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Jacob: The Limitless Sky Video at the Royal Observatory

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Jacob: The Limitless Sky Video for the Greenwich Royal Observatory

Jacob: The Limitless Sky Video for the Greenwich Royal Observatory

I few months ago the guys from Lonely Leap Films came down from New York City to do a piece on my nephew, Jacob Marchio, for the Greenwich Royal Observatory highlighting his work in astrophotography. This year Jacob competed in the Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year contest at the Greenwich Royal Observatory in Greenwich England. This video was part of his image being selected from a huge number of entries over the 2012 year (see some of his moon photography here and his astrophotography hereon Flickr). This yearly contest is a really big deal for astrophotographers worldwide, Wired.com even wrote a nice article about the context in Royal Observatory Picks Best Astronomy Photos of the Year.

Obviously being a photographer myself for almost 20 years now I am more than a little excited about one of my nearby relatives taking an interest in photography. I know he is just getting starting in his understanding of telescopes, cameras, and astronomy so I can’t wait to see what’s next. He has already started talking about building his own telescope here on the property so there may be photos of that down the road. For now, please check out the video shot by Lonely Leap Films. They did such a fantastic job (and for you tech junkies out there, they shot this whole thing with 2 Canon 5D Mark II’s, including the audio).

Jacob: the limitless sky from Royal Observatory Greenwich on Vimeo.

If you have a chance to head over to his blog, his updates include everything from astronomy to techniques used in photography to just life in the South. Even after shooting as long as I have he inspires me to want to get out there and shoot the night sky again and again.

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Transit of Venus In Front of the Sun :: Photos

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Transit of Venus Through the Telescope

Yesterday about 5pm, the Venus Transit across the Sun began. There were so many articles and photos posted from yesterday’s transit, but I think this from National Geographic summed it up the best.

Transits happen when a planet crosses between Earth and the sun. Only Mercury and Venus, which are closer to the sun than our planet, can undergo this unusual alignment.

With its relatively tight orbit, Mercury circles the sun fast enough that we see the innermost planet transit every 13 to 14 years. But transits of Venus are exceedingly rare, due to that world’s tilted orbit: After the 2012 Venus transit, we won’t see another until 2117.

From our vantage point, we were able to see the transit here and there as the cloud cover was typical for a hot afternoon in the south. Clouds came and went, some stayed around for a long time. The shot above is what the transit looked like as the clouds were crossing over the sun. My nephew Jacob has several other shots on his blog post here as well.

All in all it was a fascinating display of the planets, something that was clearly visible with nothing other than some solar eclipse glasses (the 3-D looking glasses). Glad we took time to see it, especially since it won’t be seen again in my lifetime, so the shot above, is literally, a once in a lifetime shot.

Transit of Venus Through the Telescope

Transit of Venus Through Solar Glasses

Transit of Venus Through the Telescope

Transit of Venus Through Solar Glasses

Please Welcome My Nephew to the World of Photo Blogging

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Jacob Marchio Working on His Blog

I’m so excited to see my nephew, Jacob, starting his first blog, so everyone please jump over to his newly created blog at www.JacobMarchio.com and add it to your reader or leave him a nice comment on his first post. After saving up and getting his first Digital SLR camera, a Nikon D3100 (see the post here where we went to pick up his camera), he quickly realized that he wanted a place to post his photos other than his Flickr account page where it is sometimes hard to write in a whole lot of detail.

At this point I have helped a lot of people setup a new blog, but I am not sure I have ever had someone this excited about getting started. His blog will generally be posts about his photography and his interest in astronomy, and for his age, he is quite a talented photographer and astronomer. I am really looking forward to seeing how his blog develops over time, I hope you will check it out from time to time as well and give him some nice encouragement along the way.

Photowalk with My Nephew’s First DSLR a Nikon D3100 Camera :: Friday Feet

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Feet Reflection in the Pond

I think I was just about as excited as he was. Today my nephew and I made the trek over to my favorite store, Best Buy, and picked up his first Nikon DSLR Camera, a Nikon D3100 that he has been saving and working for (you have to love the lady in the background of the Best Buy shot, she was hilarious). My Friday Feet shot was a play on my previous Friday Feet post with my iPhone (Reflections on the Grey Days of Fall in the South :: Friday Feet), with a slightly different flare since my nephew came with me. This photo essay is basically his first few minutes with his new camera. After we did the grand unboxing we took it out on a Photowalk around the back of the property where there is always something new to shoot. My nephew is long on his way to becoming an incredible photographer, especially in the area of astrophotography, can’t wait to see what he can do with the D3100 since he has been using a Canon PowerShot SD1300 IS and taking some incredible shots with that point and shoot.

This time around we came across this orange blob gooey thing on a Cedar tree I had never seen before (see last photo). Turns out it’s called Cedar Apple Rust Fungus. Also known as Gymnosporangium juniper virginianae by genus name from the fungus Scirrhia acicola. Always something new, and apparently we want to keep the Cedar Apple Rust Fungus away from our apple trees in the back yard, good to know.

Jacob at Best Buy with His New Nikon D3100

Jacob with His New Nikon D3100

Nikon D3100 and Spring Thistle Weed

Spring Thistle Weed

Photowalk in the Woods

Water Lily in the Rain

Cedar Apple Rust Fungus

Tick Tock Goes the Clock by Jacques Marciano :: Poem

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Today I have a guest author, one of my nephews (published here under my given pen name for him), graciously offered one of his poems for this Saturday sidenote post. After reading several of his poems I realized that poetry is certainly not dependent on age for elegance and beauty.  My first thought was, not bad at all for a 12 year old poet, but I am not sure age has anything to do with well written poetry.  When Edgar Allan Poe wrote “To Helen” in 1831 he was only 14 years old, and it still to this day it is referred to by some as one of the greatest American lyrical poems ever written.

Tick Tock Goes the Clock was the first of several he offered, which will probably grace these pages for the next few Saturday’s.  I am sure he would appreciate any comments you might want to leave.

Tick Tock Goes the Clock

Tick tock goes the clock,
Twenty-four hours in a day.
Tick tock goes the clock,
Little time do we have to play.
Tick tock goes the clock,
Working, toiling, and laboring.
Tick tock goes the clock,
Getting up in early this morning,
Tick tock goes the clock.
Every second just flies away,
Tick tock goes the clock
Watching the sun’s bright leaving rays,
Tick tock goes the clock.

Jacob Blount Debuts at Eighth and Rail in Opelika :: Photos

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Jacob Blount Opens at Eighth and Rail

Jacob Blount Opens at Eighth and Rail

Jacob Blount Opens at Eighth and Rail

Jacob Blount Opens at Eighth and Rail

Jacob Blount Opens at Eighth and Rail

Jacob Blount Opens at Eighth and Rail

This past Saturday I did a live performance photo shoot with Jacob Blount at Eighth & Rail in Opelika Alabama.  This was Jacob’s debut performance and he combined it with an art show and an all around creative evening time.  A local artist, RC, hung painting, drawings, and photographic prints and dubbed the night “drink-n-draw”.  Each table was supplied with a sketch pad (most of which had a few pages of completed sketches from RC) and guests were asked to draw or sketch as they listened to the music from Blount.

It was interesting to hang around with so many creative and talented people and I enjoyed the evening very much.  Several of Jacob’s friends and family came for the opening and it was nice to see so many people there in support of Jak but even if you just walked in not knowing anything about the plans for the night you would have enjoyed a great performance from a local band.  Below are some of my favorites from the night (click the link at the bottom to see all 6 in this blog post).  To see the entire shoot visit the Jacob Blount gallery.  (To see all 6 images in this blog post just click the continue reading link below.)

Something I really enjoy about live performance photography is that it is always a challenge.  The lighting is always bad changing and you never know what to expect (although it was pretty good Saturday thanks to Dan King), plus you can’t really get any predetermined compositions or portraits.  Even the lighting and the sound in the same venue can vary greatly from day to day, but as I told someone recently, 80% of photography is “showing up”.  I was certainly glad I showed up on Saturday.

Jak is still working on a website and myspace page but if you would like to check out some of his music you can bookmark these pages jaknoise and http://www.myspace.com/jaknoise, thanks for a great night Jak.

Coming Up

I still have a few edits left from this past weekend.  One, the Spurlock family, is next on the list and then I have a series of posts from the Catalyst Conference which will include an incredible act of worship with worship painting from Caitlin Beidler from Redemption Art and live performance photos from Aaron Keyes, Franklin Graham with Samaritan’s Purse, Jeff Foxworthy, and several others from Catalyst08.