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Hotel Room
Hotel Room. Copyright © 2017 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. What can I say? I liked the lighting.
It’s a shame I messed up the bed, but I decided to take this picture after I’d retired for the night. 22:18 — Yes, I was in bed before half-past ten on a Saturday night. The past few weeks had left me exhausted. I had produced the first online version of the diocesan magazine as well as Convention to prepare for.
I arrived in Kansas City Thursday, helped set up, and then covered the area confirmation service Thursday evening. Friday, I worked on the AV presentation, and Friday night, after the convention dinner, I set up the AV for Saturday’s convention, finishing around 23:30. Saturday I was up early for Convention, followed by the breakdown, and then in the evening, I went off to shoot pictures of the youth at the Bishop’s Ball. It was no wonder I was tired, and I was glad I’d opted for another night in the hotel instead of driving back home to Springfield Saturday night.
(Marriott Courtyard Hotel, Kansas City East/Blue Springs, Missouri)
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Diocesan Convention 2017
View from the Back If it is the start of November, it must be Diocesan Convention time.
After being in full view, upfront to one side of the dais during the business session of the 2015 convention, I decided that something had to be done so I could be more low-key. They’d be no swish AV booth at this convention either. I fixed it by investing in some video splitters, a video switch, and three 50′ cables to let me run the AV from the anonymity of the back of the room.
AV Test – Yes we can switch to slides & back
AV Test – The camera works …On November 1, I finally got a few minutes spare to test the AV setup I’d put together. As that left one day before I headed off for Convention it was just as well that it all worked.
As might be surmised, this year’s run-up to the diocesan convention has been more manic than usual.
At June’s Special Convention the churches voted to ‘defund’ printing the diocesan magazine and the postage necessary to send it out. It was not considered necessary to consult with a communications expert in advance, and it is going to take several years on a low budget to gain back the readership we had. Without the postage budget, I have not been able to send even a simple postcard to the 5,000 families receiving the magazine to tell them it’s been discontinued. I was told I could publish the existing magazine online. That would involve publishing a pdf copy. The decision did not take into consideration that you cannot easily read a pdf on a mobile device. Unfortunately 48% of our online readers use a mobile device.
The only practical option was to design a new website that was easy to read on a mobile device, locally printable, and maintained an obvious stylistic link to the original magazine.
I wanted to be able to publish the first ‘New Spirit‘ magazine before Convention took place. With only twenty hours a week to do the work, and day-to-day tasks competing for my time; designing and building the website wasn’t happening. In the end, I had to ‘donate’ two-three weeks’ work to get it finished. It was completed four days before Convention. See the first issue of the New Spirit here.
And that is why the run-up to Convention was so busy and fraught. I had next to no time to spend on the preparations. Signs and posters were designed three days before and printing finished the day before I left. Not surprisingly there were some errors in the artwork …
My ‘Duct-tape and Baling wire’ AV system worked well, though I forgot to bring along the second monitor for the AV desk – spotting a mouse cursor 60′ plus away is a big challenge. Especially if you are like me and everything beyond around 15′ is a complete blur.
Gary chatting with Larry. Image Credit: Gary Zumwalt I found this picture on my camera. I suspect Gary Zumwalt took it. No surprises there – it’s not the first time he’s sneaked in a picture of me. And on my left is the long-suffering Eric, who volunteered to help with the AV and did a great job running the Mevo live video broadcast. He also put together the excellent slideshow we ran between sessions (and put up with Gary Z. and I discussing who took which picture).
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Sermon
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Kansas City. Area Confirmation service.
There were five churches from the north of the diocese represented at this evening’s confirmation service.
I was particularly fascinated by the incense which had made it all the way up to the spotlights at the top of the picture.
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Waiting to Process
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Kansas City. Area Confirmation service.
Unless you notice that the candles are lighting the acolyte’s faces it isn’t obvious how dark it was. This is the first Episcopal Church I’ve visited that has a Verger (standing at the front — ready to lead off).
This is another of one of my black and white versions of what will be officially posted as a color picture. I actually shot the picture in Black and White (my camera will let me do that) but it keeps a color copy, which is the image I processed.
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Bookcase
Bookcase Copyright © 2017 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. I walk past the bookcase all the time, so much so that it merges into the background. Something brought it back into my conscious today and I allowed myself a little bit of pleasure in appreciating that I hadn’t done a bad job building it. I decided to celebrate by taking a picture, trying out my new 18mm lens in the process.
I could improve on the result, but to do so I’d need to use a tripod. That would allow me to reduce the iso for less image noise and stop-down the lens for a better depth of field.
However, it was only meant to be a quick snapshot, so I’ll just leave it as it is.
Color Version -
Kitchen Light
I have a strange photographic obsession with this light fitting. I ought to consider cleaning it before I take any more pictures.
As obsessions go, I guess this one is fairly harmless.
.jpg file straight out of camera.
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Red Leaf
Today I was reminded of a lesson.
The lesson is more than adequately summed up in the old adage: “Pride comes before a fall…” I’ve been fairly happy with my photographic output of late. Today I sucked big-time. I took some still life pictures, they were terrible – I’d even gone to the trouble to set up a reflector for some fill-in lighting — all deleted.
I’ve also been working on a project for work – and if I took one picture to capture the image I wanted, I have taken 20. Now I’m not sure that I’ll use the couple I did get. While I was processing them I did some pixel peeking and discovered that the out-of-camera jpg files were in many ways better than the raw files processed in Lightroom — thanks, Adobe. I am not impressed.
Finally, I spotted this single red leaf while taking a quick walk out on the deck. I had visions of a brilliant picture; it wasn’t to be. Whatever I saw, I couldn’t capture it in post-production. So this is the best of a bad job that I refused to give up on.
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Sprinky Spies a Squirrel
Sprinky The squirrels have been working on a new route. They now launch themselves from a low hanging branch, landing with a thump on the roof just above my office window.
Sprinky considers this cool because she can sit and watch them from the comfort of my filing cabinet.
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Votive
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Springfield, Missouri. I’m always moved by the sight of the votive candles flickering away in a dark empty church.
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St. John’s, Springfield
Altar – St. John’s Episcopal Church, Springfield, Missouri. Copyright © 2017 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. Southern Area Confirmation Service at St. John’s
I’ve been working flat-out times two on business and diocesan stuff the past couple of weeks. I almost let today’s service slip by me. Fortunately, a calendar check on Friday put me right.
This was the first time I’ve put my new 18mm lens to work — and it is great, I’m loving the results I’ve seen so far.
To get today’s pictures I donned camo, in the form of a cassock. For good photographs of the confirmations I need to be right up front, in with the choir – hence the cassock. Except … there was no choir. I was not as inconspicuous as I’d hoped. As a consequence, I didn’t take more than a couple of cell phone pictures for sending live to Facebook/Instagram.
These are a few personal edits from the pictures I took at (and after) the service.
Before the Service. Copyright © 2017 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. 
Altar – St. John’s Episcopal Church, Springfield, Missouri. Copyright © 2017 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. -
“In the town where I was born …”
“In the town where I was born …” It seems that every year or so I find an excuse to take at least one picture of the ceramic fish and/or submarine my sister bought me way back when.
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Fujinon XF18mmF2 R
Fujinon XF18mmF2 R. Copyright © 2017 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. After my false start earlier in the week I am now in possession of a new 18mm F2 lens.
I checked through my pictures looking for the most commonly used focal lengths so I could replace my excellent, but heavy and huge 18-135 zoom lens for everyday carry — especially when backpacking and hiking.
Between this lens and the 35mm F2 lens I took this picture with, I will have most of my bases covered. This lens will work well in churches too — especially for the group pictures I take.
I know, I should have got the tripod out, taken a bracketed focus shot, and dropped the ISO by switching to a slower shutter speed. I’ll just accept this as what I can do with a quick handheld shot taken at my desk.
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Leatherman Skeletool CX Pliers
Close-up of the Leatherman Skeletool CX pliers. Copyright © 2017 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. Which did I buy – Macro Lens ($600) vs Two Extension Tubes ($30)?
I’ll let you guess. If it helps you work it out, I have just bought an 18mm f2 prime lens (not a macro lens). The softness around the edge of the frame should give away which option I went with. Hint: I didn’t spend a lot of money.
By-the-way, a single Fuji extension tube is $87.00. I didn’t buy one of those either.
Close-up of the Leatherman Skeletool CX pliers. Copyright © 2017 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. -
Excellent Condition
The white dot is not a reflection of the light (the light is a strip light) – it’s light reflecting off of a chip or flaw in the lens. Copyright © 2017 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
I bought a used XF18mmF2 R lens on Amazon – ‘Excellent Condition’. Excellent condition apart from the chip/flaw in the lens that is. A brand new lens is on its way. This lens is heading back, and a one-star review has been left on the supplier (Amazon Warehouse Deals).The box even had an Amazon ‘Inspected’ sticker on it.
Check out the chip / flaw in the lens. Copyright © 2017 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. -
And then there was one
Ginger treated me to three small bars of Green & Black’s on Monday.
Today’s Wednesday, this is the only one left.
Its undigested hours are numbered.
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Routine Maintenance
Every few weeks I treat my A6 Bujo cover and desk pad to a bit of leather TLC. I love the smell of leather. I also have a passion for fountain pens. The recent upsurge in handwritten journals, and the research that suggests that writing helps cement memories has been pleasing to me.
Every few weeks I ‘feed’ and polish my leather journal cover and desk writing pad. It’s a very satisfying task. An interesting thing I’m finding with the desk pad is that I have a memory associated with many of the marks left on it. I know exactly what caused a lot of them, even though I didn’t notice the marks being made at the time.
I have a suspicion that like myself, many rangefinder-style camera users also harbor an affinity for leather journals and fountain pens.
Desk pictures: Hiking the Silver Trail at Busiek State Forest and Wildlife Area | Ironed out | Gary and Lanie tending the campfire
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Connections and Degrees of Separation
Guerrillero Heroico (“Heroic Guerrilla Fighter”)Alberto Korda (Image from Wikipedia) You may have heard of the idea that all the people on Earth are six or fewer steps away from each other in a human chain of contacts. The “Six degrees of separation” theory. In June this year, I discovered I was three steps away from Che Guevara. The eve of the fiftieth anniversary of Guevara’s death on October 9, 1967, is as good an opportunity as any to write about my tenuous, but significant (to me) connection to him via one of the world’s most famous photographs.
Even if you’ve not heard about “six degrees of separation” there is a very good chance you’ll recognize this picture of Guevara:
“Guerrillero Heroico” (“Heroic Guerrilla Fighter”) by Alberto Korda is reputedly the most famous photograph in existence. And, it has also been reproduced more than any other image in the history of photography (source: Wikipedia).
The significance of the picture to me has nothing to do with politics, popularity, or the fact that I encountered the iconic image everywhere as a student in the seventies. It does, however, have everything to do with the photograph’s origins.
Until a short while ago, I knew nothing of the history of this picture. I do not recollect what lead me to research the photograph, but what I read was an absolute inspiration to me. I discovered that this ‘most famous picture of pictures’ was a processed crop of an undeniably poor original photograph. Korda’s genius was to spot the crop, and keep the previously rejected image for his personal collection. Inspiration indeed for any photographer who, as I mention elsewhere, does a lot of post-production work on their pictures.
Contact print of the film roll including “Guerrillero Heroico” Fourth row, third image. Image from Wikipedia What is my connection?
My connection to Che Guevara is rather mundane I’m afraid. In June 2017 Dante Korda, the son of the photographer Alberto Korda, signed up as a follower of my photographs on Flickr.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of strange people on Flickr to whom I do not want any connection. So I have a rule to always check on people who follow me or ‘fave’ my pictures. I ‘block’ anyone who has what I consider to be inappropriate content.
I had never heard of Dante Korda and the possible connection to Alberto Korda never occurred to me. Dante’s pictures were great, and his account seemed kosher — except for the mention of his relationship to Alberto Korda. Really? It took some internet searching and checking to confirm beyond a reasonable doubt that Dante really was Korda’s son, and there he was following little ol’ me on Flickr. I’m just one of the thousands of people he follows, so I could not get overly excited about it.
But.
June 2017 – I have a new Follower. Screen Capture The connection reminded me of my research into the “Guerrillero Heroico” picture and how it had inspired me when I needed it. I now had a connection — no matter how tenuous — with the actual photographer. And because of that, I have a connection to this picture and that moment in time, which did not exist before. It is an emotional connection that I cannot rationally explain or justify.
I don’t know why Dante Korda decided to follow my work, but I’m glad he did if only for the much deeper connection I now have with his father’s portfolio.
The two main pictures in this post were sourced from Wikipedia.
Update
I was telling a friend my story, and he managed to not only produce a better story, but give me another three degrees of separation from Che Guevara. I knew my friend had visited Cuba many years ago, but I didn’t know that while he was there he met someone from Che Guevara’s entourage. Which means that whether they know it or not, there will be quite a few people here in Springfield with just three degrees of separation from Che Guevara.
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Back of the Nave – St. Paul’s, Clinton
Seating area at the back of the nave Saturday, I attended a Christian Formation meeting at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Clinton, Missouri. I’ve not visited St. Paul’s before, so I took some pictures for the diocese. I re-edited one for myself, and here are a few of the others I took.
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Circles
Circles Another personal edit taken from last week’s event.
Inner circle, outer circle, circle of friends, circle of trust, running in circles, circles … everywhere.
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Late Arrivals
Late Arrivals. Copyright © 2017 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. This photograph is begging to have its story told. Which is appropriate given the name of the venue — Storybook Barn. I wonder what that story might be?
Notes. Every now and then I feel that I may have hit my photographic jackpot. I think this might be one of those times. The composition of this picture is mine. The couple walking into the frame at just the right moment as I was taking it; unplanned and perfect. I’ve released the color version, which I also like, to the customer. However, my creative side insisted that I also make this personal black and white edit. Film noir? I don’t know, maybe. That’s up to you to decide.
