Uploads from D. Brim, with geodata

Magellan Sunset

nobody@flickr.com (D. Brim) — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 17:00:37 -0800

D. Brim posted a photo:

After continuing on, we reached the end of the road near the end of the day. Mid November at that latitude meant that the sun set around 10:00, which was quite a change from the Northern Hemisphere!

This photo was taken aboard the Narrows ferry across Tierra del Fuego. We had just missed the ferry when we arrived, so we had to wait for over an hour to board this one. That turned out to work in our favor in some ways, but not others. Of course, we got this cool sunset, but we failed to get good photos of the wildlife that followed the ferry across (dolphins and penguins).

This is the last photo from “day 1” of the Patagonian leg of the trip. After finishing the ferry (which was about half an hour in this direction), we ran into some motorcyclists trying to return to Rio Grande in Argentina. They had lost one motorcycle, so one of them needed a ride to the border, where a friend would meet up with them. We agreed to give him a ride for a while, and it was a good opportunity to brush up on our Spanish.

Having the company was nice, too, because the roads on the Chilean side of Tierra del Fuego are all unpaved and relatively slow going. It’s passable in smaller cars, but it’s also very bumpy with high cross winds. At one point, we saw a recently overturned truck in the opposite direction.

Days 2 and 3 were both really strong photography days, so you’ll be seeing photos from these two days a lot in the next few weeks!

Mapocho Chair

nobody@flickr.com (D. Brim) — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 17:00:34 -0800

D. Brim posted a photo:

Here is another photo from Santiago. I’m probably going to blast through these – they’re interesting to me but I’m sure people really want to see the photos from Patagonia.

This is a picture of an office chair in the Mapocho river. It shows a major issue in Santiago: pollution. The city is very smoggy (reminding me of growing up in Los Angeles) and the water in the river is extremely dirty. From Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapocho_River):
"The Mapocho River remains contaminated by household, agricultural and industrial sewage, and by upstream copper-mining waste (from the several copper mines in the Andes, east of Santiago), being dumped unfiltered into the river.[4] Laws force industry and local governments to process all their wastewater, but are loosely enforced.[5] There are now a number of large wastewater processing and recycling plants under construction. There are ongoing plans to decontaminate the river[6] and make it navigable.[7]"

Other areas of the world have proven that large scale water improvements are possible (the Charles River in Boston comes to mind), so hopefully Santiago can achieve their improvement goals as well.

Autopista Central

nobody@flickr.com (D. Brim) — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 16:11:54 -0800

D. Brim posted a photo:

And we’re back!

As is often the case with this photostream, I don’t have much to post in between major trips. I’ve sort of turned into a travel photographer. But, luckily for you guys, I just got back from a major trip, so there is an abundance of content to share! I am planning on posting approximately two photos per week, but this may vary a bit as I start posting the photos. I want to pay particular attention to the descriptions this time, since I am trying to make this a bit more of a travelogue than I have before.

On this trip, I went to Chile and Argentina. The trip was on November 17-28. I spent the 17 th in Santiago by myself, and then spent the rest of the trip in Patagonia with my friend Jake (see his photography at www.aaroads.com/blog/). We made it to Tierra del Fuego, Torres Del Paine, Capilla Marmol, and Glacier Perrito Moreno, and those are just the highlights. While I have not processed all of the photos from the trip yet, I can say that there are a lot of photos that I am excited to share (this is not one of them).

This photo marks the start of the trip in Santiago. I was there less for than 24 hours, and more
importantly I was there by myself. My Spanish is not great, and Jake missed his connection so I wasn't fully mentally prepared to spend a day in a foreign country by myself. Between being slightly scared, getting through customs, and telling the taxi driver (in Spanish) that 120USD is too much for a 9 mile taxi ride while the taxi was still in motion, I didn’t get a picture of a sign that said “Bienvenidos a Chile” or anything like that. This will have to suffice.

This is a picture of the Autopista Central, a major highway through Santiago. There’s nothing
particularly notable about this, other than the fact that I’m an infrastructure nerd and I thought the layout of the freeway/subway was interesting. It shows that the city can be pretty well laid out in spots, but this is not true everywhere. I didn’t get a chance to take the subway (I walked about 6 miles the one day I was there), but I have heard that the subway is considered decent by international standards.

You can follow me on twitter at @DanielBrim. I mostly talk about dumb baseball stuff, but I talk about photography once in awhile!

Hood Blimp

nobody@flickr.com (D. Brim) — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 19:19:04 -0700

D. Brim posted a photo:

The Hood Blimp circling over Fenway Park in Boston.

The processing for this one was fun. In order to get a good length trail on the blimp, all exposures had to be two seconds long. The foreground is one two second exposure, but the blimp itself is a combination of 87 consecutive two second exposures!

I like how you can see where it starts to circle the park, and if you view large you can see the small directional corrections it makes due to the wind.

Quebec Aurora

nobody@flickr.com (D. Brim) — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 18:40:15 -0700

D. Brim posted a photo:

Weekend solar storms always catch my attention. I live far enough south (Boston area) that they won't be over my head here, but if there's anything I know how to do, it's drive long distances in short amounts of time.

When the flare occurred on Thursday night, I knew I would be driving all weekend on the off chance that I would see the aurora. I’ve made weekend aurora runs before (that have all ended in varying degrees of failure), but there’s always stuff on the way to look at too. I stopped for 3 hours at Montmorency Falls on this particular trip; photos from there will be up in a few weeks.

This photo was taken just outside of Saint-Felicien, Quebec at approximately 2:00AM. It is using the fisheye lens, so you know things were serious. The important thing to note is that the light in this photo is from Saint-Felicien, located to my southeast. The point of convergence was almost immediately over my head.

Anybody who has told you that the aurora is a dance has not seen a storm like this one. Instead of slowly evolving and undulating, this storm was pulsing. Visible to invisible, waves moving through the sky, all in fractions of seconds. It was so strong that at two separate points I could hear the pulses moving through. It had the same pitch as a strong wind gust, but quieter and the air was perfectly still. I’ll never forget it.

This photo is the culmination of a lot of work on my part. Hundreds of dollars in gas, car breakdowns, false starts, and failed attempts. It would make me happy if you show this one to your friends.

I will be posting more photos from this night in the coming days.

Rocky Mountain Morning

nobody@flickr.com (D. Brim) — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 15:30:00 -0700

D. Brim posted a photo:

Just after we drove through the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park, we were treated with this beautiful scene.

The road through Rocky Mountain National Park, US Highway 34, reaches the highest elevation of any highway in the US Highway system, reaching 12183 feet. We're nowhere near there yet, but there will be some good photos on the way up!

Next up is one of the best wildlife photos I've ever taken.

Rockies Sunrise

nobody@flickr.com (D. Brim) — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 16:40:21 -0700

D. Brim posted a photo:

And now we begin on July 5th, one of the best photography days I have had in a long time. And we start out with a cool-looking sunrise!

After an overnight run from New Mexico to the Denver area, we run up into the mountains for a morning trip through Rocky Mountain National Park. We're not to the park yet, but this was certainly a good omen. And the best part is that the clouds cleared up enough to give us some great light through the park.

There will be plenty more from this day, so stay tuned!

Sunspot

nobody@flickr.com (D. Brim) — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 15:44:32 -0700

D. Brim posted a photo:

10 stop ND, f/5.6, 1/1000, ISO 100.

This one won't make sense unless you view it large.

If you have any flickr contacts in the higher latitudes, you have probably seen some spectacular photos of the Northern Lights from last night. This is due to the sunspot AR1302, which you can see if you view this one large. The sunspot is over 150000km long, longer than 11 Earths end-to-end.

I didn't do anything special to get this photo. I did use a 10 stop ND filter, but if you can get a photo a bit later in the day (low clouds prevented this for me) without one, most likely. Just don't stare into the sun for too long. This shot is 200mm, but is a very tight crop.

I'll get back to uploads from the Rockies trip soon.

El Fin Del Mundo

nobody@flickr.com (D. Brim) — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 15:01:13 -0800

D. Brim posted a photo:

We've made it! This picture was taken after the parking lot located at the end of the Panamerican highway, the southernmost point reachable by the main American road network. The sign that says "Alaska 17848 km" was directly in front of the sun, so there will be no pictures posted of it. Instead, you’ll have to enjoy a couple of landscapes from the end of the world instead.

The southernmost point of the Panamerican Highway doesn't reveal a wide view of the ocean. There is an ocean view (which you’ll see in the next photo), but the view to the south isn't unobstructed. Cape Horn is on a different island that isn't reachable by road.

Barca Ambassador

nobody@flickr.com (D. Brim) — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 17:00:35 -0800

D. Brim posted a photo:

And now we’re in Patagonia! This probably isn’t quite the photo you were expecting to be first, but I kind of have a thing for old rusty ships. There's something about the lines and the colors that really draws my eyes.

After arriving in Punta Arenas, we got our rental car, and after finding a money changer that was open on a Sunday, we were on our way. Our first destination was Ushuaia, a town located on the southern end of Tierra Del Fuego. In order to get there, you need to take a ferry across the straights of Magellan. The road to the “narrows” ferry parallels the straight, giving some nice views.

This is the Barca Ambassador, which has obviously been marooned in this location for a long time. You can walk right up to it, and if you really feel like tempting fate you can go inside (I did not). Afternoon light makes rust look really nice, so we had to stop and get a few pictures.

Santiago Dog

nobody@flickr.com (D. Brim) — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 17:00:36 -0800

D. Brim posted a photo:

This is the final picture from Santiago. This shows one of the distinctive features of South America (from the perspective of a tourist from the U.S.) – dogs! There are stray dogs all over the cities and towns in South America (Santiago included). Rabies is not an issue, and dogs seem to not care about humans at all. Overall, the dogs we saw seemed pretty happy.

My time in Santiago was short, but fun. It’s an interesting city, and one day definitely isn’t enough time to “experience” it. After a lot of walking around, it was time to sleep and head back to the airport in the morning. After a bit of a nervous wait, Jake and I were able to find each other in the Santiago airport, and we continued to Patagonia!

Mapocho Landscape

nobody@flickr.com (D. Brim) — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 17:00:35 -0800

D. Brim posted a photo:

Another picture of the Mapocho River. The river begins in the Andes, so snowmelt is a major contributor to its flow. Since November is late spring, the flow rate was quite high when I was there.

More Quebec Aurora

nobody@flickr.com (D. Brim) — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 19:26:51 -0700

D. Brim posted a photo:

A more traditional take on the aurora. Again, with the fisheye lens.

After arriving at the rest area north of Saint-Felicien, I spent about an hour taking photos of the aurora while it was only 10 degrees above the horizon. I decided to take some shelter from the mosquito and catch up with some of the internet life that I missed during a long day of driving. I was laying across the back seat of my car, since the eventual plan was to take a nap for about an hour, then re-awaken to check on things outside.

Right before I was going to go to sleep, I took one last peek outside. Since the last time I looked (about 2 minutes prior), large towers had begun growing from the north, going directly over my head!

I then fell out of the back seat of my car. I was trying to get out and get set up quickly, because I know that the aurora can come and go rapidly.

After spending a minute or so re-extending my tripod, getting the lens set up, and getting this composed, this was the first photo that I took. I didn't even have shoes on yet.

The photo is a 4 second exposure. The ISO wasn't quite right yet, so the photo gained a lot of noise during post-processing. But then again, I was able to remove most of it, because aurora aren't sharp.

State Line

nobody@flickr.com (D. Brim) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:34:53 -0800

D. Brim posted a photo:

This is why you don't take the interstate.

This photo is taken on an old alignment of US-6 and US-50 as it crosses between Utah (visible on the pillar) and Colorado. Not only was the road less busy, but it's a lot easier to find random stuff like this old monument. The thunderstorm in the background was a bonus, too!

This thunderstorm was the first of many weather phenomena today...

Snowmelt Falls

nobody@flickr.com (D. Brim) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 15:49:23 -0700

D. Brim posted a photo:

While we continue to travel up the pass, we reach the snow level. At this point, most of it was already gone, and the straggling snow was on its way out.

Elk Pose

nobody@flickr.com (D. Brim) — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 06:00:41 -0700

D. Brim posted a photo:

Over the course of July 5th, we saw elk, bighorn sheep, marmots, and an adorable ground squirrel (which I failed to get a picture of).

This is one of my favorite wildlife photos that I've ever taken, a female elk posing for her close-up. At this point we were only in the park for about 20 minutes and we got the previous photo and this. I can't recommend this drive enough for scenery. Go take it when you have the chance.

Kansas Lightning 2

nobody@flickr.com (D. Brim) — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 12:52:57 -0700

D. Brim posted a photo:

More lightning. We remained inside the car, here, but the rain was less severe, so there's fewer water droplets.

This is the last photo from the first leg of the trip, which took us from Salt Lake City to Capulin, NM by way of Iowa (because we're dumb). We spent the 3rd and 4th in Capulin and surrounding areas, but none of my photos from that part of the trip are particularly interesting. Because of this, the next photos will be from the second leg, starting with the excellent sunrise on the 5th.

New uploads will resume on Mondays and Fridays, now that I finally have stable internet.

Kansas Lightning 1

nobody@flickr.com (D. Brim) — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 16:12:48 -0700

D. Brim posted a photo:

Apologies for the water droplets, but if you look at the next photo, you'll understand.

Taken at the end of day 2, after seeing the flooding in Iowa.

Kansas Lightning Bonus

nobody@flickr.com (D. Brim) — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 16:17:52 -0700

D. Brim posted a photo:

Yeah, this is why we were in a car.

Yellow Field

nobody@flickr.com (D. Brim) — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 05:55:03 -0700

D. Brim posted a photo:

As we descended out of the mountains (for the time being), we continue on US 212 throughout Montana (we finally split from 212 in South Dakota). Eastern Montana is very different from western Montana; western Montana is in the Rockies, and eastern Montana is high plains.

This is at the side of the road in eastern Montana. This is also the last photo from July 1st, one of the more prolific photo days I've had in awhile. This will only tide you over until the 5th, though, which may well be the most prolific photo day I've ever had.

I can't promise a new upload on Monday because we still have a weird internet situation and may or may not have power here.