So I thought I’d just collect some photos from a load of random places I visited from September to December last year. I hope someone enjoys them. I know I do.

Edinburgh

Self portrait on Royal Mile.

Scottish Parliament building.

Parkour.

Edinburgh Castle.

Sunset over Edinburgh.

Dresden

Tourists in Dresden.

Juliane in Dresdan.

Getting ready to dance with Matt Harding.

Instructions on how to dance.

Choreographed bad dancing.

Meeting Matt Harding.

Venice

On the Nieuw Amsterdam in Venice.

St. Mark’s Square.

Corfu

A temple and a family.

The Nieuw Amsterdam docked in Corfu.

Fountain rainbow.

Messina

The robotic clock in Messina, Sicily.

A huge croud for one of the most disappointing automaton display I’ve ever seen.

Turns out there’s nothing else to do in city on a Sunday.

Melbourne

Melbourne skyline.

Art. Ish.

Now this is art!

Some of these photos were taken by Juliane, with my old Canon 500D.

Passout 2011-2012

Juliane in Wolfenbuettel.

Shaggy dogs.

Luke and Juliane in Wolfenbuettel.

In the Schloss.

Resting in bed at Passout.

Fußball!

Testing camera and lighting for portrait session.

Drinks ready for midnight.

Dinner entertainment.

Decorations.

Spaghetti game.

Pinata club bash.

Pinata hat aftermath.

Pinata juggling challenge.

Big group shot.

Group shot.

Getting ready to go outside for midnight.

More drinks ready for new midnight.

Almost time…

Happy new year!

Firework dispay!

High tech pirotechnics.

Happy new year.

Hand-holding-untangling game.

The game lasted a long time.

Italians preparing drinks.

And, being a total geek about space travel, and science fiction, visiting Cape Canaveral and seeing the NASA hardware up close is a life-long goal. I had a lot of fun, despite the jet lag, and learned a lot. Actually, I didn’t learn a whole lot of new stuff, but being there put everything I already knew into context in a way that reading and watching and listening about it can never match.

Kennedy Space Center

First feature: 3D IMAX movie about building the ISS. I love these goggles.

Next: a bus tour around the launch pads and Vehicle Assembly Building.

Fuel for rockets.

The launch pad for all the Apollo missions and half the Shuttle missions.

An old model of a Shuttle Orbiter, moved to make room for a real Orbiter in the Kennedy Space Center visitor center.

Alligators!

Saturn V rocket.

This thing is waaaaay bigger than I ever imagined.

Big. Very big.

Self portrait at the Saturn V.

Space bus!

Apollo 8 rentry capsule.

Introduction to the space race.

The real Apollo space launch command center, now transplanted to the Saturn V visitor center.

Our guide, Armand.

Saturn I computer controls.

A controlled bush burn got out of control, so we had to take the long route back to the visitor center.

Another tour guide, Tom.

Shuttle Launch Simulator. This is pretty much a box that shakes you about a lot, but in a very clever way. This is an iPhone photo as you aren’t allowed to take large objects like bags or cameras inside.

Rocket garden.

Saturn V engine. Just one engine had more power than all three Shuttle engines. And the Saturn V had FIVE of them.

Rocket garden.

The Murcury capsule and the Moon.

The Moon and the Murcury capsule.

Visitor center entrance with bush fire smoke behind.

So Juliane and I hired a car for a week, and caught up with everything we wanted and needed. It’s fun to return to places I used to live, over 20 years ago. Ah… memories…

To get ready for our 5 week trip around Africa, I carried my 60D camera and Juliane carried my old 500D camera. We can swap lenses and other gear, and take photos of each other, and help each other out. As it happens, 15 of the 64 photos below were taken by Juliane, though I selected and edited them. Can you tell which ones?

UK trip – January 2012

Waiting in the airport.

Old mill in Nidderdale.

How Steen Gorge.

Statue at How Steen Gorge.

Walking down How Steen Gorge.

Bridge crossing.

Tom Tailor’s Cavern.

A barn I slept in many times as a child. That sounds strange, but I had a strange childhood.

Flooded playground in Pately Bridge.

Durham Cathedral.

Harry Potter was ‘ere.

On the roof of Durham Cathedral.

Durham Cathedral.

The Angel of the North.

Group photo at the Angel of the North.

It’s made of metal.

The Pennine Way in Teesdale.

Taking photos of waterfalls.

Taking photos of the sun.

Don’t rock the bridge!

Sheep in the sun.

I went to school here in 1989 to 1991.

It’s a very small school with only 20 pupils in two classes.

Forest of Teesdale School.

I lived here in 1989 and 1990.

Sheep!

I lived here in 1989 and 1990.

More sheep!

High Force.

Filming for the International Juggler video.

At High Force.

Danger!

Walking in the sun in Teesdale.

I lived in this house in Middleton-in-Teesdale from 1991 to 1997.

This is funny only to Germans who remember a Loriot sketch.

Or, as it happens, mis-remember a Loriot sketch.

The Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle.

I worked at this school in 1998 and 1999.

The setting of a clip from my Rocky video act.

Barnard Castle in Barnard Castle.

In Barnard Castle, a historic market town.

Barnard Castle in Barnard Castle.

When sorting through the gear in my parent’s attic, I found some juggling trophies. This is the IJA People’s Coice Award from 2004, won by me.

RIT 2005 games prizes. I’m not quite sure why I flew these trophies home.

Rae family in the car.

Uncle and niece.

Invisible nephew.

Waiting in the hospital.

Family gathering in the hospital (iPhone photo).

While in the hospital I checked my height. Turns out I’m 185cm tall. Or 6′ 1″, in old money.

Quick photo with my sister.

I ended the trip with a cruise to Barcelona and Athens.

Flying home.

But first a quick test.

In December I visited Tasmania for the first time. I only had one goal: to spot a wild platypus and take a photo. Thankfully I found a very cheap and handy bike hire place and cycled out to a small reserve near Burnie, the port where our ship had docked.

Burnie, Tasmania

A platypus! I tried taking a good photo, but this was the best I could do.

Bike ride.

Broken knife!

Thankfully this happened during a practice session, not during a show.

As I get better at photography, and share more of my photos, many people ask me what camera I use. Many photographers take this as an insult, as in “You don’t ask a good cook what oven he uses” or “You don’t ask a good pianist what kind of piano she uses…” Personally I take it as a compliment!

So I’ve decided to make a single blog post where I list all my photography gear. The above photo includes all the gear and bags I use regularly, but instead of the rest of the blog post being a boring list, I’ve decided to give it a different spin. I’m going to list my gear by how important it has been to me in the pursuit of improving as a photographer.

Why? If you are new photography, buying an expensive camera isn’t going to help. Instead you need the smaller things that most lists like this push to the end or neglect entirely.

And if you are already a pro-level photographer, and know all about gear, my choice of camera body is hardly unique. The more subtle things will explain my photography mindset far more clearly.

The most important piece of gear is the strap on my camera. It cost €12, if I remember correctly. It goes around my wrist. When I’m out and about with my camera, or at a show, or any event, my camera is in my hand.

To get better at photography, you have to take lots and lots of photographs. That’s the only way to improve! It’s not that if you hold down the shutter on burst mode one of the shots will come out great. Think about it this way: Every photo you take is a small lesson in how to do something right or do something wrong.

So if the camera is in a bag, you won’t take photos. If it is on a strap around your neck, you might pick it up in time, and get a snap, but maybe not. If the camera is in your hand, you can’t forget you have your camera with you! This wrist strap means my camera is unencumbered, and I can easily slip it off my wrist if I need to, but only if I want to. If a strap is around your neck, you can’t easily swing the camera into the right position to get fun images like this one:

My next piece of gear is software. You should buy Lightroom or Aperture before you buy a new camera or a new lens. This is obvious to anyone who has already downloaded either application.

Why?

First, if you are taking lots of photos, and remember, that is the only way to improve, it’s a real pain to sort through them manually. Spend the money on either Lightroom or Aperture, as they make sorting through even thousands of photos a complete breeze. Even if you disregard all the editing features, having an easy way to sort, select, export and archive your photos means you will be happy to take more and more.

Second, you learn a million things about photography by fiddling with the settings in Lightroom or Aperture that are impossible to explain just by pointing at the settings on a camera body.

Third, by using the editing tools you get better results than the raw images from the camera. Obviously. I take many photos knowing I’ll do an edit in Lightroom. Nothing drastic, but I know I can rely on adjusting some parts of the image later.

I have two camera bags that I use regularly, but they are only for transporting my gear between home and wherever I’m heading in the world. I love my Lowepro Slingshot for airline travel (works as a “personal item” on every airline), but these days I rarely take it with me when actually photographing. Instead I use a lens case. Sometimes two. These I can throw in my lightweight day bag, or if I know I’ll be swapping lenses often over a short period of time, I’ll attach one to my belt.

Why? Well, one of the most annoying things ever is to not have the right lens on the camera when you need it. Sure, you can use two camera bodies, but that’s overkill for the vast majority of us. I can switch lenses super quickly, doing a little routine to make sure I’m not going to drop anything, and swapping lens caps.

They weigh next to nothing. Also when I took a helicopter trip in Hawaii we weren’t allowed bags of any sort. But a case attached to my belt? Technically not a bag! With a lens case on my belt I look like a dork, but a dork who is taking lots more photos, and a dork who isn’t going to be in any of those photos, as the camera is pointing away from that dork.

This is a negative gear pick. It might sound like sacrilege, but I don’t bother with the rear lens caps if I’m swapping lenses often over a short period of time. If the environment is full of sand or volcanic ash (and this can be the case when I travel), of course I’ll make sure my lenses are sealed, and if I’m not going to use the lens again for more than five minutes. But if I’m taking photos of a juggling show? The most important part is getting the “capture”. If I’m fiddling with a rear lens cap, the chances are I’ll miss a lot. For example, I know for a fact that my telephoto lens was sitting in the lens case on my belt with no rear lens cap when I took the following photo, and Wes wasn’t about to do this a second time:

Two of my lenses are suitable for full sized sensors, and two are for cropped frame cameras. If this means nothing to you, don’t worry. Needless to say, I make sure all these caps fit on both kinds of lenses, as there is nothing more annoying than trying to fit something that doesn’t fit onto something else when you’re in a hurry.

Removing and replacing front lens caps is now such a honed action that it doesn’t slow me down at all.

Holy shit, how awesome is the GorillaPod? I used one for almost every single non-hand-held clip in my International Juggler video series. I’ve used three different sizes over the years, with different video and photo cameras, and now I’ve settled on one that is slightly too weak for my DSLR with a long lens attached, but I don’t mind that due to the weight and space savings.

There are many shots that I’ve not managed to get because I didn’t have a full size tripod with me, but an order of magnitude more photos because the Gorillapod was small and light enough to put in my pocket. It’s even light enough to leave on the bottom of my camera, while carrying my camera in my hand for a full day, and not get in my way.

I have a Manfrotto tripod, but it never leaves my home studio where I use it for video projects.

To take long exposure photos with a Gorillapod, you need to leave the camera steady when activating the shutter. I sometimes use the cable remote, sometimes use the IR remote. For self portraits, the IR remote is the only way to go, and you might as well not bother with self portrait photography until you buy one.

GorillaPod plus cable remote means you can get shots like this, and don’t have to carry a heavy tripod up the side of Yosemite Valley:

Have too much storage than you think you might need. Seriously, if you’re worried about filling up your SD cards, you’ll take fewer photos, and one of the photos you didn’t take might be one that taught you a very important lesson. I have another 4GB card, but that was in the camera I used to take the above photo.

And if you take lots of photos, storage is cheap enough these days that you can throw away nothing. Not deleting images is a blog post all of its own, but I think having lots of hard drives makes you a better photographer.

My favourite lens is the Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5. It is awesome. It’s designed for crop sensor cameras only, but that suits me fine.

Why do I like it so much? Because it’s light! I can carry this around all day, and not worry about my arm getting tired. Why else do I like it? Because it’s awesome value for money. The image quality is amazing for a lens that only cost me €600. Previously I had a cheap Tamron version, which was shit, and broke under heavy usage in under a year, but that model will probably do if you are experimenting with wide angle photography.

This isn’t the place to get into why I love a wide angle lens as my go-to walk-about lens, but once you get the hang of it, it makes for very distinctive images. With the Gorillapod and a cable remote it’s a really fun setup for landscape and nature photography. And during events you can’t get too close to any subject, or fail to get everyone in a large group in the frame.

The other lens I always carry with me is my telephoto zoom. It’s a Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS. For a start, it’s a good “budget” lens for getting in close without getting close. It only cost €500. Previously I had a cheap Tamron version, which was shit, and broke under heavy usage in under a year, but that model will probably do if you are experimenting with a telephoto zoom.

I use this for portraits, for candid photography at event (when you don’t want to get in someone’s face), for wildlife and bird photography, and almost any time I’m snapping a juggler on stage.

It’s the heaviest lens I use, which is a pity, but in this case there is just no way to compromise further in weight savings. I’d love a better telephoto zoom, and could easily afford one, to be honest. But it’s not just weight in this case. The way I treat my lenses isn’t with the greatest of care, to say the least, and I don’t mind if this lens only lasts me two years before I inevitably throw it out of a taxi by accident (a story for another blog post).

The “IS” stands for Image Stabilization. This adds an extra f-stop of low light capability to the specs. Kinda.

The camera body I use is a Canon 60D. I love it! I’m not going to go into a feature list here, as you can check out many other exhaustive reviews.

I had two versions of the Rebel-level Canon DSLR cameras, a 400D and a 500D, which are the perfect cameras when starting out. If you don’t know why you need a better camera than the current Canon Rebel (or equivalent Nikon or Sony), then you don’t need a better camera like a 60D or a 7D or a 5D mark II.

When the 7D came out, I thought about buying one. Until I picked it up. The 7D has a magnesium chassis, and was waaaay heavier than the Rebel-sized camera I was used to. A year later the 60D was announced. It had all of the features I liked in the 7D, but had a fully plastic body, which saved just over 100g.

The one feature which made me order this camera from amazon the moment it was available was the fully articulated LCD screen. I never use this for when taking photographs, but for videography it is indispensable. I video myself juggling a lot, and without the articulated screen it always took me three attempts of running backwards and forwards, testing the shot, making sure I was in the right place, etc. Now I just set the shot up as close as possible, flip the screen, and walk out to the exact right spot. Sweet.

My long considered “hey, the 60D is awesome” blog post will have to wait. I still have my Canon 500D, but it’s held together by electrical tape after accidentally throwing it out the door of a taxi. I use it as a spare body sometimes, but as it is very broken it’s hardly worth trying to sell, and as a gift it would only be a burden.

Before you buy the above lenses, buy the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8. I don’t use it much anymore, but should probably go above the other lenses in this list if you are just starting out with DSLR photography. It’s a perfect learner lens, and everyone should use one to really understand what photography is really all about. Needless to say, if you are already a pro-level photographer, you most likely already own the 1.4 and/or the 1.2 version.

If you don’t already know, it’s good for portraits and shallow depth of field:

The Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS came as the kit lens with my 500D. I use it only for video projects, never for photography, but I’m always getting video of me juggling around the world, so it is a constant companion. My 70-300 is almost always too tight to capture a video of me juggling, though it sometimes works, and the 10-22 is sometimes too wide. The 18-55 fills the gap in focal length.

That is it for my lenses!

Sharp eyed readers will be wondering “Hey Luke, if you don’t use the 18-55 for photography, what lens do you use if the 10-22 is too wide or the 70-300 is too narrow?”

The truth is that I just don’t bother. I like my photography to look different to what I can see with my eye. The reason 35mm is such a standard is that it captures what the human eye sees, or near enough, and that is why the kit lens always covers the focal lengths around that number.

I love the 10-22 because it lets me capture a wider angle than a human can, including many more details than you can get in the blink of an eye. And I love the 70-300 because it can capture any one of those details in more detail than you can with a human eye.

The 22 end of the 10-22 lens, on a crop sensor camera, is close enough to a true 35mm to me, or as close as I care for. Every time I use the 18-55 lens for regular photography, I just don’t know what to do with it! I feel totally uninspired, and when I see the results on my laptop, they look insipid. This is my failing as a photographer, I know, but I don’t take photos for anyone else. I take photos to have fun, and the more fun I have, the more other people are happy with my photos. I just don’t have fun with the 22-70mm range that is the basis of a majority of the photographic output of the majority of photographers.

If I need to capture more, I step back. If I want to capture less, I step forward. It’s more handy than changing lenses anyway, and gives my photography a distinctive look.

The telephoto lets me focus on the person having the experience, the wide angle lets me focus on the people around the experience.

If you’re unsure how well I can cover an event with just two lenses at the extremes of the focal length range, check out my previous blog post about the King Neptune Ceremony. The event lasted maybe 25 minutes, I took 166 photos and thought 70 were worth sharing. 70 out of 166 is a pretty good success rate, I think. As you scroll through you can see I swapped between my two lenses. I got loads of great reactions to these photos (a common on being “Your photos are way better than the professional photographers’ shots!” but that says more about the skill of cruise ship photographers than my own) but none of the comments were anything like “Hey, why were all of your photos either telephoto or wide angle shots, and nothing in between?”

Other equipment:

Whenever I’m anywhere interesting I geotag all of my photographs. I do this with an Amod AGL3080 GPS data logger. I attach this to my bag and it blinks every 5 seconds as it records my current location. Later I use HoudahGeo to put the gps coordinates for every photo into the metadata. I’ve yet to find a use for this data in regards to sharing it easily with other people, but it’s nice to keep track of what I took where. Some places I’ll remember where I took the photo, but street maps aren’t that handy when sailing in Antarctica, or hiking in jungle in the Amazon, or visiting other extreme locations.

My camera bags are mostly used for transporting my gear. When I’m actively taking photos, I don’t use them much (see my points above). I’ll take this slightly out of order so it makes sense.

The Lowepro Slingshot 102 (or similar) is the perfect size for holding my 60D, 10-22mm, 70-300mm, 18-55mm, 50mm, a small Gorillapod, memory cards, cable and IR remotes, Amod GPS tracker, battery charger, and 5 juggling beanbags. I always want to have the beanbags with me in case I need to get a video of me juggling while traveling. It’s a tight fit, but I like to have it all in one bag which never leaves my sight.

Also the “slingshot-ness” of the bag is good for swinging it around the body to change lenses quickly and easily.

In fact, I love the slingshot action so much that I modified my other camera bag’s straps to enable me to do the same thing. It’s a bit tricky to explain in text, so maybe I’ll make a video of the modification some day. The Cullmann Lima is a pretty sturdy backpack which is big enough to hold all my photography gear, plus my 15 inch Macbook Pro, plus has space to spare.

When I went to Oregon and California this autumn, I took only this bag, and it held everything I needed for a two week trip. My camera gear, and my laptop, and my clothes and other travel stuff. It even survived a bear attack in Yosemite National Park. I’m planning to do many more trips with so little gear in the future, including an East Africa safari trip, and it’s a joy to travel without my juggling show gear.

So when I’m not transporting gear, I just use a cheap and light day bag. This folds totally flat and fits in my other travel cases.

An even cheaper and lighter option is the drawstring bag. This rolls up and fits in a pocket!

As they take up so little space and weight, they are way more practical for day trips out and about than a camera bag. If you pad the lenses inside the bag, there’s no need to have the entire bag padded, like the camera bags above. Why have a protected pocket for memory cards or a padded compartment for your water bottle? Just chuck that stuff in the lightest bag possible. It saves on weight and bulk.

I have Canon Speedlite 580EX II Flash which is totally awesome, but I rarely travel with it, meaning that it sits unused for the majority of my photography, due to its own weight, and the weight of all the other accessories needed to use it effectively. I like using it for projects at home, or in Berlin, and plan to use it more in the future.

To go with the strobe I have various other equipment, like the FlashZebra Off Camera ETTL Cord for Canon — 7.5 Meter. And the Honl Speed Strap for attaching filters. And a set of Honl filters and gels. I have an old umbrella too, and some old stands, and some adaptors to fit it all together.

I’m listing this last because so far it hasn’t helped me become a better photographer. In fact it has kinda got in the way of me being a better photographer. It’s like a distraction. When I need it for a photo, this gear lets me get a better result for that photo, but as I don’t have it with me like the gear above, it’s not a constant help.

And I have a Flip camcorder. It comes in handy for when I want a 2 hour long video, rather than a 12 minute video (all a DSLR can manage). I’m thinking of getting a GoPro HD, but it’s hard to justify paying more for something I wouldn’t use that much.

So that’s all I want to share! Leave comments if you want, or email luke@juggler.net.

It involves judges, pirates, mermaids, doctors and nurses, and other dressing up. The band plays everyone in with a march. Then, after the cast is introduced, they march in the “pollywogs”, the crew members who haven’t crossed the equator yet.

They pollywogs are let out of the prison according to department (deck, entertainers, bar staff, front office, cast, spa, etc) and are accused by the judge (fictional crimes). Then King Neptune announces the punishment, ever more disgusting interactions with the fish (kiss, lick, suck, french kiss, lick the eye, etc). Then every pollywog is covered in dish water and goo. Finally the officers put thumbs up or down, and the pollywogs either get to wash off in the pool right away, or sit to bake in the sun.

I was asked to be a pirate, but in the end I opted to take photos. I missed the very start due to forgetting to put the battery in my camera, but had a lot of fun capturing the event. The cruise director shared the photos on the internal ship network, and it’s been very satisfying hearing all the compliments from all the crew who took part and liked my photos.

]]> http://www.lukeburrage.com/blog/archives/1445/feed 1 http://www.lukeburrage.com/blog/archives/1441 http://www.lukeburrage.com/blog/archives/1441#comments Wed, 09 Nov 2011 20:14:37 +0000 admin http://www.lukeburrage.com/blog/?p=1441
Above: New Caledonia.

I love my job! I get paid to juggle, and as a cool side effect, I get to see the world. Sometimes I see more of the world than I first expect, and sometimes I see more than I want. For example, on my next flight between ships.

I’m currently on the HAL Zaandam, sailing from Hawaii to Pago Pago, American Samoa. This takes about six days, with five days at sea in a row. That’s cool, because I had a few amazing days in Hawaii.

My schedule said I would leave the Zaandam on the 14th of November, and join the HAL Amsterdam in Sydney on the 15th. Then I’d stay on the ship in Sydney overnight, and sail out on the 16th. Shouldn’t be a problem. Right?

But someone at head office didn’t think this through, and I didn’t catch the mistake either. Not at first. I realized that due to crossing the International Date Line, I’d lose 24 hours. If I set off from Pago Pago on the 14th, I wouldn’t arrive in Sydney until the 16th. But if the flights worked out, I could still make the ship.

The flights didn’t work out. There’s good news and bad news.

Good news:

My flight from Pago Pago isn’t until 2320 on the 14th. This means instead of going directly from the ship to the airport and seeing nothing in American Samoa, I’ll be able to explore the island for the entire afternoon.

The bad news:

I have an overnight flight to Honolulu. I arrive at 0530 on the 15th.

The good news:

I have 5 hours free in Honolulu. I intentionally didn’t do any tourist stuff in the city when I was there a few days ago, instead I opted to take a bus ride to the North Shore to see Sunset Beach and the Pipeline. I thought “If I return to Honolulu, I’ll not have time to do such a trip again, but I will have time to visit Pearl Harbor.” It turns out I was correct, but I didn’t expect to return within a week.

The bad news:

A nine hour flight to Tokyo. I take off on the 15th and land on the 16th.

The good news:

My first visit to Japan! Also, according to my records, this will make Japan the 100th country I’ve ever visited, according to the Travelers’ Century Club country list.

The bad news:

I won’t have time to do anything in Japan except walk around the airport.

More bad news:

My next flight is ANOTHER overnight flight. Twice in one trip. And this is what breaks my brain: each of the three times I fly I’ll take off on one day and land the following day, but I only have two overnight flights.

The good news:

I arrive in New Caledonia at 0730 on the 17th. This means I have the whole day to do whatever I want on the island. Considering New Caledonia is a place I’ve wanted to visit for the last 20 years or so, since I first saw photos in a book about dinosaurs, I’m very happy with this development.

More good news:

Instead of spending two days at sea between Sydney and New Caledonia, I’ll be spending those days on New Caledonia. That means I get to spend two nights in the hotel, and a second full day exploring the island.

And then I’ll transfer to the ship on the 19th, probably do my show that night, but then have ANOTHER two days on various islands of New Caledonia.

From there we sail to Fiji. From Fiji I then transfer to another ship in New Zealand. Who knows what will happen during that connection. I really, really hope I get two days to do what I want in New Zealand before the ship turns up.

The bad news:

10,791 miles flown between two islands in the Pacific. How close if I could get a direct flight? Maybe 1,000 miles.

So balancing the good and the bad, I’m sure this will end positively. At least I hope this will end positively. Two overnight flights in a row is a small price to pay for unexpected adventure opportunities.

I’ll tell the story of my bear encounter at the end of this post, but for now I’ll share some photos.

It’s photos like this one that made me want to visit Yosemite. Here I am trying to imitate Ansel Adams’s famous photo of Brideveil Falls, El Capitan, Sentinel Rock and the Half Dome. Unfortunately the Half Dome was hidden by the clouds.

A photo of me not taken by me. Rare on this blog!

Unexpected blue sky.

More colour than Ansel Adams.

Tourist view of Yosemite Falls.

Oh Dear.

Trees and cliffs.

Ahwahnee hotel lounge.

Half Dome peeks through the clouds and trees. This was my first glimpse of the rock.

Mirror Lake, not so impressive when mostly empty.

Clouds at the Half Dome.

The dining room at the Ahwahnee Hotel, where I ate on of the most expensive single meals of my life. I think I paid more for the building I was in rather than the food or wine.

On Thursday morning it was raining. All morning. Until 2pm. I decided to chance a hike up the Four Mile Trail to Glacier point. If the clouds and rain held, I’d see nothing, but if I stayed in the valley I’d see nothing for sure.

As it happen, as I climbed higher, the clouds lifted higher and higher. It turned the single most magical hike of my life. At every turn the views became more impressive, and the light more and more interesting.

The non-tourist view of the Yosemite Falls.

Tree details.

The Yosemite Falls again.

Amazing clouds.

Hiking up into the snow and clouds.

And out into the clear again!

For some reason, I think Ansel Adams is to blame, I always picture Yosemite in black and white in my mind. I think it works well in photos like this too!

A park ranger had marked the path through the snow to the very top of the trail. I’m glad he had done so, as I’d never have followed the path without it. Only three other people hiked to the top of the trail that day, but that was enough so the 6-10 inch thick snow didn’t trouble me too much.

The view from Glacier Point. The Half Dome wouldn’t show itself! I was above most of the clouds, but not those around the other high points in of the valley.

The Half Dome makes an appearance!

And then the sun began to set. And it was just beautiful! These photos really don’t do it justice. You had to be there!

But as it happened, I was the last person on the trail. Everyone else was had passed me on the way down hours before, and would have already been on the valley floor.

That I was the only one to see these views first hand made the whole experience extra special.

I turned a corner, and saw the Half Dome catching the last of the evening light.

After the sun dropped below the horizon, mist began to fill the bottom of the valley.

The stars came out, and I had to use my iphone as a torch to see the path under the trees, but then I turned and saw the moon rise over Sentinel Rock. I thought the sunset and starlit valley had been amazing, but this just added an extra layer of magic on the entire hike.

I reached the valley floor, and the moon lit up the mist through the trees.

A view of the Yosemite Falls from the Swinging Bridge, as lit by star and moonlight.

Another moonlit view of the valley walls.

The view from my cabin/tent on Friday morning. The day started with fine weather which was good for my planned walk up to Vernal Falls. But bad for having the the entire path to myself for the third day in a row.

Vernal Falls.

Test shot for an “international juggler video” clip. I tried to get the rainbow on video, but I’ve not checked to see how well that worked.

Vernal Falls one more time.

Another shot of Yosemite Falls from the Swinging Bridge, this time in the sunlight.

Postcard shot of the Half Dome.

Squirrels everywhere, including on my camera bag!

El Capitan from below.

A climber on El Capitan.

So what about my encounter with a bear? It happened like this.

On Wednesday night I got to my cabin/tent thing (see above), and put out my blankets. I was pretty tired, but wanted to go through the photos of the day. My laptop gets hot while doing photo editing, so I made a little tent under my blankets and used it as a heater. That worked well!

After a while I got too tired, so turned off the light and fell asleep.

And then I woke to noises outside my cabin. First I thought it might be a raccoon, but soon the noises told me it was a bear!

I thought if I just kept quiet it would leave. But instead it came inside my cabin/tent! I was shitting myself, as it was utterly dark! I couldn’t see anything, so just curled up as small as possible on my bed and kept quite.

The info signs say that if you see a bear, you should make noise to scare it away. I would have done this right away, if I’d been fully awake, but before I thought about it, the bear was within a meter of my bed, I couldn’t see it, and it was between me and the exit. That LAST thing I wanted to do was make noises to scare a bear so close that I could have reached out and touched it. Or, more to the point, so close it could have reached out and touched me.

It turns out I had my Ritter Sport chocolate bars stashed away in my camera bag, and had forgotten all about them. I’m an idiot! So the bear dragged my camera bag outside, and routed through the open compartments (I’d taken much of my gear out, and left it totally open to let it dry, thankfully). It took the chocolate and left.

I called the camp front office, and some kind of ranger came over, and we stored my bag again properly in the locker.

And then I tried to get back to sleep. That was harder than it sounds! I’d had a close encounter with a bear. And I didn’t see it. It was exactly like a horror movie. You hear it, you know it’s close, but seeing nothing is what made it extra scary!

It had dragged my bag out from beside the very bed I slept in. It was my fault for not paying full attention to the storage of food, and I have no excuses as there are signs EVERYWHERE about leaving food outside of lockers. You can get fined and thrown out of the camp for that kind of thing.

In the morning I checked my camera bag. That was a very dirty bear! It left muddy marks all over the inside of my bag.

So concludes my Yosemite trip reporting.

]]> http://www.lukeburrage.com/blog/archives/1421/feed 2 http://www.lukeburrage.com/blog/archives/1418 http://www.lukeburrage.com/blog/archives/1418#comments Wed, 12 Oct 2011 20:37:08 +0000 admin http://www.lukeburrage.com/blog/?p=1418 I was invited to the Portland Juggling Festival. Cool, eh? You may expect loads of photos of other jugglers, and photos from the gym, and loads of photos from the main shows. But no, I was super busy hanging out, teaching workshops, getting stuff sorted for the gala show, and generally being a special guest at the convention. Also I forgot to put the battery in my camera on the Friday of the convention.

So instead of photos from the convention, I’ve only holiday snaps to share on my blog. I made the trip into a two week vacation (it’s in America, so vacation not holiday), and generally carried my camera with me to capture images and memories. I’ll share these photos in two blog posts, this one my time in Portland and San Francisco, and the following blog post will have all the photos from my Yosemite trip.

Sunrise in Berlin as I reached the airport.

San Francisco skyline from a distant hill.

I walked up the hill with Christine, a friend I’ve not seen since 2004!

In Portland, I took a long bike trip. I didn’t take so many photos as I do when walking, as my camera is never right in my hand, but if I see something worth stopping for, I will. I actually went out of my way to visit Burrage Avenue. Did I spot it on a map? Nope! Google knew I was going to Portland, I guess, and flagged up a mention of this road via a Google Alert a few days before I left on the trip. Like Eric Schmidt says “We know Google is working when it gives you information you need before you ask for it.” In this case, that’s exactly what happened.

The view from the bridge to Washington.

One aisle of the science fiction and fantasy section of Powell’s Books, the worlds largest independent bookshop in the world. It’s an impressive place!

My only photo from the Portland Juggling Festival. It shows part of the charity tshirt auction.

Rob at the Multnomah Falls.

Thom, Curt, Rob and me in front of a waterfall.

The second highest all-season waterfall in the United States. Sounds impressive? It would have been the most amazing waterfall on the entire trip, except for every single waterfall in Yosemite Valley.

A romantic place.

Smile for the camera!

Thom looking out on the end of the Oregon Trail.

Don’t jump, Robert!

Downtown San Francisco.

Pier 39.

Sea lions at Pier 39.

Sea lions and Alcatraz.

I took a trip out into the bay on a catamaran.

Alcatraz and a tourist boat. There were so many people on the sight seeing boat that when they all went to one side to look at Alcatraz, the boat tipped to starboard quite visibly. How many people on the catamaran? Five.

The Rock.

We sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge. At the same time a helicopter flew under the bridge too, but I didn’t get a photo.

I have a GPS tracker for geotagging my photos. Here’s the route we took.

Checking for dolphins. They were all over the place, and followed the catamaran for a while. I only got very bad and blurry photos.

The cat and the rock.

Test shot for an “international juggler video” clip.

Windingest road in SF.

Cable cars!

I had to give this a go. A jumped on without paying.

Inside a dome. I think this was a shopping center. I don’t remember now.

Brian, my host at the Vulcan, where I stayed for three nights in total. The Vulcan is a massive collection of artist and circus studio apartments, and is always full of interesting people doing interesting things.

Bri, my other host at the Vulcan.

A courtyard at the Vulcan.

I took a bike ride on Saturday and, as planned (though I’d forgotten why I’d planned to take the bike ride on Saturday), I bumped into the San Francisco air show.

The service plane for the Blue Angels.

These guys are nutters.

Whoosh!

To the bridge!

Test shot for an “international juggler video” clip.

The other side of the bridge.

Borderlands, a science fiction and fantasy bookshop in the Mission District. Great for nerding out!

So that’s all for what I got up to in the cities. I had a lot of fun, though these photos only sum up a small part of it.

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