Photography with media credentials

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Originally uploaded by Les_Stockton

Lastnight's game between the Tulsa Oilers and the Wichita Thunder was the first game I was able to photograph with "full access" via media credentials. I now have a press pass from ProHockeyNews.com. This access allows me to photograph from areas I have not been able to photograph from before, and I can move around inside the arena to shoot from different locations. It is a learning experience though.



In the past, I've typically done my photography from my season ticket location (Section 101). For this game, I was at my seat for the first period. In the second period, I shot from a location on the 3rd level where the press sit, which allowed me to shoot from a vantage point I usually don't have. It was up high, shooting down, and I didn't think about it until later, but shooting down on the ice allows a lot more reflection back to the camera than I'm used to. This meant that the majority of my shots from the second period are a bit over-exposed. I usually have experimented and gotten the settings I wanted, and then just used them from game to game; which was fine, because I was always shooting from the location. Now that I'm moving around, I'm going to need to adjust, and I just didn't think about that this time.

This photo was taken in the first period, from my season ticket seat in Section 101.
I think the exposure is reasonably set, but my shots from the second period, the ones from above, are a bit washed out.

This photo was taken in the 3rd period in the area where the opposing team enters and leaves the ice. This area is just to the right of where I would normally be sitting in my season ticket area. I like it because the glass is not scuffed up as much and the bottom portion of the glass doesn't have an ad banner along the bottom 10 inches or so.

I plan to shoot from other areas in future games (there's another game tonight)(hopefully we'll win this time). Even with the media credentials, I feel a bit timid. I'm not one of those people who can just walk around as if I owned the place. Wearing the press pass still feels foreign to me. I feel more comfortable when I have my friend, who is a long-time writer for Pro Hockey News, is also standing there.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the other adjustments for me is that I don't get to sit down. I stand everywhere, except when I'm up in the press/media area. In addition, I already miss my friends, and I can tell them miss having me there too. I overheard one of them say "it's not the same without Les here." He continued, "There's no one to yell 'Stick lumber in his ear!!!'"

Not Quite a Greeny

I never have thought of myself as a greeny (but then again, I've never seen a complete definition of what a greeny is. Nonetheless, I find myself sympathizing more and more with the "green" side of various topics nowadays. Why is that?

First of all, I should state that I live in the country. My wife and I bought property in a rural area. We moved from the city. We moved to a rural area not to bring the city with us, but to leave it behind. All to often, we are frustrated with people who move nearby and then they talk to the town trustees about getting paved roads, and they want street lights. If they had their way, there'd be sidewalks out here. There'd be stop signs on every corner, cross walks, and lots of city ordinances telling us what we can and cannot do.

We notice people moving from the city that get out here and the first thing they want is to cut down trees. It's wooded in our area. Why would you move here if you don't want trees on your property? This is the woods. Why not buy property where there aren't trees?

Every time we've had any kind of work done on our property, it seems like people almost jump with glee at the chance to break out a chainsaw and cut down trees. Why is that?

I read today that NASA has published that the ratio between human beings on earth and trees, is approximately 1 in 66. So, there are 66 trees for every human being, but consider that there are lots of areas with lots of human beings, where the ratio isn't nearly that. The 1/66 ratio is for the entire earth.
Even at that, it is pointed out that 1/66 isn't enough of a ratio to be adequate for production of oxygen. I have to agree. Although I'm not a card carrying "greeny", at the same time, I have to stress the importance of trees in keeping human beings alive, and the fact that even more than climate change (which trees would play a part in preventing), we should be concerned about not having enough trees, and especially so knowing that so many are being cut down every day so that the land can be "developed".

All too often, hundreds of trees are downed at a time, and the developer plants baby trees after the development is complete, acting as if these few baby trees make up for what was lost. The trees that were gone might be 50 to 100 years old, and certainly produce more oxygen than the few baby trees planted afterwards. It can't be justified.

My wife and I are building on our property. We have cut down a few trees, but we've planted many more than we've downed. I think that in reality, we've only maybe killed one tree. We found a place that was relatively open and that's where we built our current house. We didn't pick a place and cut down trees. We found a clear spot and built there. It costed maybe one tree.

I'm not saying that my wife and I are better than anyone else, and I'm trying not to be arrogant about it, but I am saying that we practice what we preach. We have tried to avoid cutting down trees. We have built around what was here, but in anticipation of the need for more trees, we started planting in our pasture years ago. Some of those trees are now big enough to provide decent shade in the summer.

I would hope that as housing developments continue, that there'd be an effort to build around trees, rather than to doze the land and build, and then re-planting afterwards. That replanting takes decades to return to the production of oxygen that existed before the development. We can't keep cutting down trees and lowering the ratio as far as oxygen producing trees and human beings. We've got to start being a little more careful about how we develop, rather than just going for a quick fix to the problem of urban sprawl.

Why Work So Hard?

I'm really beginning to question if I'm losing the will to work.  During the time that I took off for a couple of months, we tightened our belt
and were able to live off my wife's salary with no perks.  We were fine.  I got a lot of progress on our house project.  Now that
I'm working, little progress is being made on the house, and I'm looking at the political climate as far as prospects of being taxed
more for working hard.  I'm starting to think that the stress of work is too much.  Why work if the government is just
going to steal what little reward I get, so that they can give it to someone that doesn't work as hard as I do?

I had been thinking about taking a second job to get some extra money, but then that makes little sense if it's just going to allow
them to steal more from me.  Why do it?

And as far as the investments I have, I'd rather pull it out of stocks and just keep it in money markets; which don't pay as much
but are more secure (relatively speaking).  So what if not investing in stocks means fewer jobs.  So what.  If the
government doesn't care and the 30% out there that don't pay taxes don't care, then why should I care?

My new job is more stressful than the last.  I'm being paid a little more, but I'm stressed a whole lot more.  I'm
starting to feel like the stress is too much and the rewards aren't going to be worth it in an Obama economy.

I'll flat out tell you that I'm frustrated with the bailouts.  This last bailout protected a number of US corporations from
stock shorting; but all that did was make those guys find new companies to short, like the companies I have a little bit of stock
in.  So the bailouts took money out of my pocket to give to the execs that drove Wall Street into the ground, and so they
can continue to give bonuses (how are bonuses awarded in a company that virtually went bankrupt?).  They took money from
me and made what I had left in my pocket less valuable.  And now those companies are protected from stock shorting, but my
companies are not.  Guess what, my companies, who looked promising before, now are virtually worthless.

So why work?

I don't believe Obama for a second when he says he'll only tax the rich (those that make more than $250,000 a year). 
His website says $200,000.  Which is it?

Joe Biden says $150,000.  SO which one of those figures is it?

Bill Clinton told us the same thing when he was campaigning, and in the end, his protecting the middle class hit my wife and I
with the biggest tax increase I can remember.  I have no reason to trust Obama.  I have no reason to trust Biden.

I don't know if I can trust McCain, but at least he isn't promising a tax increase with a moving threshhold.  Maybe he'd
raise my taxes too.  I just don't trust Obama when he says that he wont.  And the idea of working and sacrificing like
my wife and I have been doing these last few years, seems fruitless if it's just going to be stolen from us to give to people
that wont work and wont sacrifice.

And give me a break when you want to suggest that those folks out there are going to get 'their fair share' from the rest of us,
have been sacrificing.  I don't know any that work two jobs.  And I remember when my little company couldn't make
payroll and when we were issuing stock to employees instead of payment.  I remember when we tried to give some of these
potential opportunities to people (poor people) and they wouldn't take them.  They wanted cold hard cash, with no risk
on their part.  I took the risk and sacrificed.  And now that it's about to pay off, they want to share in the rewards. 
Pardon the expression, but that's bullshit.  That's not their fair share.  That's Marxism and it's flat out wrong.

So under an Obama Administration, I do not intend to work hard.  I do not intend to sacrifice or invest.  I intend to
hold onto what little my wife and I have.  If jobs suffer because of it, I think those 30% of the freeloaders that voted
so that they could get "their fair share' can just whallow in it.  They got it and now they'll suffer the most, because it'll
be their jobs that will go first.

MCC Relief Sale: We had a good time

Rachel  & I went to the annual MCC Relief Sale in Rocky Ford, Colorado this past weekend (Friday and Saturday).  It’s for a good cause.  Our sister-in-law Deanna was running the Ten Thousand Villages booth (actually a small building within the Rocky Ford fairgrounds),  and so we decided to be there to help out.  It was our second time in two years.  They needed help unpacking and setting up various home décor and crafts items to be sold.  These are items handcrafted by people in various countries around the world.  The money pays these folks a living wage, and in return, we make a little bit of money to be added to the relief effort.

I can’t claim credit for a lot of work, but we helped out for a day.  Deanna and her husband Calvin did a lot even before this weekend.  A lot of people did more than we did, but we contributed and it all helps.  I think Deanna appreciated having the help.  Last year was particularly difficult.  This time, we had more help and the work went faster.

The main part of the sale is the auction, which raises the bulk of the money from the event.  Various items are donated and then auctioned off.  The sale stated off with a brief prayer and then the first item auctioned was a loaf of handmade bread.  It went for  $1850 and then we immediately donated back to be auctioned off by the slide.

The next two buyers bought a slice of bread and a jar of apple butter.  The price was $525 each buyer.  I lost track of what the other slices went for, but the loaf of bread raised over $3200 in total.  It was a great start to the auction.

Various items were sold in the auction, but the higher ticket items are typically the quilts.  That’s what everyone waits to see.  My father-in-law bought three of them, and I believe one of my brothers-in-law also bought three.

Calvin donated beef and pork for the sale.  He had it processed and then loaded freezers (which he also had to round up and haul to the sale) packed full to be sold off.  This stuff luckily goes pretty fast.  Rachel & I bought $100 worth went the sale started Friday evening at 17:00.

Among items sold besides things at the auction or at Ten Thousand Villages, were hamburger meat, sausage, pies, apple butter, apple cider, cakes, cookies, various potted plants, handmade craft items, nuts, fruit, ice cream, soda pop, sausage sandwiches, you-name-it; all proceeds going towards the total relief fund.

I took lots of photographs during the weekend.  Some were on the way to Rocky Ford and some were on the way home.  Some were on Calvin and Deanna’s farm, most were at the sale.  Some were family and/or friends.  Some were of total strangers.  I hopefully got some good ones out of the weekend.

Rachel & I took a different route home so that we could avoid some construction on the road between Lamar, Colorado and Boise City, Oklahoma.  In retrospect, it still would’ve been faster if we’d stuck to that route, but we drove east through Kansas instead.  It was a fun drive, but it took longer and it wore us out.  I’m still recovering.

We drove through Greensburg, Kansas, that was virtually wiped out by an EF5 tornado May 4, 2007.  http://www.kansas.com/static/slides/050507tornadoaerials/

We remembered driving through Greensburg many times in the past, and what we saw was devastation not unlike that of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.  We had heard of a lot of “green” rebuilding, but we didn’t see it.  I guess if we’d driven around town more we might’ve seen it, but we stayed on the main road through town and never saw anything we recognized except for a tire storage building that seemed to have weathered the storm due to its rounded shape and low profile.

Most of my photos of Greensburg didn’t come out well as I was shooting from a moving vehicle and had a slow shutter speed.  It was a bit of a disappointment, but most disappointing is not seeing any signs of the “green building” efforts.  We saw lots of prefab temporary buildings, including those used as the town hospital.  About the only thing we recognized was the high school, that somehow managed to remain after the storm.

I could go on about Greensburg, but there’s no point.  We do hope to return when there’ll be more signs of progress in the rebuilding efforts.

We drove through Dodge City, which is where my brother-in-law Bob and his family live.  I photographed some earth homes just west of Dodge, and a bit disappointed that the photographs weren’t better.  Somehow, the camera was set on that slow shutter speed and it really impacted my photo efforts.  If we hadn’t been in the car, I would’ve probably spent more efforts in making sure my camera settings were better.

We drove through Harper, Kansas, which Rachel has some family history there.  Her family lived there for a while, and her brother Bob built and lived in a geodesic dome (in a tree row on the farm)(with a dirt floor) which still stands today.  Most photos taken in Harper didn’t come out well because of car movement and slow shutter speed.  I did get a photo of a pretty church just east of town.  Somehow, that came out better, although not pristine.

Despite my photography mistakes on the way home, I had great photographic success in Rocky Ford, and so from a photography perspective, I considered it a success.  I hope to return to Greensburg and Harper in the future.  I hope it won’t be a distant future. (See http://www.flickr.com/photos/les_stockton/sets/)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/les_stockton/sets/72157608187289572/


http://www.flickr.com/photos/les_stockton/sets/72157608195740787/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/les_stockton/sets/72157608189035696/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/les_stockton/sets/72157608189035706/

On the way to Rocky Ford, we passed a wind farm west of Ft. Supply, and then we found another north of Springfield, Colorado (if I remember right).  We briefly stopped to change drivers and I noticed a truck that had a couple of blades on its trailer that it was obviously hauling to the wind farm.  I managed to get a couple of good photographs (just for fun).  Seeing these on the ground, before they’re lifted into the air, you see how truly large these wind turbines can be.  On the ground, these blades seem huge. 


Oh, a side-note: if you’re ever in Boise City, Oklahoma, try to get some of No Man’s Land Beef Jerky.  I normally got the hottest stuff I can, but in this case, the mild has such a fantastic flavor.  I recommend this jerky.  It is the best that I have found, other than what we occasionally make at home.  They have a website and it can be ordered on-line if you can’t find it in a local store.  I do know it’s available in Boise City because we bought some and thoroughly enjoyed it.  (http://www.nmlbeefjerky.com/)

There is another MCC Sale scheduled in early November.  This one will be in Enid, Oklahoma and we are actually considering attending this one.  We have so many things going on, that I’m not sure if we can work it in, but we’d like to go.

500mm mirror lens

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Originally uploaded by Les_Stockton

This is a shot of my 500mm mirror lens sitting next to a 75-300mm zoom lens. The zoom, oddly enough, is the longer lens. The mirror lens is much more compact and less conspicuous. The thing is, 500mm is harder to steady and to take good photographs with, unless you have a monopod or tripod, or else a really high shutter speed.

I bought the mirror lens because I was hoping to get around a restriction at some of the concert halls, where they see the longer lens and decide that it's "professional" equipment and wont let me in with it. They seem fine with the standard 55mm lens, and since this mirror lens is just a tiny bit longer than a standard prime lens, my hope is that I'll be able to get into concerts with it.

The lens has great power, obviously. I have an extension tube to double it's power to a 1000mm, but to-date, I have not tried that.

From what I can tell so far, the lens isn't quite as sharp as a standard lens, but this is because of the distortion due to the mirrors.

I have been spoiled to using the newer lenses that have automatic focus and automatic aperture features. This lens is a fixed aperture lens, and it's manual focus. So to use it, I'll need to manually focus and use manual settings for aperture and shutter speed. In a concert hall, I don't have much issue with this. In the old days of 35mm film, I worked manual all the time.

Click here to view a set I took with the 500mm lens.  The first portion of this set (up until and including the electric meter) was taken with the 500mm mirror lens.

So Far, I Like My New Job

I started a new job on October 1st.  It's a little early to tell how the job will be, but I'm optimistic.  The company is considered to be one of the top 100 best places to work in the US.  So I feel privileged.  I thought I'd start keeping a few notes on my initial observations this week, and I'm listing these in order of how I observed them.

The office I have is a nice big office.  It's not a walled office, but a cubicle type, but it's large.  It's about 4 to 6 times the amount of space that I've had on any of my previous jobs clear back to when I was a supervisor at the Williams Companies.

I don't have windows, but there are plenty of windows within eye of my office if I step out into the hall.  There is a skylight directly above my desk, so I"m getting natural light.  They draped fabric over the skylight to tone down the amount of light (and presumably heat) that comes through.

My phone is a Cisco 7961 IP Phone.  It's tied into the network and any voice mail messages are automatically routed to my e-mail so that I can get them there.  This could be an advantage, I would think, if I were not at the office and were remotely connected to the network and able to check e-mail, but not right there to access the phone.

There is a fingerprint scanner on my laptop pc.  This is cool because it is used to log into the computer.  There's no need to type in a username and password.  That's very cool.

One thing that I don't like on this job is that it is the first employer that I have had that strictly filter what websites I have access to from my workstation (the laptop).  I can't check my private e-mail (because they don't allow access to gmail).  They do allow access to google, but there are a lot of sites they don't allow access to.  It's frustrating because some of these are forum sites that I often use to get answers to technical questions dealing with software development.

I understand them filtering twitter, identi.ca, and other social networking sites; but I wish I at least to access my e-mail.  Their reasoning isn't to restrict the workstation to work-related things only; but to protect the workstation from virus infection.  Their theory is that these viruses often appear on computers due to external e-mail sights, forum sites and sometimes social networking sites.  So they are blocked.

Supposedly, there are pcs located in "public areas" in the building, but so far, I haven't found these pcs.

This employer is the headquarters of a convenience store chain.  They provide free soda to the employees.  When I heard this, I wasn't too excited, because I figured they didn't provide the kind of soda that I drink.  I try to have Diet Mountain Dew, because it's a diet drink, but it's a diet drink that tastes good to me.  Diet Pepsi, Diet Dr. Pepper, Diet Code, etc do not taste good to me.
To my surprise, they have Diet Mountain Dew available in the soda machine on the first floor.  So a couple of times during the day, I take a walk downstairs and avail myself to this privilege.

Currently, I am on a 90-day contract to hire arrangement.  That means that if things work out, they will hire me as a full-time employee in early January.  This will be a good thing, as their benefits are very good.  One bad thing is that they hold a dress code standard with what the store employees adhere to.  This means no beards and no ponytail.  I'll have to shave my beard and remove my ponytail.

I'm allowed to have a moustache, but I'm not sure I see a point to that.  My whole reason for having the beard is so I wouldn't have to shave it, because that part of my chin seems to be cut every time I shave.  Shaving above my mouth really isn't a problem for me.

Shaving is one of those things that I looked forward to as a kid, but as an adult consider to be a curse.  Losing the pony tail isn't really that big of an issue.  I knew the day would come sooner or later, that I'd take a job where they'd want me to cut my hair.  It's a small price to pay in order to work for such a good company.  It will be a bit of culture shock for me, I think, as I have had my hair long for the last 20 years or so.

I figured out that although I can't hit ping.fm, twitter or identi.ca, that I can make status updates periodically during the day (for benefit of friends that follow me on those sites) by sending to ping.fm either by my smartphone (which I hate typing on), or via the ping.fm e-mail interface (which is sometimes a bit delayed from when I send the e-mail).

The office is roomy and so is the entire floor that my office is on.  It's quiet compared to other offices I've been in that are this big.  I think they have room to grow, because a lot of the offices seem to be empty.

In a week or so, the group I work in will be spending two days out of town (Joplin) for an annual group outing.  They will have a few meetings, but there'll be golf, paintball, wine tasting, shopping and other activities to participate in.

Yesterday afternoon around 15:30, I heard people talking in the testing lab, which is just around the corner from my office.  The doors were open and I saw most of the team in there standing around talking.  It was casual.  They were having a few beers and talking.  This was for someone's birthday.  They limited the beers and stopped at 16:00, to give people time before 17:00 when they'd be driving home.

I think that's nice that they do this for the employees.  A lot of companies would be too uptight to allow beer, much less to allow them to goof off for a birthday celebration.

Oh, somehow I forgot to write this earlier, but as far as dress code, I've seen jeans, tennis shoes, flowery shirts, t-shirts and shorts in the office.  It seems to be a fairly casual and comfortable atmosphere to work in.

Bailouts Are Bad

I could be wrong, but I think these latest bailouts (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG) are a bad thing. We're told that it would be super bad for the economy if we didn't bail them out, but it seems to me that the economy is suffering pretty badly by bailing them out and that the only people that seem to gain out of this is the people running those failed companies.

Obama is buying votes, by suggesting that we should also bail out those 5 million home owners that are being foreclosed on, and suggesting that its the fault of corporate greed. I agree that it's greed, but not just that of big business, but also of the jerks that took out loans for homes they knew they couldn't afford in the first place.

Why should we bail them out? We aren't doing anything for the poor guys still living in apartments; the ones that were responsible and knew they couldn't afford to buy homes. What are we doing for them? We're going to hurt the economy that they struggle in already, to bail out people that don't deserve to be bailed out.

I could be wrong, but it just seems to me that we shouldn't be bailing out the big guys or the little guys. Not only that, but I have trouble with the notion that executives at these failed companies are walking away with multi-million dollar compensation packages; while the company fails. This is wrong. If they have the money to pay these guys that, then they don't need my bailout.

I repeat; we're told that it would be catastrophic if we let those companies fail. It seems to me that it's pretty catastrophic by bailing them out. We just further devalue the dollar, running up the cost of oil (because we buy that on the international market that now wants more dollars for the same oil). That seems pretty catastrophic to me.