Almost Gone

A year, that is. The 2007 Book Passage Mystery Writers Conference is almost here, which means it has been nearly a year since I felt so close to having The Voice in My Head done and off to New York. That plan didn't include my daughter's eventual hospitalization after a long series of mystified doctors, or a back yard renovation that simply will not end, or etc etc etc . I still have a fence along my neighbor's property to finish before I start editing the current draft, which I hope will put me back at work with the red pen rather than the hammer and saw within a week or so.

I was reminded of the conference this morning when my daughter and I ran into a writer I'd met at last year's conference. I didn't know he lived in my neighborhood, and in fact it wasn't untiI I got home that I realized who he was. But I started thinking about the conference and how excited I was that my book's intro had been so well received by Jamie Raab--she probably doesn't even remember me now. How many flakes with half-done books do people in her position meet at these conferences? Loads. Loads and loads of posers who get sidetracked with other interests, like photography, patios, swimming lessons, and worst of all, video games.

I keep reminding myself of what Elizabeth George told me: "The people who get published are the people who don't give up." The date on that email from her is 4/6/02. I haven't given up yet. But at some point I'm going to have to finish the book.

Now, where's my good hammer?

I Want a Golden Ticket...

A golden ticket gets Charlie and Grandpa Joe into the chocolate factory, but an Orange Ribbon gets you into the prime photo spots at Infineon Raceway.

I thought I might be able to sneak into some of the best spots since I was carrying around a huge L lens. I arrived early and parked at the far end with the rest of the common folk. I entered the track area by Turn 7 and saw a beautifully open area at the turn where I could get great shots. I paused at a hay bale to assemble the lens and camera and monopod, and I think that was my first noob mistake. Pros don’t put their stuff together on hay bales. They do it in the car and are ready when they arrive at the track.

As I tried to attach the big lens without getting dust on it, a golf cart raced over to me and two men demanded my credentials. I was busted. I went on my way without a fight and started noticing that everyone on the other side of the fences had hanging from his or her waist a large orange ribbon that was visible from far, far away. Sneaking in did not look like a promising possibility.

I went to the high ground and relied on the 300mm lens to get me close. Sadly, I found that even that monster was a bit too short for the distances from which I was usually shooting, and when I got home and edited the pictures, I usually had to crop much of the image out to get what I wanted. I was hoping the big lens would give me full frames of action that would require little or no cropping.

Having orange ticket envy, I approached a man wearing one as he passed me and spoke to him for a few minutes about how he got that treasured item.

I had the pleasure of meeting Malcolm Slight, from El Sobrante, CA (not pictured above). When I asked him about how to get an orange ribbon, he kindly explained that one needed to be sent to the event by a newspaper or magazine that wanted pictures for publication. He went on to say that Infineon has tightened up on the number of photo passes issued due to the extreme popularity of their NASCAR event. He attends in the good graces of the Benicia Herald, which he said has used quite a few of his photos. To get his pass this year, he was required by the raceway to submit at least four published images of races. He got his start by contacting sports editors to inquire about interest in shots of upcoming races and being persistent. Amazing how often that word comes up, huh?

With Mr. Slight’s information in mind, I watched the many orange ribbon bearers with new interest. Not only was I developing a new appreciation for how many of them lug these heavy lenses around, but I started to wonder about some of those wearing photo passes. Some seemed clearly to be pros, judging not just from the equipment, as we know that any hack can rent a big lens, ahem. But many of these people knew each other, knew where they wanted to be on the track at certain times, and went about their business in a very familiar and methodical way. In other words, I didn’t see any of them trying to sort out their gear on hay bales.

Others, however, looked like anything but pros. One ribbon bearer had a tiny single camera, practically a compact. A woman in a fancy jumpsuit had one small SLR that she seemed to be learning to use by occupying one of the best spots at Turn 2, a gap in the metal fence just meters from the edge of the track. If I had been there with my big lens I could fill the frame with a rider’s single hand on the throttle! So I am now of the opinion that there are other ways of getting orange ribbons. I suspect that knowing the right people, perhaps being related to one of them, will also get you into the right place if you have a camera.

Since I am not likely to get where I want to go that way, I will someday have to take the persistence route. I am slowly building a collection of photos I could show to editors when trying to solicit a job. But at the moment all of my persistence is directed at getting a book published, so it will be a while at least before I’m chasing in earnest my own orange ribbon.

As a compromise, I have added to my reservation of the big lens the 2X converter for Laguna Seca. That will give me 600mm to work with! Maybe I’ll be able to compensate for my distance from the track with that.

From humble beginnings…

Looks like my first ‘published’ photograph has been determined. Just got an email on Flickr requesting usage of this image of the Macarthur Maze accident. The sender? Someone from the German Dangerous Goods online magazine! Next stop, the Sports Illustrated cover, baby. ☺

That series of six on the freeway meltdown has far exceeded any of my other shots in terms of views on Flickr. One of them has 133 views, which is a record for me. I guess fiery destruction appeals to a broader audience than Ferraris do.

Yesterday I went to Sears Point for the AMA Superbike race. I rented a BIG lens, a Canon 300mm f/2.8L, and a monopod to help me carry the monster around. It only weighs 5.6 pounds according to the spec sheet, but by the end of the day it feels like 50. Even though this rental is a bit worn on the outside, its quality is very good and I if I had $4,000 I would buy one.

Each time I have a photo day like this, I learn some very valuable things. The main lesson yesterday was this: when you’re going to the trouble to rent a lens and haul all your equipment to the racetrack, make sure you haul ALL your equipment. I’d filled up my first of three memory cards by about 11am, and when I went to swap for a new one I realized I had not transferred either of the other two to the larger camera backpack. The 2-gig card in the camera was all I had.

I had to retreat to one of the tunnels that allow foot traffic to enter the interior of the course so I could edit my bad shots out right on the camera. I hate doing this, because even though DSLR screens are getting bigger and better, they are still too small to give an accurate impression of an image’s quality. Mainly, you can’t tell on that tiny screen if your focus is sharp or not. Only on the big computer screen can you make a good judgment about this. So there I was, a poser with this fancy lens and monopod deleting shots I hoped I would throw away anyway. For the rest of the day I was constantly deleting shots as I took them and being very careful about when I hit the shutter button.

This was hard for me because I’m pretty much a spray and pray photographer. I try to get in a good spot and then take loads of exposures hoping that a few will happily turn out right. I just put 53 images up on Flickr, and I believe I’d have had more if I’d brought more than one roll of film, to use an old metaphor. But I doubt I’ll ever make that mistake again, which is largely the point of these practice/learning sessions.

I met a few interesting people at the track and will be posting about those encounters and other topics from the track this week. Stay tuned!

My Experience So Far With Canon Rebates

I thought I’d take a break from working on the back patio railing (see photo above of the drill press in action) to relate my experience with the infamous Canon Rebate program. First, if you’re having problems, see this article over at The Digital Picture.com. Many photo forums offer similar tales of problems with these twice yearly programs. But my experience has been, well, it could be much worse.

I bought the 30D with a promotional EF-S lens back in December, and under that rebate program the $115 combo rebate should’ve been doubled to $230. A few weeks later I bought a second lens which had a $50 rebate.

I consider rebates a personal challenge. I’ve read many times about how companies offer rebates as purchase incentives, knowing that many people are too lazy or too forgetful to follow through with the various paperwork involved with a successful rebate submission. I take it as a matter of pride that no one is going to lure me into a purchase with a rebate and not deliver on their promise of sending some money back. I keep a database on my computer of all rebates I’ve sent in, when I sent them and where, with scans of all documents, and when the check arrives I enter that, too, so I know I have ‘won.’

When embarking on these Canon rebates, though, I had heard from more than once source how long it can take and how much of a struggle it can be to get the money Canon owes you. After performing my regular recordkeeping, I put the rebates out of mind until recently, when the costs of the backyard project started making every penny count in the monthly budget. I wondered what had become of those Canon rebates.

I had only received one check for $15 since December. And it seemed that five months was a bit too long. As many companies do, Canon appears to outsource its rebate admin. So I braced myself for a fight and followed the advice from the article linked above and called Canon Customer Service rather than the rebate center.

I talked to Krista, who was polite and sympathetic as she looked up my records (Canon has a web-based pre-registration thing to get your info into their system before they receive the paperwork). She was able to tell that the $50 for the second lens had been sent to the wrong address. She then discovered that a key element of the camera rebate had not been included, namely the UPC bit I’d had to remove from the box. It was in the envelope, of course, but had somehow gone missing during the processing of the rebate.

She gave me a number for the rebate center, saying they had to take the next steps and to call her back if I had any problems. She even gave me her extension. She was great. I braced myself again, though, for my call to the rebate center.

I got Angela, there, who was just as helpful. She saw that one of her people had entered the wrong zip code on the lens rebate and sent it to Washington state, and then mentioned that since the zip code was wrong it hadn’t been included with the previous submissions. I asked if that meant its amount should be doubled to $100 and she said yes. I hadn’t expected that—I thought for the double up items had to be purchased at the same exact time. She took a moment to reissue that rebate and said it should arrive in the next week or so.

She then said I could fax my photocopy (scan) of the UPC barcode to them and they would use it to complete the rebate for the camera. That should take another couple of weeks to process and issue the check.

So assuming that I actually get the checks in the next few weeks, I will say that other than losing my UPC cutout and sending one check to Washington, the Canon rebate system is not as horrible as suggested by the experiences of some. Both people I spoke to were very helpful, and to my own credit I am sure this had much to do with the fact that I followed this advice: you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Though I was ready to fight, I adopted a friendly attitude for both calls and was certainly rewarded for that.

The other lesson is to keep copies of EVERYTHING. I think this was the first time in my rebate adventures that I had scanned the actual UPC cutout. I always keep copies of the receipt and rebate forms with all the info I’ve entered. But in the past I’ve counted on the center to manage not losing the UPC code. I guess it was the warnings I’d heard about the Canon rebate program that made be extra meticulous.

So now my fingers are crossed that I’ll be getting two checks, which will go right into the back yard project…

Backyard Blues

I've been spending so much time on the backyard project I've been doing little else, and thus had little time or subject matter about which to post here. I've been taking few pictures that aren't of my daughter--even though she's my favorite subject, I keep those shots for the family, so have had little to put up on Flickr or anywhere else.

Last weekend, however, we took a ferry trip from Jack London Square to Pier 41. I was looking forward to that event because a) it did not involve bricks, concrete, or pressure treated lumber, b) going out on the bay is fun, c) it seemed like a great way to spend some time with my wife, child, mother in law, sister in law and her family, and d) I would bring my camera and no doubt have lots to take pictures of.

I took almost 300 pictures, most of them of my daughter and her two cousins, some of the giant cranes as they loaded containers onto huge ships, some of the city from under the Bay Bridge, etc etc. But I had all sorts of problems that professional photographers likely avoid due to experience such as that which I gained the hard way. In short, most of the pictures I took had some profound flaws that caused the great majority of them to go right into the trash when I got home and looked at them.

The trip across the bay was WINDY. That ferry hauls some serious butt once it gets out onto open water and as I stood on the top deck facing the wind, it was at times difficult to breathe. I had to turn away to get a good breath, in fact. I should have realized that this amount of buffeting around would require a faster shutter speed--even shots at 1/200 were blurry. I was also getting all sorts of stuff blown onto my lens, not just out on the boat but all day. I did get a few nice shots of the family and this one above of the ship that I quite like. But boy was I glad not to be shooting film when I saw the results. Digital rules!

Photography failures aside, the trip on the boat was very fun. I'm thinking of bringing certain British visitors out for the same in July. Not just because I think they'd enjoy the views of the city, but also because I'd like another crack at some of those shots with a much higher shutter speed.