Mike Chowla's Photo Blog

Moving

mchowla — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 04:55:40 +0000

I’m moving this blog to a new home: http://www.chowla.com/photo_blog .

WordPress.com has been a good experience but I after starting a personal blog which I was hosting myself, I’ve become enamored with WordPress plug-ins which is one of the few things that can not be done here at WordPress.com

A Slow Decay

mchowla — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 06:42:13 +0000

I stopped on the way home from the Reno Balloon Races at the Nevada State Railway museum. I was surprised to learn that many of the steam engines that the museum has in its collection were saved by Hollywood’s penchant for train movies.

Taming Fire

mchowla — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 20:14:35 +0000

A member of crew manipulates fire as part the Fire Vortex exhibit by Nate Smith at the Crucible’s Fire Arts Festival 2009.

Click here for my full set of pictures from the Fire Arts Festival.

Summer Solstice Sunset

mchowla — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 06:53:45 +0000

Shot just north of Davenport, CA on Summer Solstice 2009. Both summer and winter solstices are important days to me. For thousands of years of humans have marked the solstice with some ancient civilizations building massive moments on solstice alignments. For me, it’s both a day to appreciate all the glorious sunlight of the longest day of the year and to think about our connection to our ancient ancestors.

Mike vs. The Golden Gate Bridge

mchowla — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 07:39:09 +0000

The Golden Gate Bridge has always frustrated me as a subject. I find it very difficult to get a picture that I don’t dislike. I was hoping to break my zero for too many to count streak of outings to shoot the bridge. Tonight’s outing was at least not a strike out. Taken from Baker Beach.

Update: Reaction has been good to this image so I’m declaring this round for myself. I’m now 1 for 15 or so with the bridge.

Dia de los Muertos

mchowla — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 07:28:16 +0000

From the Day of Dead Festival in San Francisco

Dawn Patrol

mchowla — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 03:51:25 +0000

The magic of the Dawn Patrol at the Great Reno Balloon Race. This was my first balloon festival. I was completely entranced by the experience. So much so that I forgot the pain of getting up at 4:30am.

Full gallery available here.

La Boca

mchowla — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 07:24:25 +0000

I recently decided to print some images from my South America trip and this was one of them. I realized after printing, I didn’t happen to include it in my La Boca page which got me to thinking about the process of photo selection. Clearly, I was picking differently the day I was printing than the day I was making the web page. I only decided to print two images from the trip and it seems odd that I chose one that is not among the 20 or so images I chose for to post to the web.

I’ve never liked the process of photo selection. I find it tedious and draining, particularly of my own work. Perhaps it’s just difficult to judge ones own work. Now that I’m wondering whether my judgments are consistent, I’m even less fond of the process. At least there’s an upside. Later viewings may find more images I like. I like this one well enough to hang on my wall.

Path through the woods

mchowla — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 05:38:20 +0000

Taken at Rancho San Antonio.

The background color is automatically chosen based on the image. Most of the time the software picks well. This particular image caused it pick something truly ugly.

Egret

mchowla — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 05:31:53 +0000

Taken at Palo Alto Baylands

This image is technically flawed. I’ve lost the highlight detail on part of the egret.
I like the image anyway. Part of me says I shouldn’t post an image with such an obvious flaw but then I think it’s not a horrible flaw and only picky people like me will notice it anyway.