I have noticed that over the past few days one of the keywords that is still driving people to this blog is Cades Cove. Living in East Tennessee, I am very fortunate to live so close to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Cades Cove, a very popular spot in the Smokys, was slated to have the loop road resurfaced from March 1 – May 21, 2010. Trails affected by this closure are Abrams Falls, Cooper Road, Gregory Bald, Gregory Ridge, Hannah Mountain, Indian Grave, and Rabbit Creek trails. The campground, the campground store, the picnic area, and the horseback riding stables will remain open, though bicycle rentals will not be available. (The store and stables don’t open until April 1st.) The last time Cades Cove Loop road was repaved was 1978… over 30 years ago. It is in bad need of repair and truthfully needs to be wider and marked better for pull over spots. You can read more about the scheduled work at http://www.nps.gov/grsm/planyourvisit/cades-cove-road-improvement.htm.
This work was to be completed under a Highway Trust Fund. Today was supposed to be the first day the road was completely closed to traffic so workers could being work on it. However, there is a funding shortfall as a result of KY Senator Jim Bunning who blocked legislation last week that included the Highway Trust Fund. Thus, there was an ordered furlough today of over 2,000 federal employees… including the federal inspectors that are overseeing the Cades Cove Loop repaving. No inspectors… no work can be done. So while today was supposed to be the first full day of work on the Cades Cove Loop road, the work has stopped and the road remains closed. I just gotta wonder how long this funding issue will keep the road closed. Hopefully we don’t have another Road to Nowhere brewing. Cades Cove is just too popular to be left closed. In the meantime, enjoy this nice picture of a deer and the traffic that goes along with it.
 A deer jam occurs when motorists on the Cades Cove Loop road stop in the middle of the road instead of using one of the numerous pull off areas available.
So tonight the First Annual Christian Student Center Solid Rock show finally took place. It was originally scheduled for two weeks ago, but was postponed because of the wintry mix storm that hit that weekend. This show was a fund raiser for the CSC’s Spring Break trip to Jacksonville, TX to do work at Elijah’s Retreat. Unfortunately, I do not have any photos from it because tonight I relinquished the role of church photographer and took on my role as rhythm guitarist; a role I don’t often get to do at Laurel Church of Christ. I think after all was said and done, a little over $3,000 was raised. The show was similar to a talent show. The talent included sword fighting, rubik’s cube solving, musical acts, and poem recitation among others.
I was part of the house band called “The What” aka “The Mark Smith Band”. Mark Smith was on keys and vocals, Len Causey on vocals and acoustic guitar, John Truan on lead guitar, I was on rhythm guitar, Jason Payton on drums, Anna Caroline Causey on backing vocals, and Becca Payton on backing vocals. We started out the show with a Motown classic “Reach Out (I’ll Be There)” and lead immediately to another Motown classic “Baby I Need Your Lovin’”. Halfway through the show we did another set of songs that consisted of “Boondocks” and “Sweet Home Alabama”. Unfortunately during this set the G-string of John’s guitar got de-tuned one and half steps so those songs sounded kinda rough sounding until he got the string tuned back up. To close out the show we did “Born to Be Wild” and “Twist and Shout”. “Twist and Shout” turned out to be really funny because a lot of the kids got up on the mini-stage and started twisting.
It was a fun night that raised a bit of money, but I am glad it is out of the way. We had been preparing for it for several weeks. As usual I keep a pretty busy schedule. Finding time to practice was the hardest part. We recorded it, so I might be able to get a hold of the recording and put up some videos, but I’m not sure about that.
Full galleries for the games below are located at:
Webb School of Knoxville vs Farragut High School (January 25, 2010)
West High School vs Knoxville Catholic High School (January 26, 2010)
OK, I’ve had a few people ask me about strobing basketball and I haven’t updated this blog in ages, so I thought I’d show a couple of sample setups with some sample images. Real quickly here is what is involved in each setup. The typical setup is a Canon 1D Mark III with the EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS attached and a Canon 1D Mark II with the EF 24-70mm f/2.8L attached.
Setup 1: Studio Strobes
Elinchrom BX500Ri x2 or alternatively you can buy the To Go Kit which includes 2 lights, 2 light stands, 2 softboxes, as well as a Skyport Transmitter.
Elinchrom Wide Angle Reflector x2
PocketWizard FlexTT5 x2 (These aren’t needed, but I use a Two Camera setup and since I already have them, I use them. You could get another Skyport Transmitter instead if you wanted to use two cameras and don’t want to switch transmitters back and forth.)
PocketWizardMini TT1
Manfrotto Super Clamp x2 (You could use light stands, but they tend to get in the way and you’ll need to make sure they don’t get knocked over by somebody on accident.)
Extension Cords and Gaffer’s Tape
Miniphone to Miniphone Cable (Only needed if using the PocketWizards)
Setup 2: Speedlites
PocketWizard FlexTT5 x2
PocketWizardMini TT1
Canon CP-E4 Battery Pack x2 (You can do without them, but they really do help to speed up recycling of the flashes.)
Canon 580EX II Speedlite x2 (I actually use a 580EXII and 550EX.)
Manfrotto Super Clamp x2 (You could use light stands, but they tend to get in the way and you’ll need to make sure they don’t get knocked over by somebody on accident.)
Universal Umbrella Bracket with Swivel Mount x2
Ok the first setup, is the setup I used Monday night at Farragut High School. I had an Elinchrom BX 500 Ri on each side of one half of the court and was bouncing of the ceiling. The biggest advantage to this setup in the power and action stopping capability of these lights. The biggest disadvantage is the time it takes to setup and take down and having to wait for the lights to recycle. This setup allows me to shoot ISO 400, 1/250th, and between f/2.8 and f/4.5 depending on the location of the player. The first image you see shows the placement of the strobes and the second image is how one of them is mounted. I bounce them off the ceiling and have the pointed towards the center of the court. I have experimented with having the strobes at different power settings (full, 3/4, and 1/2) and have found that bouncing at full power gives the best results. Even at full power, these lights have a recycle time around 1.5 seconds, which is still pretty decent.
 Setup 1-1: Opposite end of the court showing the placement of the strobes.  Setup 1-2: How the strobe is mounted. In the next two examples (1-1 and 1-2) you can see that it does a good job of providing even lighting towards the middle of the court. However, in example 1-3 you can see that the downfall to this setup is when getting players around the three-point line close to the baseline, their backs will be a little hot (backlighting) from the strobe closest to them. Of course with the Skyport setup, I have 1 light in group one and 1 light in group 2. I can fire both by setting the transmitter to All or I can fire an individual group. Of course changing on the fly isn’t the most practical, but it’s an option if you need to get a shot of a particular player from the three point line near the baselines.
 Example 1-1: Webb Lady Spartan Kelsey Brown gets around Farragut's Alex Newby and takes to the air for the layup.  Example 1-2: Webb's Dwight Tarwater collides with Farragut's Landon Hunley while Webb's Donovan Whiteside attempts to block the shot.  Example 1-3: Landon Hunley looks for an open teammate to pass the ball to. The second setup is the setup I used on Tuesday night at Catholic High School. I had both setups with me, but opted to use the Speedlites. The advantage to using Speedlites are in the fact that they are smaller, require less setup and take down time, and have faster recycle times. The biggest disadvantage is that there isn’t enough power to bounce them, so the shots are more direct and also more susceptible to hot spots from a strong back light. Typically my shots where ISO 800, 1/250, and between f/2.8 and f/5.6 depending on the location of the player. I also experimented with different power settings for the flashes, but since I am using the PocketWizard TT1/TT5 setup, I found that using E-TTL II with the camera using the Averaging algorithm (instead of Evaluative) and FEC set to +2/3 works the best. Again I’ll follow the same examples as above. The first two images will show the setup followed by three example shots. Two will be near the basket and one from the three point line near the baseline.
 Setup 2-1: Opposite end of the court showing the placement of the flashes.  Setup 2-2: How the flash is mounted.  Example 2-1: Bianca Andre drives the ball to the hoop.  Example 2-2: West's JuJuan Williams gets over top of Knoxville Catholic's Philip Stephens.  Example 2-3: West's Moore puts up a 3 pointer. When I originally started this post, I had planned to go back to Knoxville Catholic for their game against Webb on Friday night since my assignments were all earlier in the week and use my strobes so you could see a comparison of strobes vs speedlites in the same gym. Well a line of snow and freezing rain storms came in, thus the game was canceled. I do prefer to shoot with my strobes over speedlites, so I’d rather go back to Catholic and shoot strobes than to shoot at Farragut or any of the other schools I’ve shot at before and shoot Speedlites. Webb vs Catholic is a big rivalry game too, so I’d rather go on one of the less crowded nights. I’ll probably update this post when I make it back to KCHS.
One blog is hard enough to maintain, but two or more and you’ve got to be crazy! Except, I haven’t really been maintaining them. It’s not even that I don’t have things to blog about… I just haven’t really made the time to sit and write the posts down. Over on my other blog, I’ve decided I’ll write a little bit about some of my more favorite images each month during my Photo-A-Day project. Here’s the post for January.
I finally found a new look that does require me to reformat a lot of posts. There’s still work that needs to be done, but it looks to be relatively minor. I have contemplated removing all previous posts except for the ones that frequently bring new visitors. I may still do that, but for now I’ll leave it as it is. It won’t be a full out deletion, rather just setting the status of a post to unpublished. Blogging just isn’t what it used to be for me. Back when I started, Facebook was still in its infancy. Today, Facebook is the preferred way to stay in touch over a blog. So… if you don’t have an account at Facebook, go ahead and sign up and add me as your friend.
I know I haven’t posted on this blog in quite a while. It’s not that I’ve given up on it or intend to stop blogging… I just have been blogging a little more on my photography blog. As my previous post had mentioned, I am attempting to do a Photo-A-Day this year. So far it has been going pretty good. Only a few days have I felt like “Oh man I don’t have it yet and maybe I should just skip today”, but I haven’t (yet). If you don’t follow the other blog, check out these posts:
http://www.justinacuffphotography.com/2009/02/07/photowalk-with-student-photography-club-downtown-knoxville
http://www.justinacuffphotography.com/2009/01/22/charlie-hall-concert-january-17-2009
http://www.justinacuffphotography.com/2009/01/04/holiday-express-at-the-ut-gardens
It has made me reflect on one thing though. How much better off would I be if I had that dedication in my prayer/spiritual life? A couple of years ago, I had made a New Year’s resolution to read through the entire Bible. It was going good until I got to Numbers. Genesis, Exodus, and even Leviticus were easy to read, but man… not Numbers. Until I got to Psalms, I was struggling to keep on schedule. It wasn’t until I got to the New Testament that I was able to catch up to the schedule and keep with it until I finished.
In addition to Facebook, I’ll be posting the Photo-A-Day photos in my other gallery at http://photoaday.justinacuff.com/ http://www.justinacuffphotography.com/category/photo-a-day-2009/. (After I finished I decided to migrate it over to my WordPress blog.) I still may post some additional ones here or on my photography site, but that site will be the final destination for the photos unless I change my mind.
To all ya’ll that still read this blog (Hi Mom and Dad) or have subscribed to my RSS feed… Happy New Year! This year, instead of resolutions, I’m going to do a project. This is nothing original, as it has been done by many people, but I going to try and do a Photo-A-Day project in 2009. I’m not sure where I’ll post them, but I’ll be figuring something out soon enough. The next post on my blog will probably be where I am posting them.
The rules are simple. Every day I will commit to taking one photograph and sharing it. The camera does not matter. It may be one of my digital SLRs, one of my point and shoots, or even with my camera phone. I may not get around to posting each image every day, but I will commit to taking an image everyday. I know there are just going to be some days that I am unable to get to a computer. I’ll try to get no more than a week behind. Some photo’s may have commentary, others may just be the image itself. All photos posted are eligible for critique and/or praise.
Merry Christmas everyone! This year Christmas came early and was pretty much done with by Saturday the 20th for our family. I left Knoxville to go to my Grandma Acuff’s (my last living grandparent) house. The food was good and we did the card exchange. All of us are older and only one of us has a kid, so not a whole lot of gift giving anymore goes on. Afterwards we came back to my parent’s house and did Christmas there. Rachel and Bryan had to leave on Sunday, so we needed to do it Saturday night or Sunday morning. So we finished up Christmas by Saturday evening. It’s kind of a strange feeling to be done with Christmas so early. When I got back to Knoxville, my smoke detector was chirping that it needs to be replaced. Living close to Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Wal-Mart make it really convenient to just pick up things as I need them, but its not so convenient when you remember that people are still getting their last minute Christmas shopping done.
A few days ago, I saw where Dreamhost was offering its users unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth, and 50GB of personal backup space if they would be one of the first to volunteer to move over to the new servers in their new data center. That has always been one thing I was scared of. What if one my posts gets really popular and appears on a site like Digg or Slashdot. I didn’t think it would ever happen (it hasn’t so far), but if it did, it would be very costly in overbandwidth charges. I doubt the money that accrues in the Amazon and Goggle accounts would cover it. Now I don’t have to worry about that.
I signed up to be one of the firsts to be moved. Really I only have two things that may break. This blog and gallery. The fix is real simple, so I am not concerned about it. If it breaks at least I know what needs to be done. I’ve also got two other accounts with Dreamhost. One for work and one for Laurel and the CSC. Both of those sites pretty much are static sites only, so I’m not even concerned that they might break. However, the offer of unlimited bandwidth and unlimited disk space is too hard to pass up… so I signed them up too.
If you’re a Dreamhost customer, just go to https://panel.dreamhost.com/index.cgi?tree=billing.accounts& and volunteer to be one of the firsts to be moved and they upgrade your plan to the Unlimited Plan for FREE.
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