Rain claims its first photographic life, barring miracle

After I ran with it in the rain, my point-and-shoot Canon PowerShot was stuck in the "on" position, its lens fully extended. I'll know its fate in a few days when the drying period is complete.

In one of my dumbest moments, I may have ruined a 5-megapixel Canon PowerShot that I carry with me almost everywhere. It's one of the best models of the point-and-shot cameras out there. It comes in handy for snapshots or for situations in which a digital SLR would be impractical. It serves as a backup to my backup, a Nikon D40. I've even used it to catch co-workers snoozing; it's my blackmail facilitator.

I took a quick photo Thursday of an approaching storm front, just before it started to rain. I wanted to take more photos, but I wanted to run in the rain, too. So, I compromised: I decided to take my Canon along for the ride.

I tucked the camera into one of the pockets of a golf jacket that has "naturally waterproof fibers." The thing was a prize I won in a tournament a few years back. I had never used it while playing golf, but it came in handy for runs in the rain. It kept me warm and mostly dry.

It poured so hard during my run that I didn't think it would be wise to take out the camera and take photos.

But when I got back to my apartment, I realized that it probably wouldn't have mattered. The water soaked through my jacket.

The camera was on, and I couldn't shut it off. The lens was stuck fully extended. I shook it, and water sloshed around inside. I pulled the battery and the memory card out. Both were soaked.

So as it is now, the camera is still in the process of drying - and probably dying. My father dropped his Canon DSLR into the lake, dried it out for a week and is using it today. My hope is that with the same period of drying, my backup-backup camera also will be resurrected.

(Left: A family at my apartment complex takes cover from the imminent downpour, in a photo I took before the fateful run.)

New equipment compenstates for old camara's shortcomings

My new Nikon D90, ordered from Abe's of Maine, and new Sigma zoom lens from Amazon, pictured here with its lens hood and extended fully to 500mm.

Because I'm so scared of the things I take pictures of, I recently purchased a new Sigma 150-500mm lens to go with a newer, faster, better Nikon D90 camera. This way, I won't have to get so close to the things that could hurt me.

The lens was the largest supertelephoto that I could afford, and it will come in handy when shooting wildlife, space shuttles and rockets. My 18-200 is fully capable, but won't reach those faraway objects.

Low light has been the weakness of my introductory model Nikon D40. Being a copy editor, I take a lot of photos at night. The new D90 handles the lack of light fairly well, or so I've been told. The truth will be in the pudding.

But seriously: They better work because I'm broke now.

From the Archives | Maine loon plate and my father's photo

PHOTOS BY FRED KNAPP

Image of the Maine loon vanity license plate (left) and Fred Knapp's photo of a loon and a chick (right). Do they look at all alike?

The most popular vanity license plate in Maine features the common loon, a creature that graces the state's many lakes. But when the plate was unveiled in 1993, it looked oddly familiar.

My father, a wildlife photographer in Princeton, Maine, spent hours in a floating blind made of sticks, mud and an inner tube to catch a loon and its chick in an interesting pose. At the end of his photographic excursion, bloodsuckers covered his legs, but he scored the shot he was seeking.

Ten years after the license plate was released with its image closely resembling my father's photograph, I sent a letter to Maine's Democratic governor, John Baldacci. I was a freshman in journalism school, and I had a greater knowledge of copyright law. For once, I wanted answers. Here are a few excepts from the letter:

Probably the most recognizable of all of Fred Knapp’s pictures is one taken of a loon and its chick on Grand Falls Flowage in Princeton, Maine, in 1979. The adult loon was captured in an extremely unique pose that is rarely caught on film. The most distinct feature of the photograph is how the loon’s tail forms a point. ... The loon’s head is also turned toward its tail with its beak stretching over a good length of its body.

Though the pose I just described is rare, it has been featured on the Maine loon conservation license plate since 1993. When the two loon illustrations are placed side by side, the resemblance is striking. ...

My father has worked long and hard to establish a reputable business known for unique works of art. Oftentimes throughout his career, his work has been utilized for the profit of others without giving its creator the proper credit. Each time this happens, I feel the uniqueness of his work is being stripped from him.

In the letter, I explained that the state had used my father's work for other purposes, such as the promotion of the Maine Nongame Wildlife Fund. For that, permission was given. At the Maine Wildlife Park in Gray, I noticed that my father's photo was featured on a poster for the conservation fund, beside a poster for the loon license plate (above). My letter continued:

This clearly indicates to me that the photographs on the poster and the license plate are one in the same. ...

My father is a very humble man who likes to keep to himself and make a living in a peaceful and honest manner. However, I could not let this situation remain concealed any longer.

We received a written response directly from the governor, who said he was forwarding my letter to Dan Gwadosky, the secretary of state who leads the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. We heard little after that. Maybe the current secretary - Matt Dunlap, whom I got to know later in my college career - could get to the bottom of this.

But now, I feel it is time to share this with Web audiences. At this point, there is little opportunity for financial recompense. I simply want the state to give credit where credit is due.

Shootin' | The closest we've been to the moon in 15 years

Taken with my 200mm lens.

Unfortunately, I didn't hear about this occasion until it was too late, but the follow-up was quite spectacular nonetheless.

Friday's full moon, the last of the year 2008, was the closest the satellite has been to Earth in 15 years. And it won't get closer until 2016.

I noticed something was out of the ordinary when I peaked outside my window Friday night. I heard something, and light was bursting through the seems around the curtain. A spaceship was landing, I dreamed. It was probably the brightest I had ever seen it during night.

Of course, I didn't know what was causing the daylight night until I looked into it more.

Saturday's moon wasn't full, as you can see in these photos. But the fast-moving cloud cover made the moon a giant disco ball and the earth a giant dance floor.

Photographing the moon was challenging because it was practically directly above, an impossible angle for my tripod. So, many of these are taken sans stabilization.

This exposure was made while zooming the lens.

The clouds created interesting hues of red and blue.

A wider shot of the moon shining through the dense cover.

In Maine: Fun with camera during last sunset of vacation

'Tis fun to play.

After all, that's what vacation is for.

On the final night of my Maine stay, I took my camera outside of my parents' house for some experimentation.

I wasn't impressed by the sunset, so I had to do something different to make it look better.

In the first photo, I rotated the camera through the entire 1-second exposure. The axis remains somewhat in focus, as you can see at the upper part of the bench that looks toward the setting sun. The circular blurriness draws the viewer's eye into the subject of the photo, the bench. This also worked well with a portrait of my father, but I'll withhold that photo as a family possession, as I've focused on him enough during my Maine vacation.

On the topic of my father, though: He recommended creating some sort of machine that rotates the camera around a steady axis, instead of using my inaccurate hands. This should keep the center of the image in complete focus. I have no doubt that my father can create such a contraption; he has already put together a mount for his camera that moves it simultaneously with the Earth's rotation to prevent long exposures of the stars from becoming too streaky.

Drill No. 2 was using the flash to blow away the silhouette of the trees in front of the glowing skyline. This gave details to the maple tree and the stand of white birches just along the water's edge.

Man, I should do this stuff in Florida sometime, too.

In Maine: Milky Way looks so much milkier here

Just a few lights from a couple of homes in the area.

As I have said, I appreciate space much more when I can actually see what's out there. Lights often obstruct my view in Florida.

The skies in Maine, though, were pitch black tonight, so I snapped a few shots of the Milky Way. I planted my tripod in shallow water just off my parents' dock. By doing that, it eliminated motion from my footsteps. More importantly, it permitted me to shoot beneath some tree branches that would have been waving around in my shot.

Actually, the tripod strategy was my father's idea, and I needed his permission to get it wet anyway because it is his equipment after all.

This exposure is 74.6 seconds, and you can see some obvious movement in the stars because of Earth's rotation, of course. The graininess is caused by the high ISO (the film/chip sensor speed standard recognized by the International Organization for Standardization), which was 800 for this particular photo. That allows more light to hit the digital camera's sensor.

Video | In Maine: Photographing bald eagles catching lunch

I dropped the video camera for one still shot of the eagle.

I've finally completed a video I am somewhat proud of.

In this sequence, we explore a wildlife photographer - specifically, my father - and his mission to get a shot of a bald eagle swooping down to the lake's surface to grab a fish.

None of this was scripted: It was approached journalistically.

My only serious issues is that the footage was shot in standard definition, and when I export the video from Final Cut, the final product has lines across it, especially in any shot with a great deal of motion. From now on, I will always shoot in high definition.

Please, give me some feedback on this flick.

In Maine: Heavenly beauty meets Earthly beauty

An adult bald eagle chills on its perch beneath a mid-morning moon across from my parents' house in Princeton.

My parents and I packed up their 14-foot aluminum boat equipped with a 10-horsepower Mercury outboard and headed out for a day on the lake, Grand Falls Flowage.

There's not much of anything else to do here in Princeton, Maine, but to fish and take photos. Because I'm too cheap to pay for a nonresident fishing license, I'm relegated to taking photos and videos.

The lake is overflowing with wildlife, giving Maine the splendor for which it is widely known. The utmost of these attractions are the bald eagle and the common loon.

Loons are rather skittish and won't let boaters get very close. My father, a wildlife photographer, had to create a bird blind with twigs, mud and an inner tube in order to get some of his best shots of loons. His most famous is the one featured on Maine's loon conservation license plate, the state's most popular vanity tag. You can see that here.

We saw lots of loons, but they were quite far off, left.

Eagles are usually more easygoing. We saw four couples around the lake, only three of which have given birth to an eaglet this year. The childless pair's nest is the closest to my parent's house - directly across the lake. They're the ones featured in these photos.

The eagles weren't too cooperative, though. We chucked some fish into the water, a generous offering for a late-morning brunch. They usually swoop down and grab the white perch, but today, they must have already eaten because they just stayed in their trees.

The perched eagle's mate came along, above, while we were waiting for one to swoop down and grab the fish. The intruder kicked the other off the tree, likely upset that they don't have any youngsters squawking around the nest this year and likely too depressed to eat any fish.

The boat kicks away some lake water.

Though the eagles were rather stubborn, it was a glorious day. I didn't once see a cloud, which is a far cry from what my fellow Floridians are experiencing back in Melbourne. We had a lunch of sandwiches, homemade cookies and Moxie, Maine's official soft drink, on an island in the middle of the lake.

Unlike the eagles, we know when there's a good meal placed in front of us.

Work, work, work inspires D.C. photo essay

Duck, duck, abuse. A boy near the World War II memorial tries to foul the fowl by getting it wetter than it already is.

I'm less than a week away from my second vacation of 2008, but I haven't finished showing you the first, a trip to Washington a few weeks ago.

I've been quite busy in the time I've returned, as you've probably gathered in my few posts since that disastrous stay of 12 hours in an airport terminal. Most of my time has been occupied with work, some with jury duty, some with nonwork editing.

But work is what inspired this post, which is mostly just photos, like many others on The Offlede. On Friday, I put in my first full shift as an online producer. I created a photo gallery of the day's best images. It did quite well on the site - for a weekend, anyway - with about 5,000 hits. See it here.

Modeled after the San Francisco Chronicle's Day in Pictures gallery, I did what I think all newspapers should do: write short, engaging captions for each photo. It's not always easy, but I think it works better than being long and boring, as I usually am.

Ruling behind an iron gate. I toured this place last year with a few Senate interns. Cameras are prohibited inside; this is the best I could do.

Never give up. For years, she has protested President Bush's stand for Israel. She camps in front of the White House, shews away pigeons and speaks gibberish.

Watergate ain't for pansies. Some variety of the morning glory is in favor at the hotel.

Not dressed for the conditions. A worker cleans the reflecting pool near the World War II memorial. You would think he would wear less.

Yeah, well, I can do that, too. A duck mimics the pose of the Washington Monument.

I'm taller than all y'all. Washington towers over a tree and a tourist on the mall.

O'er land of the free. One of the flags around the Washington Monument waves beneath the sun. D.C. is a great place to visit because places such as this are free.

Sweet rides. Two mounted members of the Ark Police stand sentinel as children, off camera, gawk at and try to touch their transportation.

Holy mackerel sky. The steeple of the Church of the Ascension and St. Agnes on Massachusetts Avenue reaches for the cloud-shrouded heavens.

Finally! Finally! Finally! Offlede gets THE lightning shot

Yes, I, Andrew C. Knapp, took this. And it's on Flickr here. The photo received absolutely no editing in Photoshop. Not even a crop job.

Update: This post made it onto July 22's "DC Blogs Noted," a compilation of links to D.C. blogs about what's going on each day.


After trying for two months to catch a great lightning bolt in Florida, I finally got one at an unexpected time and in an unexpected place.

I had just eaten dinner with some friends in Chinatown, D.C. After that, I split with the group and walked downtown as clouds were steadily building over the nation's capital. There were a few drops of rain, but they didn't scare me away.

I noticed how the clouds were forming behind the Capitol, and I thought the contrasts in the sky would make for an interesting photo.

How's this for interesting?

When I reached First Street, the roadway that runs between the Capitol and the large reflecting pool in front of it, lightning began to flash behind the building. But I knew I would need a tripod because of the long exposure I would have to use: There's no way to hold the camera steady for that time period.

Of course, I didn't bother to bring a tripod on the flight from Florida. So, I improvised: I set my camera onto the concrete divider alongside the walkway, set my arm down perpendicular to the camera, propped the lens on my wrist to get the proper upward angle. Then I started firing.

Nineteen frames later, I ended up with the shot above. I knew I had clicked the shutter just before the lightning struck, and I was using a relatively fast shutter speed for the amount of light, so I wasn't sure if I had gotten it. But I looked at the screen on my camera, and there it was. Bingo.

"Yes! Woo hoo! All right," I yelled as I did the signature Tiger Woods fist pump. I was happy.

These are my camera settings on my Nikon D40 for that shot: 18mm, two-fifths of a second shutter, 200 ISO, aperture at f/3.5. The real key is the 200 ISO. Higher ISOs - say 400 and especially 800 - make for a grainy photo, and I was glad to avoid that in this shot.

I didn't stop trying after that. But it's funny: I took about 1,000 more shots in rapid succession, but none of them were nearly as successful. One of the other shots is below.

I'll share more about Day 2 later, though it mostly consisted of great times with great old friends and just a few photos.

But Day 3 is still ahead. It's Newseum time! Copy editors, unite!

This one is a different look: It's slightly to the right of the first photo's shooting location. But the bolt action isn't as pronounced, obviously.

What's better than sunsets? Sunsets with lightning from a plane

I couldn't really avoid getting the wing in the frame, but this thunder cloud and its lightning were pretty cool.

IN THE AIR OVER FLORIDA -- As my USA 3000 flight was lifting off last night over beautiful Brevard County, the sun was setting in front of us.

When the crew said that the use of electronic devices was permitted, I whipped out my camera and starting shooting. The sky wasn't as brilliant as when we lifted off, but it was still great.

Most of these were taken in North Florida, where some stormy weather created some turbulence. The thundercloud in the photo above contained lightning. I was able to catch some of the purplish glow from the lightning and the reddish hues from the sunset.

I finally have Internet access at my friends' house in the Columbia Heights neighborhood of Washington. I'll be posting more photos later, of course.

Before reaching the clouds, I could see the glow of the lights below and, of course, one of the many lakes in Florida. This is somewhere north of Orlando.

The blue sky, above, was equally as magnificent as the red sky, below.

Video | Shot with a Canon: Dog guards house against ice cube

It's time for the much-awaited announcement of my new video camera.

Actually, this is so delayed that the camera isn't really new anymore. I got it more than two months ago.

After thoroughly researching the video camera market, I chose the Canon VIXIA HV30, whose predecessor, the HV20, has accumulated a cult following on the Internet. By browsing HV20.com, a user message board, I realized that the camera made most everyone who had it very happy. Thanks to that Web site, I didn't feel totally lost in this media venture.

Now, a bit about the equipment.

The HV30 is a top-of-the-line consumer model. It's capable of 1080i high-definition video, producing rich colors, vivid detail and great motion. The 1080i part means that the picture has four times the number of pixels than in standard-definition.

I've been shooting in HD since I got the toy, just because it's new to me. But really, that's not necessary for most of the videos I post to the Web because sites such as YouTube and Viddler won't support such high-quality films. They must be compressed to no more than 500 megabytes for Viddler and 100 megabytes for YouTube. I upload videos to both, but I embed the Viddler version on The Offlede because of its superior quality.

My first big experiment with the camera comes in the form of - what else? - Nibbler the guard dog.

I discovered after shooting most of the video with the external microphone - a 16-bit Rode VideoMic that I bought separately (it almost dwarfs the actual camera, left) - that the sound needed to be kicked down a notch. Many of the peaks and pops are beyond the range of digital sound, making for a crackling noise at those heights. After consulting the handy-dandy user manual, I learned how to attenuate that noise and prevent distortion.

I did something in this video, "Nibbler: The Guard Dog," that I probably will never do again: I used music. I did it mainly to learn how to handle it during the post-production process. And the actual score, by the way, was provided by Kevin MacLeod at Incompetech.com. He allows the royalty-free usage of his work as long as it's credited. After listening to a few songs on the site, I realized that FLORIDA TODAY also uses his creations. But music doesn't go well with journalism, so I probably won't use it often - though I don't plan to do much real journalism.

As a pup, Nibbler isn't exactly a poser. She was quite antsy when I tried to get the crucial shot of her name tag. And using a tripod isn't ideal when your subject is always running, jumping and crawling out of the frame. The video shows that Nibbler is doing an excellent job protecting roommate Mark's house from tennis balls, pig ears, ice cubes, rope, insects and even her own leash.

I bought the Canon online through Meijer, a superstore chain in the Upper Midwest. I had never heard of the company before being referred by HV20.com contributors to a special deal it was offering. The sale, combined with a 10 percent discount for registering for Meijer's Web site and its spam, put the camera into my hands for $330 less than the suggested retail price. I used the saved funds for the $150 microphone.

The VideoMic - probably the best shotgun mike of the less-expensive sect - came from the always-dependable B&H Photo Video in New York. Probably the biggest thing I miss about living in Long Island is its abundance of photo superstores and international camera companies, such as Nikon, that base their U.S. operations in the area.

I shelled out $670 for the camera itself, bringing the grand total to $820. I promised myself that it would be my last large purchase in quite some time.

I just bought a cup of coffee to allow me to write this post. Yeah, it's Starbucks, but it was only $2. So ... so far, so good.

Rainbows are almost as fleeting as lightning

I went to save money and live better; instead, I got two rainbows.

I was headed out to the Wal-MartWalmart late this afternoon when I saw a pair of rainbows touching down in Wickham Park in Melbourne.

They weren't too vivid, but the sky was neat at the same time, so I took a few photos. The sun was setting behind me, and that was cool, too, but none of the shots came out the way I would have liked.

By the time I saw what would make for good foreground in front of the rainbows, they had faded too much. There was a cross on each end of the small Catholic church by the park, which made for good continuity: two crosses in the foreground, two rainbows in the background.

The colors may have faded, but at least I had the right idea.

By the time I made it to the side of the church to get a closer shot of the crosses and the rainbows, the colors were gone.

I'll get you, my pretty

This one was taken at a 24-hour docking area off the Eau Gallie Causeway in Melbourne. The camera is pointed toward Satellite Beach, so the storm was out to sea when I was shooting it.

This is just the next of many posts about lightning this summer. I've discovered that we get thunderstorms so often here on the Space Coast that getting many more opportunities to photograph lightning won't be a problem.

As I said in the previous post, I got several good shots early Wednesday morning (from 3 to 4 a.m.), but most were out of focus. I was shooting at about 150mm because the storm was a ways in the distance, and it was difficult to focus on something when the black of night was my subject.

I took the above photo at a wide angle (18mm), so it's in focus, but not nearly as impressive as the close-up ones.

Many of the thunderstorms here come during the time I'm at work. I wouldn't mind if they held off until about 1 a.m. I need more early morning adventures.

Photography mission possible: daytime lightning shot

This successful daytime lightning photo was taken in the parking lot of J.C. Penney in the Melbourne Square mall.

I've always wondered how difficult it is to get a photo of lightning during the daylight hours.

I have plenty of night shots, taken with a lengthy shutter speed in order to catch whatever bolts strike within the frame. But during the day, a lengthy shutter speed would overexpose the photo.

So how do those photogs do it?

I'm too much of a male to consult a manual or guide book, so I set out to devise my own approach. And the only solution, I thought, was to use the rapid-fire technique, depressing the camera trigger, snapping shot after shot until lightning struck within the frame.

I tried that during a thunderstorm last night over a parking lot at the Melbourne Square mall. It was before sunset, so it was still quite bright, but storm clouds had darkened the sky a bit.

I pointed my camera toward an area that seemed to be getting the most strikes. And I snapped at will.

I can get only about 2 1/2 frames per second on my Nikon D40. But on the 65th shot, lightning struck. And I caught it.

So it's really not that difficult.

From the Archives | NASA really can put on a show

The view of space shuttle Discovery from south Cocoa Beach on Oct. 23. It was my first launch.

I was digging into the pre-Offlede photo archives when I came across some shots of the first shuttle launch I witnessed.

It was Oct. 23, and Discovery was set to launch at 11:38 a.m. I was living on the beach in Cocoa Beach, which isn't far from Kennedy Space Center, but I was too lazy to get out of bed and get closer to the launch pad for the liftoff.

Instead, I rolled out of bed 10 minutes before the launch and walked across the street to the beach, armed with my camera, and waited for the thing to head into space.

Being a rookie shuttle gawker, I didn't know what to expect. I was looking about five miles to the east of the actual launch pad when I saw the glow of the rocket boosters.

I hadn't expected such a cool sight or sound. The rockets glared, and the engines blared. (Incidentally, this Saturday, I heard the double boom of the shuttle during re-entry for the first time. In fact, it woke me up around 11:13 a.m.)

Discovery's STS-120 mission delivered the Harmony module to the International Space Station. (Yes, I do believe FLORIDA TODAY capitalized on that great opportunity for word play and used "Launch Harmony" or something similar for the headline.)

I'm glad I don't live in Cocoa Beach anymore: The apartment was a dump. (Incidentally, I may have to find a new apartment soon if this house I'm in now garners any interest on the real estate market.) But I do miss walking across the street to watch one of the greatest shows on Earth.

Since my first launch, I will never make such a lackadaisical effort to view a shuttle launch. I can't wait for the next one, which should be early in the morning on Oct. 8. I'm returning from vacation in San Francisco and Napa Valley late on Oct. 7, so a glorious evening launch will be a great way to cap a great break from work.

I lived in the old Baptist church in Cocoa Beach, which was converted into apartments. And of course, the old church is next to the new church. But the predecessor of that steeple you see in front of Discovery's trail fell during Hurricane Frances in 2004.

Moon, river ... I'll catch you in a perfect pose some day

For some reason, I was a bit confused as to how a certain feature on my Nikon D40 worked. My father straightened me out. It's an embarrassingly simple function that's not unique to digital SLRs, so I'll stop short of divulging the exact nature of my ignorance.

But I got past it, and I'm looking for new things to photograph. It's Florida, and I know there are animals, waves and probably a few insects to shoot here, so I need to get out and explore. Somehow, I must muster the ambition.

A few nights ago, I was driving home along the Indian River in Palm Shores ("the little town that cares") when I noticed the strange reddish hue of the moon shrouded in mist and low-level clouds. Coincidentally, there was leftover lightning in the air after a strong storm ripped through the area. My objective was to get the moon and the lightning in one shot. And it wasn't raining, limiting the danger to my camera.

Unfortunately, the lightning stopped when I got my tripod set. But I saw a neat boathouse on the river that I thought would look good in a photo. But not that night: The moon went behind the clouds before I had a chance.

I returned to the spot last night and took this 3-second exposure. No lightning, no reddish hues, but oh well.

I can't have everything.

Night rocket launch: still overexposed, but getting better

OK. I shot the Delta 2 rocket launch on the spur of the moment. I hadn't planned to do it, so I would say the result could have been worse.

I was editing stories at work early in the morning when I realized the launch was only five minutes away. I had lost track of the Windows clock in the corner of my computer screen.

I stopped agonizing over the commas in a story about a National Geographic photographer and ran out the door. And I mean, ran. My lone co-worker still there probably looked confused after such an abrupt departure.

I set up my camera near the FLORIDA TODAY sign that glowed in the dim moonlight. The launch was only seconds away, and I only had time for one test shot. I clicked it. The result looked a bit overexposed, so I took a few seconds off the shutter speed.

Then the sky lit up. And the rocket was about 45 degrees away from where I thought it would launch. Nowhere close to where my camera was pointed. Oops.

I readjusted the tripod. And the results are these two photos. The above one was the first, of course. Shuttle or rocket, they're both considerably brilliant at liftoff. I imagine people who live on the Space Coast are used to seeing their world suddenly light up in the dead of night.

My improvised "plan," which was drummed up as I ran toward my shooting location along U.S. Route 1, was to have the streaking headlights and taillights making up the bottom portion of the photo and the arching light trail of the rocket comprising the top majority.

I got a little bit of that effect in the photo below. I wish I had more road in the photo. In other photos, which didn't make the cut for The Offlede, I got too much road and not enough rocket. In this one, you can see the smoke behind the rocket, which successfully carried a Navstar Global Positioning System satellite into orbit. It was the 80th consecutive flawless launch of a Delta 2, the most reliable among all rocket types.

Read more here.

From classy to trashy: Photo crops of Spitzer's call girl reveal character of New York media

One of the main stories on the Web sites of four New York newspapers is about soon-to-be-former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's alleged mistress, Ashley Alexandra Dupre (also known by her prostitute alias "Kristen" ... allegedly).

Each newspaper grabbed photos from her MySpace page, and each cropped them a bit differently. Look at the differences. They really show something about the nature of these papers' coverage of the news.


The New York Times: Good quality, but pretty conservative. A close crop. Nice aviators. Real classy.



Newsday (disclosure: I'm a former employee): Enlarged, decreasing quality, but still a respectable crop. Newsday is a tabloid only in format, not in content. And as usual, Newsday enjoys the scenery around the subject of the photo. Where is this taken, anyway? Not Melbourne.



The New York Post: Genuine tabloid picture. Eliot Spitzer's alleged woman in high-quality, eye-popping format.



New York Daily News: Gives us the whole thing. Enlarged and poor quality. Real trashy.

I can hear the questions flying in the newsrooms right now:

New York Times: "Indeed, we must search deep into our minds and ask ourselves, Is this photo really newsworthy? Call the company therapist immediately."

Newsday: "We should ask ourselves, Is her body below the neck really newsworthy? Put a poll on the Web site to see what our readers think."

New York Post: "This photo came from MySpace? I wonder if Murdoch knew her. Hey, get the Rupe on the phone, stat!"

New York Daily News: "Why did she have to wear all these clothes? Someone ask Hugh Hefner if he has made a deal with Kristen!"