Could an Ant Outrun a Cheetah?

Ever since I was a child, I have been fascinated by ants. I remember spending many summer days observing gigantic colonies. I do not know the name of the species that I watched, but they were maybe 1/8" of an inch and could clearly be seen with the naked eye.

I was very young and I performed questionable experiments that children do before the learn the value of life... even an ant's life. I hate to admit that I once dropped a red ant into a black ant colony to see what would happen. The results were not good for the single red ant who was quickly overwhelmed. More than a few ants were vaporized with a death beam created from a magnifying glass and the sun's concentrated rays. These days, I relocate spiders and other critters outside when I find them in our house, so at least I have evolved.

I recently found an ant colony in the midst of a mad dash from their home in a garden pot. I don't know what triggered their exodus, but they seemed to be setting speed records. The video below shows how fast the individual ants were moving, including the ones that were carrying larvae in their mandibles. All I had was my iphone so I grabbed this quick video.



This made me wonder how fast ants could run if they could be scaled up to human size, and we ignored the physics of a titanic insect? Several web sites I researched made the calculation of about 53 m.p.h. which is faster than a gazelle, but slower than a cheetah. That is something that I would not like to see in person... even if I had a giant bottle of RAID to hide behind!

Environmental Portraits and Headshots for Atlanta Law Firm

I love to work with corporate clients who need photography for web sites, advertisements and other promotional materials. I was contacted by Documentopia to provide headshots, environmental portraits and location photos for Sutton Law Group, a law firm working out of Marietta, GA.

My plan was to provide them a variety of styles of portraiture so that they could use different photos for different projects. They have a gorgeous office with old style brick and wood work. Though I think the brick pattern is ultimately too distracting, we tried a few portraits on this background. This proved that simpler portraits may be stronger.

I made head shots of Darrell Sutton and Andreea Neculae. I prefer a clean undramatic light for these kinds of portraits because the reproduce well that way in print and when reduced on web.

We also wanted to take a few styles of partner photos. I wanted to take advantage of the reflective conference table by shooting at a high angle.

Here is how I set up the lights. It is a trend in some magazines like Wired to show the lights in the portraits. I kinda like this look, but is probably for works for editorial and not promotional media.

Another example of showing the behind the scenes gear... in this case just a portable background.

This what the scene above looks like cropped in. You can see the natural light falloff on the edges.

I always keep my finger on the trigger in between the official photos because that is when people let down their guard and just be themselves. Even though they probably will not use the photo below for official lawyer business, it is my favorite shot of the day.

Sometimes less traditional headshots appeal to the client who picked this tightly cropped photo.

It was pouring outside but I was able to create a "sunlit" photo using a very large umbrella that simulated soft window light. This was intended to feel more candid than the other portraits.

The  last photos were taken outside in a drizzle. I replaced the dark skies in some of the photos with blue skies, otherwise the place might have looked sinister... especially since it is adjacent to an old cemetery.

One final photo of the business sign and I was gone...

An Amazing Air Show in Virginia

While visiting my family in Virginia Beach, my brother and I took time out from family events to go to an air show in a place called Pungo... home of the Military Aviation Museum and the Fighter Factory.

Pungo is infamous for the witch trial of Grace Sherwood in the year of 1705. Legend has it that she was given an impossible task to prove that she was not a witch. The accusers would dunk her local river, and if she sank then she was innocent. If she swam or floated, then "obviously" she was a witch. Talk about a no-win situation. Not sure if I would fake drowning in that situation and hope that somebody would pull me out. Full details are here if you want to read the witch story.

The Military Aviation Museum is a world class facility and houses one of the largest collections of working war planes in the world. The majority of the planes in the air show were actually part of the museum. These birds do not just sit around looking pretty... they treat us to the sights and sounds of the 1940s during World War II... transporting us back to the time of our parent's earliest memories and our grandparent's finest hours when America worked together towards a common desperate victory. Could such a time ever exist in this country again? It is doubtful and I believe that the ones that won that war were possibly "our greatest generation". 

Every now and then, you will see heroes from this time at the shows, and I always try to thank them. If I had ever met my own grandfather, I would thank him too for his navy service that spanned the war and beyond.

I have been to many air shows and honestly, I have started to see the same planes repeatedly, like the AT-6 Texan above. It's not that I do not appreciate all war birds, but variety is the spice of life. I would call this air show extra spicy.

This show had planes that I had never seen before in real life as working flyers like the incredible German Focke-Wulf Fw 190 seen above and below. This particular war bird was painted in Nazi Germany's  battle markings. In the world of over-sensitive political correctness, I was surprised to see this. It was an amazing to see this plane diving past the crowd, and I could easily imagine American GIs hating the sight and sound of it coming in for a strafing run.

Also on the list of planes I had never seen in the flesh was the Junkers Ju 52. The design of this transport plane lasted long after the war transporting countless travelers in its civilian life.

The equivalent American C-47 troop transport was based on the design of the civilian DC-3. The air show began with paratroopers jumping in vintage parachutes which are not as controllable as modern chutes. Supposedly, one of the jumpers broke his hip the previous day. They were dropping pretty fast.

There are a lot of holes in the chute and few control surfaces to guide it. One of the jumpers had to twist madly to get the guidelines untangled. Yikes. I would not want his job.

For maximum realism, a dreaded 88mm anti-aircraft cannon simulated a flak attack. The concussion was spectacular and it probably rattled a few fillings. The scene below could have been right outside of Berlin.

There were whole units of World War II re-enactors. These guys were dedicated, even wearing woolen pants and hats in the hot sun. All uniforms seemed to be authentic down to the smallest detail like the fellow below in desert attire and a Mauser pistol that turned into a rifle. 

The Allied forces were represented too with these paratroopers. Check out the grease gun.

There were plenty of weapons to look at up close like these British Enfield rifles and a German half-track machine gun tank/car. They told us that this could fire simulated and real ammunition.

This armor-plated monster made a terrifying racket as it drove around the campsite.

Probably the rarest plane there was a British Lancaster Bomber. There are only 2 of these left flying in the world today. These were the bombers that pounded German cities at night while the American B-17s and B-24s tried for precision daytime attacks.

A P-40 Flying Tiger represented early aviation technology from the start of the war. In fact, these were used in China before the U.S.A. officially entered the war.

Overhead, the long-legged German Fieseler Fi 156 Storch (Stork) plane took reconnaissance of the area.

I used a slow shutter speed of around 1/200th of a second or slower for many of the photos taken here. The main thing that people look for in aviation photography seems to be the blur on the moving propeller. Getting a complete prop revolution to make a complete circle is the holy grail of airshow photography.

It can also lead to some interesting action photos like the panned shot above. The biggest problem with photographing fast objects with slow shutter speeds is that you will end up throwing away many blurry photos. This is a new style for me which will take more practice to perfect.

Getting a full prop rotation in your photo depends on the speed of your shutter and the speed of the propeller which changes on how much power the pilot needs. It is a good idea to try different settings to find the best combination. The P-51 Mustang below was photographed with a faster shutter or the RPMs were up.

The museum had just acquired a B-17 bomber named Chuckie for over $4,000,000.

The P-51 Mustang escorted the B-17... just like they did on the long distance bomb runs into Germany.

The British Lancaster bomber and Hawker Hurricane fighter almost repeated the exact scene.

An American AT-6 Texan salutes as British Hawker Hurricane lands.

The Russians fighters were in attendance too like this Yak-9 below... like a Soviet P-51.

And this Russian mystery airplane with an open cockpit. Looks an old race plane from the 1930s.

Local firefighters watched as this Japanese plane rolled to a smokey landing.
It had been "shot down" for the crowds by a Corsair... payback for Pearl Harbor.

It has been said that George Lucas got much of his inspiration for Star Wars from World War 2 fighting equipment. The turret below looks like an R2-D2 unit on this Grumman Avenger.

I had a model of this sea plane when I was a child. The Calypso Society used one like it in their research.

People were wearing vintage costumes too. This hot dish below may have been one of the singers who sang like the Andrews Sisters. Unfortunately, I missed the dance/concert after the air show.

It's a good thing that we won that war otherwise, we might live in a country that speaks German and paints their planes like this one. I am pretty sure the world would be a different place.

Lucky Number 777.7 at 7 m.p.h.

Not the best photo from my iphone, but this is proof of my good fortune.

It must be my lucky day. This morning driving I noticed that my trip counter and speedo read all 7's. If I was a gambling man, I might be inclined to buy a lotto ticket. What the heck, the payout right now is twelve million...$12,000,000, but the odds are also a 1,000,000 to 1. Do I tempt fate?

Or maybe this is a sign of some other kind of luck like a nice pleasant Sunday spent at home with my wife and dogs with NO work on Monday. That sounds good to me too.

My First Trip to Las Vegas

You know the advertising slogan... "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas". I wish I had such juicy secrets to hide, but honestly, I don't. I took my first Vegas trip with a bunch of guys that had been going for years.

Sin City? I guess we went to the wrong places because only scantily clad women that we saw were at the hotel's lame burlesque show which was so "unshocking" that one comrade fell asleep. It was a drag queen show but with actual women. I kept looking for adam's apples on the dancers just to be sure they were not playing a practical joke on us. It was "over-the-top" campy, lip-synched to bad music with terrible lyrics and probably had not been updated since 1955? We eventually walked out early while a comedian host made his bad jokes.

We spent plenty of hours walking the Vegas streets taking in the sights sounds. The sidewalks are jam-packed with gawkers and interesting people alike. The fellow on the right below looked familiar, but I could not place where I had seen him before. ha ha

The streets really get interesting at nigh when the casinos use millions of bulbs 

and miles of neon to mesmerize patrons... the same way that bug zappers attract moths.

I kinda liked seeing this Disneyland for adults, and I could definitely go back. 

I had better start saving now since everything I wanted to do is so expensive...

Despite the crowds of people walking around, I thought Vegas could feel lonely. One could definitely disappear into a crowd and be lost in the noise and hustle. I witnessed many grizzled gamblers blowing wads of cash at the slots and tables... $100 a pop in some cases. I hope it made them happy.

The original and biggest neon light shined from above.

I wonder if you can see Las Vegas from the Moon?

After seeing the amount of cash that visitors were going through, I have a new slogan for Vegas. 

"What money you have in your pocket, stays in Vegas".