Alaska Day 3 - Ketchikan

Hand Carved Pieces, Totem Heritage Center, Ketchikan, Alaska, originally uploaded by jsevier14.

Okay well the ship is cool, and I really hated to leave the butter sculptures behind and all, but, early in the morning of the third day, much earlier than I would be waking up, we pulled alongside in Ketchikan. We were up in time for breakfast, and then for some inexplicable reason I had an urge to call into work, and spent several minutes salivating at the scenery below from the top deck after breakfast while I tried in vain to resolve some silly problem with our help desk. I was definitely ready to get my feet dirty.


We had sailed all night through the Reviliagigedo Channel, which is just north of the Georiga Strait. After that we entered the Tongass Narrows, a thin little passage where Ketchikan is located. Generally these little coastal towns are built where the fish are, and where the boats can get in, so a lot of them are land locked, which means you can only get to them by boat or plane. Ketchikan is such a town, and it’s loaded with Tlingit and Haida totem poles, including a replica of the Chief Johnson Totem, which stands 55’ high near the center of the city.


As the story goes, Chief Johnson, whose real first name was George, helped a tribe of natives move from Canada to a close by island after some sort of a dispute they had with the local church. There was a deserted village on Annette Island and for pointing the erstwhile natives in the right direction the made him honorary Chief, which required a totem for his front yard not too far where today’s replica stands. Totem poles were never meant to last forever, so the best that can be done now is a replica. Why it wasn’t the original 66’ in height I’ll never know. But, there it is in the set if you want to see it, all 55’ feet of it.

We hopped on the local $1 all day bus, which took us a ways up a hill and back into the town close to the Deer Creek Salmon hatchery, where close by I found a baseball field...

...then a Corvette sheltered by a surprisingly flimsy for Alaska car port, and the Totem Heritage Museum, which Missy and I visited the first time we were there. This time I went back with my Aunt Sharon for the short visit before getting back on the bus headed back into town where we walked along the Creek Street shops, through the old bordello houses that have been turned into small residences and shops. The creek churns below the street, and if you’re there later in the year like we were the first time, you’ll see lots of spent salmon and cats crawling around everywhere.

Too bad our time was so short. We were back on the ship by 1:30. I got the chance to shoot a lot, and talk with a storekeeper who told me this summer job selling cheap sweatshirts and jewelry to tourists is how he makes most of his living. The tourism industry is huge for the locals. I just wish I could have stayed longer.


Ketchikan - Home of Dolly’s House, where “The Odds are Good, but the Goods are Odd.”


Dolly’s didn’t make the initial cut, but she’ll be along with the rest later on for the hard core viewers who want to see all of what I got that’s worth showing.


So by 2pm we were back on the ship headed back out thru Clarence Strait, where hazy shooting conditions and compelling subject matter made for oddly difficult pictures to both shoot and process. And so an aimless walk back up the the bow of the ship revealed my first whale sighting of the trip. I managed to catch this tail just before it submerged back to the water...

And then it was gone...


Go see Alaska Day 3 - Ketchikan here…

Alaska Day 2 - At Sea

Sun over Hecate Strait, British Columbia originally uploaded by jsevier14.

In order to sail to Alaska you have to traverse the space between Vancouver and the Dixon Entrance, where U.S. territory officially picks up. That’s not even the halfway point to the first stop, so Day 2 ends up being entirely on the ship.


It was a bit of a photographic letdown really. Even though the scenery outside is exotic and compelling in its own way, it gets a little monotonous, especially when considering the cloudy conditions that dominated most of the daylight. The day included a fair bit of non-photographic goofing off.


After the Day 1 sunset shooting wrapped up around 10pm the night before I managed to make it another two hours before collapsing in an exhausted heap. The movement of the ship through the water, and the open sliding glass doors letting all the peaceful sailing sounds from outside filled the room made deep slumber easy. Since midnight was really 3am to me, I managed to make it just 90 minutes shy of being up 24 straight hours, so this was almost the equivalent of an all-nighter.


So 8 hours later I was up and at ‘em, in time for breakfast, where I amazed my Aunt Sharon by slurping down a plateful of smoked salmon for breakfast. This, and many other things, was a bit of a culture shock. But she managed to deal, certainly. It was just new. “Fish for breakfast?” Oh yeah… Mmm…


While the ship was meandering it’s way through the Seymour Narrows I’d signed up for a ship tour given by an Assistant Cruise Director. Nice enough chap, but the reason I signed up for that gig was to get a look at this monster boat’s bridge. I’d had that experience before on the original Crown, which has since been sold off. No such luck on the Sapphire, a mild bummer, really. We got a tour of the bars and restaurants, and the shopping haunts. Waste of time? No. Highlight of the trip? Uh, no.

We had heard of some sort of presentation in the ship’s main auditorium, and we ended up leaving that one early. I’d thought it would be some sort of “look at all the cool stuff you can do in the port when we get there” deal, but it ended up being more of a listing of the money-spending opportunities.

We all sat there 20 minutes then the presenter said something about a “shopping emergency” and that was all it took for me to head out to find some free ice-cream.


And it stayed dreary outside most of the day, until the end of the afternoon, about the time I had to go get dressed for dinner. It cleared up enough to get a picture of sun shining over the Seymour Narrows monotony (pictured above), which was a fairly accurate representation of this slightly boring, very restful day.


If you found this and the pictures uneventful, that’s pretty much what happened. The pictures get better from here, because Day 3 is when the trip really begins. Stay tuned...


Go see Alaska Day 2 - At Sea here...

Alaska Day 1 - Vancouver

Twilight, Strait of Georgia, British Columbia, originally uploaded by jsevier14.

The first day of a cruise is mainly about getting you and your stuff to the boat on time, getting there, then getting a lecture about the difference between a “boat” and a “ship.” Whoops. Boats are much smaller than ships. Got it.


So, some absurdly early time on a Saturday morning came, like 5am or something… My early ambition for this day was simply to engineer as quickly as possible the cramming of two weeks worth of four people’s stuff into the trunk of my Aunt Sharon’s car so I could get into the backseat and take a nap. By 8am we were on our way to Minneapolis, where we’d connect and head on to Vancouver, B.C., which is in Canada so we had to go through Canadian customs. Customs means long lines, answering silly questions about fresh produce and firearms, then another long line, this time for U.S. customs because see the next time you set foot on dry land it will be back in the U.S. So let me get this straight… You get off the plane, go through Canadian customs, then you get on a bus, and then go through U.S. customs. Why couldn’t we just board in Seattle?


And so there we were, on the bus when we turned a corner and caught a full view of this massive ship, the Sapphire Princess. And my thought was “wow, that’s a big boat.” I mean it’s like a 95 story building (951 feet long) floating in water on it’s side. And so after the second trip though customs then yet another line for ticketing, we were on the ship, hanging out in one of the rooms waiting for the launch, which was, well, like a ship pulling out of port. When the announcement came I grabbed the rig and headed up to the top deck with Missy and her mother, where like any good obsessive amateur photographer, I immediately started shooting. After shove off and a mildly enthusiastic response from the big crowd, we were sailing through the Burrard Inlet, barely making it under the Lion’s Gate Bridge, which caused me to wonder what they do if the tide goes up… But we made it underneath the bridge, and sailed off into the Strait of Georgia, headed North to Alaska.

After the launch, we went and grabbed some chow, and that was about it for the ladies. By this time it’s almost 8pm, and Missy’s mom only had to announce that it was really more like 11pm to them before the yawning began. Not me, no way. I don’t go to bed that early even when I am sick.


So I grabbed the gear again, wished everyone a good night, and headed forward to the very front of the ship. The sky looked ready to give us a show and several people with big cameras and giant lenses were holed up alongside the running track, which was protected from the wind by panes of not quite clear enough smoked glass. I met a guy there from LA and after a few shots I invited him out front into the elements with me, which was immediately rejected by his wife. He stayed behind, and I compensated for my lens envy by being the only shooter outside. July or not, the Strait of Georgia at sunset, forward on a ship, is cold. But, I staked my spot bracing my body against the rail for handheld shots of the stunning deep yellow sunset, which finally gave way to brilliant twilight about 9:30 in the evening. That was 12:30am the next day to me.


Go see Alaska Day 1 - Vancouver here...


(Remember, I am only posting my top 14 images from each day until I get through Day 12. After that, I'll do a set just for panoramas, then I'll complete the rest of the sets.) http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffsevier/5191962611/in/set-72157625306077905/lightbox/

Our Summer Vacation - Last Year

My Mother-in-Law took this picture...

Over the last year and change I have been working on a project selecting and processing pictures from our 2009 family vacation in Alaska.  When I got back from the trip I completely underestimated how long this would take to get these pictures ready.  I shot over 10,000 images on that trip, and there were plenty that required a lot of work in Photoshop.  

Hands down Alaska is my favorite place to visit.  Missy thinks I am crazy but I think I could live there.  Since my first trip, a cruise for our honeymoon, I’ve always wanted to go back.  And, after going back, I can see where I could make a regular habit of it as long as it didn’t involve another cruise.  Don’t get me wrong, I like cruises fine, they’re certainly  fun if you like to eat a lot and ride on a big ship for a week.  And sure, who doesn’t like endless reruns of The Love Boat?  Then there’s the closet sized bathroom with the scary vacuum toilet and itty-bitty kiddie sized shower.  So yeah, cruises are cool, but the people who design them fix it so you get not quite enough of what you’re really there to do because they have to get you to the next stop on time.  It ends up being a nice little sampler of what you could have done if you weren’t tied to someone else’s schedule.

So there we were, in Alaska…  me and three women - Missy, my mother-in-law, and my Auntie Sharon, whom Missy invited along to be her mom’s room mate.  The three ladies disappeared a lot, going off to do their own thing.  The result of this was 10,021 individual pictures shot by me.  

So okay, 10,000 pictures… Even I was surprised by that.  But hey, if you want pictures, ya gotta shoot.  So I knew this would be a big project, even when I promised people I’d be done processing by last Thanksgiving.  I really had no idea it would become as involved as it did.  I got the first few days done in well, a few days.  Then came the glaciers.  Big, massive, blue photographic nightmares, every one of them.  Glaciers.  Glaciers shot on a sunny day, with nasty shadows, blown out highlights, and of course color casts.  Then there were glaciers shot on cloudy days, still somehow with shadows and worse color casts.  Blue, white, brown, with silt infused waters in the front… Crevasses and cracks trapping light… Blown out highlights on otherwise underexposed shots… The printable ones all ran through a massive salvation effort in Photoshop, and it took forever to get through it.  Those middle days of the trip took several months each to complete.  

And now, I am done, and the day has come for me cut these loose into the wild.  

I broke this project down by each of the 12 days of the trip.  I’ll let one of them go at a time to, you know, build suspense (or more like prevent overload).  I’m starting with snapshots that were taken by Missy and her mother.  If you’re part of the family and only care about the silly posed pictures where we look back into bright sunlight and force smiles, this is where you’ll find those.  I'm getting these out there up front.  If you want to see dorky shots of me?  Yeah those are here too, including that one at the top of this post, which was taken by my mother-in-law, which I find oddly hysterical. 

Then after that, it’s my images, day by day:

Day 1 - Vancouver

Day 2 - At Sea

Day 3 - Ketchikan

Day 4 - Juneau

Day 5 - Skagway

Day 6 - Glacier Bay National Park

Day 7 - College Fjord

Day 8 - Talkeetna

Day 9 - Talkeena Three River Boat Tour

Day 10 - Denali National Park

Day 11 - Denali to Fairbanks

Day 12 - Fairbanks to Chena Hot Springs

I'm picking out the best 14 of each set, leading with those posted to my facebook account.  The entire shoot for each day will be posted back to Flickr.  Gimme a couple days between postings to get everything ready.  

And so, for my Aunt Carolyn, who finally gave up oh, about February of this year on ever seeing these, and for my cousin Risa, who grew up in Alaska and misses it every day, for my traveling companions on this trip who in spite of their disappearance each at one point or another had to wait around for me… and for my friend Vicki, who can now stop giving me a hard time asking “hey when are we going to see those pictures from Alaska?”, here we go… 

Click here to see the whole snapshot set on Picasa...

Moving to SSD

I use Photoshop and it's little brother Lightroom for my digital workflow. Lightroom is especially handy for the massive image collection I make for Derby bouts. The usual image count after a night of Derby shooting is well north of 3000, and I need a tool that allows me to easily and quickly browse through each of those images. I copy the RAW files from my CF card directly to a queue directory on my MacPro's boot drive. Once the cards are emptied into a queue folder on in my Pictures directory on my boot drive, I set up a Lightroom import with all the keywords and file renaming rules for each bout. The Lightroom import then reads the images from the queue directory, then one by one renames them with that bout's format, then copies them to my 3TB RAID array drive where the images are stored permanently. For this import, I set Lightroom to render 1:1 previews, so I can load them into the Loupe module and view them quickly one by one, filtering out the final set that goes on for further processing. Since I use MacOS X, I have a built in Veritas based backup tool that periodically checks the drives I have assigned for backup for changes. The new images certainly meet that criteria, so when that process completes I have three copies of each bout. One on the CF cards which do not get erased until my next shoot, then the ones in the queue drive, then the copied images on my image array, then the set that gets copied into the 4TB network backup array I have set up on an old Macintosh G4 plugged directly into my router in the basement.

Lightroom uses a local database to catalog images. There are actually two database files that are created. One for the references to the images on disk, then another for the previews that are created for expedient editing. These database files exist as a MacOS X packages, which essentially is a directory that acts like a single file when viewed in the Finder. The problem comes in when the previews package grows to a massive size. Lightroom has to read and sort through this previews package to operate, and just before this exercise that package had grown to 52GB in size. This creates a number of problems, such as space consumption, but the size of the preview repository creates the real problem: Crappy performance.

When Lightroom loads, it reads through this 52GB file to re-link the images in the catalog to their corresponding previews. OS X goes through a massive number of reads during this process. These reads can be viewed in the Activity Monitor tool in the OS X Utilities folder. This read process is the real problem, because once this file gets very large, it performs very poorly. The file is so large, it takes a very long time to process, and the noise coming from my hard drive is disturbing. The disk is incredibly busy, thrashing continuously for a very long time, to the point that I think maybe I am jeopardizing its longevity. It would suck very much if this drive failed, even if I am completely backed up over my home network using Time Machine.

To solve this problem and get back to the snappy performance I need to process bouts quickly, I decided to rig up a fast SSD drive for booting. I picked up two of these. OCZ has a pretty good reputation in the business. If you're thinking SSD, right now Intel's drive and this one are good bets. I chose this one because it has insane read-write times. Check the specs on the link.

I also picked up a spanky new MacBook Pro. I him-hawed over the size for a few months before I made the jump. I also wasn't amused by the fact that the smaller MBP runs on the Core Duo architecture, rather than the Core i5 or i7 with the bigger MacBooks. Turns out there are potentially good reasons for this. If you don't feel like read Ars Technica after this windy tome, basically because of the small form factor, Apple woulda had to have stuck with Intel graphics, which suck in comparison to nVidia's offering. So, having settled that, I landed on the 13" MBP. I toyed with the concept of calling it MacJr, or LittleMac, or the terminally pseudo-cool L'il Mac, but, no such thing is happening here... I'm sticking with our internal naming, which, you can think about on your off time if you care about such things.

But the temptation really in giving this thing a pet name like that is it's an incredible little machine made even more incredible by the swapping out of its silly little 5200 RPM 250GB hard drive with one of those fast OCZ SSD drives. It's small, lighter even now, has a snappy little LED display, and boy now is it fast.

I was also nervous about opening the case up to do surgery on the thing not 24 hours after taking it out of the box. If you know anything about Hyper MacGeeks that event is a near religious experience. I'm not a HyperGeek, just a geek, so, I was able to take it out of the box without shedding tears...

Of course you want to clone the drive that came with the machine first, which took about four times as long to complete than the actual drive swap-out. I picked up a reasonable external 2.5" case at the local MicroCenter, then I seated the the SSD in it long enough to run Carbon Copy Cloner to create a full image of the original drive on the new SSD. That took about 45 minutes and created a perfect copy of the Apple installed drive on the SSD, complete with all the root and hidden files that give Unix OSes all their charm. After identifying the SSD as the Mac's boot drive, it was time to shut down and perform the outpatient procedure.

Now what's really incredible about iEngineering is the form factor of this little machine is very elegant. If you read the Ars Technical article, you know everything is pretty much crammed in the case, which makes it hard to work on. That is unless your objective is a simple hard drive swap. That turned out to be ridiculously easy, well, except for the nasty surprise that you need a Torx T6 Screwdriver to unscrew the drive-mounted anchors, then screw them back onto the replacement drive. That little bit of info wasn't mentioned in the user manual, which happily included otherwise complete instructions for the hard drive replacement process. Unscrew 10 tiny screws off the bottom, pop off the aluminum cover, unscrew the drive anchor thingy, disengage the drive from its SATA connector, pop the other one on it, screw the case back together, then prepare for Nerdgasm.

So with the operation complete, it was time for the real test. If you've ever hit the power button on a MacBook you know that can be a scary experience. MacBooks are notoriously quiet, and it takes a few seconds to cycle up to the Apple logo screen, then a little while longer to go through the spinner. On my old PowerBook, I used to hold my hand on the case to feel for some sort of vibration. Happily the MBP has a light in front that confirms operational status. So, from the time the light shone to the time I could click the first icon...

27.4 seconds.

Insane.

As it turned out, that was just the warmup. I have this bad habit of starving myself, then going on these big sprees where I bag all my stuff at once, so, having spent the load on the MacBook, why not get a new SSD for the big Hoss main computer, the Xeon based MacPro that heats up my upstairs office every night...

And so it came to pass. And, all that glorious ease of install I enjoyed on the MacBook, well, you can forget that. I have the first Intel based MacPro, which means my Optical drive bays are no SATA. Since I have all four of my drive bays occupied (one for the 250GB previous boot drive, two for a 3TB RAID array for photography, and one holding a 640GB iTunes library which feeds my hungry AppleTV, my only option for the 2.5" SSD was to mount it in the one open bay I had left, the second ATA 5.25" optical bay. Happily, there are two free SATA ports on the MOBO. Unhappily, they're stupidly wedged behind a fan casing that makes them nearly impossible to use except with a lot of fussing, sweating, and finagling, and eventually it turns out a pair of angled needle-nose pliers. Seating the 24" right-angle SATA cable in the motherboard turns out to be the easy half of the problem, for the next task is to route the thing through a nearly full rectangular opening in a metal plate that separates the optical drive bays from the motherboard. This turned out to be even more painful, because the MacPro uses these really cool drive bays with mounted SATA ports, which are jammed in the back of the case, as you would expect. You have to route the SATA cable such that it does not cross the path of the drive sled, which ultimately meant I had to unscrew one of the SATA ports to get the cable routed behind it. Happily Apple chose to use captive screws for this, which made the job way way easier.

It took some effort and the angled pliers again to complete the routing, but, once that was done, and the power connected, it became a matter of seating the drive in the 3.5" to 2.5" converter, which was mounted in turn in a 3.5" to 5.25" metal converter, then slid securely in the removable bay. Once I got that done, I could taste victory, but not before another obstacle had to be overcome.

With Missy hanging out watching the proceedings (and the sweat rolling off my nose), I tried to close the deal by reseating the drive mount. But, it would not go. Being intelligent enough not to force it, I started playing with the cables to no avail. Talking to myself didn't help either, and eventually I realized I had flipped the lock switch on the back of the case that Apple uses to secure the hard drives in their bays. Flipping that back open was the last step in the job. I was done. A week after I started, and one false start when I had to learn the hard way the SATA ports would require a special tool (or worse, removal of innards, which I had no interest in doing), I had the SSD mounted. That was last Friday night.

The MacPro spent Saturday deleting files I didn't need to clone, then actually creating the clone, then restoring the files I deleted from TimeMachine, which was a pain since I dropped over 75GB worth of data temporarily. I know, I could have created a handy Unix script to skip over that part, but, using Time Machine was faster and less risky. Having done that, by the time the guests left on Saturday it was time to see what impact the SSD had on my setup.

Boot time:

40 seconds.

Huge performance gain. Booting easily took 3 minutes before. I timed my work PC today, it took 6 minutes, which is ridiculous but I presume has to do with our network... But the real test would be real-world applications, which, in my case means Lightroom and Photoshop, and I am happy to report huge performance gains there. Do I have stats? No. But what used to take many seconds is now happening almost instantly.

Of course, SSDs are problematic given the technology's unique erase requirements. Because essentially released disk has to be zeroed before it can be rewritten, some SSDs suffer laggard performance after they've been written to and erased several times. There is a technology solution for this called TRIM, but Apple doesn't support it because they're under the impression they don't need to. At least one technical resource tends to agree...

So, who knows. Recently a reference to TRIM showed up in the latest MacOS X update, so perhaps it is coming. Perhaps it is not necessary. Stay tuned...

On the road to Atlanta

CRG062610_Sheep_2137.jpg, originally uploaded by jsevier14. The team celebrates a comeback win. In the middle of the euphoria a relieved Trauma has her hand to her face, and Cherry is midair jumping for joy.

When I first started shooting Derby generally except for the score I didn't really know what was going on in the bout I was working. I was so engrossed in the composition I usually had to look up at the scoreboard to at least see if we were winning the game or not. I did this with music too. I couldn't tell you what song was being played, I was just busily shooting faces, expressions, instruments... The same with Derby. Faces, expressions, plays, equipment... I've gotten much better about knowing what's going on as I've gotten to know the sport.

About last Saturday's trip to Atlanta... Although I've gotten better, I can't really do a decent recap. I'll leave it to Miss Print for that... I can say this much. The Lambs had an easy time of it. The Sheep did too, most of their game, but by the last 5 minutes what looked to be a rout devolved into an epic struggle with an ending that was fit for the next Derby movie. It was as tense a Derby experience as I've had, and from what I've heard from the team's players they were feeling it too. So intense it was, my heart was racing even as I worked the pictures from the last two jams, the first of which the lead was taken from CRG, only to have them come right back in the last jam and win the game. By the end, all was well, the rightful winners prevailed. As the jam and the game ended I sprinted from my spot in turn two all the way to the other end of the track where the celebration was well underway (shown above).

See the Lambs shoot here...

See the Sheep shoot here...

Another home season ends, a road season begins...

CRG062010_Lambs_0422.jpg, originally uploaded by jsevier14.

This blog entry comes to you from a hotel room in Atlanta a week after my latest set was made. Jason and I have gotten into a good pattern of producing our pictures within a week of the bouts. With Jase now officially on hiatus and me being the Photo Monkey of record for the next three months, which started less than a week after the end of the home season, I had to get this set done more quickly than I've been getting them done, so I had to rush a little. With father's day and Missy coming home Wednesday from a week on the road of her own, it was a bit of a rush. And I've been having ridiculous performance crap with the Lightroom beta I've been using, which, I am sorta almost happy to say have been sorta almost resolved in the actual GA release. If you don't care about the details, skip to the next paragraph. For the two of you who do, the problem with Lr3 is it seems to be choking on its metadata searching. It's better in the non-beta but, it's really interfering with my ability to edit 3500 pictures in less than a week.

Derby photogs vary wildly in their bout production results. Some of the actual pro-guys who do photography otherwise have their work down with assistants in the stands and they pump out work almost immediately. They shoot, they pick a couple dozen images, they're done. What Jase and I are doing is meant to be more thorough than a simple news-shot, although on the team we consider ourselves journalists. Not in the sense that we a producing news, but more in the sense that we're archiving for the long term what these incredible women are doing.

So I got my set done Thursday, which is completely unusual because I actually beat Jason to post. That NEVER happens but, hey, here they are...

The Sheep won their bout handiliy. The day after the bout my Roy Hobbs coach asked me how it went, and my response was and I quote "It was a professional but kicking." Which, it was.

The Lambs I am sorry to say, despite Wheezy's attempts at human flight shown above (check out the Demoltion City girl finding the floor with both knees in the background... This is for me one of the grails... Catch a rollergirl in mid air and you've got something... Anyway, the Lambs didn't fare so well, sad to say...

These blog posts are not meant to be bout recaps. In it's best form, I intend this to be more a journal of my experieces with this Derby team. Because of the way I shoot though, I don't always know everything that's going on from moment to moment like I would say, a football game. Jason's better at that, but even better than that even is Lauren, or Miss Print.

If you want the best rundown of the action, check out her blog. She's a gifted writer and her blog is definitely worth following if you want to feel Derby from the eyes of someone who's on the inside.