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Photo of the Day October 2011

TheDrift- said:
One from me, this is an old grave yard that has been turned into a public park all the graves are at least 100 years old and all the old gravestones have been stacked up agaist a wall in the park


graves by Shaun Wilkinson Photography, on Flickr
Click to expand...
Interesting photo, but the rational of moving the headstones escapes me.

I live near Western State Psychiatric Hospital, an institution that pre-dates statehood here in Washington. The old grounds are preserved as a historical site and the city of Steilacoom has been able to make room for soccer fields, bike trails and a dog park while preserving several barns and the cemetery. The barns date to when the hospital was a self-sufficient farm. The cemetary has been a project for an orginization of historians and hospital staff (not Admins...) called Grave Concerns that has been working to replace the old numbered markers with proper headstones. The people who had no recorded place of burial are represented by several mass markers like this one.


Dale
 
derwentwater.jpg
 
I could use a little C&C with this one... I was playing with a new ND8 filter, and I was surprised to see that I had a hard time getting my pictures turning out as sharp as I would like. I was using a Nikkor 16-85, tripod mounted, with VR turned OFF. It was a little windy so I could have been getting some shake from that. I also had the two second shutter delay enabled so depressing the shutter wouldn't affect the image. Any ideas why I couldn't get it nice and sharp? Thanks in advance!
RMM_1553.jpg
 
rymack said:
I could use a little C&C with this one... I was playing with a new ND8 filter, and I was surprised to see that I had a hard time getting my pictures turning out as sharp as I would like. I was using a Nikkor 16-85, tripod mounted, with VR turned OFF. It was a little windy so I could have been getting some shake from that. I also had the two second shutter delay enabled so depressing the shutter wouldn't affect the image. Any ideas why I couldn't get it nice and sharp? Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

I'll be interested in what the experienced ND users have to say. My guess is that they'll say to be sure to use manual focus, as the dark image may confuse the auto focus system.
 
rymack said:
I could use a little C&C with this one... I was playing with a new ND8 filter, and I was surprised to see that I had a hard time getting my pictures turning out as sharp as I would like. I was using a Nikkor 16-85, tripod mounted, with VR turned OFF. It was a little windy so I could have been getting some shake from that. I also had the two second shutter delay enabled so depressing the shutter wouldn't affect the image. Any ideas why I couldn't get it nice and sharp? Thanks in advance!
RMM_1553.jpg
Click to expand...

Anchor your tripod down with something, little movements over a long exposure will have great effects.
Ensure your tripod is tightened up everywhere, reducing all the legs helps (this also helps you incorporate sky into your shots if that's what you're after).

As mentioned, manual focus could work, with the help of live-view.
Or simply take the filter off when autofocusing.

Also, looking at the EXIF, it says you took the shot at f/36.
This is well into diffraction territory (it will make your images soft), you should stop at around f/11 (or f/16 if absolutely necessary).
 
Last edited:
mtbdudex said:
Remember this movie?
My dad had a cb radio in our custom family full size van, we'd go for 3 week vacations in the 70's and chatter away on it, what a craze that was.
I still feel the chill go up/down my spine listening to this song....
Click to expand...

Remember it? Heck I wasn't even born yet! :D

My obsession with trucking started very young, when I started playing my dads records and came across the trucking songs. A couple decades later and I still love those songs, and I love my job.

This is what I wake up to almost every Monday morning:

sunrise.jpg
 
mtbdudex said:
I like your picture.
The gravesites also were moved? This all seems creepy somehow to me.
Click to expand...

Designer Dale said:
Interesting photo, but the rational of moving the headstones escapes me.
Click to expand...

Nope the graves are all still there, you inspired me to look up a bit about the history of the place.

The other green open space in Louth is known as the Old Cem. On the north side of the river, it is the site of Louth’s first church, St Mary’s and its grave- yard. The building is long gone, without trace, but the graveyard continued to be used. So much so in fact that by the nineteenth century former interments were being dug up, and bones put into a pit, to make room for new burials. It is said that the ghostly sound of the sex- ton’s squeaky wheelbarrow full of bones can still be heard. The Old Cem was finally superseded by the public cemetery on London Road in 1855.
In recent years the gravestones were moved and stacked in ranks (much to the frustration of family historians) to create an open grassy area with a footpath across. Fortunately, a record was made of some of the epitaphs – here are a couple:
‘In this place are deposited the remains of Thomas Mason Surgeon who departed this life August 5th 1815 aged 25
Stranger or friend, here stop and shed thy tears over the tomb of departed use- fulness: his sun of life had scarcely beamed into meridian splendour, and was shedding its peculiarly vivifying influence around ’ere it was obscured by a dark and fearful cloud. Alas it has set prematurely in the grave, Reader, let this impress thee with the uncertainty of human life: depart then and improve the short space thou has left in doing all the good thou canst’.
They don’t write them like that any
more.

Personally i think its a it of a shame, they moved the old headstones, especially considering the age of the place, the church on that site was built around 1170 so if people were buried there from the start, it contains a lot of history!
 
TheReef said:
Anchor your tripod down with something, little movements over a long exposure will have great effects.
Ensure your tripod is tightened up everywhere, reducing all the legs helps (this also helps you incorporate sky into your shots if that's what you're after).

As mentioned, manual focus could work, with the help of live-view.
Or simply take the filter off when autofocusing.

Also, looking at the EXIF, it says you took the shot at f/36.
This is well into diffraction territory (it will make your images soft), you should stop at around f/11 (or f/16 if absolutely necessary).
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tips! I closed the aperture as much as possible to help keep my shutter open as long as I could. Next time I'll try it at f/11 when its a bit darker out as well.

Here is another shot from the same series I took yesterday.

RMM_1547.jpg
 
Last night I went to a new music school with a stage in the backyard. They had a bluegrass band playing for the first show on the new stage.

Beware the band...

IMG8836-XL.jpg
 
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