Music Monday: Bruce Adolphe
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: raw files are superior to jpeg. It is rather disappointing to be photographing and realize the camera is only recoding jpegs. That is what happened during this shoot. Enough on that.
Perhaps best known for his weekly Pianno Puzzlers segment on NPR’s Performance Today, Bruce Adolphe recently played in Fairbanks. Piano Puzzlers, as his website describe, “…Adolphe at the piano, playing folk tunes and popular songs in the styles of famous Classical composers,” was played with live contestants in the studio for the first time ever on Alaska Live, at KUAC.
All three contestants got the answers right, check out the puzzlers, fun conversations, and great piano playing in a series of two podcasts.
Bruce Adolphe, host of Piano Puzzler, warms up before playing for conetestants.
Bruce Adolphe chats with contestant April Jaillet.
Rough-legged Hawk
It’s May 18, and it snowed in Fairbanks again today. Lovely fall weather we’re having. Such dramatic weather must be hard on wildlife. There has been some crazy bird spectacles, as reported by the Fairbanks News-Miner.
This included, to the best of my knowledge, a Rough-Legged Hawk hanging around Farmers Loop Rd. I got a few opportunities to photograph it, though nothing spectacular it was good practice in an area I have little experience.
A Rough-Legged Hawk hung around Farmers Loop Rd for a few days early in May, 2013.
Spot News: Mobile-Home Fire
While stopped for gas a few weeks ago I noticed a stream of firetrucks head north out of Fairbanks. Being the direction I was headed I kept an eye out, spot news relies largely on chance, and I had a feeling I would find some. Sure enough about 3 miles up the road a column of smoke was rising high above the tree line.
A mobile home in a residential neighborhood had caught fire. Luckily no one was injured.
The sun is obscured by smoke rising from a fire in a residential neighborhood.
Firefighters battle flames from a mobile home April 30, 2013.
Smoke spews out of a mobile home off Rainbow Drive, north of Fairbanks.
Music Monday: Steve Brown and the Bailers, Howling Dog performance
Any regular followers may have noticed a lack of posts the last seven days. It was my final week of undergrad, and wanted to make sure I finished everything I needed to graduate. Now that school’s over, it’s time to get back in the postings. Today will be a brief post of my favorite local band, Steve Brown and the Bailers, who were recently featured in UAF’s bi-yearly publication Aurora. The Spring 2013 printing also features a good article about the state of journalism in Alaska, a fun info sheet about the Equinox Marathon, and a two-page spread with my photo of UAF’s Research Vessel Sikuliaq.
The article about Steve Brown and the Bailers highlights their national successes, and offers a little insight into how their name came about. Hint: it had to do with unreliable band members.
The following photos are from a performance they gave July 28, 2012, at the uniquely-Alaskan Howling Dog Saloon. Photographically, one of the best things about the Howling Dog is the plethora of memorabilia plastered on walls.
Low-flying planes be damned, this band will play on.
Enthusiastic dancers always enjoy the Bailers.
Guest artist Caitlin Warbelow, left, joined a few songs with some impressively-frantic fiddle.
Bicycle Beat: Welcome to Winter, Spring.
Crazy Fairbanks weather continues. That didn’t deter some friends and I from doing an art-show bike on Friday, May 3.
Such an important part of photography is taking pictures of everything. I find it an important way to sharpen the eye and make sure my camera’s settings will give me a well-rendered file. The green fence caught my eye, and the complementary color of the red for-sale sign was enough reason for a quick stop.
Green Fence with for-sale sign, May 3, 2013.
Wind and cold soon swept in snow, which fell in large, heavy clumps. Truly spring with a twist.
Snow falls May 3, 2013 in Fairbanks, Alaska.
Spring is also a chance to see what winter left behind. This is most evident in the trash that manifests on roadsides after being forgotten under a blanket of snow all winter. Fairbanks has a community clean-up day, when scores of volunteers take to the streets with bright yellow trash bags helping make the Golden Heart of Alaska clean again. Not uncommon, clean-up day 2013 had to be postponed, and is now scheduled for May 11.
I don’t know what happened for this bike beside the path to become utterly destroyed, but it must not have been enjoyable for the rider.
A beat-up, rusty bike lays along side a bike path in Fairbanks, Alaska.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Culture, Turkey Tail.
The Weekly Photo Challenge, that’s almost over, is culture. While the example is the culture of a specific society, culture has many more meanings. I’m choosing a very literal meaning of culture, the verb, according to merriam-webster online: “the act or process of cultivating living material in prepared nutrient media.”
My culture is a fungus growing in its specific environment. Trametes Versicolor, due to it’s shape and common color patterns, is often called Turkey Tail. Here it grows on a tree in Oregon.
Bicycle Beat: Munching Moose and a May Day Sun Dog
“Bicycle Beat” is an idea I have wanted to start for some time. And until recently was hindered by winter. Bicycle Beat is my reporting from a bicycle. I have often felt bike riding is the ultimate way to capture great photos. Unlike driving, stopping and turning around is almost instantaneous, and it’s much easier to spot interesting subjects traveling 10 mph rather then 50. Consequently, also much faster then walking, greatly expanding the range of your photographic canvas. Also important is inconspicuous. You draw a lot more attention stopping a car then a bicycle.
I went for a very brief 3-mile bike ride last night and in the short time happened upon two photo-worthy subjects. It’s been a very testy spring in Fairbanks, with multiple inches of snow the last week of May. Greenhouses are opening despite unavailable exterior space. One of them is Plant Kingdom.
Mayday! A sundog is visible on May Day. A sundog is an atmospheric reaction when light deflects off ice crystals in the air, producing a halo effect. They are common to cold weather.
The snow and cold on May 1, producing a sundog, mixed with the open Plant Kingdom sign, is a significant juxtaposition.
A sundog is frames the Plant Kingdom sign on May 1, 2013. It has been one of the coldest springs on record in Interior Alaska.
I slung my camera around my neck and hopped on my bike, only to travel another half-mile before finding another photo.
While I may have stopped a car to take the sundog picture, I never would have seen this young moose right off the bike path. Maybe 15 yards away, it would have been a great opportunity to get a wide-angle shot of a moose. Having a zoom lens however, my first instinct was to zoom in as close as possible. Probably 2 or 3 years old, I did make sure no mother moose was visible before shooting.
A moose munches off Farmers Loop Rd.
