Upon review of the incident, it is abundantly clear that this was a clean hockey hit. As noted by the NHL, Raffi’s initial point of contact was a shoulder-to-shoulder hit on an opponent who was playing the puck. He did not leave his feet or elevate, he kept his shoulder tucked and elbow down at his side, and he was gliding – not skating or charging.

It’s rare for me to disagree with Doug Wilson on hockey issues, but on this hit, I am.

I’ve watched various angles of the hit multiple times. I see a different hit than Wilson does. What I see is Torres gliding in for a hit and making shoulder to head contact with Stoll. Wilson is correct that Torres didn’t leave his feet or elevate in the hit, which is why Torres isn’t suspended for a dozen games. But it’s clear from a couple of angles that Torres was watching Stoll as he skated in, had the time and ability to shift the hit away from his head, and didn’t. To blame Stoll for putting his head in the way of that hit is a GM defending his player, and more power to Wilson for doing so. 

But it’s wrong. Shanahan’s right. My prediction on twitter a couple of days ago was three games off — one for the hit and two for the reputation. The way the sharks are playing I may well be right. there’s been some kerfluffle over “the rest of the series”, but I think that makes sense in this context, in that it keeps Torres away from the Kings (and vice versa), but it also doesn’t over-punish Torres. I do NOT think the suspension should have a term that might leak into next season, for instance, and this one doesn’t. 

I can see the logic of the league not wanting Torres to come back for a game-deciding game 6 or game 7, for instance. Just imagine the potential mayhem. This pushes any rematch out to next season where tempers will have had time to cool off a bit. 

I understand why Wilson is upset; the Sharks need Torres in the lineup. but I think Shanahan got this one right. The team knew what torres’ suspension history and reputation were before bringing him onto the team. Torres has done a good job of reforming his game away from the kind of suspendable play he’s known for — but he could have turned this into a good clean body check, and he chose not to. And so now he sits.

And yes, that really hurts the Sharks chances of making this a long series. But the thing is, he should have considered that before going for a head shot. And didn’t. Because Torres knows what “repeat offender status” means better than almost anyone in the league right now. 

In other news, after the hearing, the NHL suspended Bryan Marchment for two games, just in case. 

Working through my yosemite images. Of the ones I did up along Tioga Pass, this is my favorite so far.

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After that, I spent a day and a half in the park proper, driving from Oakhurst to Mono Lake via Tioga Pass and back on Sunday, and then on Monday I split time between the valley floor and a drive out to Hetch Hetchy and then home via the 120.

Lots and lots to talk about and show, as I can get it written. One thing I did for this trip was to rent a Fuji X-Pro-1 mirrorless camera and their 15-55 lens to experiment with and try some new things. I’m just starting to edit out the images from the trip (about 250 shots after the initial ding edit, plus three timelapses totalling about 500 images, and two pieces of video to experiment with). here’s one of the first images I took with the Fuji, up on tioga near Olmsted Point:

There is a surprising amount of detail in the image to my eye, and it needed wonderfully little post processing. I tweaked the luminance on the blue and yellow channels a bit (down in both cases) and dropped the green saturation some. Shot in aperture mode the exposure was literally right on, with a bit of boost to shadows and a bit of reduction in highlights, plus some clarity and vibrance.

Oh, and that image had no filter. Not even a UV, much less a polarizer. Just camera.

I can see the attraction of the mirrorless camera systems, and the images they turn out can be stunning. It’s not a perfect camera, though. There’s a lot to say about that camera, but the image quality is really quite good — but is it a quality you’d want to shoot? We’ll get there soon.

Here you can compare it to the older version of the image:

The differences aren’t huge, but I think they make a much nicer image. Improved contrast, improved sharpening and better tonal control. Some of that is a shift from what Lightroom 3 was capable of to Lightroom 4′s processing, but most of that are upgrades to the operator, not the software.

And that’s a nice reminder that there is value in going back through your library over time, because you’ll find images that you can improve, not because the image has somehow changed, but because you have.

But before I predict the second round, some housekeeping. How did my predictions in the first round turn out?

In the east I picked: Pens over Islanders, Montreal over Ottawa. Rangers over Capitals and Toronto over Boston.

Reality: Pens (but New York scared the hell out of them. well done!); Ottawa, Rangers and Boston.  two out of four. I was right in predicting Toronto/Boston to be a coin flip, though. That was a hell of a series. Both the Islanders and the Leafs can feel proud at how well they did and hopefully build on this, although the Toronto loss could be crushing. Hope not. The Capitals look tired, and as a franchise, this current mix of players is fading. their window has closed. Montreal could have won that series, but congrats to the Sens for not letting them. 

In the east I picked: Chicago over Minnesota, Anaheim over Detroit, LA over St. Louis.  and San Jose over Vancouver. 

In reality: Chicago was never really challenged, but that’s been true all season. Detroit squeaked past Anaheim. LA beat St. Louis, but again, that team, impressed me and can build on this season. and San Jose swept Vancouver (really? REALLY? didn’t see that coming). I’m not sure how San Jose swept the Canucks. Vancouver’s a team with a  lot going for it — and significant problems, of which I think the goaltending problem is the least of them. Not sure how to fix that team right now. Detroit? As I always say, never bet against detroit — they seem to find a way, but that team isn’t what it was, and it’s fading towards a rebuild. Still, dangerous and they showed it. 

The best hockey is out west by a long shot. And it’s been a lot of fun. 

So, 2-2 in the east, 3-1 in the west. 5-3 overall. Not bad. I still have time to drop myself below .500 for the playoffs, and if tradition holds, I will.

2nd round picks:

East: 

Pittsburgh vs. Ottawa: should be an interesting series, but I see nothing about Ottawa that makes me think they can stop the pens. Pens in 5.

Rangers vs. Bruins: Should be tough, should be physical, should be exhausting. Should be Boston. In 5. Sorry, Ranger fans. But I don’t think I’d bet money on it. or bet on whoever survives out of this round to win the next.

West:

Chicago vs. Detroit: another fun series, but reality should hit the wings here. Hawks in 5. 

San Jose vs. LA: For me, the series to watch in the 2nd round, and not because it’s got the sharks. should be the most interesting series in the second round. Closely matched, well played, hard, physical.  Either team could win it. I’m going to go for the Sharks in 6. But I wouldn’t be surprised to be wrong. 

So, summary: Penguins and Bruins in the east, Chicago and San Jose in the west. My original picks for Chicago and Penguins for the final (pens winning) stand, and I see no reason to think that’s wrong. Yet.

On to round 2! 

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So this is where the haters will get all worked up.  Manual focus is how artists work. Real Photographers focus their own cameras. Zone focusing is key to successful street shooting. Blah, blah, blah. Bullshit, I say. Focusing is not a sport, or a hobby or a religion.  It’s a necessary evil.  And machines now do it better than humans. Way better, way faster, way more accurately than we do.  I say this as someone who shot NHL hockey with manual focus 80-200mms and 300mms, and as someone who will be buried with my Mamiya 6.  But I am also someone who wants my camera to become one with me as much as possible and who has seen the results of less than absolutely precise focusing with current digital sensors. A truly modern camera focuses quickly, accurately, often with little light, and at the spot in the frame where the photographer wants it to. The X100s does that.  Case closed.  

This is one thing that the photography enthusiast population has in common with computer nerds that makes me crazy: this willingness to argue about technique and technology to the point where you start to think it’s more important than the final product, which in this case is the photo. 

And I guess for some people it is more important that you do things the “right” way than whether it’s a good photo. 

What should matter is the image. What seems to matter in far too many discussions is the technology. Technology and process enables creation of the image, folks. 

This is one reason why I don’t post exif data on my images as a general rule. Because what matters is whether the image works, not what work went into making the image. 

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UNICEF has launched a bold advertising campaign that takes direct aim at perhaps the most ubiquitous form of online activism — the Facebook “like.” Late last month, UNICEF Sweden released three commercials that urge viewers to support humanitarian aid not through posts or shares on social media, but monetary donations.

Congrats to UNICEF for having the guts to say this.

Here’s a problem Community Management and Social Media hasn’t really come to grips with. We focus on metrics that really don’t mean much, and forget the larger goals — and sometimes, those numbers hurt your ability to reach chose goals.

The “like’ seems harmless, but is it? You give people a chance to make an “easy commit” to your cause. It gives you a nice, big (and meaningless) number you can put in press releases and tweets. but because it’s so easy — frictionless — it’s a meaningless commitment. There’s no cost to a person to “like” something, so ultimately, there’s no value in that like. It’s a worthless, meaningless number.

And worse, you give that person a very easy act to do — and that act can let them feel like they accomplished something. They helped. By giving them a frictionless action that lets them feel they’ve helped, does that encourage them to take the next step and (for instance) join the organization, or commit funds to the cause. 

It would be an interesting experiment (I can’t find any research on this) whether these easy “likes” help or hurt fundraising efforts. Does asking them to make their first step a “like” make them more or less likely to commit funds in a later step compared to a campaign that focuses on the fundraising itself? 

I’m willing to bet that the like is in fact a disincentive, because it allows people to convince themselves they’ve helped the cause, without actually costing themselves anything. 

Don Cherry isn’t speaking for the CBC when he says women have no place in sports locker-rooms, the head of media relations for the public broadcaster said Monday.

What Don Cherry is really saying — that an athlete’s behavior can be boorish or juvenile (at best — or it can degrade further and be sexist and abusive) and this is the fault of a woman for being nearby. 

It’s far past time we stopped accepting and enabling the trollish behavior of some athletes, but it’s also time for us to stop accepting the excuses of those who enable and promote that behavior.

it also needs to be remembered that MOST athletes do not act like this, but the locker room is still a stronghold of this kind of trollish attitude, because, frankly, if you win, people cut you a lot of slack and protect you from being responsible for your behavior. 

And it was that kind of “well, he wins a lot of hockey games” attitude that allowed Graham James to prey on his players for as long as he did. 

These kinds of attitudes need to die. We should move that forward a little bit by helping Don Cherry out of his spotlight. But it won’t happen, because while many of his attitudes and opinions are out of date (and head off into “downright reprehensible”), he draws audiences to CBC. And just like athletes, as long as you can do that, they’ll define your flaws as — character quirks and apologize for you instead of hold you responsible for them. 

I’m really looking forward to it — I’ll be there Saturday to work with students on photography in the field and with Lightroom in the lab while Ashok does the heavy lifting. 

And after that, I’m running off to Yosemite for a couple of days R&R. I’m currently hoping the dogwood hold up until I get there! I’ve also rented a Fuji X100s for the trip (Thank you Borrowlenses!) to experiment with and see how it works…

If you’re going to be around the Yosemite area next weekend, let me know and we’ll see if we can get together for coffee or something. I’ll be headed up to Oakhurst friday, working the class saturday, hopefully headed into the park Saturday night to try some night photography on Glacier, and then sunday and monday I’ll be pointing my camera at things somewhere in the park. There’s even a chance Tioga might open for me (if it does, guess where I’ll be?) 

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From March 7 – April 7, I documented everything blatantly sexist anyone has said to me. None of these comments were provoked, none of them were replies to something I said, none of them were at all out of the ordinary and the vast majority of them (an original count of 77 images) have been taken out so that this post isn’t as long as it probably should be. This is a 10-picture indication of what it’s like to be a woman who endorses game culture, every single month

Isn’t it sad things are still like this? But is it surprising? unfortunately, no.

Okay, you’re a community manager, and this starts happening in your forums or in the comments section. Are your site rules and T&Cs set up to let you fix the problem? And — how do you define “fix the problem?”

How do you handle it? Well, if you’re Youtube, you evidently stick carrots in your ears and pretend nothing’s wrong… 

(hint: WRONG ANSWER)

But it’s a tradition. Every year I make my playoff predictions, and later this summer, you can all laugh at me when they prove mostly wrong. In a good year I seem to get about half right. Such is life… That’s why I’m not a famous hockey pundit….

Eastern Conference

Islanders vs. Penguins. Well obviously, it’s the Island…

Okay, I can’t say that a straight face. But I do want to recognize the Islanders (and Evgeny Nabokov) for making the playoffs when nobody, not even the Islanders, expected that to happen. Well done. But the Penguins will keep this playoff run short on the Island this year. Pens in 4.

Senators vs. Canadiens. I have a fondness for the Senators, but this year, I think I have to pick Montreal. Probably in six. And it would be really cool if Montreal and Toronto were to meet, although I think the Mayans have a prediction that if that were to happen the sun would go nova. I’m willing to risk that.

Rangers vs. Capitals: I have a fondness for the Capitals, but honestly, the Rangers are the better team. I don’t expect the Rangers to go past the 2nd round, but I do think the Capitals will go out in five.

Toronto vs. Boston: the series to watch in the first round, if only to watch and see if anyone dies. This ought to be a rough series for both teams. I’m not sure whoever wins this series will be in any kind of shape to win the 2nd round, but this is the series I plan on watching out of the east. And because I have to, toronto in 6, but this is basically a coin flip in my mind.

So in summary, Penguins, Canadiens, Rangers, Toronto. And I pick Pittsburgh to win the east.

Out west…

Minnesota vs. Chicago: Chicago has been amazing all season. I see no reason that’ll end. Blackhawks in 5. Sorry, Minnesota fans.

Detroit vs. Anaheim: It’s hard to bet against Detroit, but I’m going to. I like Anaheim, although I like Detroit’s goaltending a lot more. I still think the Wings can’t get past the Ducks this year, so Anaheim in 5.

Los Angeles vs. St. Louis: I like both teams. I like LA’s goaltending more. I think having lots of west coast teams is a great way to piss off the tv networks. Because of that, I want as many California teams to go as deep in the playoffs as I can, so Los Angeles in 6. but I’m not sure St. Louis will go easily, or the kings will have much left for round 2.

San Jose vs. Vancouver. Now excuse me while I do the homer thing and pick the Sharks (in 6). I think Niemi is a much better goaltender playing better. I like how the Sharks have played the last few weeks. They seem to get it. Although I wouldn’t be crushed if the Canucks win out, either. But I do think the Sharks will win the first round, although they have to prove to everyone (including themselves) they can go deeper. I’m not sure they can, especially against the talent in the west.

So summary: Chicago, Anaheim, Los Angeles, and San Jose. If Toronto/Montreal doesn’t make the sun go nova, three california teams in the 2nd round might. or it might just make Don Cherry’s head explode. And then maybe he might finally retire (but I doubt it….).

Coming out of the west — Chicago. Hard to see any team taking them out this year, unless chicago does it to themselves.

So my prediction for stanley cup final: chicago and pittsburgh. And of the two? Flip a coin. I’ll take Chicago in 7, if only to save myself from sleeping on the couch again…

I have, of course, taken a few fairly poor pictures, but the nest is fairly hard to get a good shot of, and that morning we had some fun with heat shimmer to boot.

I’m thrilled that once again, this nest has two healthy chicks in it. This is the seventh year for this pair that I know of, and they only had a nest failure the first year. In the years since they’ve produced two chicks a year except for one year when they produced one (in general, an eagle chick has about a 50% chance of living the first year if it fledges). So this has been a successful and fruitful pair.

(here’s a blown up crop of the birds showing both chicks..)

All of my images of this nest are here. Hopefully, I’ll get out there again and try to get some better images.

Because the location of this new nest is at risk of disruption, we’re not disclosing the location of it. The GPS info in the images actually relates to the older tower nest and won’t take you to a viewing place for this one.

If you’re going to be in the area, Yosemite Area Audubon is hosting a Bird Photography Workshop by Ashok Khosla, who is a friend and board member of Santa Clara Valley Audubon as well as one hell of a bird photographer.

This workshop is in two parts, the first the evening of May 8, and a full day of in the field and lab work on Saturday, May 11. I’m thrilled to be assisting Ashok for this workshop on the 11th. I’ll be helping out with the field shooting and with some of the Lightroom work in the lab in the afternoon. The final location for the workshop is still being worked out, but will either be in Coarsegold or Mariposa.

If you’re in the area and interested in improving your workshop skills, you should consider checking this one out. I’m really looking forward to being there and helping out, as I plan on learning from Ashok along with everyone else. His work (both photographically and with Audubon over the years) has been a huge influence on me.

After that, I get to take a couple days off and shoot and explore Yosemite in the spring. Please save some dogwood blossoms for me, and I seem to have a good chance of Tioga pass being open. If you’re around the Park then and want to try to get together to chat and have a coffee, drop me a line.

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I realized he looked familiar. He was.See that muzzle?

This is that rabbit back in 2010. I have no idea what caused that damage to his fur, but it’s quite distinctive. Here we are, three years later, and while some of the fur has grown back, that damage is still visible. The nice thing is that three years later, he’s still around and hopping — in about the same place I originally saw him — and seems healthy. But if you compare the two images, you can see how he’s lost a bit of that youthful glamour….