Stan and I went down again this week to photograph some of the interiors for the Virtual Congress project. We were lead through a number of different areas of the Capitol including some things that the public doesn’t normally pass through. I was able to get a lot of decent reference and texture shots for the modeling we’ll be doing down the road but right now I’m still focusing on the exterior of the Rayburn building and the Capitol Complex.

Here’s a shot of the Capitol Building dome from inside the rotunda:

And here’s a screenshot of the exterior model of the Rayburn building:

This evening I spent some time trying to figure out one of the issues I have with my flash. I seem to have fixed the firing problem where the two contacts weren’t touching - I cut a short piece of a paper clip and more or less just wedged it into the hynge opening of the flash housing, making sure it stuck out just enough to catch the end of the long contact. Wedging it in there like I did was enough to hold it in place, even while the flash was up, but I thought perhaps a little something extra might be helpful… so I mixed up some two part epoxy and added it in around the paperclip and inside the hinge area, making sure not to get it on any moving parts. It seems to have done the trick.

Flash down. Arrows pointing to the longer of the two contacts, the end of the paper clip, and the point at which the two contacts meet.

Flash up. Arrow pointing to the two contacts now touching, due to the paperclip pulling on the longer of the two contacts.

As for the issue I’m having with the flash not able to close anymore, I’ll probably just end up using some tape to hold it down until I can figure out a better way to engage the latching mechanism on the other side of the housing.

I did something really stupid on Sunday while up in Jim Thorpe: I dropped my camera. I brought it with me to take on the trails and as I was taking it out of the car, the strap got caught on something and it pulled the camera right out of my hands. It fell upside down on top of the flash housing.

The most obvious damage occurred to the built-in flash. The little plastic hook that releases the flash and allows it to pop up had broken off, so the flash doesn’t stay down anymore. After checking the camera over I realized there was other damage to the flash that was now keeping it from firing. Thankfully everything else seems ok.

This evening I took apart the flash housing to see what was going on and I realized that the flash is still functioning, but that another plastic component had broken off, keeping a connection from being made. There are two little metal contacts that look like they should be pulled together when the flash pops up. When I do this with a pair of tweezers it does what it’s supposed to and fires. If I want to get this working again I’ll have to figure out a way to get these two contacts touching.

The set of contacts are towards the bottom of the exposed flash housing:

The little rectangular hole here is where the plastic hook should be:

Photos courtesy of my old Nikon 990 that I took out of storage.

We spent this past weekend up in Jim Thorpe for our 6th anniversary. Believe it or not, it was the first time we had been alone for a night without the girls (4+ years). It was well worth it… Neither of us could remember the last time we woke up in bed without a child sprawled out between the two of us.

Saturday we spent our time walking around town, stepping in and out of the shops, and even took a tour of the Asa Packer mansion. - This place had some insane woodworking and carvings all throughout the house. Lunch was had at JT’s Steak & Ale and dinner at a place called Moya. - We recommend both.

That night we ended up staying in a B&B called the Minnie Victoria. Susan, the inn keeper, was such a pleasant host that it made our stay even that more enjoyable. Her house was gorgeous and she made us these delicious little heart-shaped waffles in the morning. How we ended up there was a bit comical… We had reservations at another B&B downtown, but when we got there to check in we were greeted by an individual that my wife uses the anology of Jack Nicholson in The Shining, as a way to describe him. This guy’s creepy factor was through the roof and the inn itself was something left to be desired. We couldn’t run out of that place any faster than we did.

On Sunday we went hiking up and down the rails to trails along the Lehigh River. Here was a small set of falls that we came across:

We also picked up a few loose railroad spikes that were strewn around the old tracks:

About a month ago I spent two hours outside in the cold, while it snowed, trying to take pictures of the lunar eclipse. Towards the end of it I was getting a little bored and remembered an old trick I used to do with night shots and street lights. I had a flashlight with me so I shot a 25 second exposure of myself bouncing it around. It reminds me of those Sprint commercials that have been out for a while now… which I recently found out was most likely inspired by these guys: PIKAPIKA 

Oh, and the shots of the eclipse… they turned out pretty bad.