This coming summer is going to be the first in a long time that I am mot going to be going to camp for the summer. It is kind of bittersweet to think about. I know that I will miss camp but I think that it will be nice to have a real summer off and be able to spend time with my wife, my family, her family, our new house, and just relax a little.

As part of the plans for this summer, we have a couple trips planned including time in Israel, Hawaii, Moab, and probably various other camping excursions.  Of course on all of these adventures I will have my cameras with me but I am hoping to be able to do most of the traveling without taking my laptop all over the place.  Why? Well, for most of what I need to be able to do on a daily basis i can do on my iPad, and it is a lot smaller and easier to travel with.  However, the iPad is limited in what it can do with photos, and all things considered, it can’t store all the photos that I will take over the summer.  Of course the other big issue is the fact that I shoot exclusively in RAW, which means huge files and not the best editing software for iPad.  So, how do I travel and take home all the images?

I have been looking into various solutions to solve the storage and organizational products and software. In my searching I came across the various offerings from Sanho. Currently the device that has my interest piqued is the Sanho HyperDrive Colorspace UDMA2. I read about it on another photo blog and decided to check it out.  It is basically a housing for a 2.5″ hard drive that has various card readers built in.  Since the iPad can’t directly work with a CF card reader (not enough power) having a way to download CF cards on the go is a must.  The Colorspace UDMA2 can also connect to the iPad via wireless networking.  The drive can even create it’s own wifi network for sharing with tablets and computers.  For faster transfers it can be connected via USB to a computer.  The Colorspace UDMA2 comes either without a drive, or in various drive sizes.  If you are tech savvy and don’t mind dissembling the device and installing your own drive, you can save lots of cash over buying it with a drive pre-installed.

Of the other options from Sanho are two versions of the iUSBport.  The basic version of the iUSBport is relatively inexpensive and can share just about any USB storage device via wifi.  As with the Colorspace UDMA2, it can either connect to an existing network or create it’s own.  This device can power a CF card reader and thus would allow for download of CF cards to an iPad.  However if I wanted the security of backing up photos to a hard drive I would have to download the card to the iPad, then connect a hard drive to the iUSBport and copy the images back to the drive.  On the go, that is probably less than ideal, but since I own all the needed hardware (HDD, card reader & iPad) all I would have to do is buy the iUSBport.  It supports connections via FTP or it has an app for your tablet or smartphone.  I suppose I could also use it to download a card and then I could upload that card to my Copy account where I have plenty of storage for a trip or two.

The second version of the iUSBport is the iUSBportCAMERA. It has all the functionality of it’s predecessor AND it can connect to your camera and allows for wireless tethered shooting.  You can control focus, and other camera settings, trigger the shutter release, and view the images you take, as you take them.  I have been looking for a way to shoot tethered to my iPad!  The iUSBportCAMERA is the most expensive option.

Of course on the other hand, I could just travel with my laptop, but I don’t want to be “that guy” who sits in front of the computer on vacation. I am certainly not going to do any major editing on vacation, maybe just some posts to Facebook and such.  Being able to download memory cards and back them up quickly so that I can go on shooting is the goal. Being able to get images on to my iPad will be useful and allow me to back up to cloud storage as well.

As I move through the process, get a device and create a workflow, I’ll be sure to post my thoughts!

Howl at the Moon!

So, what is a Pathtag? Well, it is a custom designed tag that is minted about the size of a quarter. They have become very popular in the world of Geocaching as people use them for signature trade items. Unlike geocoins and travel bugs, pathtags are not trackable items, they are collectible items, if you find one in a cache, you can keep it (though you should trade some swag for it as is geocaching courtesy). Tag owners also trade tags with eachother both in person and via the online trading system at pathtags.com.

Whats the big deal? Why do we care? Well, I have just received my order of my first pathtag design. I had to go with my signature, the wolf, and frankly, I have to say, it turned out quite well.  The image to the right is the “blueprint” image of my tag.  This is the image that is displayed in the gallery and it was used to create the molds for minting my tag. I was so excited by the design that I actually came up with a couple others that could eventually make a series if the money permits.

Since my tag hit the gallery I received quite a number of trade requests.  I have to say, I am doing what I can to keep the USPS in business.  I was able to package up and mail almost 40 tags since receiving my order. I even have trades that are going overseas to places like Germany and Poland! I had to go buy more stamps to get this mess sent out.

Outbound pathtag trades!

I have managed to get all of my trade request filled, in one swoop of outgoing mail. Fun use of the new Global Forever stamp! Now I will have to take some time to browse the galleries and see if there are trades that I would like to make with people.  Heck, there are even people who have my tag on their wishlist already.

If you are a pathtagger and want to trade, let me know. If you are a geocacher in the Utah area, you may start to see my tags pop up in caches. After some summer travels you may even find my tags overseas (if all goes well). I may also be willing to send a few tags to some blogger friends, but you have to ask nicely! It will be fun for me to see all of the places that my tags end up being found and logged!

Happy hunting!

My finished pathtag next to a dime to show scale. Looks pretty cool!

First 20SB Postcard arrival!

Here it is, the first arrival from the 20SB Postcard Exchange. It’s a classic Sci-Fi card to boot, cool. I was starting to get worried that I was not going to receive any cards after I sent out all of mine.  This one came in from Catherine over at SaidtheCat. According to her card I even have something on my blog that was of interest! How great is that? She also used a pretty cool stamp, but overpaid for postage by about 45¢. Since my wife has been working on her 365 Days of Postcards project, I am fairly familiar with domestic mail rates.

Postcards and letters are what connected me with another blogger who has turned into a great friend and trusty penpal. All things considered, if any of my Poscard Exchange partners are interested in continuing to correspond by mail, I certainly would write back!

I have said this many times in letters and on this blog, but I think that sometimes we lose touch with some of the “real-ness” of people in this age of email and text messages. There is really nothing that beats the excitement of receiving mail and the thought that has to go into composing it.  Plus, handwriting is so much more personal.  And of course in a situation like this where you are anxiously awaiting the arrival of mail that you know is coming, it is so much fun.

I hope that my other post cards have found their way to their destinations. If you are interested in writing to me, use my work address as I may be moving in the near future!

Reverse of the postcard from Catherine.

Some magicians never reveal their secrets, but for the impressive scene shift that we execute in Pioneer Theatre Company’s production of Clybourne Park, we decided to show it off.  So, as both a technician and the staff photographer I kind of had my hands in the whole process and now have a cool time-laps video to share.

For those who don’t know the show, Clybourne Park, by Bruce Norris, was written as a response/”sequel” to Lorraine Hansburry’s classic: A Raisin in the Sun.  Clybourne Park picks up the story in 1959 in the home that the Younger family is purchasing. Actually only moments after the ending of A Raisin in the Sun.  The first act of the play deals with the family moving out of the house and the community reaction to the fact that a black family will be moving in.

In the second act, we skip forward to 2009. The neighborhood has become primarily black and a white family is moving in.  They plan to demolish the house and build a new one since the cost is almost the same as renovation.  They run into issues with the community when their designs call for a house that is 15 feet taller than the old house.  Let’s just say that things go downhill from there.

So, in the scene shift from Act I to Act II we have a house that has to age 50 years.  It goes from clean and new to run down, vandalized, and falling apart.  If you go to see the show you won’t see the shift as it happens behind a curtain (for theatrical effect), but we are bringing it to the light so that people understand what goes into it.  The scene shift takes a static box set, and in 12 minutes, the crew manages to age it 50 years.  Through some tricks of film and photography we are able to compress that down even more, into a 2 minute video clip.

I set the video to three different pieces of music, if you want to see the others, they are on my website. I would love to know which one people prefer!

Enjoy the theatre magic!

Well my postcards for the 20SB postcard exchange are ready to mail (along with at least one extra). Thanks to the recent postage rate increase, the domestic cards get a healthy three stamps to get to the $0.33.  I have to go over to the post office for the international ones because the rate has gone from $0.85 to a whopping $1.10.  However, there is now a global forever stamp that I intend to pick up because these international post cards are not the only international mail I will have going out in the coming weeks.  Plus it is kind of a cool looking round stamp!

I really did fill up the fountain pen to write all the post cards, though I have to say, that was an adventure.  My refillable cartridge had worked it’s way loose so that as I filled, the whole front of the pen fell off and went for a swim in my ink bottle.  Thanks to a long handled pair of forceps I was able to extract the pen from the ink without making a huge mess of my desk or pouring out the ink.  A quick rinse and then a second attempt at filling and I was on my way to writing.  I do still have ink on my fingers though…

Postcard fronts, from the postcard excahnge

The array of postcards that I am sending out comes from a collection called “Postcards from Penguin.” They are all book covers from classic books.  I thought it was kind of appropriate to use something like that to send to bloggers. I didn’t pick any special covers, just as they came out of the box, so there is no meaning to who ends up with which cards.  They are pretty cool though.

Writing to someone you really don’t know anything about feels like a real challenge at first.  Then you realize that all your are trying to do is fill a tiny postcard, and by the time you realize that, there is no more space left to write.  I suppose I am also pretty good at filling up space with a whole lot of nothing. Maybe not nothing to some people, who knows. I did actually look at the blogs of my exchange partners to at least try to find something intelligent to say.  I am not sure that I will win any writing awards for them cards though.

Post cards, ready to mail!

So, with my postcards written and ready to mail, I shall head over to the post office today, pick up my stamps and send them on their merry way.  Hopefully that means that within a day or two they will start arriving at their destinations. The geocacher in me wishes that I had a travelbug stamp that I could track them with, but I don’t.  In any case, it will be fun to hear when they show up at their destinations!