A Recent Photography Award

December 2012 News

Note:  It has been a while since I wrote on my blog.  During 2013 I will do much better with at least a monthly submission.  Today, please accept this little bit of self promotion.  Recently, I won a Silver Medal and several honorable mentions at the Wisconsin Area Camera Club Organization Fall 2012 Competition (WACCO).  I thought I would speak briefly about this competition and link you to the photographs that received awards and honors both with a link to my website photo gallery that has an Honors and Awards Category as well as the WACCO Website.

On November 3, 2012, there was day long judging by a three judge panel of numerous submissions.  The categories included nature, insect, and open categories of Large and Small Print as Monochrome or Color as well as Projected images.  I submitted 4 large and small color prints each, 2 large monochrome prints and 12 projected digital image (4 Mono and 8 Color).  I won both 1 Silver Medal and 1 Honorable Mention in the Large Monochrome Print Group.  I won 4 Honorable Mentions in the Projected image categories as well as 2 Honorable mentions in the Large Color Print Group along with 1 Honorable Mention for a small color print.

To see those images visit my website www.jdroachphotography.com and click on Photo Gallery and then click on Honors and Awards in Photography.  The Silver Medal Winner is a view of Milwaukee taken downtown and converted to Black and White shown also a thttp://wicameraclubs.org/index.html

This image was originally taken in color with my D700, 28-300mm lens at 28mm, as a 13 second exposure, f/13, ISO 200 using auto white balance.  The color image (shown below) was converted using Nik Silver Efex Pro to get the black and white rending I sought.

I hope you enjoy seeing these images.  I humbly thank all those who have inspired me, offered great and excellent suggestions to me both at BetterPhoto.com, Nikonians.org, and at my local Milwaukee Camera Clubs and the Chicago Area Camera Clubs in Elgin and Crystal Lake.  Thanks everyone.

John D. Roach

December, 2012

Note:  As many of you know, I worked on macro and close up photography during the Winter 2011-2012 and into the early Spring 2012.  During, Spring I also started to participate with others going out at least once a month to do night photography.  Night Photography is always an exercise in total manual control to get the best exposure and light capture as possible.  The last time that I had done night photography was in late 2010 while in Chicago.  The following is a brief review of my experiences in March and April of this year with night Photography with some comparisons to my Chicago work with an introduction to the concept of white balance.  I plan a series of articles about white balance during the coming months.


Twilight in Milwaukee:

Night Photography

(A Study in White Balance)

White Balance in photography is something that many digital camera owners don’t understand or use.  I admit that early on in my photographic study, I had little appreciation for it, because I didn’t understand it.  It is an area that we all need to understand because it dramatically affects the results of an image we create.

While white balance settings are important at anytime, it wasn’t until I started to experience how light occurred before sunrise and after sunset and at night that I truly began to appreciate how important the white balance settings are.   Simply put, white balance is a way to get the colors in our images as accurate as possible straight out of the camera.  It is possible with digital photography and the post processing software such as those created by Photoshop to adjust it after the fact.  However, we need to keep in mind that after the fact means just that.  We are working on memory to determine what the color was when we took the picture.  Sometimes we cannot remember what the color really was.

Why do we need to get the color right in your shots?  It is all about examining shots after taking them where we find an orange, blue, yellow, etc. look to them that might not seem quite right.  Image making with a camera is all about capturing the light.  Variations in how the sensor in the camera reads the light when the picture is taken is the reason why the looks like it is effected by different sources of light have and thus have a different ‘color’ (or temperature/Kelvin rating) to them.  Fluorescent lighting adds a bluish cast to photos whereas tungsten (incandescent/bulbs) lights add a yellowish tinge to photos.

Most digital cameras capture images based on how the light is interpreted by the camera sensor.  In a digital camera’s software, there are many ways to adjust how the sensor sees the light.  The range in different temperatures ranges from the very cool blue to warm like a candle is the setting of white balance.

The human eye adjusts automatically for it, but the camera sensor needs help.  It needs to be told how to adjust for light.  Indeed, the sensor can be confused when there are many different light sources.  Therefore, unless the temperature of the light is extreme a white sheet of paper will generally look white to us. 

However, a digital camera doesn’t always know how to adjust automatically and sometimes will need to be told how to treat different light.  However, currently, cameras are being made with ever improving internal software capabilities.  Sometimes the automatic white balance feature does a very good job of sorting out what is best particularly when the light sources are confusing such as at night in the city.

Different digital cameras have different ways of adjusting white balance so the photographer needs to use his camera’s manual to work how to make changes and by experience discover what works best.  Many digital cameras have automatic and semi-automatic modes to help you make the adjustments.

Here are some of the White Balance settings that are commonly found in digital cameras:

• 1.  Auto:  this is where the camera makes a best guess about the light for each shot on an image-by-image basis.  For many situations, it’s worth considering, but it is important to experiment with other settings based on the lighting and the individual camera.
• 2.  Tungsten:  this mode is usually symbolized with a little bulb and is used for shooting indoors, especially under tungsten (incandescent) lighting (such as bulb lighting).  It generally cools down the image’s colors
• 3.  Fluorescent:  this compensates for the ‘cool’ light of fluorescent light and will warm up the image.
• 4.  Daylight/Sunny/Fine Weather:  not all cameras have this setting because it sets things as ‘normal’ white balance settings.  Frequently, this is better to use than automatic white balance when shooting during the day, at sunsets, or sunrises.
• 5.  Cloudy:  this setting generally warms things up a touch more than ‘daylight’ mode and will provide a pleasing tonality when the grey day exists.
• 6.  Flash:   the flash of a camera can be quite a cool light so in this setting warms up the image.
• 7.  Shade:  the light in shade is cooler (bluer) than shooting in direct sunlight so this setting will warm up the image some to adjust for that distinction.

In most cases, an accurate result using the above preset white balance modes will get the colors right.  It is important to practice and create in your own mind what works for your camera.  Remember, not all cameras are the same in the way they see light.

Some cameras have the ability for the photographer to adjust the while balance with his or her own pre-set adjustments.  A white or grey card is a way to do this wherein the photographer takes a picture of the white or grey card in the existing light.  That image then is used as the basis for adjusting the temperature of the scene so that the sensor can more correctly discern how to compensate for the light and provide the best color rendering.

This introduction and examples of my experience is the beginning of a tutorial on white balance that I will share with everyone.  As we go forward, I will explain the following in more detail:

1.      Definitions and concepts for reading white balance and color.

2.      Visible light as tiny portion of the electromatic spectrum that humans can perceive – with graphic examples

3.      RGB vision in humans – early investigation by Newton and others including the ability of the human eye and brain to perceive color – using examples.

4.      Kelvin scale – the range of color temperatures with examples.

5.      Shooting in RAW vs. JPEG and the impact on the ability to adjust the color.

6.      Why is it so hard to get the color right after you got it wrong – can humans really remember color effectively to do this?

7.      Explanation of each white balance pre-sets including the white and grey card pre-set process.

8.      Discussing about exposure, light, white balance, incident, and reflective light metering.

9.      Night Photography and the hazard of getting the color right!

10.  Color management – managing color from image capture to printing of an image.

 **********************

When I first created images at night, I new little about white balance and how important it was to establish the correct tonality.  During an evening in October, 2010 I began to experiment. 

At first, since I wasn’t sure what the white balance should be, I left it on Daylight setting or shot in Automatic.  Sometimes the color worked and other times it didn’t work.  In the end, I discovered that it was best to practice with various settings for white balance then pick what appeared to work best.  In some instances, I corrected the white balance later in post processing to get the color the way I thought was best for what I was trying to communicate.  Here are view images from that first night photography outing back in 2010.

Chicago "L" Trains passing at night (daylight white balance...perhaps too warm):

  

Picasso’s Chicago Sculpture (manipulated later in post processing to capture the feel):

 Various Loop Buildings (automatic white balance not far from wrong):

 Chicago Board of Trade (daylight white balance and a bit too warm perhaps):

Note:  A fine art dealer in Chicago purchased this image from me for a client.  That is in spite of the white balance was at times being challenged by some photographers who saw the image.  It just shows that color, light, and tonal effect is very subjective.  Art is very much in the eye of the beholder.  I happen to like the warm colors of the image, but the night scene was really cooler then this image depicts.

In March, here in Milwaukee, I practice using various tungsten and fluorescent white balance setting to determine the results.  The following are examples taken north and south respectively at the State Street and the River of this effort:

 In April, after several discussions with photographers in a local Milwaukee camera club as well as my fellow Nikonians at www.nikonians.org I elected to use automatic white balance again with pleasing results.  The following are some examples: 

Dancing through Life display at Marquette Park (late blue light image):

Two variations of the River Walk looking south toward the City along the Milwaukee River:

Wow, I Guess I missed the Bus (a study in motion)

Looking East on Kilbourn (study in light and motion):

 I post this introductory information and images to show how much white balance can affect the results one gets when taking pictures at night.   While at first it might seem like, for night photography, an argument in favor of automatic white balance, I will just say, it works with my Nikon cameras very well when there are many confusing light sources.  However, I highly recommend capturing images in RAW and using several different white balance experiments to determine what works best. 

Note:  Soon, I will be developing a series of articles to post here in this blog about white balance both during the day and at night.  It will also to be posted in my local camera club newsletter.

Copyright (c) by John D. Roach, May 15, 2012

Some New Thoughts and an Update about my Retirement

Upcoming Plans for my Nikonians Blog and my

Bumming Around the World with Camera in Hand Blog

For a couple of years prior to retirement I followed a path of discovery.  That was a period when I pursued finding out what I wanted to do when I retired.  The things to do that slid down my “funnel of opportunity” were narrowed down to photography, travel, and writing.  My plan was to focus on developing those three key areas of interest.  That meant I would find the many things that I wanted to do under each category.  In brief, that meant learning photography and buying the gear I needed, traveling based on a list of places I wanted to see, and writing travel articles.

It was important to me that I not use the term “Bucket List,” which is so common today.  I felt that retirement was a commencement not an ending.  It was an opportunity to do things I hadn’t had time to do earlier in life, or never fully pursued.  For me, retirement meant that I would define the key areas of interest and then find how to make them satisfying in all regards.

As those of you who have followed my progress into retirement, I retired 20 months ago, and while I continue to succeed quite well in implementing my initial plan, I daily discover that my life is like moving in a boat as it flows along a river.  I had set the course of my retirement some time ago, but there are now many stops along the way and occasionally excursions up some unknown estuary.  Those stops allowed me to gather unexpected opportunities to enhance the plan.  For example, I now have two blogs and a photography website.  I attend camera club meetings and participate in competitions.  I even win sometimes.  I have traveled to places I never planned to go such as Cuernavaca, Mexico and Dominican Republic.

I am doing things in photography, such as digital post processing, that I never expected to do.  That work include a considerable amount of flower photography such as seen in my most recent blog as well as the two following images:

I now write about travel, but not for travel magazines as I had planned.  Rather, I write my own blog and feel quite satisfied with that endeavor.  In fact, this is part of one blog, and soon I will be adding to my photography blog (a series of articles on specific areas of photography that I want to learn more about and concurrently write for a local photography club newsletter to help my fellow club members.  Writing requires lot more time than I desire to embrace, since it takes away from my first passion—the photography.  However, I will still write some and it is a way to learn and share information.  My next series of photographic articles at my Nikonians Blog (www.blog.nikonians.org/jdroach) will be about color management, white balance, and how to capture the right color when making photo images.

Thus, with the blogs I can write when I want to and write about what I want talk about without the pressure of specific deadlines.  Furthermore, based on my many varied interests it will be a way to continue to tell my friends what I am doing, thinking and pursuing in retirement both regarding travel and photograph both locally and worldwide.

In closing this long overdue blog update, I want to briefly share with all of you that I have entered again the Union League Club of Chicago Annual Photography Competition.  The judging will occur April 24, 2012.  Of course, I hope to receive some consideration for my work.  However, it satisfied me greatly to realize that the work I submitted this year (see below) demonstrates personal growth in my chosen retirement “career/hobby.”  I observed that my studying during the past two years is starting to pay off.  I have progressed further along the path of becoming a good photographer.  I hope you enjoy the following images:

I will be following up soon with more photography articles on this blog also and continue the Vietnam Stories here at http://blog.jdroachphotography.com.  There will be a series of articles about Milwaukee including its architecture, Summer Fest, and many other interesting things such Street Photography along Brady Street and other areas of the City.

Copyright by John D. Roach, April 23, 2012

Flower Photography! A fine way to keep your photography alive when it is bitter cold outdoors.

While I will occasionally photograph outdoors during the winter, I figured this winter I would try something new both to beat the cold as well as further develop my image making skills.

I decided to take some courses in flower photography.   I learned from some fine photographers just how hard it is to capture images that look great.  I have only begun to discover the possibilities.  However, I did learn that flash does not help much even indoors, since the light is too harsh.  Furthermore, it is always best to use natural light even when indoors.  However, if you carefully select artificial light, there are possibilities with studio lighting to help capture light in a way that will enhance how a flower looks.   The following are a few that I think were somewhat successful with some description of how I took the picture:

Shooting through the Purple.

The image was taken with a Nikon D700 and a 90mm macro lens.  The objective was to do some selective focusing on one of the purple daisies while keeping a fairly shallow depth of field around the subject image.  This enabled the image to contain a large amount of purple that guides the eye toward the daisy that is in fully in focus.

Delicate Curves

This image was taken with the D700 as well as the 90mm macro lens, also.  The object was to focus on the undulating delicate curves of the rose and create an image that doesn't show the entire rose, but rather gives one the sense of beauty in the lines and curves of the delicate petals.

Gracefully Aging Chrysanthemum

This image was taken with a D700 but here I used a 28-300mm lens at 300mm.  The goal was to capture the inner beauty of this flower even as it started to show signs of aging.

White Rose

One of the many things that are so important is to work an image many different ways.  In this case, I started with a bouquet of about 10 white roses.  I photographed the flowers at many different angles from inclusion of all the roses to just selecting part of one rose.  This is on that particularly liked where I selected a very nice angle to capture the full essence of one of the roses.  This was taken again with the D700 and the 28-300mm lens but focused at 105mm using natural window light.

I truly recommend that if flower photography is something that might interest you, go to the store and set the flowers up indoors with as much natural light or carefully defined artificial light and work the flowers over and over until you come up with interesting and creative scenes that capture the beauty and essence of the flowers.

Copyright

John D. Roach

March 5, 2012







Medieval Spain -- Morella: A Journey into the past

Blog Update:  My current posting is about a trip of over 10 years ago.  My wife and I travelled to Spain 10 days after 9/11.  We had had our trip to the Spanish Mediterranean regions and Barcelona planned for many months so we were not going to be deterred by world events.  Here is something I thought I would share.  I still have to work on my Vietnam stories and give an update on my retirement, but I just was remembering this trip and thought I would share with you some of the interesting aspects of the trip and a couple of old scanned images of the countryside.  I highly recommend going to Spain.  It is a fascinating country.

Morella:  A Spanish City of Ancient Origins

            When you suddenly see Morella in the fall mist from the distance upon making a turn on the road that meanders up to this ancient town from the neighboring farmland, you may be tempted as I to recall the cover of one of Sting’s Albums.  The picture showed a hill top fortress that is very much like that of Morella.  Sting’s music, particularly a Fortress Around Your Heart as arranged by the London Symphony Orchestra and included in this album, kept churning through my brain as I came closer to this wonderfully medieval town.

            The beginnings of Morella reach back in time as early as the Celts, Carthaginians, and Romans.  The Romans considered the town a fine and central location for protecting much of its domain.  Its high vantage point of over 1000 meters (3000 ft) allowed for easy monitoring of Rome’s subjects.  During the over 400 years that Roman controlled the region, the town attained the status of a municipality forming part of a much larger Roman province.  Upon the decline of Rome, the Visigoths occupied the town in 411, but left little to mark their stay over the next 300 years.  However, in 714, the Berbers took control and for the next 500 years, the city was mostly in Arab control except for the time El Cid established a re-birth of the town and re-built the castle during the 11^th century.  Over the course of 3 to 4 centuries, the town was the site of many prominent battles in the varying campaigns of Spain seeking the removal of Arab control of its lands.

            As suggested by its history, Morella’s is filled with the both the horror and enchantment of the Dark Ages and Medieval Times as Spain came to be a well defined country and eventually a major power in Europe in the 15^th and 16^th Century.  Even once Spain become well established, Morella often was a city in the center of the various civil wars and eventually became the stronghold central to the Carlist resistance in the approximately 50 years of civil war during the mid-19^th century.  Even during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, Morella was an important and strategic Republican (leftist leaning democratic) town that was eventually captured toward the end of that war by the eventual Dictator General Franco.

            Through all its history, Morella and its people have become among the most hardy, independent minded and resilient people of Spain staunchly proud of their city.  Today, even though its population had declined to nearly 3000 people from the nearly 10,000 inhabitants of 1900, the citizens support a thriving tourist industry as well as trade in woolen and agricultural goods.  In fact, the population has shown some rebound as many Spaniards see opportunity to find a home and good work in Morella as Spain transitioned to democracy during the later half of the 20^th century.

            To see this bit of history and the culture associated with it, Morella is a wonderful day trip from the coastal towns of the Mediterranean.  Such towns include Castellon, Benicarlo, Alcoeber, and Peniscola among others.  All are within 100 kilometers (63 miles) of Morella.  Indeed, one the finest places to take day trips from is Peniscola (85 kilometers from Morella), which lies on the coast midway between Barcelona and Valencia.  That town is a tourist haven especially for Spaniards and a few Europeans.  It, too, is full of interesting history with it own medieval bastions as well as a wonderful beach and vacation vibrancy.  A tourist, who seeks some variety from the beach town resort, can head to the mountains, which they can reach by car or bus in about 1-1/2 hours and spend virtually the entire day touring the Morella’s castle, Roman ruins, churches, textile workshops, stores, and restaurants before arriving back to the coastal town in the late evening.

Some may find staying a few days in Morella more appealing.  In this way, tourists can receive a fuller flavor of this exquisite town.  One can only park toward the bottom of the town and then walk up the winding streets to stay in the town that flourishes below the castle.  Morella is full of folklore, which brings together the many cultural evolutions of the town as celebrated in colorful fiestas such as the Fiesta Sexenales in September every 6 years, and the annual celebration that commemorates in January, the re-conquest of the town for the Arabs.  One thing that is certain, when you visit this town, you will be stepping back into time Morella will be a fortress around your heart with lasting appeal.

February 2012 -- Article and Images by John D. Roach

Bumming Around Update and Opening Elements of Collection of Stories about the Vietnam War

Note:  Recently I have fallen behind in my blogging.  My last entry was in September.  I got so busy doing many other things related to my adventures in photography.  Indeed, in the coming weeks, there will be an article about my recent photographic trip to Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon in southern Utah. 

I also, have begun work on several travel pieces most notably, a trip to Rome a few years ago.  In this blog, to date, there has been a couple of travel pieces, three articles about my retirement, and the first of many short stories.  Many more will follow. 

Today, I am posting Mekong Delta a snap shot of a story providing some background information (more exposition then story) related to a series of Navy stories centered on my tours of duty in Vietnam and the South China Sea back in the late Sixties and early Seventies.  I am still attempting to figure out where I want to go with these stories but, I know that it will eventually include Faulty Relay which many of you have already seen in this blog, along with several glimpse into the that period of time and my youth.

   

Mekong Delta

Changing Mission

The blue foaming water rolled over us and the bow sank deep into the trough left by the rising and surging water.  Every thing stopped moving for a moment, and then the bow rose high up with the stern down as the water rushed back into the void and the wind slammed the ship sideways.  The ship shuddered and rocked back and forth.  Then it rolled over on its side so far that we could almost walk on the bulkheads.  Immediately after that, it rolled the other way.  As the storm raged, the ship continued to roll back and forth and pitch up and down.

       Those of us on the bridge were hanging on for dear life at our watch stations.  We called it the “white knuckles watch.”  Only the shear force of our will to keep standing tempered our fear of capsizing.  We had to hang on tenaciously if we were not strapped down.  The officer who had the Conn sat strapped into his chair, as was the Captain.  The helmsman held taut the wheel as he received direction from the Conn.  He shifted the wheel and the engine order telegraph repeatedly as he struggled to stay standing.  Every move he made was to keep his balance, and ensure that the ship stayed on course through the wide, sweeping peaks, and valleys of the surging waves as the ship pitched and rolled.

           

          The wind came out of the North and pressed down on us savagely.  It bucked the USS Defiance, a 17,000-ton Amphibious Transport about like a rowboat.  The wild winds of this tropical storm off the coast of China showed no mercy.  It was a good thing we didn’t have any troops on board because there would have been many sick guys.

           

We had steamed off the Vietnam coast for about forty days.  One day we heard we would depart for a port call in Hong Kong for R&R.  This would also be an opportunity for the ship to pick up some dwindling supplies.  In spite of the storm, we were excited about getting some shore leave. 

We started steaming toward Hong Kong and about day out of port, we received orders to change course for Subic Bay, Philippines.  Subic, as all of us called it, was a large base that supported the Vietnam War effort with a huge Navy Yard as well as a major supply depot.  We were told that we were to get the ship re-fitted and get major repairs before going back to steaming off the coast of Vietnam near the de-militarized zone for another patrol. 

Obviously, we were not going back to the States yet.  We had hoped that we could end our tour of WEST-PAC service at six months as originally defined and steam for home after visiting Hong Kong.  However, this news, even though it meant some liberty, which we all were going to enjoy meant we would not go back to the States for another 3 or even six months.  That was disappointing.  However, spending time in Subic Bay had its rewards.  It meant we could take some shore leave on solid ground with time to see the country, the bars, and the girls.

    

          On this trip, I was going to take a few days off, since I had accumulated a lot leave.  I decided that I would go up into the mountains of Luzon, Philippines to take photographs and to see the countryside.  I planned to rent a car and a driver for this trip.  I even thought about going south to Manila and into the Bataan area.  If I had enough days off I figured I could also take the ferry to Samar, which was an island southeast of Luzon across the San Bernardino Strait.

            I spent some time laying out my plan while we started toward Subic.  However, suddenly one morning, the Captain addressed the crew over the ships intercom to tell us that again, the ship’s deployment plans were changed.  Incredible as it might be, with equipment needing repair and the ship’s need for supplies; we were going back on patrol up near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).  I was bummed the plans were changed and concerned we needed to get some pump and turbine parts for the engine room equipment before spending time along the coast where naval supply ships were infrequent.  In fact, when the storm hit us before our trip to Hong Kong, I was on the bridge talking to the captain about our supply needs.

            Nobody was certain what we were to do for several days.  Then we got word that we would pick up elements of the 101^st Airborne Cavalry of the US Army just south of the DMZ.  We were to enter the Mekong River Delta and then to take them up the Saigon River to a place north of Saigon.  We had heard that the allies were considering an offensive into Cambodia to cut off the North Vietnamese Regulars who were using Cambodia to attack South Vietnam south of the DMZ.  We were sure the 101st was going to be part of that effort.

We realized this would be our first real exposure to the river war.  A friend of mine, stationed on a Swift Boat Unit as part of the Mobile Riverine Force, wrote me occasionally.  He told me his group patrolled the Mekong Delta from the mouth of the river all the way all the way up to Saigon.  He wrote that the North Vietnamese forces controlled the river by night and the allies controlled it by day.  He said the worst firefights were at night. 

We quickly learned that we would be steaming up through the Delta starting at night so we could arrive near Saigon during the day.  Then we would be berthing there to disembark the Calvary and their equipment.  We would stay overnight before we made our return trip to the South China Sea so we could transit there during the day as much as possible.

For me this trip meant long hours for my department in the engine room.  The Defiance was a deep draft ship.  That meant the fully loaded ship extended 23 feet below the water line.  The Mekong River was very wide and deep.  In fact, even further north into Cambodia the Mekong is as deep as 72 ft in most places.  However, the Saigon also feeds into the Mekong Delta.  Its depth is about 25-30 feet deep during most the run up to Saigon.  Beyond Saigon, it gets shallower.  This would challenge my engine room crew.

Of course, with a couple feet to spare, there was little chance the ship would run a ground, however there were other serious issues, which could disable the ship quickly if not handled effectively.  The ship’s engine room used cooling water to run through heat exchangers.  Each of the heat exchangers that serve the steam boilers, evaporators, pumps, and turbines had clean out strainers that trapped any foreign material passing through the pipes to avoid fouling the equipment.  If the strainers were clogged, water would not flow.  Usually when the ship was at sea, we had a regular maintenance procedure, based on weekly and monthly schedules to open up the strainers and clean them out.

           

During this trip, we alternated major equipment so we could clean the strainers every hour or sooner, if we saw strainer differential water pressure start to rise.  This meant that we had to shift the electrical load to another unit by shutting down one steam driven electric generator, and starting up another generator.  We had to do the same sort of continuous work for various other pieces of equipment that used seawater.

Author is 22 in this photo 

One of the most important machines located in the engine room was the fresh water evaporator.  This machine was a large heat exchanger designed to turn seawater into fresh water for the engine room boilers and the crews drinking usage.  This unit had multiple strainers.  The sailors who watched over this equipment had even a harder time, since they had to clean strainers on the fly.  We only had one evaporator that had to run continuously.  This meant they had to very rapidly isolate the strainer, pull it, and clean it without shutting of the evaporator.  There was always the chance of the water flow vapor lock if air got into the system during this process, and stopped water flow.  The locations of the large water intakes for the evaporator were highly vulnerable to picking up sediment.  Therefore, during the trip up the river, no sooner then the last strainer was cleaned; the process of cleaning the four strainers had to start all over again.  When we arrived in Saigon, we got some respite from the strainer cleaning as we sat at the pier.  The bottom of the berthing area was dredged very deep so we had little problem. 

The 24-hour trip back down the River became one of the longest trips we were to take.  After our visit to Saigon, the Viet Cong increased there assault at a number of river force boat bases in the Delta area.  There were Swift Boats to escort us down the river.  However, we still needed to make sure that we didn’t loose power, water, or engine cooling or we would be sitting ducks for the Viet Cong.  Already other ships had discovered the peril of war on this river.  As we would soon learn, our plight was even worse as we moved into the Delta.

Our Peril

At first, the trip was uneventful.  Then one of our major riverboat bases called Windy Port came under strong attack.  Several Zippo boats, PBRs, and Swift boats were destroyed.  At once, the riverboat assault groups attempted to go on the offensive.  Thus, our patrol boat escort services were eliminated.  They were needed to defend some key canals around the Delta as well as support the counterattack.  This meant there was an all out offensive by the River Assault Groups to chase the Viet Cong out of the delta area.

Now we were even more vulnerable to enemy swimmers intent on placing mines on the ship as it lumbered through the Delta at a slow speed to avoid shifting sand bars as spotted by the river pilot.  We knew there were anxious hours ahead of us until we reached the mouth of the river.

The ship went to general quarters.  Then, each division officer selected some number of men, that they felt were not needed unless, the ship came under direct attack.  Those men reported to the Gunnery Division to receive weapons.  Once each man received a weapon, he went to the main deck to man-the-rails with either side arms or rifles at intervals of ten feet apart around the entire deck.  For the next 10 hours as the Defiance steamed down the Mekong, these men kept watch on the river in the moon light to make sure that no swimmers approached the ship.

Finally, the ship got to the mouth of the river.  A boat approached and hailed the Defiance to pick up the river pilot.  Then, shortly, we were back out to sea in safe waters to continue our designated patrol.  While we had managed that peril, we soon would learn far more about what was in store for us.

To be continued!

Author's note:  The images attached to this piece for scenery and historical perspective and are readily available stock photographs from the Internet.  None can be attributed to the author.

October 20, 2011 by John D. Roach

So I am retiring: now what? Part III

Author's Note:  As mentioned in the pasts, my blog is about what I am doing in retirement.  It tells the story of planning for retirement, implement it, and reviewing current activities.  It includes the on going series about retirement, short stories, travel, photography articles.  This is the third in the series of retirement articles.  This article is the "pat on the back."  It is about my accomplishments this past year with one minor exception.  I hope you enjoy.

So I am retiring: now what?  Part III

It’s been just a little over one year since I retired.  Wow, I have done a lot!  All that planning for retirement paid off.  I traveled a lot and learned more about photography and writing.  I even launched my photography website and a blog just about one year from my retirement date.

Some things didn’t evolve the way I thought they would.  Yet, I marvel at the amount of fun I have had.  My “to do” list was and continues to be lengthy.  At times, I have more on the list then I have time to do.  Indeed, I have had a difficult time finding the right balance.  The photography has overtaken almost everything else.  Although, I have done a fair share of writing, it nonetheless lags behind my photography. 

Exercise and trips to the gym fell behind, too.  On a recent visit to my doctor, he chided me for not getting enough exercise.  He said my blood test numbers, while within normal range, were not where he wanted to see them for cholesterol, glucose, and triglycerides since the numbers had regressed in the past year.  I was eating some of the wrong stuff and not getting enough exercise. 

I knew I was spending too much time at the computer learning and doing digital darkroom work.  I was enjoying the good life of retirement, photography, writing, and travel but not with enough exercise!  I knew this but wasn’t doing enough about it.  It was so easy to blow off going to the gym or getting on the treadmill when I was in the middle of my photography work.  Therefore, the doctor decided he would attempt to force me to pay more attention to the exercise and diet by having me get another blood test and come back to see him in three months (November to be exact).  Frankly, I have no excuse and agree with him.  The problem is getting out of the chair and going to exercise.  I get engrossed in all things photography.  When I do get out of the chair, I am off taking pictures.  One positive note about that is that I get some exercise hiking around forest preserves or the streets of Chicago taking pictures.  However, for the most part that exercise is not causing me to “break much of a sweat.”

 

In spite of the lack of exercise, I am proud of most of what I accomplished during the first year.  Let me summarize by listing the key successes during the past year:

1.      In June of last year, I spent ten days at one of the finest resorts (Le Blanc Spa Resort) in the world, located in Cancun, Mexico with my wife.

2.      In July, we stayed with a host family in Cuernavaca, Mexico and studied Spanish and Mexican culture for week at Universidad International.  We also went on great excursions to Mexico City, Tepotzlan, Taxco, and Teotihuacan.

3.      In August, I began four, six-week courses on Photoshop Elements and basic photography.

4.      In September, I began a series of fourteen, four and eight week online photography courses focused on developing my skills further regarding exposure, composition, shutter, aperture, and various digital post processing software that have lead to a basic certificate in photography.

5.      Concurrently, I have been working on a course that will eventually lead to a professional photography diploma issued by the New York Institute of Photography.

6.      I took six on line writing courses to help improve my grammar, writing style and technique as well as help me determine the type of writing that might interest me.  I have decided to focus on travel writing, my retirement series, and some short stories.

7.      In early December, the president of a local college asked me to photograph for a day a visiting Japanese delegation.  This was quite an experience, since I usually don’t do this type of photography.  It was quite educational.

8.      In April, an art consultant contacted me, who saw my images on one of the websites where I occasionally post my work.  She was interested in buying one of my Chicago Board of Trade photographs for a client who has offices in that building.  We finalized the sale of my image in May.  The joke now is I have lost my amateur status, but I think I have to sell a lot more images for that to happen.

9.      In April, I went to Le Claire, Iowa, on the Mississippi River, to photograph Pelicans.  Using a 70-300mm Nikkor Lens with a 1.4x Teleconverters, I managed to capture some great images of these magnificent birds.

10.  I launched my photography website in May of this year followed in June with my blog.  In one year, I went from working at the hospital to now managing a photography website and blog in order to display and share my photographic and writing work regarding the adventures of the past year and the future.

11.  In June of this year, I traveled with my wife and friends to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic and enjoyed the pleasures of the Hard Rock Hotel Casino Spa Resort.

12.  I joined the Photographic Society of America (PSA) and local camera clubs while continuing to be involved with my writer’s group.  I am participating some of PSA’s mentoring and training programs.

13.  I started to learn photographic techniques like HDR, Photoshop CS5, and Lightroom 3 and will soon move on into special techniques like focus stacking and panoramic photography.

14.   I spent more time learning macro photography and started learning how to use flash, studio lights, and portrait techniques.

*    *    *

My plans for my second year of retirement include many adventures in learning and photography as well as continued work on my website and blog.  I plan to upgrade my website to sale my photography online.  I, also, plan to take a few more courses in digital post-processing and some technical elements of photography during the summer and fall, as well as focus on learning portrait photography, macro, close-up, and flash photography. 

In October, I am going on a photographic tour, joining other members of Nikonians.org, for their 11^th Annual Photographic Adventure Trip to Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon.  At the local camera clubs, I will be submitting images in monthly competitions as well as participate in a study group with Photographic Society of America.  These are great ways to get feedback on the quality of my photographic work.  In November, I will be attending a workshop on Photography at Elgin Community College.  I am already making plans for next year to participate in other photography adventures.

In December, Joann and I are going to Mexico to spend Christmas week enjoying a resort south of Cancun along the Riviera Maya.  Friends will be joining us for this trip.  Additionally, we are planning trips for Norway and other areas of Europe as we move into 2012.  As usually, we will probably go somewhere in the Caribbean or back to Mexico again to get away from the cold.

Next calendar year, will offer some interesting developments for us as Joann takes on new responsibilities with General Electric.  This could lead to relocation and many other adventures, yet to be determined.  Joann and I are working toward the day when we can travel even more.  We have even discussed perhaps staying for a few months in various places in the world once she retires.  However, that is still a little ways in the future.

I am proud of Joann.  For the past two years, she has studied through Ashford University distant learning program, twelve courses to earn her Masters in Education degree.  She has a strong desire to learn and succeed.  She is full of keen ideas.  Her goal, once she retires from General Electric is to teach or serve in some educational leadership capacity at the community or four-year college level.

She and I have many interesting discussions about education in America.  As she works on her course questions, assignments, and papers, we have many lively conversations.  Those talks help me stay engaged with what she is doing as well as many of the critical issues in the world of education and business.  Currently, she is working on her final Capstone (Thesis) paper.  I know she will graduate with honors when she walks up to get her diploma in October of this year.

For me, retirement is a joy.  It is full of challenges and many exciting accomplishments.  I frequently look back and think about being so glad that I had that conversation in the sauna a few years ago.  If that hadn’t occurred, I might still be trying to figure out what I want to do during retirement.

By John D. Roach, September 7, 2011