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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I’d say the majority of the spam this blog gets is probably due to that class of pharmaceuticals, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen it using BibleGateway as the place to find it. And in case your curious…

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Technorati Tags: Cades Cove, Hyatt Lane, HDR, photography

Technorati Tags: obama, mccain, blogthings, quizzes

Technorati Tags: knoxville gas prices, gas shortage, pilot gas, bp gas

So yes, I contributed to the mass hysteria involving gas supply in Knoxville which has caused gas prices to rise today. Truthfully, even though I live just on the edge of the Knoxville/Powell border, it’s not too far to ride a bicycle from. However, the main roads I would have to ride to get to work are not very bicycle friendly. In addition to drivers not being used to bicycles, there is just no shoulder room. Believe it or not, I felt safer riding in the road when I lived off Broadway than any of my current choices. Hopefully more expensive gas will mean fewer cars on the road thus making it safer for bicycles.

On my way home, it seems that the current price is $4.49/gallon. Needless to say, I’m glad I topped of my tank this morning when it was “just” $3.59/gallon.

Technorati Tags: knoxville gas prices, gas shortage, bicycle, bike

Technorati Tags: justinacuffphotography.com, justinacuff photography

Since the full moon fell on a Friday, I figured I would plan to go up then. First I asked if any of the other photographers from church wanted to go. Only Anthony F. was able to go. Since I still had room for a couple of people in my car, I sent a message out to the CSC summer list. Calvin was the only one to respond. He probably didn’t know what all was going to be involved. For those that might be reading this and wondering if hiking is involved, there is none. We meet up at Laurel at 5:30 to make the drive. It only takes about 1.5 hours to get there from Knoxville, but since I had never been there, I wanted to get there a little bit early to scope it out.

When we arrived, it wasn’t crowded just yet. We walked around to the different overlooks and took some photographs of the falls. For one of the overlooks, we had to wait because a wedding was going on. After looking at the different overlooks, it appeared that the first main overlook would probably give you the best view. Anthony and I setup our tripods and waited and waited and waited and waited some more. The rangers had said that the moon would probably clear the ridge after 11:00 or so. When the moon clears the ridge, the way it signs down on the mist, it creates the moonbow. The moonbow is pretty faint to the naked eye. Truthfully, its not all that impressive. However, when recorded on camera, you can see amazing detail. People were wowing as I would finish my exposure. I got a few email addresses of people that wanted a copy of my pictures. Unfortunately for them, I’m no longer a photographer that just gives away work. I now sell prints. If the prints make me too much money, then I’ll need to register as a business. I figure I’ll cross that bridge when I get close to that amount. I’ll probably go through them in the next week and really clean them up before I email them address in the gallery.

Moonbows only occur in two places in the world pretty predictably. The other place is at Victoria Falls on the Zambia and Zimbabwe border in Southern Africa. There are some other places it occurs if several conditions are right, but at Cumberland Falls, the main condition that needs to be meet is the full moon. Anyways, I bet right now you want to see the rest of the pictures. I have them posted to my gallery under: http://gallery2.justinacuff.net/v/Misc/Cumberland_Falls_Moonbow_2008-07-18/.

Tips for Photographing the Moonbow

• You need to use a manual camera that has a bulb exposure.
• You need to use a tripod.
• Flash does not work.
• Point and shoot cameras will not work. Really, if you try to take a picture with your point and shoot in the night landscape mode, it’s not going to work. You’re just being rude and blinding everyone else around you. You need a camera that you can do an exposure greater than 30 seconds.
• The exposure on the picture in this post was ISO 200, 4 minutes @f/4.0. Next time I think I will shoot ISO 400, 4 minutes @f/8.0 for a little bit greater depth of field.

Technorati Tags: Cumberland Falls, Moonbow, Big Ridge State Park, Cumberland Falls State Park

Unfortunately, pretty much every view around my house is going to involve powerlines. Here’s a sampling of what we could see. All the while, there were fireworks going off behind ya, and to both sides. This is one of those times a full frame camera with a fisheye lens could show just how many fireworks displays were going on at once. All this despite fireworks being illegal in Knox County. They say you can get a $50 fine if caught and a $200 fine if someone is harmed or if property is damaged. Since everybody is doing it, I would assume its too much for cops to go around fining people for shooting fireworks, so just make sure your safe and you should be fine.

This final picture just gives you an idea of what the fireworks display at World’s Fair Park looked like from my house. Not too bad, but if you really want to photograph them, you’re better off getting closer by going to World’s Fair Park.

Here’s the rest of the pictures: Link

Technorati Tags: Fireworks, Illegal Fireworks, July 4th, Knoxville, Knox County, World’s Fair Park

Well it finally happened. My cable modem bit the dust. It just wouldn’t stay connected. I could be watching something on YouTube, or downloading something and all of a sudden my connection would freeze. This had been happening since last week. I finally got around to calling Knology to confirm that they weren’t doing anything to the data traffic. Once it was confirmed, the reality set in. It was time to replace my cable modem.

The downside of owning your own cable modem is that you have to do all the troubleshooting and are responsible for any repairs or replacement. Seeing that I didn’t have an internet connection it was kind of hard to locate the best deal on a modem so I kind of just settled for what was available. I found a Linksys CM100 for a reasonable price and came home and called Knology up to add it to my account. The new modem is DOCSIS 2.0 so I’m already seeing a little bit faster speed increase. The connection is stable, so that pretty much confirms that it was just the modem biting the dust.

So as long as $4.95*(12+x) is less than $99 + $70 + $cost to replace new modem after x months have past, then it’s still cheaper to buy.

Oh yeah… I’ve now officially been a homeowner for 1 year! Really, just looking for a way to update this blog.

Technorati Tags: cable modem, rca dcm245, linksys cm100, knology, buy, rent

This first image is of the Middle Prong of the Little River. To get there, you take the road to Tremont and continue past Tremont. This is shot near the end. I took this shot on the first Nature and Travel field trip.

This shot was part of our second shooting assignment for the class. Since the assignments aren’t mandatory and I already knew the techniques he wanted us to learn in the assignments, I only selected the assignments that might be fun to do. I didn’t turn this one in, so it should be new to him and the class. For this shot, I was able to get access to the roof of where I work and take several pictures of downtown Knoxville at night.

I took this shot during the second Nature and Travel field trip to the Knoxville Zoo. I selected it because its falls into the category of actually being able to remove the fence from the picture. Most of the animals were close to the fence, so it was impossible to eliminate the fence. The snow leopard was perched up on her platform which was just far enough so that the fence could be eliminated.

The forth picture was the most difficult to select. I had lots to choose from by they were either too similar to the first picture or also shot at the Knoxville Zoo. I wanted something different for my fourth shot. Since I was going to be in the park on Saturday, I took my camera and was determined to get something. Since we finished the hike pretty quickly, we had all sorts of time. I knew Mingus Mill was nearby, so I said lets go check it out. It was neat, but not the best time of day to photograph it, plus there were just too many people that would walk into the shot. The park employee that was there started talking to us. Since we were in the area, he told us we might want to check out Mingo Falls. I had heard of it, but didn’t where it was. Luckily he gave us directions. To get to it, take Newfound Gap Road toward Cherokee, NC. You’ll pass the Blue Ridge Parkway. Turn left on the next road past the Blue Ridge Parkway. You’ll come to a T intersection. Turn left and follow the road for about 4.5 miles. Look for a small sign that says Mingo Falls Next Right. Park there and climb about 150 stairs and hike a little less than half a mile and you’re there.

Technorati Tags: Knoxville, Knoxville Zoo, Snow Leopard, Middle Prong of the Little River, Tremont, Great Smoky Mountains, Mingo Falls, Cityscape, Nightscape

My plan was to leave around 8:00 in the morning since I needed to get ready for the Nature and Travel Photography Field trip later in the afternoon. Derek and Ann also had to go back to Nashville and be there in time for a Habitat for Humanity Dedication for a house their group had worked on. When I saw Derek walking around, I went down to see when they had planned on leaving… if soon I’d hike out with them, if not, I’d just hike out alone. Came to find out he had gotten sick. We originally had planned to have a church service, but in Derek’s condition, it was decided that the best thing was to get him back to the car. I helped him pack up his stuff and then went to check on Ann. She had just gotten up and was starting to pack up. However, she really didn’t have a backpack that was big enough for her stuff. On the way in Dale had helped her carry her stuff (I assume), but since Dale wasn’t camping, he left after dinner. What we decided to do was I’d hike out with Derek and carry some of Ann’s stuff and Bryan would hike out with Ann and carry some of Ann and Derek’s stuff. Then Bryan would go back to camp and hike out with Meredith and Justin later.

So that was a long story, with no pictures… but the moral of it is, it helps to have the right gear, whether it be a rain jacket or a large backpack.

Ok we now for the part of this entry that doesn’t require much writing. A few of us meet up at UT before and drove to Townsend. We then meet up with everyone else at the parking lot just before you get to the Y. As part of the field trip, we only went to two places. The first was Middle Prong on the road past Treemont. The second place was one of the first parking areas you come to after you pass the road to Treemont on the way to Cades Cove. Through work, I have access to a couple of pieces of equipment that I probably won’t ever buy. One is a Canon 40D that has been converted to Infrared and the other is a 600mm f4L lens.

http://gallery2.justinacuff.net/v/photography_certificate/nature_and_travel_photography/field_trip_1/

Technorati Tags: Big South Fork, Great Smoky Mountains, Nature and Travel Photography, photography, photography class, field trip

This past weekend, I had some free time on Saturday morning, so I decided I was going to start it off real early and make some photographs just for the fun of it. It had rained the night before and wasn’t supposed to rain on Saturday, which means the day will be pretty clear. My first destination was the Miller’s Cove Overlook on Foothills Parkway West (the road up to Look Rock). Miller’s Cove is the first overlook you come to, so it really isn’t that far of a drive from Knoxville. I got there around 5:30 and just kind of waited. About 10 minutes before sunrise, a group of about 8 people on a workshop showed up as well. One of the first shots I got before they showed up, happens to be one of my more favorite shots from all day. It may be a dark picture, but that’s part of what I like about it. The next picture is one of the better sunrise shots. There really wasn’t a whole lot of red in the sky that morning, so I really had to push it to get this picture.

After that, I headed into Cades Cove. Cades Cove is one of those place that I usually prefer to go to either really early in the day or really late at night. If you go outside of those times, you are probably going to be stuck in a traffic jam that rivals some of the worst traffic jams in Knoxville. The cause of these traffic jams are often stupidity with a side of selfishness. Cades Cove is an 11 mile loop that once you get on, is difficult to get off. If people would just follow the rules, it wouldn’t be so bad. The main rule is, don’t stop in the middle of the road, use pull-offs. There are lots of pull offs to accommodate people, but they seldom use them. Instead they stop in the middle of the road and it is usually to take a picture of a deer. Deer are really abundant in Cades Cove, so you can just imagine how this is. The two things that really get me is people who stop in the middle of the road when there is a pull-off 10 feet in front of them and those that stop in the middle of the road and use the pull-off to take their picture. Anyways, enough with my Cades Cove rant. I got there just before 8:00 and wanted to get my pictures in while the light was still good. They were all typical shots that I’m happy with, but I’ll get better shots on a different day.

This next image is definitely a place I will go back to in the fall. I’m happy with the shot as it is, but I’m certain it will look 20 times better with the fall colors. It’s also an area of the park that really doesn’t get busy like Cades Cove does. To get here, you turn down the road that heads to Tremont.

The last picture in this post is Meigs Falls. Its almost kind of sad how many times I’ve past this and never noticed it. It on Little River Road between the Townsend Y and Elkmont. After going to Tremont, I decided that I would have enough time to go to the Sinks. We had scheduled a band practice for later that day, so I wanted to get home in enough time to load up the musical gear and clean up beforehand. On my way to the sinks, I saw this waterfall and even though the light wasn’t the best, I decided to photograph it anyways. I later looked it up and found out it is called Meigs Falls. It’s so far off to the road, it is kind of easy to miss (especially when you are paying attention to the curves in the road). I have a Nature and Travel Field trip on Sunday afternoon, and we are probably going to stop here.

Technorati Tags: Photography, Great Smoky Mountains, Foothills Parkway, Miller Cove, Cades Cove, Tremont, Meigs Falls, The Sinks, Sunrise, Waterfall, Little River Road

Well I’ve decided that I am not happy with Wordpress’s gallery. I’ve removed those pictures and instead here’s a link to it in my gallery.

Technorati Tags: Photography, photography class, haw ridge, worlds fair park, sunsphere, fundamentals of digital photography