Two of Canada’s smaller citizens hard at work this afternoon, near Granville Island:

The Hackers Who Recovered NASA’s Lost Lunar Photos

Between 1966 and ’67, five Lunar Orbiters snapped pictures onto 70mm film from about 30 miles above the moon. The satellites were sent mainly to scout potential landing sites for manned moon missions. Each satellite would point its dual lens Kodak camera at a target, snap a picture, then develop the photograph. High- and low-resolution photos were then scanned into strips called framelets using something akin to an old fax machine reader.
The images were beamed in modulated signals to one of three receiving stations in Australia, Spain, or California, where the pictures-and collateral chatter from the NASA operators-were recorded straight to tape. After finishing their missions, the satellites were unceremoniously dashed against the moon rocks, clearing the way for Apollo. The brilliant and ballsy engineering was typical of NASA during its golden age, a time when it was also more closely linked to other government agencies with an interest in taking pictures from space.
“These guys were operating right at the edge,” Cowing says with a reverence for these NASA engineers that’s shared by his team. “There’s a certain spy program heritage to all this, but these guys went above that, because those spy satellites would send their images back. These didn’t. They couldn’t. They were in lunar orbit.”
The photos were stored with remarkably high fidelity on the tapes, but at the time had to be copied from projection screens onto paper, sometimes at sizes so large that warehouses and even old churches were rented out to hang them up. The results were pretty grainy, but clear enough to identify landing sites and potential hazards. After the low-fi printing, the tapes were shoved into boxes and forgotten.
They changed hands several times over the years, almost getting tossed out before landing in storage in Moorpark, California. Several abortive attempts were made to recover data from the tapes, which were well kept, but it wasn’t until 2005 that NASA engineer Keith Cowing and space entrepreneur Dennis Wingo were able to bring the materials and the technical know how together.

Vancouver is plagued with too much rain throughout at least 8 months of the year but when the weather’s nice, it does have its charms. This was what it looked like last night, on the last evening of March. It was captured from the edge of the former 2010 Olympics Athletes’ Village. What you’re seeing is an HDR image that was rendered from 9 original source photos.

A trio of fans from Regina in town for the big game at Soldier Field:

More here.

If you get the chance to cut across from I-15 south of Salt Lake to travel Hwy-89 through Page, Utah to Flagstaff, AZ – take it. The quick pics from my camera phone can’t do these justice.




I-15 between Great Falls and Helena in a snowstorm?

Not so much.

Looking north on SK-673, February 22nd.

During the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, I was a volunteer, serving as an assistant to the photographers working for the IOC. I was set to reprise this role at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi but withdrew in early December for personal reasons. As the old saying goes, “When one door closes, another opens.” So, rather than heading back to North America immediately, instead I chose to visit Holland, England, France, and soon Spain. This past weekend was spent in Paris. Most everyone was exceptionally polite and kind (except for one public sector railway employee) and the weather cooperated to make it a photographer’s paradise. While everyone undoubtedly has their own views of what is the Most Beautiful City in the World, my two top candidates would be Paris & Prague. Here are a few images I captured:

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Might anyone know the meaning of the first one?

Cattle grazing north of Sturgis, South Dakota. (Taken October 17th.)

I love some of these shots!

I was very fortunate to capture this image a few days ago, about 15 minutes before the sun set below the horizon:

Not too far from there, one can find this wonderful group of seals.