? Perhaps the drone registration should have light fees to help offset this expense. Point-of-sale doesn't even begin to cover where to enforce a drone registry, since - you know - any 16 year old with youtube can find parts and build one.
At any rate, anything with the name drone grabs the attention and fears of an interested public. Hopefully the legislation that gets formalized will be smart and agile.
The Drone industry certainly is. :)
My memories of the fair are pretty fond. I really looked forward to meeting up with friends and riding rides, people watching and eating carnival food. My kids, being 9 and 6 get excited about the fair and my daughter looks forward to meeting up a friend who comes along with us. Since Jena doesn't share my appreciation for rides, I'm happy that her friend talks her into trying new rides each year.
This year, the new-to-us came in the form of a hang-glider ride at the bottom left of this photo. My daughter actually rode it a couple times, I did too - it was awesome fun!
After the family was done getting their Fair on at the Arnold Amusements Fairway in Robertsdale for the Baldwin County Fair, I spent a few minutes capturing aerial photos and video of the fair. As a Drone-Safety side note, you will notice I didn't fly over the fair, instead I traced around surrounding fields.
After the rides and festivities and spending nearly 30 minutes watching the model train layout setup inside the coliseum, we got the kids settled in the car and was able to do a quick flyaround of the fairgrounds. Careful to keep the Inspire 1 over surrounding fields and not over people, I'm pretty happy with the resulting unedited video. The lights always make for an awesome aerial spectacle!
The link to the video fly around is here: https://youtu.be/iDuez6Z6VKw
I was watching Smurfs, (the cartoon) the other day, like most grown ups. :) I had forgotten how magical the word Smurf is. It is quite versatile as a noun, pronoun, verb or adjective. It described people, places, events and more. Pretty incredible!
Outside in my front yard, I got down at eye-level to ask the Smurfs that live there if they could explain to me the grammatical capabilities of Smurf. Cars passed by slowly, I can almost hear them ask, 'what's that fool doing laying on his belly in the yard looking at mushrooms?'
Have a smurf-er-ific weekend! :)
Here on the Gulf Coast, it isn't common to have such reasonable humidity and clarity in September. Great for Astrophotography and Astronomy in general! This is a 10 minute single exposure taken via a remote observatory in New Mexico.
This particular scope was a Takahashi FSQ-ED 106mm. I love everything about this scope! Probably my favorite 'rental'! I like it because it is equipped with the same SBIG STL-11000M 10 megapixel imager that I used for awhile on my telescope here at home but with the better optics that I can't really justify owning here on the hazy- humid Gulf Coast :)
This is probably the clearest single Luminance frame I've ever captured. Once I combine them for color it should be a good wall-hanger for my office! :)
I've been banking my observatory hours most of the summer and I've scheduled out most new-moon nights out through November. Should be some good astrophotography opportunities ahead!
This particular lookout in Spanish Fort is a little hard to fathom in that it is grown up with considerable foliage. Still, from a 40-50ft up it does provide a pretty nice view of the Delta and northern tip of Mobile Bay.
Somewhere on a marker board, a phd is scribbling physics symbols that we laypeople could barely interpret into complex equations that are thought to symbolize the nature of the universe.
I don't really fully comprehend this but the way I understand it is apparently some of these PHD brainiacs theorize that our universe exists within a sea of other universes and more specifically that our universe may exist on the membrane of an extra-dimensional bubble afloat in a vast sea of other bubbles. Maybe the Big Bang was an event spurred from the collision of two such bubbles or some other interaction of cosmic objects in this extra-dimensional space.
Still, somewhere else in the world a couple of young guys are sitting around a campfire, smoking a joint and having a similar conversation:
"Whoa. Dude, What if... the whole universe.. is like.. in an enormous soap bubble. Just floating... "
"AH man, what if it popped! That would be loud man!"
"DUDE! That could totally have been the Big Bang!!"
As a culture, we'll treat the first guy with reverence and respect. We will fund his research even if it doesn't go anywhere. The second scenario, most of us would look down on him and maybe even suggest he quit smoking so much weed, perhaps get a haircut and a job.
The point is that good ideas can come from anywhere; the Harvard grad or the surfer drop-out. Even if the delivery is off or isn't polished, a good idea is still a good idea! Sometimes, I don't think we keep this in our own pea-brains when we hear new ideas from unexpected voices.
Waiting for the School Bus to drop off the kids, yesterday afternoon, this little guy was whirring about and decided to hang still on a branch for a couple of shots.
Having not grown up on the Gulf Coast - I didn't grow up swinging a cast net like many of our kids do. I'm still a little fascinated at this form of fishing. At any rate, this little fella was casting off the pier as I was snapping some photos, I'm happy to have caught one of his better tosses.
I haven't posted anything in a few weeks, I've had a couple of interesting projects that aren't really photography-related underway that I'm looking forward to sharing in the coming weeks! More on that, later..
Our kids head back to school tomorrow and everyone gets back into a routine.. Hope your week, ahead is great!
Even though I've been working with Drone and Aerial photography for a couple of years, I sometimes still get surprised by how certain things look from above.
Take the Fairhope Pier. It is probably one of the most oft-photographed features of the Gulf Coast. We all know it has lights and they create reflections on the water, yet before drone photography became a thing, I really didn't consider what the implications of the lights would be from 200 ft up. The repeating patterns and lines are pretty cool to see!
Have a great weekend!
The scenic overlook at the hill at the end of the causeway is a bit grown over. From about 200ft you get a good view, though!
The beaches were a bit more cluttered with leftover trash than usual and the northbound roads were a bear. I think this all means it was a good weekend for the businesses on the Gulf Coast this 4th of July Weekend.
I stopped by one of my favorite Taco joints, Bravo Tacos and saw they had sold out for the weekend! Hopefully that's awesome news for our Gulf Coastal vendors.
As the BBQ and Fireworks high for the weekend wears off, I hope you have safe travels to wherever you call home and a great week!
Have a safe and fun Independence Day weekend!
Looking forward to some beach-time this weekend. Hope you have a safe and fun weekend!
I wanted to paint the scene for you, when this photo was taken because parts of it are a little humorous. The plan for the outing was there were a couple of motion sequences I needed for a video project. Basically, I was looking for golden hour light with some low and fast passes along the surf and a pull up and away to reveal the Bayway in the distance, the Mobile Skyline if possible.
I parked at Bayfront and made the walk through the Village Point Park Preserve with the Inspire suitcase in tow. This thing really needs rollers.
I noticed some cars at the event haul near the main park but didn't think much of these until I got to the Village Point pier. A small wedding party was hanging around near the pier, getting their photos taken by a photographer person.
One thing that I know for sure about most women, is that flying robots have no place in their special day. Armed with this life truth, I walked a comfortable distance away from them, in fact I kept going until I could no longer see the white of the Bride's gown.
I made one of the eagle-scout-project benches my home.
Listening to tunes on my iPhone, in a few minutes I was able to get the Inspire deployed within a few minutes and began filming. It was hot, it was sticky, there are creatures biting. Typical southern Alabama coastal moments.
I was able to get a battery of filming done between crowds and passer bys. Eventually, though - the session was cut somewhat short by some curious wildlife.
Normally, I wouldn't take photos of the kids that stop and ask questions about Drones. But these two kids were cracking me up for a number of reasons.
The boy had no reservations whatsoever to get entirely too close to the quad, even when flying. Chasing it, trying to grab it out of the air - all seemed like a great idea in his little mind.
I didn't see their parents around, so I cut my session short.
The moral of this story is, beware of wildlife during your drone adventures. If a wild one gets clipped by a spinning propeller, it would certainly be my fault, parents or none. If you are flying a drone and feel the situation is no longer safe - stop.
There are always more sunsets out there to enjoy. :)
Have a great weekend!
The area around Johnson beach, looking back towards Fort Mcree. I think as beaches go, this area of the Gulf Islands National Seashore is about perfect. I unfortunately don't get down there as much as I'd like and never get down there in good light.
I would imagine around 2 AM the Milky Way starts to become visible this time of year - something I hope to go down and try to photograph at some point...
On the south side, you have the Gulf. It isn't cluttered with Jetski rentals, chairs, condos and swimmer buoys. You have sand, surf and whatever you carry with you.
On the North side is the Lagoon. It bends around enough to give you a sense of privacy. Hermit crabs, shells and sand dollars scatter amongst the gentler surf.
Have you ever stopped to consider the origin of some of your interests and passions?
I was pondering on this the other day while playing Indiana Jones Pinball with some friends.
Personally, I'm heavily drawn to the general idea of exploration. Exploration of foreign lands, exploration of space, exploration of knowledge. Ironically, much of this as at odds with my chosen career of a person who gets paid literally to sit at a desk all day long.
As the knight in the Last Crusade might say, "He chose, poorly."
But where did I get those notions? The plane pictured here is one of two on Disney's cruise-ship island in The Bahamas. The story goes that at least one of them was a derelict, left behind when this island (with a runway!) was used for drug smuggling.
What this plane really reminds me of is LaunchPad McQuack's plane from Duck Tales! I would come home from school and plop down in front of the TV to catch Scrooge McDuck's adventures with his nephews nearly every day. It had adventure, it had travel, the mystique of treasure hunting and clear plots around the virtues of working smartly.
With these visuals and those of Indiana Jones, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and similar movies it really is no wonder why I'm fixated on the idea of exploration and anxious to go out and see the world. Even when chained to a desk! :)
So my question is this. Does popular media form our children's later inclinations or does it inform them? Are my kids destined to be obsessed with mining and building things? :)
Duck Tales is scheduled to be rebooted in 2017. I wonder if Scrooge McDuck's money bin has been affected by inflation or diminished in any way by bad derivative investments in the sub-prime lending crisis. I guess we will have to wait and see!
All too often, lately when I'm out for a leisure photo walk, the leisure is somewhat removed because of the presence of a camera drone. The leisure photo walk usually turns into a Drone Q&A with spectators and the whole bit. I don't mind this but I do miss opportunities for shots when there is a crowd of onlookers with questioners.
It was considerably more relaxing recently to just throw on some sneakers and earbuds for a walk / run. No suitcase-full-of-drones, just a mirrorless camera and an okay sunset.
Need to do that more often for both mental and physical health!
