My New Photo Website

Bhaga Video Photos

I just got done redesigning my Photo Website.The previous design was more of an organized blog style site that had lots of pictures, but really did not have the pictures in the forefront of everything. A design with a throw back to an earlier time and slower bandwidths. The new design calls out my popular photos and displays the pictures in a much larger format. On a photo website it is all about the pictures and that is what I am focused on. Comments and ratings can be added but do not take up real estate unless clicked on (staying focused on the pictures). This new focus was made possible by the recent changes that SmugMug put into place. Over the last year I had been looking at other photo hosting sites and was liking what I saw, but none offered the ability for me to customize my site to the way I wanted it like SmugMug did. My photo website is the source of most of the pictures on this blog and the photo site offers up all the sizes I need to make for a better designed blog.

There are lots of free sites to show off your pictures, but I prefer my own site and design choices that are free of advertisements, and not subject to overnight changes that break functionality and APIs.

Checkout the site, you will find over 8,000 pictures to look at. Photos Bhaga Video

Tim Hunt's Jazz Duo with Jeff Bremer

This past Tuesday I went to see "Jazz Duo" at Gervasi Vineyard's Piazza. I have been following Tim Hunt for years and always enjoy listening to his bands. Tim enjoys music and his love for it comes through when you listen to him. Unfortunately this was the first chance this season that I got to see Tim perform. Tim's band "Jazz Trio" will be performing at Gervasi on August 9th from 7pm to 10pm. The trio again features Jeff Bremer on acoustic Upright Bass, and Scott Grewell on drums.Jeff is from Youngstown and is a very accomplished musician with abundant jazz music and classical orchestra experience.

I am looking forward to seeing Tim's Cajun Butter Band at Panini's Tiki Bar on Sunday August 11th from 7pm to 11pm. I have not heard the band with the new members so this will be a first. This band features Tim on the keys and vocals, Scott Grewell on drums and vocals, Pat Cahill on bass and vocals, and Mike Balas from Wooster on guitar and vocals.

Tim also does a lot of solo gigs and will be at the Desert Inn from 8pm to 11pm on August 16th and 31st from 6pm to 9pm, and the Main Street Grill on August 21st and August 28th.

Want to know more about Tim Hunt's Jazz Duo and his other bands? Follow this link to learn more. If you get a chance stop out and see Tim, and tell him Harold sent you!

 

Man of Steel - Review

Directer Zak Snyder - Writer David Goyer - Producer Christopher Nolan

Man of Steel Review

This is way off the theme of my site and I am not a movie critic/writer, but I am a Superman fan starting back to the 1950s TV series, and the various iterations of the comic book hero that have been done over the years. The Superman story has gone through a lot of changes the past 75 years and everyone has their own take on the story. Obviously when you are a kid reading the comics, your imagination fills in a lot of the blanks, and the dialog is basic because there is only so much you can put into each one of the little picture blocks of the comic. What looks good in a comic book doesn't necessarily look good on film/video, but in your imagination all is cool.

To give you an idea where I am coming from I liked the very first year of "The Adventures of Superman". Phyllis Coates played Lois Lane and I think she did a great job, she was one tough reporter. She hated Clark's cowardliness and went after the bad guys as if she herself were invulnerable. Her Lois Lane more admired Superman than was smitten by him. My feelings about Clark Kent was that he had to act like he could feel pain and was afraid of things like everyone else, but in reality nothing frightened him and nothing could make him blink. In an emergency Clark became Superman and he would explode off the ground into flight. That sense of urgency and power is what Superman was all about. So when I was young and someone was pushing me around, that was Clark being pushed around, only I understood what could happen if I were to decide to be Superman. That is what brings Superman home to many of us as children. In the movies we want to see this guy do his thing as we imagined it.

Russell Crowe

That brings us to "Man of Steel". More than anything else Superman in the comics is real, and not a comical character. To be a good movie, Superman has to be presented as an alien living among us in the real world. He cannot pick up the Statue of Liberty and fly it around without it falling apart. In a Superman movie you are asked to suspend belief and accept the premise of an alien with super powers. Ok, I am willing to do that, but I cannot suspend belief for all the laws of nature! Anyone who read the comics knows that Superman stories are serious, with an occasional fun story thrown in from time-to-time. If you are not a fan of the comics or didn't read the comics you might base your opinion of Superman on other things like Superman III which pretty much disappointed me and most true Superman fans. So "Man of Steel" does exactly what it should do, which is to place Superman in the real world and have him come from an advanced civilization that was on the brink of destruction. MOS opens on the planet Krypton and spends 20 minutes giving us some real geeky science fiction, and mixes in a few elements from the comics that many people will not notice or realize. What is good is that it really doesn't matter if you spot it or not. Was the opening of "Superman The Movie" in 1978 on Krypton cool? You bet it was, for 1978 it was great. However, Jor-El in "Man of Steel" played by Russell Crowe isn't some old guy being wise, we is a guy that is smart for a lot of reasons, not just that he figured out Krypton was doomed. I like the entire setup in the first 20 minutes of the film that sets the stage for the 3rd act.

Henry Cavill and Diane Lane

In the second act we jump to Ka-El/Clark as a 30 something man trying to discover more about himself, and conflicted about containing his emotions and powers, and at the same time tempted to feel better about himself by using those powers. It is when he is helping people that he feels most comfortable about himself. The story of his childhood is seen as flashbacks, as current events remind him of lessons and experiences he had as a boy. I would like to have seen a little bit more of him as a boy, but there is enough in the movie to make you understand what makes him tick. Some reviewers of the movie complained about the flash backs (broken timeline), but I really didn't have a problem with that. It advanced the story and I got it. Little Clark was tormented by his powers as they became more a part of his existence.

Man of Steel

In the third act we have a knock down drag out fight with General Zod and Faora from Krypton and their henchmen. In this film we do not have the limitations of 1978 when it comes to special effects. Computer generated imagery (CGI) is at it's best in MOS. There really wasn't anything that I saw that just didn't look real, even Superman's cape looks much more majestic in CGI, it looks more like we saw it drawn in the comic books. In this movie General Zod is more than just power hungry wanting to rule over a world. He has a specific purpose in life and he is driven like "The Terminator" to achieve it. We now understand why Zod does what he does. There is controversy over the ending of MOS, but I had no problem with it. My view is General Zod got exactly what he wanted and forced Superman's hand. If you saw the movie you will get this statement.

Michael Shannon

There are scenes in the movie that show you that the producers, writers, and the director just get what Superman is all about. That he has tremendous strength, explosive energy, and walking or flying for Superman is easy and second nature to him. Could there have been a couple more funny moments in the film? Sure I guess so, but I don't recall anyone complaining about that in the Godfather movies.This is a serious movie about a serious topic. Enough said about that.

MOS brings issues and concerns from today's news headlines and current events. It isn't just made to feel more real by seeing IHOP or Sears stores as back drops. It is also about a civilization that abandoned space exploration, plays around with genetics, has moral undertones of right and wrong, and a government spying on its people. Jor-El's statement “What if a Child Aspired to Something Greater?” is what America is all about. The story tellers have managed to get the "Truth, Justice and the American Way" into the movie without saying it.

Overall I give this movie a 4 out of 5 and a thumbs up to see. It was good but not great. I liked the opening, but it seemed rushed or just too much going on for the time allotted. There should have been another 5 to 10 minutes spent on Clark in the second act trying to discover who he is, and interacting with his dad played by Kevin Costner. They could take a few minutes out of the third act to help keep the run time down, I would start with the world engine for a little cutting here and there. More than anything, Man of Steel sets us up for Man of Steel 2 which could be a really great film like "The Dark Knight Rises" was to "Batman Begins".

Worth Watching

• The first season of "The Adventures of Superman"Great supporting cast and George Reeves was great
• Superman The MovieChristopher Reeve and Margot Kidder have that on screen chemistry
• Superman II: The Richard Donner CutShows you how much better the movies could have been with Donner

Panorama Photography

The above picture was created from two 35mm slides I took on a camping trip in 1977. The pictures were not ideal candidates for a photo merge and I had to create a right leg in the center of the picture to give it a little cleaner look. This picture is much more interesting than displaying the two pictures separately. It provides a better feeling of perspective of the camp by seeing a wider view.

I love panorama photography. Evidently that love goes back to my days of film movie cameras. I usually did a pan of the area I was filming. Even my earliest 35mm slides and negatives from the 70s sometimes have enough overlap that I can create a panorama from them (like I did in the above picture). Now that is looking into the future! At the beginning of June I started introducing some new post types (Night Photography, Car Photo, Safari, and On the Road). Not all that ingenious, just a post title that better helps describe the post. I don't always have a lot to say about a picture, and a good one can speak for itself.

So I have been on a kick this month coming up with various post types that I can use to share some of my pictures I take traveling about the town, state, country and world. So, here comes another post type Panorama. I will share my panorama photos in these posts and provide a little information about them. I use Photoshop to merge them, but I have used a couple of other products in the past. Photoshop does a great job so I use it exclusively now. I did a comparison on panorama creation and you can read it by following this link.

Although I am just now officially creating Panorama posts, I already have several posts that contain panorama pictures in them. Check out the Tags to look at all of the panorama pictures I have posted.

 

On The Road Photography

During our travels we are usually in route from one place, to the next place we want to be. Photographs taken in route to our destinations can tells us much about the places we are visiting. Sometimes the pictures from our car windows or brief stops can be of more interest than our final destination! I have pictures from my trip to Disneyland like everyone else does, but what pictures do you have getting there? Checking out the area where you stop to get gas can be pretty interesting, or offer up to the viewers of your photography a different perspective than they had previously never seen.

The above picture was taken at the Caltex petrol station on the N4 in Highlands Rural, South Africa. With this post I am starting a series of photos taken while I was in route to a final destination. In the above picture we were headed to Kruger Park, South Africa.

It's all about the journey.

Cellar 59 Wine Bar

Yesterday my wife and I attended the soft opening of the Cellar 59 Wine Bar and Shop. What a pleasant surprise to see this old 19th century farm house renovated into a wine bar. The old farm house has a large wrap around porch and beautiful hard wood floors inside. The selection of wines and beers was excellent, and the conversations with our friends enjoyable in this pleasant and welcoming shop. We heard about Cellar 59 over a year ago, and while we were anxious for it to open for business, the wait was well worth it. The details have not been over looked during the renovation, and more importantly no short cuts were taken. We will be visiting Cellar 59 throughout the summer, and looking forward to sitting next to the fireplace this fall! If you find yourself in the Stow, Ohio area and you enjoy wine, or just want to check it out, make sure you stop by and see for yourself what a pleasant surprise awaits you at Cellar 59. Order up a cheese plate with either meat or fruit and relax with your favorite wine or try something new. You won't be disappointed.

Cellar 59 Wine Bar