The medal podiums stand ready for the games begin at the NCSU College of Veterinary Medicine's annual Dog Olympics on Saturday, 10 September 2011 in Raleigh, NC.
On Saturday I found myself surrounded by dogs of all forms at North Carolina State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine campus. I had hoped to post my images from the Dog Olympics sooner but a gallery will be up by Wednesday afternoon!
We’re kicking off a big holiday weekend here in the U.S., so beginning today and extending through the Fourth of July all personally-printed and signed photographs at my store, Light’s Edge Prints, are on sale at 25% off if you use the code “fireworks” at the final checkout screen in the shopping cart. Enjoy your weekend!
A pallet of my books rolls off of the truck and into the Faulconer Gallery's loading dock on Friday, June 3, 2011 in Grinnell, Iowa.
Last Friday marked the beginning of reunion weekend at Grinnell College and also the arrival of 2,000 copies of A Portrait of Grinnell: The Architecture and Landscape of Grinnell College. Their arrival was somewhat unexpected: I had resigned myself to a delayed shipment that would miss reunion weekend and the 1,100+ people registered to congregate in the middle of the cornfields of Iowa. Of course Friday had to be the hottest day during that entire week, with temperatures spiking to 90 degrees, but with a little lot of help from my friends the books made it from the loading dock at the Faulconer Gallery to the shelves of the Grinnell College Bookstore (641.269.3424) and Saints Rest Coffee House (641.236.6014).
Without Lesley Wright’s generosity the books would not have had such a convenient loading dock to come home to, nor would two pallets of the books have such a nice climate-controlled home for the next year. A chance encounter with Russ Motta, Grinnell’s most gregarious security officer, gave me the opportunity to deliver books to Saints Rest Coffee House in a pickup truck with a professional hand-truck delivery man. Motta said that in a past life he worked for a beer distributor: he loaded that hand truck down and never once bumped into anything, and it was amazing.
The delivery on Friday meant that we were able to hold a book signing on Saturday after all. Thanks to Meg Jones Bair for getting posters out!
Bekka Merrill and Emily Zdyrko rounded out the team with their loading, dragging, and unloading 40 more boxes of my books onto a large cart headed to the Grinnell College Bookstore. By the time all was said and done I think everyone was ready for a break…and a lot of water!
Alumni page through my book during the book signing at the Grinnell College Bookstore on Saturday, June 4, 2011 in Grinnell, Iowa.
A box of ten books from Hong Kong waits for me to open it on the living room floor in Durham, N.C.
This morning the doorbell rang and Elizabeth greeted the driver from FedEx who was holding a box of ten of my books. The other 2,000-odd copies of A Portrait of Grinnell: The Architecture and Landscape of Grinnell College will set sail on 2 May. I was too anxious to wait another month until 30 May when they get trucked into Grinnell, Iowa to see how they turned out. I am both relieved and elated by how good they look! I simply couldn’t travel to China to oversee the printing, so it is wonderful to see that this new printing is faithful to the original and the updates, while subtle in most cases, certainly enhance a book I was already proud to call my own.
Both Saints Rest Coffee House (641.236.6014) and the Grinnell College Bookstore (641.269.3424) will begin accepting pre-orders soon. Note that these are the only two official stores for this book. I’ve seen the odd (used) copy on Amazon, but at astoundingly–and amusingly–high prices. The recommended retail price remains $29.95. I was very happy that we were able to maintain the price from 2006. In an age when the price of everything seems to be going up, it’s nice when some things stay the same!
Also, as a thank-you for purchasing the book, the first 125 copies sold at each store will contain a special promotional code for 30% off my personally-printed and signed photographs of Grinnell College ordered at my other Web site, lightsedgeprints.com!
A copy of A Portrait of Grinnell rests on shredded paper used to cushion the bubble-wrapped stack (left) during their flight from Hong Kong. The books traveled 41.5 hours to get from Hong Kong, China to Durham, N.C.
Matted prints of Grinnell College ready for sale, as well as a couple ready to be mounted in the catch basket, Durham, N.C.
I’ve hinted for a couple weeks that big changes are happening at our little house in Durham, North Carolina. For the past two weeks I’ve been furiously printing some of my best photographs of Grinnell College in anticipation of commencement and my five-year reunion. I’ve gone through a box of Ilford Gold Fibre Silk as well as my ever-reliable roll of Epson Luster. So lately I’ve been dusting off my skills at cutting down matte and foam board to matte 24 8×10″ prints, 12 11×14″ prints, as well as some 12×18″ and panoramic photographs. And before sending it all out, I’m trying to give them all SKU codes as I learn Quickbooks Pro‘s inventory system on-the-fly for my new business. Gotta keep it legit for the IRS…it is that time of year after all!
What’s that about a new business? Well, it’s not completely off the ground yet, but I’m becoming a limited liability company in the state of North Carolina. I’ve been a sole proprietor since 2006 and while it has been fun, it was time for a change. When it takes effect, this Web site will go through a few changes, and a new domain name will become the primary, although I have no intention to give up david-kennedy.com.
The dust jacket for the reprint of A Portrait of Grinnell
Furthermore, I contacted Regent Published Services, Ltd., the company that printed A Portrait of Grinnell: The Architecture and Landscape of Grinnell College in 2006, to get a quote for printing 2,000 copies. The book has been out of print since 2008, but will be back on the shelves by the end of May 2011. I’m frustrated because I’ll miss commencement by only two weeks, but the book will be stocked in time for reunion. I’ll have information for those interested in pre-ordering soon.
A futon became a printer: back when my office was Elizabeth's guest bedroom, this futon made a little more sense. It's for sale if anyone in the Triangle is in the market!
I’ve ramped up production of prints because I finally have a photo printer at my home office. Choosing a printer was a key business decision: while making prints is something I enjoy and am quite skilled at, I know many talented photographers who find the art of printing to be more than vexing. Making prints for other photographers will be part of my business model, so I needed something fairly large. Unfortunately, this meant that the futon in my office (that was a good “guest bed”) simply had to go!
In my custom print store I plan to offer a variety of gloss and matte papers that most online printers simply don’t carry, like Gold Fibre Silk and Entrada Rag. I don’t intend to be the next Mpix–I won’t make prints on the side of coffee mugs or canvas wraps. Nor will I even attempt to compete with FedEx Office and make signage or banners. Instead, I’ll cater to serious photographers who would like to have direct contact with the person making the prints either for their clients or their personal portfolios. And as of March 17, 2011, when I looked out the front door to see FedEx Freight show up in our narrow street, I’ll be able to make those prints on rolls of paper up to 44 inches wide using a Hewlett-Packard Designjet Z3200 Photo printer!
Photos after the jump! Read the rest of this entry »
My third attempt at "No Knead Bread" yielded this beautiful, rustic boule. | Canon 5D Mk. II and 100mm f/2.8 Macro lens | Exposed 1/100 sec. @ f/2.8, ISO 100 | 580EX II and 550EX Speedlites triggered with Canon ST-E2 Transmitter.
Over the past couple of months, Elizabeth and I have been working on a project together: a combined cooking, gardening, and home improvement blog that we’ve named With One Cat in the Yard. Today I posted about making Jim Lahey’s No-Knead Bread (aka No-Work Bread), which was popularized in a Mark Bittman column in The New York Times in 2006, and I thought I would cross-post it formy readers here. Our new project is certainly not a photography blog–I’ve included the technical details for the photos in this post, but you won’t find them at With One Cat in the Yard–but I hope everyone will take a look. More to come!
I’m in my third week of attempting to make good bread. I’ve always enjoyed crusty bread, but I’ve never found the price of five dollars for a boule to be particularly attractive, so I rarely buy it.
Elizabeth suggested trying a recipe that inspired many food bloggers a few years ago: Jim Lahey’s “No Knead Bread” featured in Mark Bittman’s column in The New York Times. The recipe became so popular that publishers perceived a demand for a book, so Lahey wrote My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method to further explain his method and offer variations. Both Lahey and Bittman emphasize that the process is so simple that a child could make it happen, although I don’t think my mom ever would have trusted me to drop dough into a 450° F stock pot and put it back inside an oven. Sometimes I wonder why anyone would trust me to do that now.
The wet, sticky dough after its first rise (overnight). | Canon 5D Mk. II and 100mm f/2.8 Macro lens | Exposed 1/200 sec. @ f/11, ISO 100 | Canon 550EX Speedite triggered with 580EX II Speedlite on "Master."
My first effort was not completely successful, nor was my second, but the third was just right. I was skeptical that I could make a loaf of bread worthy of an artisan bakery, but lo and behold, it’s not only possible, but has quickly become one of my new favorite breads. Not only does it look amazing and have a satisfying, crackling crust, it’s also pretty tasty. Now, it’s not the best, most flavorful bread ever, but it does have a faint sourdough flavor of which I am quite fond (on account of the lengthy fermentation period) and it’s fantastic for dipping in soup, olive oil, or as sandwich bread.
The basic recipe is stunningly simple: three cups of bread flour, one and a half cuts of water, one and a quarter teaspoon of salt, and a quarter teaspoon of yeast are briskly mixed together in a bowl and then left alone overnight: at least 12 hours, but extra time does seem to yield better results. While the original recipe calls for 1 and 5/8 cups of water, the video on the Web site and also the recipes I found on several other blogs all called for one and a half cups, and indeed that seemed to work well. After the lengthy first rise, the dough is rolled into a ball, allowed to rise again, and then baked in a pot inside of a conventional oven at 450° F. This creates a “fake oven,” as Lahey refers to it in the aforementioned video, meaning that it simulates the steam-injected ovens found in professional bakeries. The moisture of the dough is trapped within the pot and circulates throughout, ensuring a crisp crust.
Note: the recipes I follow are at the end of the post!
No Knead Bread in a cast iron Dutch oven. | Canon 5D Mk. II and Zeiss 85mm f/1.4 ZE Planar T* lens | Exposed 1/40 sec. @ f/2, ISO 1600.
For my first few loaves I used Elizabeth’s hard-anodized, eight-quart stock pot. The current thinking is that anywhere from three to five quarts is just about “right” for No Knead Bread. (The original recipe called for a six to eight quart pot.) Combined with our concern that such high temperatures for an hour and fifteen minutes might deteriorate the non-stick coating, I purchased a Lodge five-quart cast iron Dutch oven on Amazon.
However, the sticking point to this bread–literally–is not the equipment needed, but the second rise of the dough. After a few attempts, I believe I’ve found an effective alternative to the original recipe. I offer you my experiences with this bread so that you can learn from my mistakes and quickly get to the point: great bread at a great price with relatively little effort.
Canon 200-400mm f/4L IS Lens with built-in 1.4x TC | Photo from dpreview.com
For years now Nikon has had one lens that makes nature photographers who use any other brand salivate: the Nikkor 200-400 f/4 VR lens. Well, evidently Canon listened to all the complaints–or realized they could make a killing–and they have come up with their own 200-400 with an interesting trick up its sleeve: a built-in 1.4x teleconverter (I imagine that explains the “hump” on the side of the lens barrel).
No word on what size hole it will leave in your wallet, but it is supposedly shipping this year. Canon made a similar announcement last fall for the development of new 500mm and 600mm lenses, and today Canon has released weights for each (both reduced, the 600mm dramatically so compared to the original 60mm f/4L IS). However, it’s the 200-400 that really has my attention. I’ll try to get on the list at CPS to test one as soon as they start shipping.
To my mind, the biggest question is will this new lens accept teleconverters? Sure, it has a 1.4x built in, but can you put a 2x teleconverter on it so it becomes a 400-800mm f/8? Or stack another 1.4x with the internal teleconverter engaged to have a similar 392-784mm f/8 range? (I mention the latter option because it’s at least possible the image quality would be higher.)
At present, the longest lens I own is the 400mm f/4 DO IS. It’s light-weight, extremely compact, and with a little toning the images that it produces are stellar. The lens remains sharp with a 1.4x TC (560mm f/5.6) and with proper technique I’ve made good images with the 2x teleconverter (800mm f/8). Hell, I’ve even stacked teleconverters, although the quality declines noticably at that point. When I heard about the 200-400mm f/4, the first question that popped into my head was whether this would be the lens that replaces the 400mm DO. If it can accept teleconverts, I’d hedge my bet that the answer is “probably.”
But for those who simply want a walk-about zoom lens, there’s already a surprisingly good alternative to the 400mm DO, albeit a stop slower. Last fall, Artie Morris began posting about using the new 70-200mm f/2.8L IS Mk. II with the 2x teleconverter to make a 140-400mm f/5.6 zoom, and I tested the combination myself and was duly impressed.
For a lot of wildlife photography, the new 70-200mm with a 2x, combined with a standard telephoto (400mm, 500mm, 600mm, etc.) will pretty much “do it all.” Does that mean that a dedicated 200-400mm zoom is even necessary anymore–that Canon missed its window of opportunity? Alternatively, are the 400mm DO’s days are over? Only a side-by-side comparison of all three will do.
LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y., February 7, 2011 – Canon Inc. today announced the development of a new super-telephoto lens, the EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM EXTENDER l.4x, for use with all EOS SLR cameras. A prototype of the new lens will be exhibited at the CP+ tradeshow, held in Pacifico Yokohama, from February 9 – 12, 2011.
The EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM EXTENDER l.4x is being developed as an L-series super-telephoto lens with an integrated 1.4x extender and high-performance Image Stabilizer technology. The new lens will offer exceptional flexibility by incorporating a built-in 1.4x extender that increases the maximum focal length to 560mm for sports and wildlife photography. High-quality images with high levels of resolution and contrast will be possible through the use of advanced optical materials such as fluorite crystal. The new lens will also include dust- and water-resistant construction designed for extended usage under harsh conditions.
Canon will continue to respond to the needs of various users ranging from beginners and advanced amateurs to professional photographers, in an effort to enrich their photographic expression with SLR cameras by continuing to develop attractive new lenses with improved optical technology.
(press release from the Canon USA Web site)
Mode dial lock modification - image from usa.canon.com
Canon is now offering to modify 5D Mark II and 7D camera bodies with a mode dial that locks in place to prevent the dial from moving accidentally. Unfortunately, it’s not free of charge: $100 per camera body.
You know the frustration: you’ve set your camera to “aperture priority” and then you sling it over your shoulder. You pick it back up to make a quick image and suddenly the viewfinder blacks out far longer than you expected. A second-long exposure in bright daylight? “Oh, ” you realize, “it slipped over to shutter priority which was set for making blurs.” But the decisive moment? It’s long since gone on account of a technical problem.
I’m going to make a broad-spectrum criticism here: the mode dials on pretty much every camera suck because most of them do not lock in any way, shape, or form. Nikon locks the “sub-dial” beneath the mode dial on many of their bodies, but even they are not blameless.
Maybe. I own both bodies, and I’m not really thrilled at the thought of contributing $200 into Canon’s coffers for something that is really a fix, not a “modification.” And I’m disappointed that there’s no suggestion that a locking mode dial will be a standard feature of future camera bodies. Finally, a mod for the 5D Mk. II really gives me pause: this camera was announced over two years ago, so shouldn’t owners be looking for its replacement, not pouring more money into the existing body?
I think this one is worthy of discussion, so what do you think?
