Dustin Barbour » columbus

Lubricating the Moving Industry

Dustin Barbour — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 02:28:21 +0000

Today I had all of my household goods packed and shipped. They’ll be meeting me in Las Vegas when I arrive there in October. While watching the packers box and tape everything up, I was taken aback at how much tape was being used to secure each box. (Not that I was asking them to use less, mind you.) At least three ribbons of the stuff was used to secure each seam of every box. Now imagine all of the stuff that gets tape… boxes, presents, kids projects, envelopes… Painters tape, masking tape, Scotch Tape, duct tape, electrical tape. There must be tons of the stuff produced every year (still searching for a reference). What is it all made of?

Surprise! Buttseks! I mean, oil! The sticky part is made of rubber which, in the vast majority of cases, is synthetic. Where does synthetic rubber come from? Oil. The non-sticky part is usually plastic, typically polyethylene, which is again made from oil. The truck arrived on asphalt roads (oil) riding on synthetic rubber tires (yep, oil) driven by a diesel-powered engine (oil again). The corrugated cardboard that composes the boxes my stuff shipped in was held together by corn starch glue… corn that was fed and protected from pests by oil derivatives. The plastic in the tape guns… oil. The synthetic rubber soles of the movers’ shoes… oil.

Is there anything oil can’t do? We pave our roads and shingle our roofs with it. We fertilize, protect and build our food with it. (How ridiculous it is that I can use the word “build” in that sentence?) We even brush our teeth with it. The stuff is everywhere… literally. It’s all really impressive actually. The complex chains of carbon that make up oil can be twisted and shaped into pretty much anything and I don’t have a problem with that (except using it in/on food). Oil really is the substance that made modernity possible and it is still fueling the world’s immense population growth. We just must remind ourselves from time to time how dependent we are on this sticky black stuff and, as the price of oil continues to rise—and be certain that it will (Finite resource, increasing demand. Do the math.)—so will the price of most everything else. Remember folks… you heard it here first.

Shock the World

Dustin Barbour — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:48:34 +0000

DeWayne Hayes Recreation Area

Dustin Barbour — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 00:44:12 +0000

Did some camping this weekend at DeWayne Hayes Recreation Area. Quickly planned and executed, it amounted to simply hanging out in another place, but it was a good time. I took some pictures.

Independence Day

Dustin Barbour — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 17:21:55 +0000

Ah… Independence Day… the day in 1776 on which we declared our independence from the tyrannical King George III of England. The history of that day and the reasons for independence aren’t as clear cut as they teach high school students, but to hell with it. Let’s celebrate with some real Americana… hot dogs, fireworks and apple pie!

Uh… wait a tick… Hot dogs are German, fireworks are Chinese and the apple pie was invented by Europeans centuries ago. Hrmmm… Seems most things about America aren’t “as American as apple pie.” But that’s the glory of America… the so-called melting pot of the world. We would all be better off if we could remember that. Perhaps that’s why we celebrate our Independence Day the way we do, an homage to our varied histories and worldwide influences. That doesn’t mean we are completely lacking home-grown tradition though. So grab that case of beer, throw some lawn chairs into the back of your pickup truck and let’s get wasted!

No firework shots ’cause my chosen technique didn’t work as well as I had hoped.

Atlantis Comes Through CAFB

Dustin Barbour — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 00:23:49 +0000

Space Shuttle Atlantis made a stop-over here at Columbus AFB on the back of its 747 carrier today… just a quick stop to get some gas before continuing on to Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Here are my pictures of the event… nothing spectacular on my part. The last image is a panorama stitched together from five pictures by a program called Hugin. It’s not perfect as I could have optimized it a bit better, but it was really more a proof of concept than anything else. As for Atlantis, there’s a post about it coming through Columbus on NASA’s website.

Update on 4 JUN: According to the Wing Commander, Col Roger Watkins, the ground crews here were able to service the aircraft pretty quickly allowing the SCA to takeoff and make it to Kennedy Space Center just in time to avoid busting the aircrew’s duty period. So had they taken any longer here at CBM, the shuttle would have been forced to stay overnight allowing for some sweet sunset pictures. But alas… the ground crews were too good. Col Watkins received compliments on what may have been the fastest turn around in the SCA’s career.

More CAFB Sunset

Dustin Barbour — Mon, 04 May 2009 01:21:16 +0000

We get a lot of weather here in northern Mississippi and it’s an easy subject to photograph. So as I slowly continue to hone my photography skills, I tend to take a disproportionate number of pictures of interesting weather phenomenon. Unfortunately I don’t get out much for the purpose of photography.

For those of you who may be wondering why I shoot pictures of the airfield as often as I do, what can I say? It’s quick, nearby and the most open area within fifty miles or so. Trust me, I wish I had more opportunity to explore the area for photos, but meh… I get what I can. Maybe one day I’ll get up early enough to catch a sunrise. Enjoy my two latest. I’m actually considering getting a print of the first one and hanging it on my wall.

Experiments in HDR (Updated)

Dustin Barbour — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 00:47:29 +0000

I’ve done a lot of reading about HDR photography in the past and have always wanted to see what I could do using the technique. The only problem was that I hadn’t owned a tripod (pretty much mandatory for this sort of work) until yesterday. So today I took off on something of a sight-seeing tour of northern Mississippi. I took a lot of pictures, but most didn’t turn out nearly as I had intended. Consequently, I’m only sharing the four above. The first image was taken along US-45, the highway that runs through Columbus on down to Meridian, MS and then to the coast. The other three were taken on the west bank of the Stennis Lock and Dam just west of Columbus.

Per Wikipedia:

High dynamic range imaging (HDRI or just HDR) is a set of techniques that allows a greater dynamic range of luminances between light and dark areas of a scene than normal digital imaging techniques. The intention of HDRI is to accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from direct sunlight to shadows.

Next weekend I plan on hitting the Natchez Trace Parkway, a road identified as one of the most scenic in the country, to do some more photography. We’ll see how that turns out. Some of the pictures presented here were processed more than others, but each represents my memory of the scene pretty well. My favorite is the third one. Which one is yours? Do you have an opinion of the HDR technique?

Update:
I realize that my truck can look fake in these HDR pictures. So, as an exercise, I started playing with Photoshop a bit more and ended up with the following pictures. The first is a shot of my truck in a field of small yellow flowers… obviously. I think the truck looks far more realistic. This was accomplished in Photoshop with a layer mask and one of the original images underneath. I think I still prefer the more drastic images of my truck, though. The second is another shot of the lock. I thought this one looked great with the more extreme saturation and contrast. It doesn’t look at all “real,” but I like it.

Snow in Columbus

Dustin Barbour — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 18:29:24 +0000

After warnings that there was a chance of snow in Columbus (which I dismissed), I woke this morning to snow on the ground. Two inches, maybe? It had all melted by midday, but nevertheless… snow in March. I wish I had a garage.