back to the future

NCC-1701-D at warp speed

Header Challenge: Back to the Future

November 28, 2012

This is my third of three promised installments as one of the Headbangers.  Please visit fellow Headbangers to see their take on this theme. Fishing Guy, Katney, Imac, Sandy and Lew.  They have been very gracious to welcome me into their circle, and if you think you would like to try it out, talk to Imac or Fishing Guy... tell them Craver sent you.

The Headbangers gave me the honor of selecting this week's theme, which is "Back to the Future."  I decided to post some futuristic space ships from an old television show that holds a special place in my heart.  Hopefully, I worded the theme in such a way as to provide some interpretive flexibility for my artistic photography pals.

I remember watching the original Star Trek series with my dad, wishing I could be like Spock and admiring Kirk.  It was so cool how he could beat the bad guys with Judo and steal a kiss from the pretty girls.  When Star Trek: The Next Generation aired, I was slow to get on board, but eventually, I got caught up in that series as well.

Has it already been two decades since that series went off the air?!  Well, since I found the whole franchise so intriguing, I collected some of the Micro Machines versions of these starships, and put them in a shadow box.  When I got my first digital camera, I was looking for something interesting to use as a subject for photography, so I dug up those starship models and created a few images.  These pics are all double exposures.

The NCC 1701 was laid upside down on a black shirt, so I could shoot the underbelly of the ship as if it were suspended in air.  The Klingon Battle Cruiser's star field was Christmas lights.  You may need to enlarge the photo in order to see the cloaked ship.  The selection for this week's header is the NCC 1701-D traveling at warp speed.  The blurring of the stars was made by panning Christmas lights.  When I created the composite, I blackened some of the "stars," otherwise the ship would look transparent.

NCC-1701 in orbit under the moon

cloaked Klingon Battle Cruiser

problem solving

I am trying to make a kinetic photo for a contest, and it looks like I won't make the deadline.

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[Correction: It's not a contest, it's an assignment.]

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The camera must be moving for a kinetic photograph. I did not want to copy someone else's idea. Like when someone flips a compact camera in the air for a random exposure and try to catch it, lest it break. Or where the camera is attached to a moving car. My idea was to go for the effect of a space ship moving through a star field.

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I made a contraption that would hold the toy one cubit from the camera. Then, aiming at white Christmas tree lights, I pan the camera for a blurred background, hoping to keep the ship in focus.

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Instead of white streaks, I got colored dot patterns. I am not sure why. And what about that color?! Maybe the bluish led (fixed on the ship) offset the white balance.

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I'm not sure how I want to solve this problem, but sometimes you have to think outside the box:

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Here is a story about problem solving I found at Arcamax Publishing.

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Many hundreds of years ago in a small Italian town, a merchant had the misfortune of owing a large sum of money to the moneylender. The moneylender, who was old and ugly, fancied the merchant's beautiful daughter so he proposed a bargain. He said he would forgo the merchant' debt if he could marry the merchant's daughter. Both the merchant and his daughter were horrified by the proposal. The cunning money lender suggested that they let providence decide the matter.

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The moneylender told them that he would put a black pebble and a white pebble into an empty bag. The girl would then have to pick one pebble from the bag. If she picked the black pebble, she would become the moneylender's wife and her father's debt would be forgiven. If she picked the white pebble she need not marry him and her father's debt would still be forgiven. But if she refused to pick a pebble, her father would be thrown into jail.

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They were standing on a pebble strewn path in the merchant's garden. As they talked, the moneylender bent over to pick up two pebbles. As he picked them up, the sharp-eyed girl noticed that he had picked up two black pebbles and put them into the bag. He then asked the girl to pick her pebble from the bag.

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Now, imagine you were standing in the merchant's garden. What would you have done if you were the girl? If you had to advise her, what would you have told her? Careful analysis would produce three possibilities:

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1. The girl should refuse to take a pebble.
2. The girl should show that there were two black pebbles in the bag and expose the moneylender as a cheat.
3. The girl should pick a black pebble and sacrifice herself in order to save her father from his debt and imprisonment.

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Take a moment to ponder over the story. The above story is used with the hope that it will make us appreciate the difference between lateral and logical thinking. The girl's dilemma cannot be solved with traditional logical thinking.

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Think of the consequences if she chooses the logical answers.

What would you recommend the girl do?

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The girl put her hand into the moneybag and drew out a pebble. Without looking at it, she fumbled and let it fall onto the pebble-strewn path where it immediately became lost among all the other pebbles.

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"Oh, how clumsy of me," she said. "But never mind, if you look into the bag for the one that is left, you will be able to tell which pebble I picked."

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Since the remaining pebble is black, it must be assumed that she had picked the white one. And since the moneylender dared not admit his dishonesty, the girl changed what seemed an impossible situation into an extremely advantageous one.

far out

I have always enjoyed space exploration... as science fiction. [Wasting tons of money and resources to eventually find out that God created everything just like He said... that's another story. I digress.]

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[USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D at Warp Speed]

Cool space ships, laser/phaser/disruptor beams, transporters, photon torpedoes, energy shields, scanners, warp technology, dilithium crystals, beryllium spheres, all these class M planets teeming with intelligent life, and blatant disregard for the second law of thermodynamics! Ah, what's not to love!

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[Cloaked Klingon Battle Cruiser]

My limitations with a 2.1 megapixel camera, a tiny flip-up flash, shaky hands, etc., have not prevented me from boldly going where I haven't gone before. Micro Machines, post editing and double exposures... these are so much fun to play with! I feel safe -- like I can't make mistakes. Sure, I can always do better, but it would only be wrong if I didn't try anything at all. Please, please, please-- if you have any tips or ideas for how to do new things or improve on what I already have, I'm all ears. Well, not like a Firengi... you know what I mean.

special effects

Sci-fi can be so much fun. And it's amazing how far special effects have come! Last night I watched Hancock, and there were probably less than ten minutes of that movie that weren't filmed with special effects of some kind. No... five. Cumulative. The story was unique, the acting was superb, and the effects were absolutely stunning.

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Do you remember the special effects from the original Star Trek television episodes? When I first watched those as a kid, I didn't give any thought to how realistic the effects were, since there was no practical way they could make things more true-to-life. But today, technology, techniques and budgets have improved to produce a quality that I could not have dreamed of as I watched the old black & white tube, back in the late 60's & early 70's.

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This photo was my own, low budget, special effect. I placed a toy upside down on a black shirt, and then created a multi-exposure collage with a moon picture from my archives. Neat, huh?