Everyone stay bundled up! (Unless you’re the Dog… in which case, stop wanting to go out!)

We’ve been twice in the last week, which is surprising to me. But then again, it’s a large playground to them… It’s not like they are going to actually spoil the fun learning anything.

Part of the attraction of the Science museum for me was obviously trying to get the kids interested in Science. That actually wasn’t very difficult. William isn’t showing preferences.. It’s all good. Mary is 5, so therefore EVERYTHING must be answered. If we can get the scientific method involved there, we’ll be ahead of the game.

So, we went for the Winter wonderland exhibit… Which, frankly, was an artificial snow machine (soap suds). Joy. And a Planetarium movie on Ice Worlds.

Color me unimpressed.

MV and W, however, were thrilled. 2 hours later, as we were leaving that afternoon (New Years Eve), it was decided that we would come back.

That turned out to be Saturday. Quicker than anticipated.

At this point, Daddy is reeling from a Camera body that he’s been waiting months for…. and it doesn’t focus. At all. The motors don’t click, nada. Disappointing is not really the word. So we’re taking the old one (which, truth be told, is still a good body. It’s just not … ), because the only place I could get stock on this was from a shop out of New York that I’ve done business with before. So there wasn’t going to be any resolution to this problem this weekend.

I’ve decided to limit myself even more, using a single 50mm prime lens.

Good news, it’s cheap.

Better news, it’s fast, which helps since there isn’t any LIGHT in this place.

Best news, it’s sharp, light, and makes a camera package that I can weave around the center without worry.

The Center of the Adventure Science Museum is a multi-story tower filled with various activities. It’s actually one of my biggest gripes, because it simply hasn’t changed since we first went there several years ago. A refresh would not hurt it one bit.

The kids didn’t care, so long as they could climb to the top!

The other area that seems to be static in time is the Body Quest exhibit. For William, the slide out of the lower intestine, complete with bodily noises was the best ever…

Unless you count the Ambulance.

Mary, who apparently maintains that a flower in the hair is perfectly sanitary in an OR, was intent on surgery. With Ketchup as the main tool, obviously. Apply directly to the retina.

Scattered around the center are various activities, including the ever popular coin eating spiral of death! Every aquarium, museum, and shopping center was one of these, and we have to hit it each time. The Adventure Science center was no different.

Or was it?

Yes, they plugged the hole at the bottom, so you could repeat the coin rolls over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. With Sister’s help, William was quite enthusiastic to do exactly that.

The newest exhibits were relating to the Sudekum Planetarium. The Kids really enjoyed this. 2 liter air pressure Bottle rockets, planet displays, stars, and weightlessness displays were all fun.

If they would only let Mary do them.

She’s big enough! Look!

No, NOT at the feet! Maybe in the summer.

And to close it out…. Jack stayed at home. Doing this.

(taken with the new body, manually focused, but in the dark! 2 stops better than the best the old could do! The replacement should be here this week.)

Turns out… the backlog apparently works differently.

So… A week before Thanksgiving, the scheduler for the area calls Jeff. There has been a cancellation. Can Greg do December?

Emails are sent to me asking this question. Immediately after reading first email, I notice second email, with answer ‘Yes.’

Oh boy.

(There is only SLIGHT liberty taken there…)

So, It’s pull out ALL the archives, load them up, sort them through, remove the duplicates, rebuild the index, throw all that out, because you should have removed the Duplicates BEFORE adding them to Aperture, and Aperture doesn’t like it when 30,000 pictures disappear at a time.

NOW, you can start actually figuring out which 20-25 pictures are actually going to make the cut. I didn’t pull much of anything from before 2003, so Five years. That worked out to be around 150,000 pictures in the archive library (not counting the years 2007-2008).

2007-2008 were easy. I had already been using Aperture to handle all of my Digital asset management, so it was a relatively simple task to pull photos that were already marked well, and choose there.

But, I wanted to get some the earlier stuff as well. Neither Jeff nor I wanted to put recent pictures of the Kids on display. Jeff does work in the Public, and DOES have to tell people NO. Having the kids up there readily identifiable and letting some upset person pull the comparison wasn’t going to happen. Having said that, some of the early pictures of Mary don’t give you a good indication on how she is now, so those became fair game.

It’s not kosher to sell directly from the Library… So we now have a new Domain and face for some of my stuff. GAN Photo is now up and running, with a separate gallery and blog system. Given that it went up a few days before the pictures did, I’m sure that it is going to change and evolve. Some parts of it I like, some… eh. It’s hopefully going to get more updates than this site has over the next month.

Of course, on top simply getting the photo’s selected, I had to re-edit most of them, as the software available today is SO much more powerful and precise than what I was using 5 years ago. I was pretty happy seeing some of the older images pop back into existence and breath. My old D60 Camera did a VERY fine job, given it’s limitations.

Printing was actually the easiest part, aside from the fact that I was producing about 50 feet of 17″ paper to display. My Epson 4000 did eat some roll paper and drink heavily from the ink well. Combining with the Thanksgiving timing, that meant that I was making multiple trips to the local (Nashville Local, not Franklin Local) Pro Photo shop.

Two of the prints are Panoramas. Those, as well as three of my more recent favorites, went on Gatorboard to keep the cost down, and sizes up. The rest were framed and matted in Arab, AL right before (and after) Thanksgiving. My Dad made an incredible find on Ebay of 22×28″ frames, and we spent some significant time cutting the mats and getting everything just right. I thank both Dad and Mom heavily for their help.

The pictures came out wonderfully. I’ve got the exhibit area COVERED with frames, colors and images, and I’m really proud and happy to see it. I regret the Gatorboarded pictures, because we did SO well with the framing, and they just don’t look nearly as good. And Those were the ones that I personally liked the most.

That said, If I had not done them that way, I wouldn’t have had the space or the weight capacity. It does all work out.

I’ll post more at GAN Photo. I’d like to be able to detail some more of the methodology and stories behind each shot that is going up there. I’m going to be busy.

Just one… Didn’t want to go overboard or anything.