A Monkey in Denver, Colorado

I was returning home from my long ride to PEI: Prince Edward Island and I was invited to come and visit Dom in Denver, Colorado.    I didn't really have a route planned as I headed West but I had to be home in time to go back to work.   I consulted my calendar and found that I had a couple of days to spare so naturally I diverted SouthWest

I didn't know it at the time but this was to be my longest day on the road.  I left early from Avoca, Iowa

you can see the long shadow of the morning sun that I had the road nearly to myself .  It was still a bit cool but later in the day it was blistering hot

I was trying to put on the miles so I only made pit stops for fuel and beverages and perhaps a quick meal before I headed back on the road

Soon enough I-80 turned southbound to I-76 and I crossed into Colorado where I stopped for a photo.  I remember that it sure was hot that day.   I told Dom to expect me at 6pm and I was racing the clock to make it on time.   I nearly made it on time but got lost trying to find his street with similar sounding names.  So after 602 miles I finally made it into his garage

At this point in my journey I had already been on the road for 33 days so it was nice to have a non-riding day when Dom invited me to be his Monkey the next day on an excursion to Red  Rocks Park 

I had never been in a sidecar before so it was a new experience for me.   I am sure many of you haven't either so here is a short recap of our day together.    Dom did the riding and I was assigned to camera duty.   This is the first chance I have had to work on my videos

I have no idea which roads we took and I can't remember the name of that little town where we had breakfast but it was a great day and many thanks to Dom for showing me around

Flashback to August 12, 2013   Denver, CO to Red Rocks Park and Amphitheatre

Franiec Grip for my new to me Sony RX100 m2

A few weeks ago I decided to upgrade my pocket camera.  I wanted something with more manual controls and with a larger sensor.   As with everything in life there are compromises.   Sure there are better cameras but they are usually larger and too large to fit into a pocket.  I wanted something non-threatening for social photography.  Something less conspicuous than a much larger dSLR.   I did pre-order the new Fuji X-E2 but our son liked it so much that it is now his.

I bought the Sony RX100 M2 but it is difficult to hold on to, because it is so tiny and slippery.  I was reading on the local forums about buying a grip to make one-handed photography easier.

There are several grip options but the one that most people preferred was the Franiec Grip and I received mine a week ago.  Richard Franiec makes grips for several camera models and they are very well made.   You can go to his website   Here1

    Photo courtesy of  Diglloyd.com   

Once installed it looks like it came from the factory.    It is well integrated with the body and gives a more secure feeling.    Now it sort of looks like the Lumix GX7 which I was going to purchase first but I didn't wish to get into a new lens system, nor did I wish to buy more lenses with another M4/3's lens mount . . .  thus the single zoom lens of the Sony RX100 M2 which also has excellent video modes.

The menu system is similar to my Sony NEX-5n.  More similar than different.   They both have similar modes but found in different places.   The RX has a programmable Fn button where you can set various functions so you don't really have to dig into the menu system to find what you want to do.   One function I use a lot is Anti-shake.  On the NEX it is found on the Mode dial.  On the RX it is found in Scene modes

    7am Downtown Vancouver a couple of weeks ago                              Sony RX100 M2

In Anti-shake mode you hit the shutter button Once and it snaps multiple images and blends the sharp parts into one image.  Nice when you don't have a tripod handy.

    No, I didn't eat anything here.  It was just a snapshot using Anti-shake mode    Sony RX100 M2

It was actually much darker than what it seems

     Our first snowflakes tonight after work

We had a light dusting of snow today so I had to snap a photo before I cleared the windows

My Sony RX100 M2 has a  F1.8 lens and these last two images were taken with the aperture fully open at F1.8   did not use Anti-shake

A couple of weeks ago I was in Steveston / Richmond and snapped the following for comparison.   I was also working on watermarking my images using  PSEL9 in multiple image batch mode

   Sony RX100 M2

    Sony RX100 M2

    Sony RX100 M2

    Sony NEX-5n

   Sony NEX-5n

    Sony NEX-5n

    Sony RX100 M2      macro mode

I don't have a macro mode on my Sony NEX-5n .   So far I am liking it

Minus -8°C and dropping

It's cold here.  We are about 10 degrees lower than usual.   Not as cold as  Here1  nor as much snow as  Here2   but remember that most of us only have summer clothes and when it gets cold all we can do is to put on more layers of summer clothes.  We are in the middle of a rare cold snap and last week I bought a  pair of gloves and a fleece neck warmer,  dug out my marino wool toque and put on my newish battery powered Mobile Warming Jacket which I wrote about  Here3

I even put on a light summer jacket over my Mobile Warming jacket and turned it on to HIGH and went for a walk to test it out .   I went down the block and notice that this bike is still locked to this pole.  It has been here for a few months now and probably abandoned

I decided to walk up these steps to the park

In case you were wondering,  I am wearing my Merrell Barefoot Life Tour Gloves which I mentioned Here4 .   I actually liked them so much that I ordered another pair from a local store and they are yet to arrive.   They are not really a winter shoe and are quite thin but I seem to be okay in spite of the sub freezing temperatures.

Part of this park is ungroomed but you can see downtown Vancouver in the distance.  We are only about 4 miles from the city centre and about a 10 minute ride by car

I would have thought that my jacket would have felt warm by now but there is more cold air being felt than warm air

Even though the sun is shining there is no warmth and it is casting a long shadow.  In our part of the country it doesn't snow when temperatures get below freezing.   It is going to be colder tonight and with the wind chill factor it is going to feel like it is -15°c ,  mainly due to the forecasted wind.

I decided to walk over to the local Mall and noticed this lonely Yamaha Virago .   I am not really a shopper unless I need something and even though we are only 5 blocks away, I seldom come here

Today the Apple store was calling my name so I went inside just to take a little peek.  It was busy in there.  Lots of people looking at Stuff and they were giving lessons on how to use their machines.   I know nothing about X iOS or Maverick but if I did I would be thinking about one of those Macbook Pros but I don't want to have to learn another operating system at this late stage in life so I will stick with what I know and keep using PC's

I don't know why I am here but since I am I decide to go over to the Source (which is the old Radio Shack).  I like to look at electronic gizmos.    There are sales going on everywhere and lots of people shopping for Christmas.   I find that this time of year depresses me.  People shopping and spending money they don't have to give away gifts that people don't want.   While we appreciate the extra time off we stopped celebrating decades ago and we are not caught up in the stress of the season.   Gift giving for us can happen anytime during the year if we notice something that the other needs, then we would just buy it then, whenever that is rather than waiting for a special occasion.

When you are young you look forward to your Birthday.  As you age, not so much and you would prefer that they appear not so often.   Time seems to go by much faster now

Taking photos of children that are not yours, is forbidden.   I have been stopped many times in public places for snapping my camera so I cannot show you Santa Claus but only the line of people waiting for him

I visited a few more stores and headed home.   My Mobile Warming jacket did not seem to be doing a very good job even though I "thought I set it" on HIGH and when I got home I figured out why it was not working.    I had it set to the TOP  LED for the high power level but it seems I had the controller upside down and it was only being set to 25%,  rather than the 100% that I thought.

I'll have another chance to test it out tomorrow

Looking for images to Print

For the past few weeks I have been revitalized with my photography.   I have been learning how to use photoediting software and my first project was to make a few T-shirts.  It's a bit different selecting images to be printed directly onto garments, rather than printed on photo paper.  For printing on cotton or other materials your image can be more forgiving.   It can be less sharp and less technically perfect

Printing on photopaper is less forgiving and subject to closer scrutiny.  If you are a photographer you will generally put your nose right up to the print and see how sharp it is, look at your focus and check to see if your horizon is level.   A few years ago I bought a wide carriage Canon Pro 9000 mark 2 printer.  I have printed many 13" x 19" prints, matted and framed them .  I bought a small Logan mat cutter and cut the mats myself.

I had not used this printer for perhaps,  3 years and I was worried that the heads had clogged.   It is a common problem with Epsons and that is why they tell you to make a print once in a while to keep the ink in the heads "flowing".   Of course I just turned mine off and left it there to gather dust.  I wanted to get back into printing and was looking at buying a newer wide carriage printer, something along the lines of an Epson 3880 but then I have a few packs of expensive Canon Pro Platinum paper which would have been useless if I changed brands, so I did a quick nozzle check . . .  (maintenance item in software).   I didn't believe my eyes when the print pattern looked normal, so I did a second nozzle check, just in case to double check.   Seems like my Canon is "good to go"  so I did my first test print above and the print looks normal with colour as it should be with no smears or missing ink patterns

I am not sure how many of you out there print your own photos.  It's not about saving money as it generally costs more to do it yourself but there is a satisfaction of following your vision from start to finish.   From looking at the image in your camera, snapping the photo, editing and then printing your final product and framing it if necessary.   I do it all.

It took me a while to understand how to make my own prints.  It is not just a matter of loading up your image file and clicking the print button as you would do on consumer grade printers.  You only have to go to photo forums to understand that it is not that easy to match the colour of what shows on your monitor and presume that your print will look exactly as you saw on the screen.  Then there are those different brands of photo paper with different absorbsion rates.   Different papers would print differently as to what you see  on your monitor.   Higher grade printers and higher quality papers have custom print files available from their web sites.  Even Costco+ and Walmart have print profiles available for their machines

After I sorted out my printer and decided that it was ready to print something more serious I went to Canon Support and downloaded (Upgraded all my software) which included Canon Easy-Photoprint EX and the latest upgrade to Canon DPP: Digital Photo Professional as well as all the latest print drivers for my printer model.

Of the three photos directly above, the top left is Canon Glossy, the right is Canon Pro Platinum as is also the bottom.  These photos look like they came out of a commercial lab.  I am particulary fussy and they meet my approval.  These images were all resized and set at 300 dpi before printing.   I started to leave white borders on my photos so you could just put them into a standard frame without having to cut mats for them

Also while I was going through my archives I came across some photos from April  2009.  Recently some of you were mentioning that they liked to hum music from Gordon Lightfoot

    Gordon Lightfoot in concert                                     Orpheum Theatre,  April,  2009

Well,  he sang all the songs that he was known for

and he also threw in a few stories about his life and about the time he got sick and was not expected to live

    Gordon Lightfoot with Mrs Skoot                                   VIP reception at the Orpheum Theatre

Of course I could not get into this photo as I had to stand behind the camera

    Mrs Skoot,  David Suzuki and myself

but I managed to get into this photo with David Suzuki

Flashback to Montana, July 2011

The other day I was over at Kari's blog and she made a comment about our trip to Montana during July 2011.  You can read about it   HERE1  or  HERE2   or  HERE3

but of course you could go to Bluekat's blog and read   THIS1  or  THIS2  

    Our Home away from Home,  Cabin near Hungry Horse, Montana             July 2011

the difference being is that all of my photos are GONE.  My memories have been reduced to bland letters while her's is vibrant and full of photos.   As we look back upon life and memories of what made us happy I have fond memories of this trip and our time together.    It was my pleasure to spend a few days with Kari, Ron and the Dom Family from Denver, CO (and Martha blogs too).   I had met Kari and Ron before in Bend, Oregon during our first iMBC2010, but it was my first meeting with Dom (aka: Charlie6)

We had one real washroom with running water for 7 adults and 2 teens and we had to make a schedule for washroom and shower times.   It was sort of like turning back the clock to simpler times as there was no radio, nor was there any TV or internet.  I remember that we were just one happy family.  There was one washing machine and we pooled our clothes together into one wash and thanks to Martha I had clean clothes to wear

    Our first glimpse of Dom  (aka: charlie6)                        see one of   Dom's post  here  

Bluekat (Kari) & Ron came from Corvallis, OR while I rode south from Vancouver BC.  We decided to meet in Ritzville, WA and then ride together to Montana

    Entering Idaho.    Kari & Ron

We took turns leading

    Kari with her Ninja

and we eventually made it into Montana

I think it was because I was leading on the last stretch where we got lost.  We didn't realize that Dom was waiting by the side of the road looking out of us and he was just going to go back to the cabin so we were lucky to come along at the right time before he left

The last section of the road turned to hard packed gravel with a steep incline.  You can see our cabin in the distance.

With our bikes parked we could finally relax and settle in for the next few days.    The Going to the Sun highway was not scheduled to open for a day or so due to the heavy snows and the road was not cleared so the next day we decided to go for a day ride.  It was one of the lastest opens for the road over Logan Pass

Kari made mention that she enjoyed looking at photos from this trip so here are a few that you may not have seen before.   She has had some challenges this year and I thought I could put a smile on her face and bring back some happy times.   I hope that one day soon we can do it again

    Lake Koocanusa,  MT

    Lake Koocanusa, MT                 Kari & Ron

    Kari & Ron          Glacier National Park,     July, 2011

Here's a video I recorded on  July 13th, 2011.   This was the latest opening of the Going to the Sun Highway



It was gravel nearly the whole way with lots of road construction and single lane traffic

Learning to move Pixels around

I have a mental block against PS    I admit that I tried to learn a long time ago when it was PS3, then it was PS4 . . . I always managed to get hold of an evaluation copy but somehow I just never understood how it worked and I had no one to mentor.  Now remember that this was long before internet and easy access to videos and tutorials.   When I got into video editing I bought PREL7 and I bought the dual pack which included PSEL7 but I never installed it.  I thought PSEL was inferior to the full PS so I kept using my evaluation copy of PS CS2 for basic contrast and curves adjustments.

When I bought my new i7  4-core laptop 2 years ago, it came preinstalled with PSEL9 which I never used.  I did buy the dual pack PREL10 with PSEL10 but again, I only installed PREL10 so I could edit my videos.

When David  (from Montreal) was visiting here recently we were talking about our ride to State College, PA this past July 2013, and I mentioned that it would be nice if we could make a T-shirt or something so that we could all have a remembrance from our time together.  This is how THIS T-shirt evolved

Here is the original graphic

Remember that I am not a power user of PS or PSEL9 and I wanted a graduated border, rather than an abrupt border.   I looked on-line for the solution and while the tutorial was rated as "easy" and 2 minutes to do,  this took me 2 days of frustration trying to make it work.  Eventually I managed to get it done

This photo was taken on Thursday, July 18, 2013 and Steve Williams made time to come and visit us at the KOA in Bellefonte, PA,  our last night before leaving.   We managed to snap two group photos and Steve was snapping photos of all of us and he was going to post something funny about us, but so far we haven't seen them.  The sun was going down and we were losing light fast.   One thing about photography is that it brings back so many memories.  David came up with the "Bloggers in the Sticks" banner and I tried to match the font on "Scooter in the Sticks".

I am not a fan of those do it yourself iron-on transfers as they rip and don't turn out very well and the last time I wasted a few T-shirts before I got a "keeper".  I managed to find someplace who had a "direct to Material" printer.  They have two; one for dark material which uses "white" inks and the other printer to print on White material which uses black inks .

During the past few weeks I have been learning more about image editing.  I bought a book and have been reading and also learning "from the internet".  Many things that were cloudy before have become a bit more clear.  I cannot read a book from the beginning chapter to chapter.  I find that if I have a project to work on then I will just learn what I need to know to be able to complete the project.   The same thing I did when I needed to learn how to do graduated margins on the first photo above

When I was in PEI: Prince Edward Island this summer, I regretted not buying a T-shirt from PEI.  Now I am not usually a fan of wearing shirts with writing or photos on them but I thought it would be different if I was actually displaying my own photo.  So I had this project in mind to make my own T-shirt

This was produced on "their"  White Ink printer, DTG: direct to garment (printer)    This is a 2-part process.  Chemicals are first applied to the dark material to "bleach" the base ink and then pressed under high heat to dry.   The white ink printer makes two passes over the material.  One pass to spray on the white ink and the second pass to apply the image.  After the T-shirt comes out of the printer, it is pressed under high heat again to "seal" the ink

I asked Phaedra to hold my shirt "hot off the press".   I bring my own .PSD file and they load it up in their own computer using Photoshop CC.    This whole process is done while we chat about this and that and I am usually gone within half an hour

Notice that I have also been working on Watermarking my images.  I didn't realize that my program can process multiple files or a whole directory at a time.   I can resize all of my images from one folder and also have them all reduced in size, apply colour correction and auto levels to them as well as print the watermark all done with just  "one click".   You can adjust the opacity which I set at 50% in White (you can change the colour).   

Here's the full graphic

The weather wasn't so great while we were there so the colours are a little subdued but it "is what it is"   I blended two photos.  One was with the Confederation Bridge in the background and the other was in Historic North Rustico Harbour.   More memories from the summer with my bike

And here it is "under construction"

I am learning to use Layers with adjustment masks so the original images remain unaltered.

I'm also playing around with making a logo as my watermark and I had some blogging business cards made and all of this is being done using  PSEL9

Here's Vstar*Lady on the ferry heading over to Prince Edward County, August 5th, 2013.   No, I'm not going to use that one but I had to manually place and resize it after saving it as a .PNG file.

crop taken from photo above.  I'm playing around with moving text around

As I look at my photos from this summer I can see more projects to work on as the weather deteriorates.  Things to keep me occupied until riding season starts again.   A sneak preview   . . .

More memories from the Bestest Summer Ever . . .   Summer, 2013