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beef (striploin), red & green pepper, spanish onion, broccoli (a little old, oops), fried in just a little bit of peanut oil.
hoisin sauce and sambal, mixed with a little water, to steam it up a bit.
corn starch, to thicken the sauce.
on top: fresh green onions and toasted sesame seeds.
served on basmati rice.
strobist:
one speedlite, 1/16 power. zoomed to 14mm and served about 1 foot above and to the right of the subject through a softbox (read: plastic shopping bag). triggered with Cactus V5's.
I made myself six optical slaves. I was tired of forgetting to turn off the power on my ebay triggers when I was done with them. I keep draining the batteries. So I decided I needed some optical triggers that were powered by the flash trigger voltage. These are designed to be used for low voltage low trigger voltage flashes. I have a Canon 420EZ that only has a trigger voltage of 4 volts and these work fine with it.
The case is a RJ11 cable joiner. I pulled out the guts and machined out the rest of the plastic. I then took some viewfinder lens assemblies for one time use cameras and machined the lens to match the window I made in the housing.
The electronic assembly was soldered together in point to point fashion.
I added a 1/8" mini jack as an output for longer cable use or as a input for a ebay trigger receiver. I can trigger the flash with the receiver and use the connected optical slave as a backup trigger in case the radio trigger didn't get the signal (as long as there was another flash that did fire).
My Stowa Antea watch. Due to a dead battery in my radio triggers I had to put the flash on-camera and pick my shots to keep the flash above the lightbox (made out of 5 hastily folded together sheets of printer paper). Not my best work, but the watch is as pretty in real life as it looks here!
Here're some photos of me, shot with both a self-timer a clickable remote! I decided not to wear my bikini for these shots, but went cowboy instead! (thank goodness!) :)
And yes I will get back to posting Hero's Journey Mythology Goddesses far prettier than me. :)
I recently had an article accepted at a major photography magazine, and they needed some photos of me, so rather than just giving them the standard, boring head-and-shoulders, I thought these would be more fun!
With Tricia Joe & a remote trigger under my black duster! She's got the Colt .45 Gold 45 Revolver!
Press this trigger and POOF! the tripod disappears. (Well, almost: you can still see it if you look carefully.)
Stereographic projection of this equirectangular panorama.
Part of my Wee planets set.
Girl, Goth, Gothic, Steampunk, Black, Brown, Gold, Corset, Dress, Blouse, Arm Guards, Top Hat, Hat, Goggles, Aperture, Aperture Blades, Gun, Wood, Metal, Barrel, Lion, Trigger, Necklace, Lipstick, Makeup,
blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/06/pressure_mounts_for_the...
1 hour and 8 minutes until the launch of STS-124... I'm getting a little nervous here :)
So I built this little project for a friend. The idea is to take photos of a shuttle launch at down at Cape Canaveral. He has been doing this for a long time now... the routine goes like this: Accredited photographers are admitted to dedicated sites very close to the launch pad a day or two before the launch. But you have to leave your cameras there, armed and ready to start shooting on their own when the launch happens. And you can't use a clock, because the actual launch time gets moved around all the time....
He previously used a simple box that would trigger the cameras based on a microphone picking up the roar from the shuttle engines. But that way you loose a few seconds, the time it takes the sound to travel.
So our new idea was to use seismic sensors (geophones) to pick up the vibration and trigger the cameras sooner and hopefully more reliably!
My little system here (based on the extremely cool Arduino microcontroller) picks up the signal from the geophone, which you just stick into the ground, and amplifies it. When the signal reaches a certain threshold, two cameras (a Nikon and a Hasselblad) will be triggered to shoot photos for as long as the rumbling goes on... or until they've shot their entire roll of film, whichever happens first.
The problem is that there was no way to calibrate the system... we don't know how strong the seismic signal will be. That means, our setup could either: do nothing... or shoot 36 images of the shuttle sitting on its pad, because an alligator was walking by (yes, they do that).... *keeping my fingers crossed*
Thought it was time I treated my wife to a nice car. In her dreams ha ha !! Actually got the opportunity to photograph this super new Merc SLK 250. Very nice car got to say.
Strobe info - Nikon D610 camera on manual, f 7.1, shutter 1/100, ISO 125, lens Nikon 24-70mm f2.8, distance 44mm, polariser, Lencarta Safari 600 flash system, set to 1/2 power, triggered by Yongnuo RF602's, Lencarta Ringflash 10ft to the right with diffuser. Sun was to the left.
A képet egy saját készítésű Sound-trigger-rel, azaz hangkioldóval készítettem 100msec-es késleltetéssel, mivel időzítőt is szereltem bele, láthatóan nagyon jól működik. A nagy melegben a "modell" természetesen nem ment kárba! :) Ha valakit érdekel ilyen trigger, írjon bátran! ;)
This shot has made with an self-built sound trigger with delay circuit system. The sound of opening flip shoted the flash. Naturally after work the "modell" was drunk. :)
Launching an SLBM required a number of validity checks by various crew members to insure the authenticity of the President’s release message. When completed, the Weapons Officer used the red trigger to fire the missile. The black trigger was used for training purposes and did not entail launch of a missile.
This trigger was used on board USS MARIANO G. VALLEJO (SSBN-658)
New flash trigger system in the house replacing my old PT-04 triggers.
I waited quite a while for these ... looking forward to lots of flash-fun.
testing the new delay circuit
Strobist: yn460 ii triggered with homemade audio trigger through a homemade delay circuit. SB600 optically slaved with a Hama hot shoe cube
Near Orchard, waiting in a taxi and this dude pulled up alongside us. Nikon FM3a, black and white film shot.
Austin is a small, unincorporated community and census-designated place in Lander County, Nevada, United States. In 2010, its population was 192. It is located on the western slopes of the Toiyabe Range at an elevation of 6,605 feet (2,013 m). U.S. Route 50 passes through the town.
Named for Austin, Texas, Austin was founded in 1862, as part of a silver rush reputedly triggered by a Pony Express horse who kicked over a rock. By summer 1863, the Austin and the surrounding Reese River Mining District had a population of over 10,000, and it became the county seat of Lander County (the seat was shifted to Battle Mountain in 1979). In 1864, the town launched Reuel Colt Gridley's impromptu fundraising drive that raised over $250,000 for wounded Civil War veterans, by repeatedly auctioning a sack of flour.
The Nevada Central Railroad was built to connect Austin with the transcontinental railroad at Battle Mountain in 1880. However, by that time the boom was almost over. Major silver production ended by 1887, although there was a slight revival in the 1910s. In the mid-1950s there was a great deal of interest in uranium deposits in the area, but the ore proved to be of low quality. Gold and silver mining has continued in the area sporadically and at generally low levels of production. High quality turquoise is still mined in the area in small quantities. This active turquoise mining, together with several shops that manufacture jewelry from local turquoise have made Austin a sort of Nevada Turquoise mecca.
Today Austin is a "living ghost town", a well-preserved example of an early Nevada mining town. It contains four churches; the Catholic church and the Austin Methodist Church were both built in 1866. The Methodist Church is now used as a community center. The Catholic Church, St. Augustine's, has been purchased and is being restored as a cultural center for Central Nevada. The Episcopal church, considered by some to be the prettiest frontier church still standing, was built in 1878 and is still in regular use. These three churches are listed as Nevada Historical Marker 67. The fourth church is a more recent building built by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The International Hotel, first built in Virginia City in 1859 and moved to Austin in 1863 still serves meals and drinks, but does not rent out rooms (there is a motel across the street). The International Hotel is said to be the oldest in Nevada. Austin contains numerous other historical buildings, in various states of repair.
Stokes Castle, a strange three-story stone tower, is located just outside of town. It was built in 1897 by Anson Phelps Stokes, a wealthy eastern capitalist who had a financial interest in several of the local mines. It was only occupied for a month, and then fell into disrepair.
Austin is the headquarters of the federally recognized Yomba Shoshone Tribe of the Yomba Reservation.
Approximately 15 miles (24 km) east of Austin is a cluster of natural hot springs maintained by visitors and local volunteers. The Hickison Petroglyph Recreation Area, 24 miles (39 km) east of Austin, features a short interpretive trail where visitors can see ancient drawings carved into the rocks.
The Austin silver deposits consist of numerous narrow (often only several inches in width) quartz veins hosted in monzonite rock. The main ore minerals are sulfides that contain silver, including large quantities of galena and tetrahedrite. Oxidized ore, which was very shallow, included silver chloride (chlorargyrite) which was easily reduced to metallic silver, although these oxidized deposits were exhausted quickly. The deeper sulfide (hypogene) ore was much more difficult to work and had to be roasted prior to amalgamation. Milling and concentration was used to separate the silver-containing sulfides from the barren quartz. Because of the added expense of this kind of processing along with the narrow veins, only high grade ores could be profitably worked in Austin.
The Austin veins are of an older age and were formed at a greater depth than many other silver districts in Nevada, such as the epithermal veins of Virginia City (Comstock Lode). In addition, the value of the Austin ores was largely (with several exceptions) silver (with significant base metals (lead, zinc and copper)) with very little gold, whereas most epithermal veins have highly significant gold.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin,_Nevada
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_...
This is a picture of my own high speed sync trigger with a PT-04 radio trigger sitting on top of it. It is currently parasitic inside an optical slave whose guts were taken out. It is semi-finished because I have not added port to charge the li-poly battery inside the trigger.
On top of my HSS trigger is a PT-04 radio trigger and I have made it work without banding (yeh!!!).
This picture itself is taken using the high speed trigger at 1/4000 speed.
Watch a video of this working, code, schematics and details in projects.nosomos.org/arduino-controlled-flash-trigger
Serie001 - Wild Cat
Model(s):
Aurora Phox - MM #1466231
Location: Ponce Inlet, FL - America
Strobist info:
1x Yongnuo YN-460II in 33" White shoot through umbrella,
triggered with Yongnuo PT-04TM set.
PP:
Lightroom
Society of Friends of Music in Vienna
The Society of Friends of Music in Vienna (briefly : Wiener Musikverein) is a traditional club in Vienna to promote musical culture. It was founded in 1812.
(Pictures you can see by clicking on the link at the end of the site!)
Founded Concert 1812
Foundation
On 29 November and 3 December 1812 was performed in the Winter Riding School of the Hofburg the Handel oratorio Timothy. This concert can be considered as a trigger for the founding of the Society of Friends of Music in Vienna. As the founder of the association is Joseph Sonnleithner (1766-1835) then secretary of the imperial Viennese court theater (Burgtheater and Kärntnertortheater). The proceeds of the concert should benefit the newly founded institution. Emperor Franz I donated 1,000 guilders, the net profit amounted to 25,934 florins finally Viennese currency. First office of the company was the Lobkowitz Palace today Lobkowitzplatz.
Goals
According to its statutes, which originated in 1814, is the "Empor renewed progress on music in all its branches" primary purpose of the Company.
The Friends of Music Society reaches(d) this in three ways:
The establishment of a conservatory,
The systematic collection of musicological documents (archive)
Organizing their own concerts.
To date, private commitment of individual members shapes the functioning of the Company. Since January 2000, all editions of the monthly appearing club newspaper "music lovers" on the website of the company are available .
Concerts
On the initiative of Antonio Salieri's first choral activities at the Musikverein go back, for example, also in 1824 at the Vienna initial or first performances of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis and 9th Symphony was involved. After there had been choral concerts of the Association for many years, then in 1858 was the official establishment of the Concert Choir held as a branch association of the Vienna Musikverein. The first principal conductor of the Vienna Singing Society was Johann von Herbeck, directs the choir since 1991, Johannes Prinz.
Musikverein (1831-1870) to the Tuchlauben (home to the Red Hedgehog), first building on the right, then No. 558, now No. 12
First concert hall of the society
1829 , the Company purchased a scoring for Kärnthnerviertl house on the Tuchlauben (home to the Red Hedgehog, rented from 1822, then House # 558, today Tuchlauben 12) with several business offices and apartments, it had the house demolished and gave at Franz Lossl (Site Manager: Carl Högl) by around 88,000 guilders (including equipment) the construction of a three storey new building with a concert hall on the 1st Floor in order. The site was approximately opposite the former Ofenlochgasse, since 1863 Kleeblattgasse. The Brandstätte that time not yet branched of from the Tuchlauben, but was a small place near the St. Stephen's Cathedral.
The festival opening concert of the hall took place on 4 November 1831 instead (then the cholera raged in Vienna). The Musikverein contributed among other things at this location (visitor concerts were still highly popular in the large ball room of the Hofburg ) essentially to the public concert life in Vienna.
The hall proved with 700 seats soon to be too small, but was still used for almost 40 years. 1846 gas lighting was installed. In the upper floors of the Conservatory and the archives of the Society, offices and rehearsal rooms were located.
The Society of Friends of Music in 1870 moved into their new house and sold its first house in the same year. In the subsequent use of it emerged inter alia the Strampfer-Theatre. The building was demolished in 1885.
Vienna Musikverein in 1898
Today's office of the Company
1863, Emperor Franz Joseph I donates the society from the state capital, the area on the bank of the river opposite the Vienna Karlskirche (church). It was on the former glacis of the 1858 demolished city walls around the old town. 1861-1869 emerged near the present-day Vienna State Opera, on the neighboring construction site on the riverbank 1865-1868 the Vienna Künstlerhaus, on the direction of ring road adjacent square 1862-1865 today's Imperial Hotel.
The of Theophil Hansen, who later built the Parliament, designed house, shortened to Vienna Musikverein, was on 6 January 1870 opened with a celebratory concert. That same year, the High Steward of the Emperor, Prince Constantine zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, was in gratitude for the favor of the imperial court for the new building project appointed as a honorary member of the society.
1869 Carl Heissler was the first conductor of the orchestra of the Society of Friends of Music in Vienna. 187, and 1872 was the Russian composer Anton Rubinstein artistic director of the company. After a short time he was replaced by Johannes Brahms.
Children and Youth Projects
In order to convey the joy of music and access to classical culture children and adolescents, the Friends of Music Society offers a pertinent program: In April 1989, it was the first "Celebration for Children" in all the rooms of the Musikverein building, since the offer has been steadily expanded and now includes more than 150 projects for all ages 3-19 years. The 20-year anniversary of the youth concerts was celebrated with a big party at the Vienna Musikverein in 2009. Symbol of child and youth concerts of the Society of Friends of Music is the concert clown Allegretto.
Artistic performances will be processed in accordance with the relevant age requirements paying particular attention to opportunities for active contribution. These include sing and dance along to the little ones, a gallery of children's drawings on the Internet and artist talks under the slogan "meet the artist" with internationally renowned conductors, soloists and composers for 15- to 19- year-old.
Conservatory of the Society of Music Lovers
The Conservatory was the first public music school in Vienna and was founded in 1819 by the violinist Joseph Böhm. As early as 1818, the Court Kapellmeister Antonio Salieri began to form a singing class. The general musical newspaper wrote here about 7 January 1818: "As the beginning of a newly established Conservatory imparts our worthy Hofkapellm. (chapel masteer) Salieri already to 12 girls and 12 boys gratuitous singing lessons."
On 19 April, the first 24 students of the Conservatory presented themselves in a collective concert of the Friends of Music to the public and sing an A cappella choral of Salieri. The dedication on the autograph reads: "Ringraziamento because farsi alli Benefattori del Conservatorio della musica nazionale inglese dalli primi Ventiquattro allieve dodici Ragazzi e dodici Ragazze, di detto luogo, nella quarta accademia dei dilettanti il giorno 19 Aprile 1818".
In the 19th Century, this facility has been significantly expanded, in the 1890s it had more than 1,000 students and found imitation in Vienna in other such facilities. In 1909, the private institute was to resolution of the emperor as "k.k. Academy of Music and Dramatic Art" nationalized. Thus, it is predecessor of today's University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna.
Archive
The archives of the Society of Friends of Music is one of the most important music collections in the world.
Personalities
Musikverein building of 1870 (2006)
Musikverein building at night
Founder
Joseph Sonnleithner (1766-1835)
Co-Founder
Fanny von Arnstein (1758-1818)
Prince Franz Joseph Maximilian von Lobkowitz (1772-1816) , Major General, art lover and patron
Famous members
Leopold of Sonnleithner (1797-1873), lawyer and music collector
January Václav Voříšek (1791-1825), composer, pianist and organist, as a member in 1818.
Franz Schubert (1797-1828), full member from 12 June 1827
Concert directors
Carl Heissler, lithography by Joseph Kriehuber, 1866
Carl Heissler (1823-1878), Artistic Director 1869-1871
Anton Rubinstein, Artistic Director 1871-1872
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897), concert director 1872-1875
Eduard Schön (1825-1879), Ministerialrat and composer, director in 1870
Johann von Herbeck (1831-1877), conductor and composer
Hans Richter (1843-1916), conductor, director until 1900
Franz Schalk (1863-1931), concert director 1904-1921
Ferdinand Löwe (1865-1925), concert director
Wilhelm Furtwängler (1886-1954), concert director 1921-1927 (jointly with Leopold Reichwein)
Leopold Reichwein (1878-1945), concert director 1921-1927 (together with Wilhelm Furtwängler)
Robert Heger (1886-1978), concert director 1925-1933
Walter Legge (1906-1979), director from 1946
Herbert von Karajan (1908-1989), last concert director 1948-1964
Vice Presidents
Raphael Georg Kiesewetter (1773-1850), privy councillor and musician, vice president 1821-1843
Nikolaus Dumba (1830-1900), industrialist, vice president in 1880
Gustav Ortner (born 1935) , diplomat, vice president since 2001
Directorate members
Heinrich Eduard Josef von Lannoy (1787-1853), conductor and composer, member
Martin Gustav Nottebohm (1817-1882), musicologist and composer, member from 1858
Anthony van Hoboken (1887-1983), musicologist and collector, member since 1957
Brothers Czartoryski, circa 1870
Secretaries
Leopold Alexander Zellner, general secretary in 1880
Botstiber Hugo (1875-1941), secretary and office director 1905-1912
Angyan Thomas (born 1953), general and artistic director since 1988
Archivist
Martin Gustav Nottebohm in 1864
Eusebius Mandyczewski (1857-1929), musicologist and composer, from 1887
Karl Geiringer (1899-1989), musicologist and librarian, 1930-1938
Otto Biba (born 1946), musicologist and director of the archive, since 1979
I was testing out my new sound trigger. I sprayed a black balloon with water and then popped it. When the balloon pops, the flash fires.
Flash is on the left...not sure of the power (I varied it between 1/4 and 1/16 power throughout the shoot).
//What a disaster
William Saunderson-Meyer says the floods just another blow to a province that was already on its knees
KwaZulu-Natal has declared a provincial state of disaster to try to cope with the devastating floods of the past week.
This is normally a temporary mechanism of which the primary purpose is to facilitate speedy national government assistance to hard-pressed provincial and local authorities. It also triggers the release of emergency funds from the National Treasury.
But in KZN’s case, they might as well make it permanent. This is a province that has been on its knees for some time and it ain’t getting up any time soon.
After all, KZN hasn’t even staunched the bloodied nose it suffered nine months ago. That’s when one wing of the African National Congress government — the Radical Economic Transformation followers of former president Jacob Zuma — tried to bury the other — the so-called reformists led by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
KZN hasn’t even properly tallied the body blows it suffered then. The official estimates for the insurrection were 45,000 businesses affected, R50bn in economic damage, 129,000 jobs lost, and 354 killed.
These estimates are probably on the low side. For example, the number of people who were killed in the mayhem doesn’t include the many whose bodies were simply never found and counted.
And the true economic cost is incalculable. There’s been substantially increased emigration of minorities, cancelled investment, and the loss of international confidence in KZN as a safe tourist destination. In at least a dozen small, country towns, all the business infrastructure was destroyed, paradoxically by the very people who worked and shopped in those buildings.
Now the floods. The death toll is over 300 and still rising. Some 6,000 homes have been destroyed and road, water sewage and electrical infrastructure uprooted. As I write this, roaming mobs are opportunistically plundering container depots, stranded trucks, abandoned homes and vulnerable businesses, reportedly unhindered — as was the case during last year’s riots — by the police and army.
Naturally, no disaster is complete without a scapegoat. Ramaphosa, as is his style, was quick off the mark to finger the culprit — climate change.
“This disaster is part of climate change. It is telling us that climate change is serious, it is here,” Ramaphosa told reporters while inspecting a devastated Durban. “We no longer can postpone what we need to do, and the measures we need to take to deal with climate change.”
What balderdash. Whatever role climate change may or may not have played in the larger scheme of things, it’s nonsense to pin on it responsibility for the plight of KZN. That lies with the ANC government.
First, this was not an unforeseeable bolt from the heavens. The forecasters warned months back that this was likely to be an exceptionally wet summer because of the La Niña weather pattern that occurs every few years.
There are also historical precedents for extreme weather in KZN, which a prudent administration would have taken note of.
In 1984, Tropical Storm Domoina wreaked havoc in a swathe from Mozambique, through Swaziland to KZN. Although the current downpour is worse, the scale is nevertheless in the same ballpark.
This latest storm — as yet unnamed — dumped 450mm of rain on Durban in 48 hours. Domoina let loose 615mm in 24 hours on Swaziland and northern KZN.
But the true difference between those events, 38 years apart, lies in the lack of preparedness on the part of today’s authorities. In 1984 the SA Air Force deployed 25 helicopters to airlift people to safety. In the 2000 Mozambique floods, 17 SAAF helicopters rescued more than 14,000 people.
This time, according to a News24 report, the SA Police Service and the SAAF, combined, have been unable to put a single chopper in the air. The erosion of South Africa’s military means that of the SAAF’s 39 Oryx helicopters, only 17 are serviceable.
Durban-based 15 Squadron has not a single helicopter available for search and rescue — they are reportedly primarily used as VIP transport — but two SAAF choppers supposedly have been despatched from Gqeberha to help. The SAPS airwing has only one serviceable helicopter but “the pilot on duty has been booked off sick”.
Second, throughout the province, local government is also in a state of disaster and unable to do its job. The scale of the KZN impairment can be measured in the flood destruction of homes.
Some 4,000 shanties have been destroyed, many because officialdom was too lax to forbid building on the floodplain and against precariously unstable hillsides. Another 2,000 of the homes swept away were so-called RDP houses, shoddily built during the kickback-and-steal bonanza of the government’s Reconstruction and Development Programme of the late 1990s.
In Durban, the eThekwini metro is bloated and inert. It carries a rates and services debt of R17bn, of which R1bn is owed by the national government.
Durban is also infamously corrupt. Former mayor Zandile Gumede — along with 21 co-accused — is facing fraud, corruption and money-laundering charges in connection with a R320m municipal tender.
Yet at the weekend, even as the rain was bucketing down, she won the ANC’s regional leadership contest hands-down, despite the party’s supposed “step-aside when accused” rule.
The ANC-aligned Ahmed Kathrada Foundation has no illusions about the party it supports. It issued a statement calling on the government to ensure that unlike the plundering of Covid-19 emergency relief funds, the KZN disaster funds were not stolen or misused.
Fat chance. The ANC has already announced that its parliamentary constituency offices in KZN would become “hubs for humanitarian support” and appealed for the donation of relief supplies. Watch the trousering by the ANC’s public representatives of anything that the public is dumb enough to leave with them.
It’s in KZN where the ANC’s brazen indifference to the law and antipathy towards the Constitution is at its most obvious and most destructive.
On Monday, Zuma's corruption trial once again failed to take off in the Pietermaritzburg High Court when he successfully blocked the process with another round of delaying legal actions. His lawyers also had some carefully threatening words for the judiciary in a separate Supreme Court of Appeal action.
They urged SCA President Mandisa Maya to reconsider the dismissal of his latest corruption prosecution challenges. They warned that last year’s deadly July unrest was “in part, traceable to a perceived erroneous and unjust judicial outcome” that put Zuma briefly in prison for contempt of court.
“When such conceived mistakes are committed, the citizens (wrongly) feel entitled to resort to self-help…”
Floods, fires and locusts are devastating but at least happen relatively rarely. The ANC, alas, is a seemingly unending plague.
Shot for the March 10,2013 Strobist Sunday theme " Music ".
Strobist info :
1 Multiblitz Minilite 200 1/2 power in a 16" x 55" soft box on the left.
1 Yongnuo YN 560 1/1 power in a 24" soft box on the right.
1 Yongnuo YN 560 1/1 power gelled red and pair with
1 Yongnuo YN 560 1/1 power gelled blue aim at the back ground.
Triggered with Cactus V5.
An engagement ring, taken on a black background with two Yongnuo 460ii's, both bare bulb at 1/16th power to the left and right, inline and level with the subject. Used flags on both of the speedlites to stop light hitting the background. OH, and they were triggered with PT-04 cheap radio triggers.
5 images focus stacked in Photoshop, the same setup was used for every image.
//What a disaster
William Saunderson-Meyer says the floods just another blow to a province that was already on its knees
KwaZulu-Natal has declared a provincial state of disaster to try to cope with the devastating floods of the past week.
This is normally a temporary mechanism of which the primary purpose is to facilitate speedy national government assistance to hard-pressed provincial and local authorities. It also triggers the release of emergency funds from the National Treasury.
But in KZN’s case, they might as well make it permanent. This is a province that has been on its knees for some time and it ain’t getting up any time soon.
After all, KZN hasn’t even staunched the bloodied nose it suffered nine months ago. That’s when one wing of the African National Congress government — the Radical Economic Transformation followers of former president Jacob Zuma — tried to bury the other — the so-called reformists led by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
KZN hasn’t even properly tallied the body blows it suffered then. The official estimates for the insurrection were 45,000 businesses affected, R50bn in economic damage, 129,000 jobs lost, and 354 killed.
These estimates are probably on the low side. For example, the number of people who were killed in the mayhem doesn’t include the many whose bodies were simply never found and counted.
And the true economic cost is incalculable. There’s been substantially increased emigration of minorities, cancelled investment, and the loss of international confidence in KZN as a safe tourist destination. In at least a dozen small, country towns, all the business infrastructure was destroyed, paradoxically by the very people who worked and shopped in those buildings.
Now the floods. The death toll is over 300 and still rising. Some 6,000 homes have been destroyed and road, water sewage and electrical infrastructure uprooted. As I write this, roaming mobs are opportunistically plundering container depots, stranded trucks, abandoned homes and vulnerable businesses, reportedly unhindered — as was the case during last year’s riots — by the police and army.
Naturally, no disaster is complete without a scapegoat. Ramaphosa, as is his style, was quick off the mark to finger the culprit — climate change.
“This disaster is part of climate change. It is telling us that climate change is serious, it is here,” Ramaphosa told reporters while inspecting a devastated Durban. “We no longer can postpone what we need to do, and the measures we need to take to deal with climate change.”
What balderdash. Whatever role climate change may or may not have played in the larger scheme of things, it’s nonsense to pin on it responsibility for the plight of KZN. That lies with the ANC government.
First, this was not an unforeseeable bolt from the heavens. The forecasters warned months back that this was likely to be an exceptionally wet summer because of the La Niña weather pattern that occurs every few years.
There are also historical precedents for extreme weather in KZN, which a prudent administration would have taken note of.
In 1984, Tropical Storm Domoina wreaked havoc in a swathe from Mozambique, through Swaziland to KZN. Although the current downpour is worse, the scale is nevertheless in the same ballpark.
This latest storm — as yet unnamed — dumped 450mm of rain on Durban in 48 hours. Domoina let loose 615mm in 24 hours on Swaziland and northern KZN.
But the true difference between those events, 38 years apart, lies in the lack of preparedness on the part of today’s authorities. In 1984 the SA Air Force deployed 25 helicopters to airlift people to safety. In the 2000 Mozambique floods, 17 SAAF helicopters rescued more than 14,000 people.
This time, according to a News24 report, the SA Police Service and the SAAF, combined, have been unable to put a single chopper in the air. The erosion of South Africa’s military means that of the SAAF’s 39 Oryx helicopters, only 17 are serviceable.
Durban-based 15 Squadron has not a single helicopter available for search and rescue — they are reportedly primarily used as VIP transport — but two SAAF choppers supposedly have been despatched from Gqeberha to help. The SAPS airwing has only one serviceable helicopter but “the pilot on duty has been booked off sick”.
Second, throughout the province, local government is also in a state of disaster and unable to do its job. The scale of the KZN impairment can be measured in the flood destruction of homes.
Some 4,000 shanties have been destroyed, many because officialdom was too lax to forbid building on the floodplain and against precariously unstable hillsides. Another 2,000 of the homes swept away were so-called RDP houses, shoddily built during the kickback-and-steal bonanza of the government’s Reconstruction and Development Programme of the late 1990s.
In Durban, the eThekwini metro is bloated and inert. It carries a rates and services debt of R17bn, of which R1bn is owed by the national government.
Durban is also infamously corrupt. Former mayor Zandile Gumede — along with 21 co-accused — is facing fraud, corruption and money-laundering charges in connection with a R320m municipal tender.
Yet at the weekend, even as the rain was bucketing down, she won the ANC’s regional leadership contest hands-down, despite the party’s supposed “step-aside when accused” rule.
The ANC-aligned Ahmed Kathrada Foundation has no illusions about the party it supports. It issued a statement calling on the government to ensure that unlike the plundering of Covid-19 emergency relief funds, the KZN disaster funds were not stolen or misused.
Fat chance. The ANC has already announced that its parliamentary constituency offices in KZN would become “hubs for humanitarian support” and appealed for the donation of relief supplies. Watch the trousering by the ANC’s public representatives of anything that the public is dumb enough to leave with them.
It’s in KZN where the ANC’s brazen indifference to the law and antipathy towards the Constitution is at its most obvious and most destructive.
On Monday, Zuma's corruption trial once again failed to take off in the Pietermaritzburg High Court when he successfully blocked the process with another round of delaying legal actions. His lawyers also had some carefully threatening words for the judiciary in a separate Supreme Court of Appeal action.
They urged SCA President Mandisa Maya to reconsider the dismissal of his latest corruption prosecution challenges. They warned that last year’s deadly July unrest was “in part, traceable to a perceived erroneous and unjust judicial outcome” that put Zuma briefly in prison for contempt of court.
“When such conceived mistakes are committed, the citizens (wrongly) feel entitled to resort to self-help…”
Floods, fires and locusts are devastating but at least happen relatively rarely. The ANC, alas, is a seemingly unending plague.
Took an incense stick out to the garage (my wife hates the smell) and started playing with smoke again. I haven't done this for a while, but I always enjoy it, because the results are so unpredictable. I colored the smoke in post processing with a filter from Nik Software's Color Efex Pro.
Strobist info: One YN560-II bare, camera left at 1/2 power. Triggered by a Tiny Trigger.
If you like this kind of abstract imagery, you might not hate my Smoke set .......... www.flickr.com/photos/9422878@N08/sets/72157625415055236/...
It's worth pointing out that this looks better large, and that you can see it in that enlightened manner by pressing "L" on your keyboard.
The cable to the Hall sensor is a LIYY 3x0.14 and the cable to bnc trigger and from the usb cable is a LIYY 2x0.25
Harley Quinn Mayhem #80425
Strobist: Sunpak 120J barebulb into Phottix Easy-up foldable softbox to camera left. Triggered with PT-04TM wireless trigger.
Marc at work in the darkest part of the building.
We did one more session after this, in the dripping wet hall in the background. In the end we had to leave because the light was fading and we were getting cold from the wind which had been whistling through all afternoon. The cold beers hadn't helped :-)
Strobist setup info: SB-26 and SB-900, gelled blue and CTO, at 1/4 and 1/1 power, triggered by Skyports.