I’ve not forgotten about this blog… nor the folks that may read this.
I have been deeply involved in keeping the Day Job well so I can play, grow and maintain my Photographic efforts!

Just some random events, thoughts, and other wise Notable in 2011:

• Day job still there… keeping me busy;
• New Boss…  Have a new Boss on the Day Job;
• iPad 2 came into my life… Great Tool (from a Photographers point of view);
• Fell in Love with my iPhone 4g!!!;
• Rented an 800mm lens for Yellowstone trip;
• Picked up my OWN Vintage Barbershop Chair;
• I am Way behind in my photo editing and publishing;
• my list of concept sessions had Grown!;
• One of my “Friends” had addicted me to Words with Friends;
• New Solaris books have arrived on my Current Reading Shelf (ZFS, DTrace, Virtualization);
• Doing More and More work in support of our UNIX DR efforts;
• Close to a New Logo Design… I think;
• Yellowstone trip Was Wonderful;
• …

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All Images and Content Copyrighted ©  michael T. sedwick

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All Images and Content Copyrighted ©  michael T. sedwick

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When I first moved out to South Elgin, there was a Great little bar in the area  called Half Moon Tavern.  Since then they have relocated out to Hinckley, Illinois.

They started a tradition there called Oyster Sunday, which is held once a month during traditional midwestern “safe” oyster months.  What better way to watch a football game or NASCAR race on a Sunday than to be with good friends, Great Food, and occasionally a wholesome hearty local band!  With the Bears winning on the TV, and The Foot Stampers playing in the background, Oysters, Jerk Shrimp, and Crawfish taste great washed down with one’s spirit of choice and an occasional Oyster Shooter!

Stop by some Sunday & check out the celebration… Just get there before 2-3pm when they may just run out of Oysters!  The Next one is on 23 January 2011.  Doors open promptly at noon… but there’s a line at the door by 11:40AM… Don’t be late!

Drop in and grab your share!

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All Images and Content Copyrighted ©  michael T. sedwick
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The time has come when folks start asking “What do you want for Christmas?”
This Year things are tight all the way around.  I’m making less than I was last year at this time and working more.   I have one son Graduating with his Associates degree this Week, and transferring down to ISU in January.  My Son at ISU now will be coming home for the holidays this week  Then beginning his Student Teaching before his Graduation in May as a Teacher.  Do not get me wrong… I am Very Very Thankful that they are completing school.

So my Wish List this year is quite sensible… well to start anyhow.

• Continued Good fortune for My Family;
• Hold-on to Our Jobs, Our House, and Our Health;
• Neat Image software Upgrade;
• Gary Fong’s Lightsphere Collapsible;
• Final Realization of The Barbershop Experiment;
• Always a welcomed treat, anything from Barnes & Noble!;
• iPad (ok… so this IS in the works already);
• Use of an 800mm Lens during April Pelican migration and/or Prairie Chickens!!!;
• Return to annually visiting  Yellowstone during Fall Rut Season!!!;
• New 498RC2 Tripod Head from Manfrotto;
• Many, Many More Boudoir Session Bookings!
• Winning Just One Lottery Jackpot;

As I said, this would be pretty sensible… I’ve been missing the capabilities Neat Image gives me in Noise reduction, but it has not been a priority in the grand scheme of things.  I really want to get back on track with our annual Photographic adventures out to Yellowstone during the Fall Elk Rut.  This is an Awesome time of year to be in an amazing place.  Most of the other items on this list are self explanatory.

And then there are always those Dream Items… Like a Business Office front for meeting and working with customers.  And as long as we are going that far, how about my own local (key word here LOCAL) Studio space!

Just in case someone may be feeling overly Generous… Here’s a Great stocking stuffer, Bottle inclusive!

Look for you soon at http://CastleOfTheRose.com
And Have Yourself a Grand Holiday Season this year wherever You Are!

—Cheers!

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All Images and Content Copyrighted ©  michael T. sedwick
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Well it’s been a Long Time Coming.  I have finally gotten around to giving my Photographic Website a much needed Face Lift!  Hopefully by the end of the day on 01Sep10, I will have completed much of this revitalization to where it’s completely functional to represent my photographic talent and skills.  As well as help generate more business… paying customers!

New Castle Rose Photography Home Page

If all goes well, by the end of the day on 01 September 2010, this New site with images populated in the galleries should be up and fully functional.

Look for it soon at http://CastleOfTheRose.com

—Cheers!

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All Images and Content Copyrighted ©  michael T. sedwick
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So Shortly after I purchased my Apple MacBook Pro 17″ laptop Apple announced a new device which I thought was ultimately Cool. The Time Capsule, a network backup device which works well with their backup tool Time Machine, a sort or ‘Set-it and Forget-it’ backup.  It also provided for Secure Wireless Router capabilities.  By April I had saved up enough to purchase one of these… the 1TB version.

When this arrived, I plugged it in, setup the preferences for both Time Machine backup and for an extension of my home Gigabyte wired network with a new wireless connection point.  Now I would have my MacBook Pro backed up automatically when ever I was home and on the network.  My family would be able to use there computer just about anywhere about the house as well as their friends.

Time marches on…  We come to 2009 and Apple releases Snow Leopard, an awaited upgrade to the Mac OS.  My friend Diane and I stopped by the New Naperville Apple store (Main Place) and picked up two copies of Snow Leopard and then headed back to her place for Bears Football, NASCAR, and OS upgrading!  Upgrading Diane’s laptop went really well, leaving me promise that mine would too go well.  But I would wait ’til I had more time at home to do my upgrade… and After I backed up my laptop.  I had plenty of data, and such I wanted to ensure I had backed up before I started.

I returned home, did some J-O-B search effort’s on Monday and other work, letting the laptop get backed up.  By the time Monday Night Football Started, I was ready to begin my upgrade to Snow Leopard.  With 23-minutes left in the 1-hour+ install/upgrade process… my hard disk had other ideas.  It Died a Hard Death.  There was NO mechanical sounds coming from the laptop other than the fan.  It was after 11PM so I would have to reach Apple for an appointment with the Genius Bar first thing in the morning.

Reached Tech support in the morning.  We walked through a number of different tasks and tests to confirm/verify the situation.  About 20-30 minutes later he had confirmed my thoughts, the drive was dead.  Set up an appointment for later that afternoon at one of the local area stores.

After a few days (they also replaced my LED screen, since it had a Bug (YES, a real Bug) Squashed behind the screen!) I picked up my laptop and once again (oddly enough) found myself over at Diane’s for Dinner and a Packer Football game.

I had brought my Time Capsule device with in anticipation of starting the restore after dinner.  So plugging my MBP directly into one of the three TCP ports on the back of the Time Capsule, I would be able to communicate with it directly.

Booting from my Snow Leopard DVD, selecting  Utilities–>Restore System from Backup and then basically just following the prompts pointing to the backup device and selecting the backup to restore from.  Honestly, this really couldn’t be much easier.

After nearly 4-hours of spinning activity doing the restoration, it told me the restore was completed.  This restore time window is dependent upon the amount of data and size of files being restored.  It does provide an Hour:Minute count down during the process which is constantly adjusting (based on data activity I am sure), so you know just how much time left in the process.  At 01:05 I rebooted the laptop, and after a few extra minutes of start-up time… Things started to look familiar again.  My hopes were really raised when I saw my background appear on the screen.

The Sun Crystal Logo I got while I was still employed there. (Really, I hold no real grudge, since it was a business decision that cost me my job, and Not my performance!  If given the opportunity I would certainly welcome the chance to return to employment there… even though they will be know as Oracle very soon.) At any rate eventually it finished booting.  Even my numerous Finder windows I use daily all reappeared.  Checking the amount of free space left on the disk, this was approximately what was free at the time of the crash as well.  Two more test I wanted to run to really put me at ease;  Mail and Browsers.

I had read that Time Machine does not back up items which can easily be recreated such as caches and indexes.  So an application such as Apple Mail would rebuild local cache/index files when it was 1st started back up, but all the messages should remain intact, as well as configuration data.  So I fired up the mail app… after just a few short minutes everything was rebuilt and I was downloading the New Messages  I had received over the past few days.  Cool!

Browser tests… Opening Safari and selecting History –>Open All Windows from Last Session, a few short  seconds later all my previous Safari windows started to open and load.  Very Cool again!  Firefox was next, and it too also would restore my last session and open all my windows.  Great!

Over the course of the rest of the weekend (besides a visit to the Faire on Saturday!!!), I used other applications and even both version of Command and Conquer I have installed on my laptop (C&C3 and Red Alert 3) I have not found anything non-functional or missing from what was defined to be backed up. (you can define file systems to be skipped)

So Overall I am extremely happy and more than satisfied with both Time Machine and my Time Capsule.  I will gladly give up 4-hours of restoration time knowing that I have 100% of my desired data backed up and recoverable.  These two tools working together in harmony are a tremendous burden off my mind.  One Big thing less I have to worry about when I sleep… whenever that is.

Despite a small intermittent and short performance slowdown (depending upon the amount of data turn over, especially if you are creating large files) I would easily and strongly recommend this solution to anyone desiring a carefree solution to providing backup for their laptop, or even any Apple desktops.  It’s quiet, once set up… it Runs, and simply put, it works well!

In the end, I have back my laptop in the same condition, just better, than it was a week ago.  And the New LED… just icing on the cake… Working on my photographs in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop is grand again since I don’t have to constantly move the image to ensure the ‘spot’ isn’t the squashed bug!
Thank You Apple!

I am actually eying the 2TB version now… he he he he!

— Cheers!

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All Images Copyrighted © 2009 michael T. sedwick
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So here it is…

Working with the 4x5

So Proof positive that Film is Not Dead… totally… yet!
It was nice to see this camera in use, especially with Models.  A few shots with His 4×5 and then Leonard Peterson, the camera’s owner/photographer  from Milwaukee went to work with his Digital SLR, and ring flash.  This image of me above was shot with that ring-flash setup. Gotta love that minimal shadow effect too!

So When I wasn’t busy watching this camera in use, or having my portrait shot with it, I was working pretty hard to produce some wonderful select art myself.

Cambriea

Anticipation...

Faith in the middle of becoming a Human Twister Board!

Anrylka and her Bird of Paradise

And so it went on all day, I clicked away at a number of models, including a few male models that dropped by for a while…

"I Said... I would be Back!"

Needless to say, This Was indeed a fantastic shooting event and I am glad I decided to partake in this colorful affair.

I Want It All!

I am finding myself to be more selective of the shots I am actually taking, both the subject matter and the setting.  Now that I have comfortably gotten back into shooting models along these lines, I have resolved to shoot what I like and what works for me. Although, if you ask me nicely I may shoot something You like!

Lot’s more,but those I can not just put up here due to some more adult content rating.  Check out my other galleries for these lovely images.  I am still playing catch up working through recent shoots… and I am Still out there looking for a New Job!

Cheers!

All Images Copyrighted © 2009 michael T. sedwick
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That’s all I have left before I depart on my road trip out to Yellowstone for Spring.  Our 1st ever visit during Spring.   I Loved our Adventures during February and the Winter Wonderland Workshop we attended with all that beautiful SNOW, and I especially always love being there during Rut Season in the fall.  So we are looking forward to the place coming back to life from it’s winter hiatus… and as Diane says, “All the Babies!”

Grand Tetons Panoramic in the Fall

Big Blow!

This should be an extra special trip as well, since we will be taking a Yellowstone Virgin with us this trip… Scott Gillis will be joining us for these adventures!  I’ll be driving out with all the hiking and camera gear and picking them up at the Idaho Falls Airport.  Grand Tetons in the morning, but since they are getting in somewhere around 22:30 or 23:30 on Thursday, I don’t think we will be making it out for Sunrise though.  Sunrise is scheduled for 05:46.  Somehow I just don’t see any of us getting up early enough to make it to the Tetons for that Sunrise…  Maybe I can sneak out alone & go back and get them for Lunch?  

Since I’m driving out there, we are going to be taking some extra lights and try our hand at something we 1st participated in during the Winter Wonderland Workshop we were part of back in February.  Light Painting was a cool endevour during that workshop, so we are going to give it another try on our own one night during this trip.  So I’ll have a couple of Bright lights in the SUV someplace too…

I know thee the of us are looking forward to seeing lots of wildlife as things come out of their winter rests throughout the park.  Baby Elk, Baby Bison, Bear Cubs, and so much more are on the wish list!  I know there is a large group of American White Pelicans that seem to migrate through in May/June at Yellowstone Lake.  I am hoping we can catch these as well.  

Bison in the Road as the Sun Sets in Yellowstone

We will certainly keep you up to date as to our adventures.  We are staying IN the park again this trip… so we will have No Internet connectivity again, but we will be logging better notes… time permitting.  I’ve gotten more time to become more familiar with my Canon EOS 5D MKII.  Anyone want to rent me the 800mm Prime Lens for this trip???

All Images Copyrighted © 2009 michael T. sedwick
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Shooting the Morning Mist and Frost around Mt. Moran

 
A lot has happened over the last week, which can be called Life Changing of sorts.  I still have a lot to write about here from recent photographic adventures.  Complete the Series on our Winter Workshop in Yellowstone, a Classic 40′s/50′s/60′s Pin-Up shoot, migrating American White Pelicans, more Bean Images at Sunrise, and the impending start of the 2009 CVO Autocross season less than 2-weeks away.  

CVO Autocross Event (2008 Season) 001

So now my primary activities have been and will continue revolving around  gathering copies of records, etc. from on-line resources before I loose that access, getting all my experiences documented and of course obtaining another IT position as soon as possible.

CVO Autocross Event (2008 Season) 002

Renee's in the Army Now!

Until I have proper time to get all these additional posting up and shared, I have included a few images here to enjoy, and wet your whistles to come back and visit when I do get them up.  Feel free to share your comments below.

—Cheers!

"Please wait while I connect Your Call"

  

Playboy Records

   

The Bean with the Sun just above the Horizon at Dawn

Migrating American White Pelicans resting over at Nelson Lake Marsh

The Cute Samantha at MLP's Racine Studio

All Images Copyrighted © 2009 michael T. sedwick
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About this Adventure

Part II

Day Three

Time to Pack the `children`...

[03 Feb. 2009]

We had pack 97.3% of our non-camera gear up last night and loaded it into the truck.
Up again before dawn with a much better looking Sky!!!
A quickie breakfast, plenty of water and other liquids… and we’re almost out the lot… Wait, Diane Brown asked if I had room for a bag in the Truck… No Problems.  Loaded up again, we are all off and leaving Jackson Hole for a week…  Tonight we rest our Head in Yellowstone!!!

Out we head from town, heading North along US 191/89 – ’til we got to the Glacier View Pull-out.  We pulled in just in time to get tripod’s set up and catch the Sun breaking across the top peak, and then spreading.  5-vehicles, 18 photographers mass exodus and spread out with gear quickly.  These peaks do look so different in the middle of Winter than in the Fall when we have always been past here in the past.  What a Beautiful Sunrise we had on this cold morning.  Fresh frost hanging on everything.  

Sunrise Breaking Across The Grand Teton's

This panoramic has been stitched together from  4-5 images shot with the 5D MKII.  The original PSD file is 1.4GB in size… and 12,399 x 5,555  might just make a sweet wall print!   Here’s a shot from last year in the fall: Teton’s Fall Panoramic  as a seasonal comparison.

Fog across the Frozen Hidden River

So after shooting here for a bit longer, we all loaded up and headed down the road to our next stop… Ox Bow Bend!  Until George told me, I could not have guessed that that was the pull-out we stopped at.   Again what a difference this place looks like with a fresh blanket of Snow, Frost, and Fog covering it all.  Plenty of that fog still low in the valley and wisps across the front of Mount Moran off in the distance.

Mount Moran and Morning Frost

We shot around here a bit more before loading back up and heading off for Flagg Ranch located about 2-miles outside the Yellowstone Southern gates.  We really were blessed with clear Blue sky’s today!   

Our Surprise rides for 45-miles to Old Faithful Snow Lodge

So we arrive at the Flagg Ranch site and pull around into the parking lot where we will be leaving our vehicles for the rest of this adventure.  We’re all thinking we are hear early as we don’t see the `really big snow coaches – ten passenger vans – not the little Bombardiers` to quote George back in mid January.  So folks wandered inside to use the facilities, grab a drink or other nourishment.  We get back outside and find out Tom and George are a little upset we are NOT getting the vans, but they have actually sent 2 of the Bombardier for 18 peoples.  So these smaller yellow snow transports which fit 6 -7 peoples comfortably are suppose to be our rides for the next 45-miles into the park to our lodging at Old Faithful  …at 25-35MPH!

Let’s review, this is a group of 18 Photographers…  we packed:  

a)  clothing to allow us to be outdoors all day – for a week;
b)  camera gear… lots of camera gear, including 18 tripods (or more);
c)  electronics like laptops and hard drives for storing all those pictures.

Moose Falls from the bottom of the `Slide`

All our regular luggage could be packed up onto the racks on top of these Bombardiers, and that was going to be pretty tight for 18 folks.  Laptops went on a shelf behind the heads of those in the back seat of the vehicle.  That space was tight as it was, and there were at least 1/2 dozen if not more laptops!  Tripods were forced in that space too.   Now all we had to do was cram 9 persons into each Bombardier AND all their camera gear.  We sure got to know each other quite well during this first ride out to Moose Falls, our next shooting stop.  And this was just a quick short ride since this falls is less than 1.5 miles into the park from the South Gate.  Xanterra, the operators of these vehicles was going to send down a third Bombardier to try and ease the load.  We might see this 3rd ride by the time we reached Lewis Falls, our destination after Moose Falls. 

Moose Falls turned out to be a good stop for us all to release some of the stress of the tight ride.  One of the best spots to shoot the falls was reached from sliding on ones butt down to a lower level shooting platform.  We needed to take turns as this spot was tight, and with the snow cover you could not be exactly sure where the real edge was… and landing in the water below with $5,000 worth of camera gear in your hands was not the way to find out.  I took this shot with a slower shutter speed to smooth out the water some.

Morning Light Breaking Through over Moose Falls

I did take some close-ups and more detailed shots here as well.  After some brief discussions with Tom, I also ended up shooting some higher ISO shots here including ISO 1600 and 3200 just to see how that would look, since we were still in some shade from the rising sun.  I’ll post those later in another blog entry I was working on about additional 5D MKII Observations.

By the time we were All done shooting around this falls, the light was getting brighter with little area still hidden in shadows.  The weather was getting nicer and warmer now, were were at least in double digits somewhere.  Warmer from the single digits we had before the sun rose over at the Tetons.   Back into our tiny cans and off to our next shooting spot…

Lewis Falls shot from the River under the Bridge

Lewis Falls, one of the spots Diane and I have shot several times before, just during the fall season.  Just about everyone else set up along the bridge someplace.  I took a look and made up my mind that I was going to try and get to the spot I love to shoot this falls from… Under the bridge!  I took a look over both sides of the road, and took the less dangerous looking side.  The Snow was deep, and getting deeper as I went down closer to the shore.  At it’s deepest, it was waist deep.  Now that may not sound too bad for untroddened Snow… but trying to light your leg/foot to make that next step can become pretty difficult.  You really get a good workout, and I was going down.  Once under the bridge though I was able to get right to the water and shoot directly over the water towards the falls.  Sun was getting higher now… close to noon while we were here, but some nice shadows and details were still visible making for interesting scenes.  

I took shots in both directions from under the bridge.  Standing in the water towards the falls, and down river in the other direction.  I was glad I brought the two cameras  down here with me.  I could have used the tripod, but that would have been even harder to carry given the climb down.  Even though I had two different lenses on these cameras, it was giving me good reference shots to compare and understand the 5D MKII even more.  With the sensor differences of a 1.6 crop factor on the 40D and the full frame of the 5D MKII.  I have clearly noticed the difference when using the Canon 70-200mm f2.8 L IS USM, mostly in the reach range.  But I can also use this more in close range situations as well.  70mm isn’t too far from 50mm with a full frame sensor, and our eye sees at roughly 50mm… forgetting the peripheral vision factors though.  Even my 1D MKIIn has a 1.3 crop factor  by comparison.  It will be interesting to see how well this new camera performs on the 500mm lens later this week.

Steamy and colorful pool

By the time we all gathered to move onto our next destination, we had a 3rd Bombardier to utilize, so now we could put 6 peoples per vehicle, a lot easier to deal with for comfort and moving gear in and out at each shooting stop. 

West Thumb  Geyser Basin would be our next stop and shoot before we make that last leg trek to the lodge at Old Faithful.   Took the short route around this basin area, I think others went around  other paths to see even more or different stuff.  There were some really beautiful pools at this Geyser Basin, but with the colder weather, all that steam can play havoc on trying to get those nice colorful shots like this one where you can make out some good details, textures, depth, and color of the features.  Just have to pray for a quick breeze and be ready to rapidly adjust focus and fire off that shot!   This was a quiet and serene place during this visit too.  Diane and I both sat on one of the benches and just soaked in the beauty, and the silence of Mother Nature in this spot.  I had finally made it to Yellowstone during Winter, and we had made it back to one of our favorite places to photograph.  Enough of that… time to return to the Bombardier & head into the lodge at Old Faithful.  Passing a boat load of snowmobilers on the path, a ritual we would repeat all week long…

Heading out from West Thumb, we did spot a lone Eagle with his back to us off to the right.  I did manage to grab a few shots before he took off away from all the peering lenses.

We pulled up in front of the Old Faithful Snow Lodge where pretty quickly folks unpealed themselves from the interiors of the Bombardiers, and the Xanterra folks jumped all over unloading the tons of gear from the top of the vehicles.  George, Tom, and Marilu took care of all the paperwork, etc. at the front desk, which they quickly turned around and passed out the previously set up packets to us all.  We were all located up on the third floor.  Oddly enough, Diane and I had a room overlooking the front of the hotel, with an easy view of our daily rides, etc.  The room was Warm… we quickly opened up the window (after we figured out how to unlatch it!) to cool things down… a Window which was opened nearly the whole stay there. 

Diane Enjoying the Sunrise over the Grand Teton's

Nice rooms though.  No TV… but we have grown used to that when we come up here.  You are busy enough during the day, that by the time you are done with dinner and all anyhow… you are pretty much ready to crash.  We did have cell phone service here (as expected, and experienced in the past), but I Swore we were suppose to have Internet access…  How was I going to blog daily about our trip adventures without internet access?  So without TV, Radio, or internet… we were pretty much not exposed to events in the world outside of Yellowstone.  Unless someone said something to us during any brief calls back home we may have had.  Which really was OK, since we were here to have fun, photograph wonderful things, and share these experiences with other folks in this workshop with us.

Showers… change, and then dinner.  Wait!  Set up and plug in all those batteries so we are ready for tomorrow!  I brought my octopus extension just for this so we would have enough plugs for everything that needed charging.

Moose Tracks in the Snow at Ox Bow Bend

I don’t know if we took a photo of this or not, but I think it must have drove the maid nuts daily as we had the camera battery chargers plug in, the phone chargers plugs in and all laid out across the bed. OK… Now we can go to Dinner.  I guess we were late as somehow we missed understanding that we were all meeting together for dinner down in the restaurant. This became the nightly ritual.  Good selection of items for dinner on the menu, and this was included in our packages, we just paid for any alcohol we might consume with the meal.  We even got desert!   Shortly after dinner we would meet up on the second floor and have a quick discussion about some topics or events of the day, critique some of our photos, and review any pertinent information about the next days events, And have the daily prize drawing.

Back in the room, layout  cloths for tomorrow… charge all batteries that are still left, and complete downloading images to both the Mac, my external drive, and Diane’s external drive.  Three copies should ensure these images make it back home safely!  

Off to bed… tomorrow is another leg of this adventure… and another part of this story.  This is enough for now as we did quite a bit today just getting from Jackson into Yellowstone.  See You in Part III.

All Images Copyrighted © 2009 michael T. sedwick
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