When I was a young man...

I was digging through a box of old photos the other day and ran across a little snapshot of me taken when Jill and I were dating and we had nothing better to do than go around the mid-west with a band I worked with and do what young couples do: listen to loud music and drink a beer or two. I may have had a couple more, but that's not really the point now is it? I had just turned 20 and am in full metal rock god gear onstage at Wishbone's in Columbus, Nebraska while working for the Street Legal band out of Beemer, Nebraska. Sometimes for the last couple of songs I would come up and play, a fun 10 minutes in my life.

Yes, that is my hair. Yes, that is a white leather fringy jacket ala' John Bon Jovi (whom I was once mistaken for in the Sioux Falls, ND airport for by a 10-year old kind once). Yes, I cry when I think about that guitar I sold (a 1964 Gibson Les Paul Custom "Fretless Wonder") for a pittance. Yes, my lovely wife Jill (then my lovely girlfriend Jill) took the photo and I remember it was with a red plastic Vivitar 35mm point-and-shoot.

Amazing Macro Photos

Many of you know I have had a hand in running the Online Visual Artists Forum for awhile. One of the things we're doing over there is running bi-monthly themed contests with an open entry for members (yet another free service we provide you). You can see the last competition's winners on the front page and I'm amazed at what people can do with pencils and paint.

Now since I'm one of the "powers that be" I don't enter the competitions, but you have got to check out this current round of entries into the MACRO contest. Last count there were over 80 fantastic entries and my guess is that it will top 100 by the deadline of 31JULY.

So jump on over and take a look and feel free to cast your vote!

A Great Northern Lights Article

I have made some fantastic friends in my years on the Internet. One of those is my buddy Ken who lives up in Canada in the Sarnia/Port Huron area. I met Ken back when we were trying to figure out if you could do such a daft thing as create digital slideshows with music (and back then rudimentary was pretty much the best you could wish for) over at the Pics2Exe forum hosted by WnSoft.

Well, out of the blue, Ken sends me a link to one excellent article in the Globe and Mail explaining what causes the aurora borealis to erupt in the winter skies over the poles (actually, they always happen but you can't see them in the summer). Oddly enough I just posted an entire gallery up of my aurora photographs for everyone to look at, there's also a pretty cool slideshow feature to use as well.

So enjoy the article, get a little ed-ju-ma-ka-shun while you're there then pop on over to the gallery and "oohhh" and "aahhh" at what happens in Alaska's night skies.

Weeting Steam Rally- Day 2

If you have heard me wax lyrically about my first day at the Weeting Steam Festival, well... let's just say the second day didn't disappoint. With the arrival of a few more engines I heard someone mention the figure of over 50 for the attendees. There was more smoke, more noise, more people, more fun. My newfound friend in the traction engine community, Rob Shorland-Ball, was again most gracious to me in sharing his knowledge and love of traction engines and endured yet another string of questions about this and that. I would also like to thank for fine folks who were kind to me at the threshing display, the mill yard, and the water pumper section for educating me into this world I have grown greatly fascinated with.

If you want to see even more, consider a quick hop over to my gallery at Zenfolio. So, without further adeu, my second day at the Weeting Steam Rally:

Lensbaby and the Weeting Steam Rally

Living here in England offers some of the most unique opportunities one could ever imagine. Case in point: the Weeting Steam Rally and Country Fair. Held just outside the small village of Weeting, Norfolk (pop. 1750) it is celebrating 40 years of shows in which steam powered vehicles (called traction engines) gather to show their stuff. Today I took my 4 children and my Lensbaby 3G mounted on a Canon 40D to Weeting to look around and I have to say, it was really an incredible time.

We parked in a huge field and as we approaced the main event area you could see plumes of grey sooty smoke rising from numerous locations, the smell of sulfurous-coal thick in the air. As we rounded a huge white tent we saw example on example of huge, lumbering machines. What a fantastic sight, some of these monstorous vehicles were 100 years old but looked as if they rolled out of the shop only last week. You have never seen or smelled so much Brass-o in your life!

At one engine we stopped to talk to a very nice gentleman named Rob who kindly took the time to explain what a traction engine was, what they were made for, and how they worked. The children were even asked to step up onto the platform and shown the controls. What a fantastic learning experience. He would explain how the coal fire heated water in the boiler and as he did, a lumbering 8-10 ton machine would go by, gigantic masses of cast iron spinning and stroking about with a speed that nearly defied belief. The ground shook, flecks of coal soot invaded every inch of body. It was grand.

I'm going back tomorrow with my serious gear to get even more images. Enjoy Weeting as seen through the Lensbaby, you can view more and larger images at my print order website.

Now at PhotoShelter... ME!

I'm always on the lookout for an organization that explores areas for my imagery I have yet to reach... and here's another one: Photo Shelter Collection. I enjoy being part of an organization that looks at what I have to offer and edits down to what they feel is a sale-able product for their customers. AWESOME!

And as you might have noticed, they have a nifty little widget just to the right that will loop what is available for licensing. There is a whole pile of files in the works to be uploaded, many of which haven't been seen before so keep your eye on that little box. Cool stuff awaits.

TinEye coolness- AGAIN!

Heather Williams over at Ide'e just sent me another cool demonstration of how TinEye not only locates an image across the internet but also variations (from mild to wild). I've posted the link below which will show you what I mean. Cool, very cool.

http://tineye.com/widgets/display?tux

Got Airplanes?

Check out the images I captured yesterday of the RAF practicing their formation flight for the Queen's birthday celebration over at my Aviation Blog!

Humor from the War Zone

My darling wife sent me this in a card I received from her today. Apparently English translates just as horribly into Afghani as it does into Chinese, we saw loads of this type of thing on our two trips there.

TinEye: Coolest Thing on the Planet

Yes, that's how I really feel about TinEye. But what is it?

TinEye is a search engine. For images. Based on their unique pixel "fingerprint" and not metadata or watermarks or any of the usual means of tracking a photo. Oh, did I mention that it takes into account crops, changes in size, stuff like that? ARE YOU WHOOPING AND HOLLERING YET?!?!?!?!?!?

Well, maybe not at first. Lots of us are and let me give you a couple of reasons why.

Currently in the US there is something called the Orphan Works legislation (OWL) that, simply stated, will allow someone to use an image without the creator's permission if the creator can't be found by a "diligent search". What THAT is currently isn't clear. But TinEye's image identification technology could link up the prospective user and creator, allowing a legal and properly credited (better yet paid) useage of that image.

Another use would be that of a stock image company looking for images they represent being used after being obtained by a publication. A current use for TinEye's technology scans numerous publications and compares those images (some even placed into collages or greatly altered) to those listed in a database. Monthly reports can show you where your client's images are, allowing more efficient invoicing on their behalf.

Here's an image of a very famous A-1 Skyraider photographed by my father Frank O'Rear that was part of the first Air Force Medal of Honor mission flown in the Vietnam conflict. TinEye found it and with great joy, it is exactly where it is supposed to be and nowhere else.



Multiple upon multiple other uses but these are, for obvious reasons, the ones that excite me the most. There's even a cool Firefox plug-in that will let you right-click an image and search the TinEye database. For more information on TinEye jump on over to their website here. Watch the short video and prepare to go "cool".