by Michael Frye | Jun 19, 2013 | Announcements
Flames on Buckingham Mountain during the Carstens Fire, Monday afternoon
We live in a fire-prone area, and we’ve had two dry years in a row. On Sunday afternoon a fire broke out about three miles from our house in Mariposa. Named the Carstens Fire, it started from a neglected campfire and quickly spread, pushed by winds and fueled by dry brush, grass, and timber.
I first heard about the fire when my wife Claudia called me on Sunday afternoon. She was in Fresno, and had received a call from a friend about the fire. I went outside, and from our driveway could see smoke to the north, so I got in my car and went on a reconnaissance. The good news was that the fire was about three miles away – close, but not an immediate threat. The bad news was that it was already a sizable fire, and the wind was blowing it towards our house.
We packed the essentials in case we were evacuated: computers, hard drives, important papers, valuables, mementos, clothes, supplies for our dog and cats. But the wind seemed to shift a bit, taking the smoke, and the fire, more to the east. We heard about evacuations in the Jerseydale area, about five miles to the northeast of us, but evacuation didn’t seem imminent for us. After sunset we went on another reconnaissance drive, and were mesmerized by the beautiful, eerie, orange glow behind ridges to our north.
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by Michael Frye | Jun 13, 2013 | Digital Darkroom
Lone cloud at sunrise, Mono Lake, CA, USA
There’s been a lot of internet discussion lately about the new Adobe Creative Cloud. If you haven’t heard about this, Adobe decided that it will offer its Creative Suite applications only by subscription. You can get the whole suite (including Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, etc.) for $50 a month, or an individual application for $20 a month. They’re offering first-year discounts for people who own a license to any CS3 or later application.
On the positive side, subscribers will get regular updates to the software when new features are ready, rather than having to wait for a new version to come out. On the other hand, $20 per month for an application represents a substantial price increase. The last Photoshop upgrade was $199. Since the original Photoshop CS came out in 2003, Adobe has upgraded Photoshop, on average, every 20.6 months. If that pace of innovation continued, a $199 upgrade price would average out to around $10 per month – or half as much as they’re asking for a Creative Cloud subscription to a single application.
I might be able to live with the price, but here’s the worst part: if you stop your subscription at any time, you can’t use the software anymore.
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by Michael Frye | Jun 12, 2013 | Digital Darkroom
Sun breaking through fog in a redwood forest
We had a wonderful time up in redwood country. It’s such a beautiful area, and we had great conditions – plus two really nice groups of people, and the relaxing ambience of the Requa Inn to come home to after a long day of photography. It was a memorable and enjoyable two weeks.
I’ll post more images from the area soon, but I’ll start with this one showing sun breaking through the fog in a redwood forest. It can be difficult to work with this kind of splotchy light, but I loved the mood of this scene, and luckily the sun hit just the right spots, creating a nicely-balanced pattern of light and dark.
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