Tag Archives: Trivets

Evansville, Indiana photo ops

Cameras and Photography, , , , ,

Sorry about not updating my Blog last weekend.  We were on vacation and didn’t get back home until late on Sunday.  Having to be at work all week, starting on Monday morning has really interfered with my photographic activities.

For our vacation this year, Lynn and I attended the Pressing Iron and Trivet Collectors of America (PITCA) 2010 Convention in Evansville, Indiana.

The convention was held and we stayed at the Aztar Casino Hotel in downtown Evansville – right on the Ohio River.  I enjoyed the parts of the convention that I attended – it’s amazing how knowledgeable people are.  But I also used some time while Lynn was busy with trivet things to explore the area looking for photo ops.  Here’s a couple of views from the Casino area:

Sunset at the Aztar Casino_IMG_1139-40_panoSunset at the Aztar Casino, looking southwest over the Ohio River

The night time Ohio River at Evansville
Night time Ohio River at Evansville

Evansville has a very nice river walk and they’ve done quite a bit of flower gardening along the way.  Here are some examples of what it looks like:

The Evansville, Indiana visitor's centerThe Evansville, Indiana visitor’s center

 

Evansville also has a museum with a transportation center showcasing several rail cars and railroad equipment.

Evansville rail cars

The USS LST-325 Ship Memorial in Evansville is the home of the only remaining operational Landing Ship Tank (LST) in the world.  The LST-325 has quite a history and is a very lucky ship.  She made 44 trips between England and France during the WW II invasion of Normandy.  Here is an interesting account of how the ship was acquired, repaired and sailed across the Atlantic by a crew of US Navy Veterans in 2000.

By the way, all of the photos I made of the ship were with a Nikon 16-35mm f/4 VR lens, combined with auto ISO on my D-700 DSLR.  The lens VR combined with setting the minimum shutter speed to 1/15 sec and the ISO range of 200 – 1600 allowed me to shoot without flash in the dim interior of the ship.  I also was able to make sharp hand held photos down to a shutter speed of 1/8 sec, when the light was even dimmer.

LST-325 Deck Gun Barrel

On the second day of the convention auction, I left the hotel early to visit the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, which is a little over 3 hours away from Evansville.  It was worth the time, although I didn’t stay very long due to the heat.

The Gateway ArchThe Gateway Arch, St. Louis, Missouri

I’m sure there are many other photo ops in the area that I didn’t have time to explore.  For instance there is a zoo and botanical gardens in the city, and several caves within driving distance.   The PITCA convention will probably return to Evansville next year, so I may get a chance to continue my search.

I’ve posted more of my photos (and larger versions) from this trip in a gallery here:  https://edrosack.com/Evansville/

©2010, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

Collectors News Uses my photo for their July 2009 cover!

Cameras and Photography, VARIOUS,

Unless you’ve investigated the links to Lynn’s blog and web page over on the right, you may not know that my lovely and intelligent wife is quite an expert and author on collectible trivets, stands, and sad irons. I was the "photographer in residence" for her A-Z Guide to Collecting Trivets published in 2004, and have helped her with various collectible photos since.  She has a second book in the works and I only have a few more photos that I owe her (although it seems that more trivets arrive in the mail all the time).

She has also written several articles in various other magazines that I’ve done the photos for, so I’ve had my photos published with her words several times before.

Recently, she was interviewed by Melody Amsel-Areili for the monthly magazine, Collectors News and the article appears as the July 2009 cover story.  You can download a PDF of the article from their site.  Lynn provided 8 of my photos for them to use with the article.  They used three, and I was very pleasantly surprised yesterday when she showed me her copy of the magazine with one more of my photos used as the cover image!

This particular photo is one that I took in February of 2003 with a Minolta DiMAGE 7H i camera.  In looking at it again after more than 6 years, I’m impressed by the quality of the output.  It does have quite a bit more noise than my modern cameras, but it’s easily handled in Lightroom.  I remember the 7Hi  very fondly: 5MP, with very SLR like controls, including a manual zoom ring and even raw output.  I tried using the raw files but the work flow tools were still pretty primitive back then, so I shot in jpg format.  I still have the camera, although I haven’t used it in quite a while.  This particular photo was of one of the walls in our home where Lynn had displayed a number of her trivets and stands.  We made it to include in her first book, but ended up using a different version that showed a larger portion of the wall.   I’m really glad this one eventually found such a nice use!

Here’s the photo used for the cover:
The Cover Photo

The Covered Bridge Capital of the World

Indiana, OUTSIDE FLORIDA, , ,

Lynn and I were in Indianapolis last weekend for the Midwest Sad Iron Collectors Club convention. Lynn did a presentation on trivets and got to meet a lot of her collector friends. I helped with the presentation, and did some tourist type things around Indianapolis while she was busy.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, we both visited Mary Kate in Cincinnati. Tuesday night we went to the Prima Vista Italian restaurant where we had a wonderful meal overlooking the city’s skyline. Make sure to bring your camera. On Wednesday, we visited the Newport Aquarium , Hofsbrauhaus , and Skyline Chili . The Newport Aquarium is a nice place to make photographs. They have a large tank that you walk through, with fish of many descriptions swimming beside and over you and you can linger as long as you want. A fast lens with a polarizing filter to reduce reflections would help get better photos through the glass. The beer at this Hofsbrauhaus is just like I remember from the one in Munich.

Thursday, while Lynn went to the auction, I drove quite a distance (~3 hrs each way) from Indianapolis to Bowling Green Kentucky to visit the Corvette museum and factory. Along the way I went through Louisville, Ky – where they were holding a National Street Rod auto show – so there where some very interesting vehicles on the road with me. Factory tours are only $5, and the assembly line is fascinating, especially if you like cars. You can’t take pictures inside the factory, but the ones I took at the museum are here .

On Friday morning, we both went with other members of the MSICC on a tour of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and museum. My Brickyard pictures are here .

Friday afternoon Lynn was busy, so I drove over to Rockville, Indiana. Rockville is located in Parke county, about 50 miles west of Indianapolis. Parke County, has more covered bridges (30) than any other county making them “The Covered Bridge Capital of the World”.

Marshall Bridge, J. A. Britton, Builder, 1917

There is quite a bit of information about Parke County here . I wasn’t there at a good time of day (I had to be back at the convention for dinner – so I couldn’t wait around for sunset) but I made a few photographs anyway. If you go, you should plan to spend a day or two so you can scout out all the bridges and pick some to photograph at dawn and dusk. The tourist map they hand out isn’t the most useful. It was hard to locate some of the bridges. And some of them are way out in the country on narrow dirt roads. My bridge photos are here.

©2007, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.