CAMERA SHOP BELFAST

Voyeur Nation: Media, Privacy, and Peering in Modern Culture

From 24-hour-a-day "girl cam" sites on the World Wide Web to trash-talk television shows like "Jerry Springer" and reality television programs like "Cops," we've become a world of voyeurs. We like to watch others as their intimate moments, their private facts, their secrets, and their dirty laundry are revealed.Voyeur Nation traces the evolution and forces driving what the author calls the 'voyeurism value.' Calvert argues that although spectatorship and sensationalism are far from new phenomena, today a confluence of factors-legal, social, political, and technological-pushes voyeurism to the forefront of our image-based world.The First Amendment increasingly is called on to safeguard our right, via new technologies and recording devices, to peer into the innermost details of others' lives without fear of legal repercussion. But Calvert argues that the voyeurism value contradicts the value of discourse in democracy and First Amendment theory, since voyeurism by its very nature involves merely watching without interacting or participating. It privileges watching and viewing media images over participating and interacting in democracy.

Day five of the road trip: Rain, low clouds, snow. Travel from Jasper to Canmore. Hike the 8 waterfall “Stanley Falls” trail. Rain. All the beautiful peaks we had enjoyed driving north from our Mosquito Creek camp to Jasper were now completely hidden by the rain clouds.

Fortunately JJ had a PDF file on his iPad, which showed us a hike north of Sunwapta Pass that looked like a winner, in any weather. So it was here we took a rainy day hike up the eight waterfalls of Beauty Creek to Stanley Falls. The exact number of waterfalls is hard to determine because Beauty Creek appears to be one falls after another and how many there are depends on where you break off “how high” they need to be to count.

Stanley Falls at the top of our hike was a perfect punctuation mark for a waterfalls creek hike. A sharp turn, a big drop, and a deep rounded pool at the bottom made it a classic.

The trailhead would be easy to miss since a “connector” of sorts has been made to connect the parking area along the new section of highway (#93 ~ Icefields Parkway) with the old trailhead along the old section of highway. Thanks to JJ we found it.

It was on this hike that we met one other hiker choosing to “hike in the rain”, Colin from Edmonton. He showed us photos on his camera LCD screen that made both JJ and me, envy him. He had got some great photos of wolves on his visit to the parks.

So Day Five, and you will see no golden larch or aspen; no snow dusted dramatic Rocky Mountain peaks; nothing but waterfalls, so if waterfalls and white water are what you enjoy in photographs, then the photos taken this day should please you.
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The story: Canada eh? Canadian Rocky Mountain Road Trip October 2011.

A one week road trip and a couple short day hikes in Kootenay; Banff; and Jasper National Parks and Peter Lougheed Provincial Park in Kananaski country.

The success of a road trip (or hike, or backpacking trip), many times is directly proportional to the amount of planning you put into before the trip. Deciding on what you want to see is best done before the trip when you have the time and tools such as maps, guide books, internet, plus the valuable photos and information you can access on flickr- to research the trip properly.

No doubt about it, with a road trip you can have fun by just “winging it” and even with a plan, a good road trip demands that you be willing to alter the plan at any time due to weather and what you find, once the road trip begins.

I have taken a fair number of road trips solo; many with my wife; and some with friends. Solo allows you total freedom to go where you like, stay as long as you like, and see the sights that are highest on you list. Freedom and independence.

The trouble then with a solo trip is you are limited by your own research, planning, and predilections - no consultation, collaboration, or collective pooling of ideas and possibilities. By default, you are restricted by the boundaries of your own knowledge and research.

On this road trip I “joined in” on a road trip my long time friend J.J. had planned. For those of you who may follow some of my photographs and trips on flickr, he was one of three who joined me on a backpacking trip into the Wind River Range of Wyoming, not all that long ago.

J.J. approached the trip to the Canadian Rockies as a “photography” trip primarily and as a reconnaissance trip for future trips he might want to take, especially with his wife, who is also an accomplished photographer. He had never been there.

I took this as an opportunity to “see once again” some of the sights of Jasper and Banff, where I had traveled with my wife almost 40 years ago; and travel to some places I had never been before; take a hike or two; and enjoy the mountain landscapes of British Columbia and Alberta, Canada.

Looking back on this road trip already, I benefited greatly by J.J.’s research and many of the sites he had selected as being “high value” places, from a photographer’s viewpoint (or should I say “viewfinder”). I wouldn’t have seen my favorite places on this trip without J.J.’s diligent “in advance” research.

In addition to seeing many places I wouldn’t have selected, and therefore would have missed if I had done this trip solo, I got to see an iPad (J.J.’s) in operation first hand, and of course came away from the trip with the feeling that one day I would NEED one.

We took J.J.’s Subaru Forester on this trip, the same one the two of us had survived a nasty hood denting (yep a few of the dents are still there) hail storm near Banks, Idaho in 2006 - - one of our first of many road trips together. J.J. brought along two “books on CD” to make the less scenic portions of our drive a bit more interesting. Again, audio books were a first time experience for me and they really do go well with a road trip.

The two audio books that J.J. brought along were both extremely interesting and enjoyable for me to listen to (th

I seem to have had bad luck lately in being where I want to be when the weather is nice. I came home from work today to an amazingly clear night in San Francisco, with great purple/blue skies. I had my camera with me today so I drove up to Grand View Park, just up the hill from my apartment to snap some shots.

The 'best' light seemed to have already past, but San Francisco was still looking good as the sky got darker and the city lights came on.

This is one of my favorite spots for panoramic shots so I decided to finally do one after dark for a change. The original was produced from 11 separate images and stitched in Photoshop (which didn't hide the seems very well). It came out to roughly 10,000x2800 so this is scaled down considerably.

I suggest you take a look at the full size just to take in an incredibly clear night in SF (even if the photo isn't the sharpest).

The sun was still comparatively bright behind the horizon which made finding the right exposure tough, and in the end I had to lighten it in post - oh well. Ya learn something new every time right?

Nikon D40 | Sigma 10-20@14mm | f/8 | 2.5s | ISO200 | Tripod

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