Beerguy’s Reef and Hop Dog Brewing

Most of my energies lately have been directed towards photography.  As a result I haven’t updated this site in quite some time.  If you’re interested in keeping up with me and see what I’ve been doing, you should check out my primary site BinaryEmulsion.Com and it’s associated blog site.

This domain won’t be going away for the perceivable future so it’ll always lead you to my current information.

Cheers

I used to host about 10 domains via 1and1.com. They all went offline Sunday afternoon, May 18th, and didn’t come back until Thursday May 22nd. I’ve made my living in IT for nearly 20 years so I don’t expect perfect sailing from any web host; every one has occasional outages. What was maddening was the way the outage was handled. When I contacted support, something I did repeatedly, the only thing anyone would say was that there was a technical issue. They wouldn’t tell me what was going on, they wouldn’t give me and idea when it might be resolved. They just kept sending me the same “cut and pasted” response.

A 4 day outage, especially in this day and age is completely unacceptable. It’s a matter of installing Linux, Apache, PHP and MySQL; not decoding the human genome. As a result I’ve moved all of my hosting off of 1and1’s servers. Those domain registration and some of the hosting is at Godaddy.com. Hopdog.Com and BinaryEmulsion.com are hosted via Lunarpages.com The switch is too new to be able to say if that was the right move but at least it’s not 1and1.

Moral of the story, don’t host your site with 1and1.com

The Beer family was in Yosemite this last weekend. As photographers, we often try to get places that others don’t frequent in an effort to get the shot but you need to remember the risks as well. I passed this kid on the trail about 30 minutes before he fell. We passed them on the way to the middle step of the falls. On our way back we encountered the rescue workers still trying to find him.

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He and his friend were off the trail doing something that they shouldn’t have been doing but it’s a sobering reminder that we’re out photographing wild places with plenty of danger if you’re not careful.

We made a couple of trips to Yosemite in December and January. I’ve uploaded several images from those trips to the my gallery. With any luck I’ll be able to sneak in a trip this month as well. The schedule is tight as Mrs. Beer and I will be attending the NANPA summit in Destin Florida at the end of the month.

Cheers

During the Thanksgiving week I packed up the family and we headed to the Eastern Sierra. I’ve driven through much of that area many times I’ve never had a camera handy. Over 4 days we logged about 900 miles in the car. Mono Lake was a primary goal but we hit Bodie, the Bristle Cone Pine Forest and even a bit of Yosemite’s high country. I’ve added a new gallery with some of the images here.

Currently playing Juice from the album “Alien Love Secrets” by Steve Vai

I did some reorganization of my photo gallery. I think that things are a little easier to find this way so let me know if you don’t concur. In addition to the organizational changes I’ve added a Lake Tahoe gallery. The pictures there are a mix of a couple of trips up there. My focus has been the south end of the lake and Emerald Bay but I’ve been looking at some other spots as well.

Cheers

Currently playing Time from the album “The Harsh Light of Day” by Fastball

Until last fall, even though I’ve spent 42 years just 3 hours North, I’d never been to Yosemite National Park. After my first visit I decided that I needed to capture the park in all 4 seasons. It really is a different place in each. I just spent a magical 4 days in the park and came back with what I feel are my strongest images to date. Mother nature put on a fantastic show for us out at Olmstead Point and the park at night takes on a whole new look. As always I’ve updated my gallery site with images from this latest trip. Enjoy!

The first weekend in April I made a quick trip to Yosemite. Even though it was early in the season, I was hoping to catch some Dogwood in bloom. I wasn’t disappointed. The bloom was just starting on the west end of the valley, near the Pohono bridge, and I managed to snap a couple of keepers.

Joining the Beer family, on this outing, was my niece. She’s been taking photography in High School and wanted to spend a day shooting with me in Yosemite. She held up pretty well although a morning that began at 4AM and included a hike up the mist trail took it’s toll. We had a hard time getting her and Beer Jr. out of the car after that. I’m looking forward to seeing her images. Speaking of which, several of mine have been uploaded to my gallery.

Currently playing A Strange Education from the album “A Strange Education – Single of the Week” by The Cinematics

Technorati Tags: General Ranting, Photography

In February, I attended a workshop held by Gary Hart in Yosemite National Park. It was a 4 day trip. We started each day at 5:45AM and didn’t leave the park until the sun was down. The weather performed beautifully, depositing a fresh blanket of snow in the valley several times. After being shut-out Friday night, a few folks in the group took a gamble on Saturday and waited for sunset at Horsetail falls. We weren’t disappointed. The snow, followed by a sunny day and cooperative skies made it a fantastic sight. Pictures from the trip are available here.

Currently playing Three Little Girls from the album “The Road to Escondido” by J.J. Cale & Eric Clapton

Technorati Tags: General Ranting, Photography

We just got back from our 2nd trip to Ixtapa Mexico so I suppose that makes is an annual event. We had a really good time and I shot a ton of pictures. This year we had at least a few clouds every day which made for some really interesting sunsets. You can see this year’s pictures here. I tried a few different ideas this year. The first 4 shots in the gallery are from my old Canon Rebel XT which I converted for infrared use. There are also a couple of afternoon shots that look like they’ve been converted to B&W; they haven’t. The scene was so bright that once metered down it just took on that look.

Cheers

Currently playing Whatever Gets You On from the album “The Harsh Light of Day” by Fastball