Bowling Alleys remind me of the casinos in downtown Las Vegas. They are places void of natural light, clocks, and newfangled anything. I think bowling alleys in our region are especially frozen in time due to our economic plight over the past 30 years. It is sort of amazing in the days of Wii and declining social club attendance that they are able to hang on. These are the things a lame former political blogger contemplates between frames hoping to break 130. The shots were taken at a fundraiser for Junior Achievement held at Cloverleaf Lanes in Independence. From what I understand, these fundraisers held at bowling alleys across Northeast Ohio last Saturday.

The white ceiling tiles were a friendly surface for my flash to bounce off of. I zoomed it in a little bit to focus the light on the bowlers. I set my shutter speed at 125, my ISO and 200, and adjusted the f-stop on my zoom lens on the fly. I used a Lightroom preset called "Kelsey Smith Just B" on a couple of the photos in my post edit to try to give them a desaturated 1950's look with deeper blacks.

Behold the Golden Spiral (pictured above), Golden Angle, and Golden Section: composition and cropping principals - excellent PDF article. One of the areas I'm always going to need to work on is composition. The only way I have ever used thus far is the rule of thirds. I know that rules are made to be broken and great photographs often do just that. I guess I want to learn the rules first and then make a conscious decision to break them.

I had never heard of these concepts before I stumbled upon a Lightroom video tutorial which shows that each of these are available as overlays in the Lightroom cropping tool. If go to crop an image and then hit the letter "O", you can scroll through the different overlays to try to compose your crop. If you hit "Shift-O", you can get different variations on each overlay. The Golden Spiral has been the one I've enjoyed using most as of late. I didn't realize Lightroom had this feature and I've found it helpful to try to think of different ways to crop an image.

A few posts back, Kyle wrote of the crumbling of the Copley Road area. Well, perhaps Copley Road has found its answer: OIL!

As stated in the minutes of the Akron, Ohio Council Agenda of November 30, 2009, "Ordinance authorizing the Director of Public Service to execute, on behalf of the City, an oil and/or gas lease agreement for the mineral rights of approximately 2.37 acres...to Ohio Valley Energy Systems for completion of the 'Mountain of the Lord Unit No. 1' gas/oil well drilling unit unitization; and declaring an emergency."

I don't believe, given the wordage, that the Lord will see any of the spoils.

This photograph is from the Towpath Trail in the Cuyahoga Valley. I started hiking in Peninsula with the goal of getting this far(to the Turnpike Bridge)because I was on a time table(had to get to my parents for dinner). It was a hike that was tougher than I expected - slipping and sliding in the snow takes it out of you after a while. I added a lot of saturation and contrast when I was processing this photo to give it some pop - it looked really flat directly off the camera - but it came out being my favorite of the hike.

I noticed the well preserved lobby of the Mayflower during one of our Project HOPE nights. Though there exists some obvious signs of wear, the lobby of the Mayflower still exhibits a presence of the well-to-do and happening days of 1930s Akron.

I decided to take a couple of friends and took control of the lobby, setting up a light and a fan (?).

We spent two hours taking advantage of the great props. A couple residents inquired, but for the most part, we were on our own to make complete fools of ourselves and make a mockery of the Mayflower lobby.

Yesterday I went to the Joseph Saxton Gallery of Photography to check out the exhibit of Steve McCurry's work called 'The Unguarded Moment'. Steve McCurry is an award winning National Geographic photographer most famous for his photo titled 'Afghan Girl'(visible in the exhibit poster above). The thing that stands out the most in these 50 prints is the amazing color. They're portraits of people from the Middle East and Asia - with a focus on showing "a person caught in the broader landscape that you could call the human condition". It was truly an awesome collection of work. The Gallery also had many other photos from their collection on display. Click here for the Beacon's review.

I'm glad I went - I've wanted to make an effort to get out to see more things like this. Plus seeing the large, beautiful prints in person is way better than a page on a website or in a magazine.

I, like many others, saw the Blimp floating around town yesterday - obviously not an unusual sight in Akron. It flew pretty much right over my house and I had my longer lens on my camera so I snapped this....and it gave me an excuse to post a link to CD Truth's video for 'We Got The Blimp' on YouTube - a must listen for any proud Akronite.


(Oh heck - check out 'Follow Me to Akron' and 'I Hate Route 8' while your there).

A Friday night in the Winter of 1996, hanging out with the gang in Pete's basement, we'd already had band practice and watched the same skateboarding video for the 100th time, what next? I know - let's hit up Borders. Borders wasn't a store then, it was a hang out - we'd stand in the magazine aisle for hours reading all the band interviews (and occasionally buy a CD), not to mention probably run into other friends from school. I don't usually mourn the loss of a chain store, but I'd be lying to say I'm not nostalgic about the Montrose Borders. Yesterday I decided to head over there to check out there store clearance sale(30-50% off)...and maybe more so to say goodbye.

I recently took a road trip up to Dodd Camera in Cleveland to purchase a 32" silver umbrella. I went with the 32" instead of the 48" hoping it would give me a bit more flexibility when dealing with the low ceilings in my house. In the few test shots I took, the coolness of the light seemed sharper. I just sat in a chair in front of a black sheet and took a couple shots. In some of the shots the light looked almost blue. Tim often uses one shoot through and one silver umbrella for his two light setups. I like the combination in his photos and hope to use a similar setup when I get a second flash.

It was early, before 9AM. Five of us sat jammed at the front booth by the door at Fred's Diner. Each of us slurped endless cups of coffee from different mugs--mine read "creativi-tea."

The boys ordered their #2's and #3's and breakfast sandwiches. I ordered the oatmeal. Piles of bacon and hotsauce-covered hashbrowns crammed our tiny table.

We were a loud and obnoxious bunch, but the servers hung tough with us and never broke from their pleasantries, joking along with us.

The place was packed and the customers just kept coming, waiting in the entrance for an empty table.

The decor is fantastic too. Like many great diners, the theme seems to be anything and everything. Along with the old Pepsi sign behind the counter, old Akron memorabilia highlight the diner's commitment to its native customers.

Fred's Diner isn't surrounded by much else on Home Avenue, but it's worth the trip for a moderately-priced, greasy early morning fix.

The Brothers Rowan split after the loss of their partner William Walker, whose traumatic death proved all too devastating for the brothers. The elder Ollie held true to the threesome's goal of attaining the Miracle of Ice, while Finn descended into a solemn trek of despair.

You can follow some of the sad story further by clicking on the picture of Finn's last stand.

Though close to ridiculous, my attempt was to place these figures in scenes where they didn't look so miniature; however, you'll find plenty of goofs--though, the goofs are quite entertaining, I think.

On Saturday I was heading down to the Portage Lakes to get photos of Kyle and Greg jumping. I couldn't find it. I drove around the Portage Lakes area until Kyle called me to let me know they weren't letting people in anymore. I was with Laura and we just randomly kept driving around until we ended up in Canal Fulton. I had rode my bike through there a few times in the summer on the the Towpath. We decided to park, get some lunch, and explore the little town. It wasn't what we had planned to do but it turned out to be a fun trip.