Photography

I’ve been an amateur shutterbug for a long time. This tag is primarily for posts about photography and the associated tech.

$8,000 for Wrongful Detention of Photographer

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Nice to know this one didn’t slip under the radar: a local man just received an $8,000 settlement after being unlawfully detained for photographing a police bust last year.

During a news conference Thursday, Mohora, 26, said he was walking on Pike Street near Second Avenue on Nov. 2 when he saw two Seattle police officers arresting a man.

Mohora said he snapped a few shots of the arrest from a distance of more than 10 feet and was walking away when he was approached by a female friend of the man being arrested.

Mohora said the woman told him she believed the arrest of her friend was wrong, and that he was being arrested on a warrant that had been quashed. She asked Mohora about obtaining copies of the photos, he said.

Two officers, James Pitts and David Toner, then ordered Mohora to hand over his camera, according to ACLU staff attorney Aaron Caplan, who handled the case. Mohora said that when he asked what he had done wrong, the officers handcuffed him and took his camera, wallet and satchel. They then drove him to a holding cell at the Seattle Police Department’s West Precinct, Mohora said.

When he was released about an hour later, he said, he was told that he could be charged with disturbing the peace, provoking a riot or endangering a police officer.

Mohora was not charged and, in violation of department policy, police did not write up an incident report on the arrest, according to ACLU Legal Director Sarah Dunne.

(via Flickr Seattle)

Why We Had to Move

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Why We Had to Move

Why We Had to Move, originally uploaded by djwudi.

After returning home from Hawaii (no, those pictures aren’t done yet, I’m just busy with work and school), Prairie and I found out we had to move (here’s my post and here’s Prairie’s on the debacle).

This shot is of what used to be our cute little apartment.

We’ve got a new cute little apartment now, sure, but…(sigh)…this one was our first. Not so cute now, is it?

Congratulations, P and H!

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I’ve still got a ways to go on the rest of the vacation pictures, but I finished the set for P and H’s wedding this morning. I’ll fill in the rest of the vacation as soon as I can (we’re in the midst of moving uproar at the moment, with boxes all over the apartment as we wait for the apartment we’re moving into to get its finishing touches).

Dance Off 2007

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About a week and a half ago, six teams of people with dance in their souls — if not their soles — gathered together for a battle royale at Dance Off 2007.

If you were there, you know the pure awesomeness of the spectacle. If you weren’t there (foolish mortal), then at least I can offer this photographic record of the event.

Dance Off 2007: The Trophy

Truly, such fleetfooted feats (feets?) shall never grace a stage again.

Until next year, of course. ;)

Seattle Outtakes Pipe

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Update: PI staffer Mike Thompson let me know that they’ve just enabled RSS feeds for each individual category within the Big Blog. Each category page (like this one for Seattle Outtakes, for instance) now has an RSS link right at the top of the page. Thanks, Mike!

For some time now, I’ve been following the Seattle Outtakes blog from the PI, where PI photographers would post and discuss images that didn’t make the final cut into the paper for one reason or another (and some photos that were published), along with how they got the shot, techniques, and so on. Really good stuff for a photo bug.

Sadly, Outtakes has now been absorbed into The Big Blog, the PI’s latest addition to their ever-growing linup of weblogs. I’m not sure quite why they made this decision, but I found it rather annoying. As I posted in a comment on their announcement post:

One more vote for keeping Outtakes separate — I watch this one precisely because of my interest in photography, and have really enjoyed the insights into what the PI photographers do. The Big Blog feels too unfocused in tone and too similar to too many other local ‘catchall’ blogs, and it not something I’m likely to check in with regularly…which ends up meaning no Outtakes for me. Pity.

While you can manually check the Outtakes category on The Big Blog, there’s no category-specific RSS feed provided, and there’s just way too much traffic that I’m not terribly interested in for me to bother subscribing to the RSS feed (and even if I did feel like subscribing, it appears to be an excerpts-only feed instead of a full-text feed — one more reason for me not to subscribe).

So…Yahoo Pipes to the (theoretical) rescue. I’ve not actually played with Yahoo Pipes before, but given that it allows you to perform various operations on web data, it seemed like it might be a good potential tool for attempting to regain my Outtakes fix. In theory, if I’ve done this correctly, this pipe should be a Seattle Outtakes RSS feed.

However: I don’t actually know if it’s working correctly yet, and I’m not sure how soon I will…and there’s some potential down-the-road issues with the pipe. Geeky details under the cut…

Read more

Dance Off Photoshoot

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Yesterday morning found me heading out of the house sometime not too long after 8am — horridly early for a Sunday morning — so that I could head down to the Crocodile to hang out with the Dance Off Seattle crew and shoot the dress rehearsal. With roughly a half-dozen teams to get through, we got started at 9am, and spent the next five and a half hours or so letting each team run through their routine a few times while I ran around the floor snapping off shots.

Y’know, it’s amazing how heavy a D70s can get after a few hours! I’d picked up a flash sync cable to allow me to run my flash tethered to the camera (while the D70s/SB-800 combination allows wireless flash syncing, the pre-flash trigger sequence introduces a bit of delay that using the sync cable removes), so I ended up shooting nearly everything with the camera in one hand and the flash in the other. It doesn’t take long at all for that to turn into quite a workout!

While I’m going to be one of two photographers for the actual show, the second photographer couldn’t make it to the rehearsal shoot. Since the organizers of the Dance Off are also contestants, they made sure to stay out of the rehearsal space while the other teams were practicing, so that none of the teams know what the others are doing. This has put me in the rather interesting position of being the only person in Seattle who’s gotten at least a hint as to what each of the different teams are doing, and let me tell you…

…this year’s Dance Off is going to be awesome.

(All photos, of course, will on embargo until after the show — no spoilers from me, kids!)

If you didn’t make it to last year’s Dance Off, I’d suggest hitting the videos page on their site, or checking out Propadata Films‘ video podcasts of all of last year’s performers, available either as an RSS feed or through iTunes, and there’s also my photoset from last year. Some of the same teams are returning, some new teams have signed on, and all of them…well, they knew that they were going to have to bring it. And oh, it has been broughten!

And as I mentioned before, last year was sold out and people had to be turned away at the door. The Crocodile looks to have a larger capacity, but don’t delay too long — tickets are only $7, and you can snag them online now. The show’s this Thursday evening, Aug. 2nd at the Crocodile. Be there!

Dance Off 2007 is Coming!

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Dance Off 2007Last year, entirely on a whim, Prairie and I went to Dance Off 2006 and had an absolute blast. During the show, I took a few photos, and sent the link off to the Dance Off crew. Turns out they liked them…in fact, they liked them so much that this year, I’m one of two official photographers for the event!

This year’s Dance Off is coming soon — just two weeks away! This year it’ll be held at the Crocodile on August 2nd at 8pm, and it’d be a good idea to buy your tickets now, as last year’s show sold out.

Dance Off is an annual dance battle for those who have the heart and soul of a dancer, but lack the training and talent of a dancer.

Each summer, teams of dancers band together and choreograph awesomely bad routines with which to enter the battle realm. They perform these routines for a drunken audience who determine the best of the worst for that year.

After the votes are tallied, a winner is crowned and an insane dance party rages into the night.

Does this sound like fun to you? Then be prepared each August for Dance Off to rock your face!

Club Blacklight’s Last Hurrah

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Geisha vs. Ninja, Fetish Night, Club Blacklight

A few shots from the Blacklight’s final weekend. Most are from Friday night, which featured a few performances by a local fetish group…and as such, range from mildly NSFW (near-nudity with pasties) to extremely NSFW (bondage, domination, and simulated lesbian strap-on sex). Flickr members should have access to the entire set (depending on your individual settings, as the more potentially offensive photos are designated as either ‘moderate’ or ‘restricted’), non-Flickr members can use this Guest Pass link to view the full, uncensored set — or simply click through the photo above or use the standard link for the worksafe version.

Fremont Solstice Parade and 10,000 photos!

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Pure Cirkus, Fremont Solstice Parade (10,000th photo!)

Pure Cirkus, Fremont Solstice Parade (10,000th photo!), originally uploaded by djwudi.

Okay, so it’s not the most interesting or artistic shot I’ve ever taken. However, there are two good (or at least good enough) reasons for me to toss this up…

  1. I’m finally finished with the Fremont Solstice Parade photos! Since many of the photos are deemed moderately unsafe (naked bodypainted bike riders and such) and may not be visible by default, non-Flickr users can use this guest pass link to see the entire set.

  2. This photo was my 10,000th photo uploaded to Flickr. Ten thousand photos (and more, now). Wow. Impressive and scary, all at the same time.