Reno was right in the line of the annular eclipse, and I did my best to capture it. Shot at ISO 100, 1/4000s, f/32. And I still had to underexpose in Bridge and Photoshop, and changed the color balance to give them a glow.
But what a show! Fortunately, we has eclipse viewing glasses! These look very close to what we saw through the glasses.
I didn’t want to post this until the results were in. (And yes, the last photo was taken today). What follows are just thirteen of the approximately 400 photos I took of the event and the days leading up to it.
Final Project – ART 235
Medical Outreach Response Event
April 13 – 14, 2012
Silver Stage High School, Silver Springs, NV
Organizers and Volunteers
Christy (right) is the Director of the Healthy Communities Coalition. Freida (left) runs the Dayton Food bank and was the instigating force for the event. She wondered, What good did it do to give people food if they couldn’t chew it? Freida was the volunteer organizer and logistics person for the event.
Wendy organized the professionals (dentists, doctors, nurses, optometrists, etc). She is the head of Community Roots.
Rita was one of a couple hundred extraordinary volunteers. Here she is calling people who registered late for the event to let them know what services would be available.<
The Event – Friday, April 13 (12 – 5pm) & Saturday, April 14 (9am – 5pm)
Community Health Nurses consult with one another in preparation for the MORE event.
One of the dentists and his assistants heading out to the mobile dental van.
Wendy cannot contain her excitement after getting a look at the dental van. It really was amazing. It was a complete, modern dental office (five chairs) on wheels.
There were so many who needed dental work, that it was meted out via lottery tickets. On day one 8 numbers were drawn every half hour. The dentists did their best to keep up, but many clients with tickets had not been served by the end of the first day, so those patients came back the next day, as did anyone else who had a lottery ticket in the raffle can. There was no way all who needed help were going to be seen. And yet the people waited and hoped. Once their number was called, it was still a long wait and I saw some people who had been standing in line on Friday morning still waiting for dental treatment on Saturday at 4pm when I left , No one who was lucky enough to get their number called complained. They waited and waited and waited until they finally saw the dentist. And among those lucky enough to get their ticket pulled, well, in some cases they gave their place to someone else in their family whose needs were more urgent.
One client speaking to a volunteer at the lottery table.
Other services were also offered. Immunizations were by far the most popular after dental work.
We had optometrists on hand as well. The Lions Club volunteers did vision testing and screening, and prospective patients were sent back to the optometrists.
Dental work was, by far, the most requested and labor intensive service offered at MORE 2012.
Mark needed a filling in his front incisor.
Dr. Brad Munninger of Desert Valley Dental in Fernley worked his magic.
Mark’s reaction was pretty typical of all the dental patients. Big smiles, hugs, and even some tears.
I was very proud to have done this project and I’m honored the organizers trusted me to do the event justice. I’m happy with the result, but more than that, I’m happy that the photographs I took will be used to influence support for further events of this type in the near future, and legislation and change in the coming years.
Icing on the cake:
Until the recession kicked the city and the business community’s collective hind end, the City of Reno held an annual Corporate Challenge. My company competed every year; the organizers doing their best to recruit participants for every event from Pictionary to darts to Track and Field to softball to swimming and even tug-of-war. I competed in 2009 and 2010 (the last year the event was held). In 2009 I competed in swimming (backstroke and breaststroke) and managed to pull off a silver medal in each event. In 2010, I bested myself and won a gold medal in breaststroke, a silver in freestyle and shock of all shocks, a silver in the long jump. Go figure. I wasn’t in shape at all, but the company needed women in my age bracket to compete, if for no other reason than to help boost our overall score. So I showed up. I swam. I jumped. I even tossed a shot put and a softball. And I had fun.
These medals hang on my office bulletin board as a daily reminder: Show up. Participate.
I caught this hawk soaring in the sunbeams on my way out to my car yesterday.* Hope you like it.
*I couldn’t post it last night as our internet went out at home.
Sweetie is a radio-control airplane aficionado and in recent months has joined a club of like-minded guys. This means I lose him for hours at a time on weekends, but I’m happy he’s got a hobby and friends outside of the home. The club held its first annual Fun Fly today and I was asked to photograph the event. I took a couple hundred photos and am still going through them. Just one from the batch is below. I’ll link to them later when I’ve got them all processed and ready to go.
One of the guys flying his plane.
The other exciting news is that I had my first PAID job today! My friend is starting back to work as a consultant and needed some headshots done. Here are a couple of my favorites. Unfortunately, WordPress in “crunching” my images has made them cooler and more washed out than they should be. I’ve broken down and set up a SmugMug account, and when I can, I will link to the photos. (UPDATE: I have replaced all the photos below with linked-to SmugMug photos. The difference is clear. The colors are as they should be.)
Just so you know I’m not imagining the color difference, the photo below is after WordPress is through “crunching” it.
It wasn’t all serious . . . we had some fun too!
Our grapevine is sprouting!
I shot this candle tonight, processed it with Daylight white balance, and it just screamed for something to go with it.
After finally getting all the photos from the Medical Outreach Event processed and posted to Flickr for review by the organizers of the event, and after doing the grocery shopping (a chore I hate), I rewarded myself with a Mocha Frappuccino (no whip) from Starbucks and headed home.
Finally, play time had come!
This didn’t cost me much, but it sure is nice. It arrived on Friday, but I didn’t get the chance to take it out of the box until today. It’s a nice little soft box for a Speedlite flash. Unlike other similar soft boxes, this one doesn’t attach with Velcro strips stuck to the flash, but rather uses an elastic strap with a Velcro closure to keep it on the flash. I struggled a bit at first getting it on the flash, but once it was on, it was fine and did not slip.
First I shot in the house to see the quality of light it created.
All shots were with off-camera flash (TTL cable).
First, the critters.
Pretty nice. Flash held above and to left of camera, pointed down on Nina. I like the soft shadow instead of the usual harsh lines one usually sees.
Next up, Maya. I like the catch light in her eyes, and again, the soft shadow.
So then I started playing with the flash and ambient light. The light glowing to Maya’s right is a table lamp. Daylight is peeking out from behind the curtain. Neither were blown out by the flash, the wall color is true, and Maya is filled in nicely.
Maya again. No harsh shadows and the wall color is true, not washed out.
So I shot Sweetie chilling with his scotch after a day full of chores. Again, he is decently lit, lamp isn’t blown out, and the flash just provided fill. (Yes, the wall behind him is a different color than the one with the window.)
Of course, then I had to take it outdoors and work on shooting in shade with bright background. You may remember I covered this on Day 108. The idea is to expose for the bright light, then stop down two stops or so and adjust the flash to match. The idea is for the flash to be the main light with ambient light providing the fill; basically the opposite of what I was attempting to do in the house.
Here’s Buddy in the shade of the garage with the bright backyard behind him (no flash).
And here he is properly lit. If I’d tried to expose for the shade, the backyard would have been completely blown out.
Such a handsome boy. I had to shoot some more. At first he didn’t want to cooperate, but eventually I got him to look at me.
This shot cracked me up. He looks like he’s thinking, “It’s a good thing I love her.”
Buddy is really a calm boy.
Nina quit moving long enough for me to get this shot.
Buddy once again. Smile? Or gas?
I love this so much.
Carissa Snedeker Photography 