PhotoKent's Musings

A Little Hawaiian Interlude

Posted on December 5, 2018 by PhotoKent

Perhaps you haven’t noticed but it’s been a while since last post. no excuses although I can think of a whole bunch. Used to post regularly while we were traveling around full time in the RV but since we moved into house, it has been busy.

Oh, you say, “thought you were retired?” Riiiigggghhhhtttt. “Retirement” means you have, or least you think you have, a little more say about how you spend your time. Could be true unless people think that, since you are retired, you have lotsa time to spend on their projects….

So we took a little time away to celebrate our 20th anniversary. Time flies.We flew to Maui. So here we are in “paradise” which translates to wonderful temperatures, tee shirts, shorts, island time, no worries. Everyone has their picture of what it’s like. It is pretty neat in some ways.

We have enjoyed our hikes and visit to Haleakala National park, the walks and morning swims on the beach, the temperatures, and exploring. But we prefer a more secluded quiet areas less touristy. Guess that is what we have gotten used to over the years. It’s always fun to people watch and there are all forms. At least everyone we have seen/met are pretty relaxed here.

We are ready for the comforts of home tho.

Take home lessons:

Research your accommodations more carefully if comfort is important.

Move around more often if exploring is important.

Pack less stuff

Be open to what is next rather than fixed while traveling

Not sure this is clear but more meanderings.

Springtime at Ananda Village

Posted on March 21, 2018 by PhotoKent

Tulips, tulips, tulips! here is the video I made from aerial footage last spring.

World Market Day

Posted on August 11, 2017 by PhotoKent

Some long time Ananda folks organized and World Market Day here at Ananda Village during this summer’s Spiritual Renewal week.

Be The Change Theme for Ananda Worldwide this year

The intention is to provide an opportunity for an interactive event for guests and gurubais to: Represent our various communities and tell folks about Ananda’s work and offerings in their area; Sell products, crafts, artistry and services; Build stronger communication and relationships among individuals in Ananda worldwide family

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — Artists from many walks of life offered their work for sale

I went out with quadcopter to show a friend how it works and got some fun footage. We had to find a good spot to take off then flew around. Didn’t have much time to do justice to this delightful experience but did manage to capture some footage

2 minute aerial video below.

Enjoy!

There’s Joy in the Heavens

Posted on July 25, 2017July 25, 2017 by PhotoKent

Last spring when we first landed here at Ananda Village I had thoughts to fly the Mavic quadcopter over our village. As it turned out the village manager asked me to shoot some footage which ended up in a presentation to the Nevada County planning commission and Board of Supervisors when we applied for the new village master plan permits. Needless to say it was well received.

We held off making this public but now I set it to Swami Kriyananda’s song called “Joy in the Heavens” which seems appropriate.

I have shot more and will be posting more soon. Here is the link to the 3 minute video

Aerial Railfanning in South Puget Sound

Posted on July 20, 2017July 21, 2017 by PhotoKent

Make sure you watch the video at the end of the blog.

Late June I took a little drive up to Portland and Seattle with a stop over in my old home area of Walla Walla. Got a chance on the return trip to stop in Olympia to see my longtime model railroad buddy Jim. Instead of running model trains we decided to go out to Steilacoom on puget sound just south of Tacoma, Washington and watch trains. Maybe even get some aerial footage with my DJI Mavic quadcopter.

Two old friends sitting in the shade watching trains

We parked near the Anderson Island ferry dock in Steilacoom and walked along the tracks to find a spot in the shade. It was warm outside.

We saw a northbound Amtrak and a coal drag. Listening to the scanner on the iphone we figured out which milepost detector was triggered when the train goes by and could mostly discern whether it was northbound or southbound. I flew around about half mile out in the sound and shot some footage of the ferry’s and the trains. Had to figure out which neutral density filter to use. Think it was ND8 most of the time which allowed me to shoot at 1/50 shutter speed.

Then we moved up to Titlow beach just south of Tacoma Narrows bridge. As we were driving along the sound I stuck my iPhone out the window to catch some video footage of a train going by. (Don’t tell my spouse I did this!)

Railfan iPhone vid snapshot — Northbound frieght out my car window

At Titlow beach we did scout a potential takeoff point, however there was just too many people for my tastes. We did catch a train go by with my iphone All this is in the video below.

Railfan iPhone vid snapshot-2 — Big BNSF coal train northbound at Titlow Beach

As the sun began to get lower in the sky we headed south to Chambers Bay, site of the 2015 US open golf tournament. Being a public links course we drove down to the driving range and decided we could launch from there.

We saw several trains and got one good long video as a northbound garbage train passed by just as i was running out of battery. Was way out over sound about 3/4 mile away when it passed and was down to less than 20% battery by end. Whew.

Aerial UP engines — Union Pacific Engines on northbound Garbage Train

Below is a link to the 10 minute video I created from footage. Some of it was speeded up to get within the 10 minute limit I set but it was still a 1.5 GB size. wow.

Oh yes, I did also see the Southern Pacific tourist steam engine in Portland. That’s in the beginning of the video below. Hope you can enjoy.

Afterwards we retired to a local pub for a bit of nourishment.

The Last Travel Pod Post

Posted on June 11, 2017June 11, 2017 by PhotoKent

If you have never seen our old travelpod blog which is shutting down, here is the last post in it’s entirety:

Star Date Sunday, June 11, 9:15 AM PDT

This is the last post from Travelpod to you for three reasons. I thought the last post might be it but this is definitely the last post. We so much enjoyed this phase of travel and are now happily “home” at Ananda Village, fully engaged in community life, and many volunteer projects as well as cycling, railfanning and working in garden and yard (yes yard, heh heh).

First off: Blog shutting down

The Travelpod blogging system we were using got bought out by a bigger “borg” and they are shutting it down June 18 so I need to send this to you before they do.
Screen Shot 2017-06-11 at 9.17.41 AM
HOWEVER – An enterprising young soul has undertaken the task of providing archive space for the history and I have migrated a copy over there. If you want to see any of our travels you can find them at the following link: http://bit.ly/PhotoKent_TravelArk I hope to resurrect them elsewhere so we will see.

Secondly: We sold CharLi

We sold CharLi, our RV to a wonderful couple in Oakdale, Ca, about 3 hours south of here. They have been looking for a long time for this model and were thrilled to be able to buy it. The added bonus for us was his willingness to buy the tow package also. And he was able to uninstall it so I hitched up Mr. Toad one last time to CharLi and drove both down to his home where we spent all day removing the system. He will install on his jeep. So we are done. See photos below of CharLi with new owners, and a photo of Jim under the Jeep removing the tow bar. Not an easy task!

The Happy new Owners

Removing tow system

Lastly: I have a new blog

I have begun a new blog called “PhotoKent’s Musings” which I am just beginning to use. It will feature some photos I take and also some photos I may have shot in previous years but I will talk about how I made the photo. So it will be less of a travel blog and more of a creative process blog. You can click on this link to find the blog: https://photokent.blog. (oh wait, you are here already)

If you wish to subscribe to updates when I do make a post go to the bottom of the home page and add your email address then you will get an email notification when I post which is usually weekly or so. It will also appear on my Facebook page when I post too.

It has been a wonderful journey and now a new phase opens up. Please consider subscribing to my new blog. And above all, be filled with joy in your life!

Kent

PS here are some additional photos I posted all from iPhone

Sraddha & Kent at Luau

Working in the yard

Cycling with my buddy

Fly Away to the Crystal Hermitage

Posted on June 9, 2017June 11, 2017 by PhotoKent

During the Tulip season here at Ananda Village, I spent some time flying my quadcopter, the DJI Mavic Pro around the Crystal Hermitage. Still playing with the footage but I did create this short, simple 30 second video which I put on the Crystal Hermitage Facebook page. All it took was to fly out into space from the side of the mountain on which the Hermitage resides.

here is the video

Isn’t that cool?

Flying Over Needles

Posted on February 20, 2017February 20, 2017 by PhotoKent

Didn’t have a great experience here which is nothing against Needles. We arrived after long day of driving, settled into campsite, and by the time I went to fly it was getting to be sundown. The link to the youtube video is at the bottom.

Walked out to the point near the Colorado River and set up to fly but the DJI Mavic wanted a firmware update. Ok, last time I did an update it went fast and smooth. Looked like i had good internet cell service on iPhone so I hot-spotted the iPad to the iPhone and started the download.

Waiting and Waiting and Waiting – golden light passing fast.

And waited and waited and waited. Meanwhile the sun crept out from behind the clouds to give me the golden light we crave whilst I waited and waited.

Finally as the sun was setting I could take off.

Was able to take a little video.

click on link below for a quickly cobbled together video

Flying over Needles

Sedona Panorama

Posted on February 18, 2017February 19, 2017 by PhotoKent

We were out driving the other afternoon and I took Sraddha up to the Sedona Airport for the vista. I have been up here before in mornings. We couldn’t stay very long as I was double parked in handicap spot so Sraddha could view and I didn’t want to pay the parking fee cheapskate that I have become (or is it budget conscious). The light hadn’t really developed yet as it was only 3 hours until sunset, but the clouds were really interesting.

Hmm. How to photograph this?

Because we were at the airport, I couldn’t fly the quadcopter so I dug out my Olympus EM5-MKII with 12-40 lens, and shot 6 shots turning the camera to portrait mode and overlapping about 30%. What made the colors pop is that each shot was actually a 3 shot HDR. So I took a total of 18 photos. Each 3 were +2,0,-2 in exposure. I used my tripod but it wasn’t exactly level as time was of the essence.

Camera settings
focus – 22 mm (equivalent to 44mm in full frame),
F5 at around 1/2000, ISO 200.

Processing in Lightroom & Photoshop
I processed the photos in Adobe Lightroom using my usual EM1 import preset, then ran the 18 photos thru Photomatix using natural setting. Merged the resultant 6 HDR TIF files into panorama in Adobe Photoshop, then cleaned it up a bit and brought it back to Lightroom where I did some final minor adjustments in shadows and color the cropped 3:1 to get some of the foreground out. (below is unadjusted version for comparison)

While not my best work it was quick taking me only about 25 minutes from start to finish.

Un-adjusted Un-cropped Panorama

Adjusted HDR Panorama in Black & White
I made a virtual copy of the first shot in Lightroom then set it to Black and White. Sharpened it a little and adjusted blacks, whites and color. slight contrast.

Flying at Sunrise

Posted on February 3, 2017February 4, 2017 by PhotoKent

A short post this morning after I went out to fly the drone before sunrise. Got some good video footage which I will post later as time permits.

Upper Right is a frame shot from video while flying west up the draw.
Upper Left is what I call a “drone selfie”
Lower photo is sunrise at 150 ft altitude.

Went out again this morning and flew straight up almost 400 ft (that is FAA ceiling for quadcopters).

here are some shots from Drone