phil barnes photography

I had a lousy cold most if the time I was at this place keeping me from photographing the interior of the module train until the last night I was there.   I was able to spend roughly two hours before tiredness and coldness got the better of me.  I honestly think I could spend a solid week working on that place before running out of things to do.  There are so many details and so much history there.  I am not sure what about this place is so compelling to me.  The Point Lonely installation, like all of the cold war radar sites, was built to detect incoming Soviet bombers.  The module train, which is the central piece of the installation, was not so much a facility as a device.  And all of what is present at the site was not only purpose built, but likely innovated on the spot for this purpose.  The ingenuity is stunning.  Now the site sits rotting in place waiting to be demolished, the cold war now long past.

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Some shots of the old rotating radar dome.  Although it is hard to tell from the photos, the dome is about 40 feet tall and the rotating antenna is about 30 feet across.  Photographing the dish last year my widest view was approximately 26mm so it was hard to get the whole thing into view.  This year I had the benefit of  a full frame body so my 17-40mm could realize all of its wide angle goodness.  In retrospect I wish that I had a 14mm or maybe a fish eye, that would have been sweet.  Oh well.  The shot are various perspectives around the radar dish and of the geodesic dome.  All of this will be gone soon.  I honestly wish there was some way to salvage the dome since it is in good shape thanks to its robust fiberglass construction.  Enjoy the shots.  -P.

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I just recently returned from another stint of field work related to the decommissioning of the Point Lonely long range radar site located in the Alaskan Arctic.  The following images were taken around the module train that served as the center of operations when the base was active.  The dome on top of the module train housed the main radar unit that was responsible for identifying incoming Soviet Bombers during the cold war.  The radar was eventually replaced by an advanced system that can be seen to the east of the module train.  The dome housing the radar still stands, however.  The module train was scheduled to be demolished this year, but was not after finding additional asbestos in the building that still needs to be removed.  Lucky for me because I was looking forward to photographing the building.  The following photos are of the module train exterior and surrounding installation as seen from the top of the radar dome platform.  I’ll be posting more images of the radar and module train interiors that turned out really well.  Enjoy the shots.

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I took a ride up at Glen Alps the other night toward Powerline Pass.  Every so often I do this ride with the thought of making it to Powerline Pass.  I’ve yet to make it all of the way.  I’m not sure what the problem is.  Timing, weather conditions, maybe the stars aren’t aligned the right way.  Someday I will make there, and maybe go over the top and down to Indian.  That’s the way.  I took some shots from along the ride.  The sun was low and the sky is a hazy orange color because of smoke from the fires up north.  The smokey haze is going to stay as long as the weather remains nice.  That’s OK.  Enjoy the shots.

This Shot is looking down the valley toward Anchorage.

This is a view of the valley looking south toward Powerline Pass.

This was the weekend for the venerable Anchorage area 24-hour mountain bike race.  Keppler-Bradley State Park near Palmer was the venue for this years race and it did not disappoint.  The miles of of tight singletrack under the backdrop of Pioneer Peak made for an epic event.  Although I didn’t have much time at the event I was able to get some great shots of folks racing.  Enjoy the shots:

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Ahh…Photo from a recent ride taken mid way up Powerline Pass in Anchorage.

Photo of the Scary Tree along the trail.

My ride.

Nome-man observed during the International Beard and Mustache competition held during the Memorial Day weekend in Anchorage. Freaky beard people were aplenty.  More Photos soon to follow.

This is a really great video shot on a Canon 5D Mark II by Intense Cycles owner Jeff Steber.  Aside from showcasing the  5D Mark II’s HD video capabilities, the video itself is interesting with the all the welding and soforth.  Well, if you geek like that.  Enjoy the vid.

Do Not Watch The Ark from jeff steber on Vimeo.

I recently picked up an Epson Stylus Photo R2880 and have been using if for about two weeks.  I chose the 2880 for its black and white printing capabilities and for its archival print life because of the use of pigment-based  inks.

Overall Impression

Overall, the 2880 appears to be an improvement over the Epson 2200 that it replaced.  The prints look better and the colors are more saturated, and the black and white prints are neutral and look excellent (despite not having the driver set up correctly).  Good on Epson for a well executed black and white printer driver.  The two test images I made (one color and one black and white) printed flawlessly on Epson’s Ultra Premium Presentation matte paper.

Glitch

I’ve had trouble a few times so far with paper misfeeding causing the printer to go into extended head cleaning cycles and wasting significant amounts of ink.  The printer eventually sorts itself out, but on one occasion after clearing the paper path the printer continued to make noises and act randomly until I finally turned the printer off.    So far this has happed three time consuming approximately half of my inks.  I’ve heard of this happening reading 2880 reviews before buying the printer, but it seemed isolated so I was not all that concered about the problem.  I contacted Epson about this and they agreed to send me a set of replacement set of inks without really acknowledging if they were aware of this problem with the 2880.  I seemed like they were willing to give up a set of inks rather quickly.  I problably will not have this for long if this is what I can expect regarding ink consumption..

Paper Handling

After setting up the printer and making a few test prints I ran into trouble trying to print on a sheet of 13 x 19 Watercolor Radiant White fine art paper because I could not select this paper type in the Epson printer dialogue.  It turns out that with the 2880 (word to the wise) fine art papers have to be loaded into the sheet feeder located on the back of the printer, not into the bulk sheet feeder accessed on the top of the printer.  Once I figure this out, and selected for this path in the paper set up dialogue, I was able to select a fine art paper.  One major difference between the 2200 I used previously is the numerous paper paths the 2880 has.  This gets complicated when selecting a paper to use.  Some papers, like the thick fine art papers, require the rear paper path, which is also the path for roll paper.  On the paper setup screen there approximately 20 separate options for paper size, path, and/or boarderless, all of which have to be selected correctly to get the pritner to function.  In comparison, with the 2200 this was simple because there was only one  paper path to deal with.  I have heard of others complaining that they were not able to print on fine art media.  I imagine that not have everything set correctly was the problem.  Also, not having the correct paper path selected seems to bump the printer into confusion mode where it defaults to it head cleaning routine.

Print Quality

Overall, despite the glitchy character of the 2880 so far, prints look really good.  Saturation is good and the colors are great and should get better now that my monitor has been calibrated correctly.  One of the prints is rather dark, even muddy, but again this may be due to bad monitor calibration.  I need to redo this print to confirm this.  I thought possibley that something was not set correctly in the driver prior to printing but I don’t think this is the case.

Black and white prints look fantastic, despite not having he dialogue set up correctly.  I mainly purchased the 2880 for its capability to print neutral black and white prints.  Tones are neutral without color casts and gradations are  are smooth.  So far the only limitation on detail that can be produced are my files.  The black and white driver Epson has provided is very good.  One thing I’ve leared is that you must let the printer do the color management (not Photoshop) when making black and white prints for optimal results.  I ran a few test images with PS color management on and off which showed clearly better tones when you let the printer manage things.  Eventually I would like to try using Quadtone rip with the 2880 to see if there are any advantages.  I used QTR with the 2200 and was able to get pretty good results with just black and light black inks.  I understand QTR now support the 2880, so that is probably the next thing I’ll try regardin black and white printing.

Print Handling/Mechanics

Prints come out of the printer acceptably quickly.  Some have complained the printer is slow.  I say if you need to print at high speed you are using the wrong printer.  Maybe you should send the work out?

I’ve experienced a few glitches with the paper not feeding correctly.  Both with the fine art papers and with matte papers fed through the bulk sheet feeder.  With the fine art/roll sheet paper path it seems that it is critical that the paper is lined up square and inserted all the way into the printer for it to work reliably.  I understand there needs to be a high degree of precision so that the paper feeds straight, so the printer rejecting the alignment does not seem unreasonable.  Still, it is annoying and makes me think Epson could have refined this more.  Also, the rear path is akward to use and the width adjustment does not work precisely.  The printer also had trouble accepting 8.5 x 11 matte media on a few prints.  I’m not sure if it was because I did not have the correct paper type selected that this happened. Also, when this happended it corresponded to the printer going into a round of head cleaning/ink wasting.  I am hoping this is an isolated occurance.

I have not printed onto a CD/DVD and doubt I ever will.  Regarding roll paper, I’d like to make some nice panoramic prints at some point.  Being able to use roll paper will be nice.

The driver setup is bit of hassle, but that was just a matter of learning how it worked.  One issue I always fussed with on the 2200 was that oprints would not center on the page.  I always assumd that was a driver issue since the 2200 was not well supported in OS X 10.5.  It is nice to have prints come out where I want them on the page.  As I mentioned before, the paper selection is cryptic with all of the numerous options for apparently the same paper type.  Unfortunately, there is no real explanation of all of the options in the somewhat limited documentation provided for this printer.  Better documentation of this would be nice since it seems that more than a few have come to the conclusion that their printer was defective becuse they could not select the proper paper type in the Epson dialogue box - a problem that I had at first.  I even called Epson support for help at first whcih turned out to be fruitless.  I eventually figured things out on my own - others might not.

Conclusion and Soforth

Overall, the printer does what it should.  The paper handling is finicky but is not a dealbreaker.  I am concerned with the printers dendency to clean the heads when it is confused.  This wastes precious ink, and one of the issues that makes printing a very non-good deal.  In my opinion alot of focus should have been put into this by Epson.  Why a printer would be allowed to leave R&D acting like this is beyond me.  From what I’ve there may be a driver issue invloved in this.  Epson has yet to acknowlege the issue but they have to know about it given how easily they provided me with a replacement set of inks.  Hopefully a driver fix will sort this problem out or this romance will be breif.

What do you do to keep everyone busy and excited during the week long Fur Rondy festival?  Have a big air contest, of course!  Actually, this was pretty cool compared with the parade and sled dog sprint races, etc. that are the usual attractions for Anchorage’s annual winter festival.  Not that these attractions are not interesting, they are (they are part of Alaskana, and so should be featured), but I’m suprised this is the first year the big air event was sponsored.  Fittingly, the big air event was held on the hillside directly behind the carnival so there was a certain visual poetry seeing snowboarders and skiers hurling through the air with the backdrop of whirling carnival rides.  The event also cooincided with the fireworks which added an additional dynamic to the spectacle.   An appoximately 30 foot gap was set up riders needed to clear with a start beginning atop a 15 foot tower at the top of the hill next to the carnival to get enough speed.   Watching the riders there was just enough hill to make the gap.  Some of the skiers almost did not.  All in all a cool event I hope the Fur Rondy organizers will hold again next year.  Maybe they will build a bigger tower and make the jump  bigger and gap wider.  This is Alaska.  Enjoy the photos.

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