A collection of Black & White Cityscapes and Skyline Photos by Photographer Jason Wilson.

[Pinnacle Golf Club: Number 15 from the elevated ladies tees]

So I think the first time I had heard of Pinnacle Golf Club in Grove City was sometime back in 2007.  I had only heard about it, and that its location was somewhere behind the Wal-Mart on Stringtown Rd.  So, just to clarify my first two sentences: Golf Course, Grove City, Wal-Mart.  I thought (at the time) I had heard all I needed to hear.  I think also I had heard something about a new housing development, bla bla bla. Whatever.  It didn’t matter.  Wal-Mart, Grove City, Golf Course.

Holy Sh!t was I F***ing Wrong!

Back in April of this year (2009) I had a little bit of time in the morning after an early meeting in Grove City, so I decided to drive around until I found that golf course in Grove City behind the Wal-mart.  So I headed down Buckeye Parkway and caught my first glimpse (continue reading…)

So I may have sent a profanity laced text message to my sister after I dropped a foul ball at last night’s Columbus Clippers game against the Louisville Bats.

(just as an aside to this little story, yeah, I can and do take color photos on occasion)

I actually scored a pretty good ticket from one of the ticket pimps outside of Huntington Park, section 15, row 10, seat 9 thank you very much.  But I was not in a prime spot for a foul ball, it woulda had to be a left handed batter swinging late on and inside fastball for me to even have a chance from where I was sitting.  But honestly, I wasn’t at the game for the game itself. I was there to grab some black and white photos from inside Huntington Park, so I brought my camera with me.  I figured around 8:15 I’d leave my seat and walk all around the park and grab some photos.

First though, before I could start shooting, I was going to need some funnel cake fries and a Miller Lite.  I have pictures of the beer and funnel cake fries, but I don’t have a photo of how I was wearing my camera.  I had is slung over my left shoulder across my torso and under my right arm, beer in left hand, cup of funnel cake fries in right hand, and right forearm resting on the camera’s lens. I had finished drinking my funnel cake fries, yes drinking. So I walked away to throw away the cup formerly full of fries (standing behind section 17 now) and wanted to see the next at bat as I finished my beer before I started shooting.

As I approached the spot where I was going to stand I noticed the next batter was a lefty.  And the thought crossed my mind that “Hey, he could foul one off this way.”  Yeah right, its been about 18 years since a foul ball’s been hit my direction.  The very next pitch, CRACK, late swing underneath a high inside fastball. “Shit, that’s coming right at me, ha ha,” — I don’t think I said that out loud.  Anyway, as I’m tracking it, I didn’t even have to move my feet, and I’m thinking, “just don’t drop it, asshole.” — Well, the ball landed directly into my right hand, I went with the bare-handed egg catch, you know, try to match the relative speed of the ball by dropping the hand quickly as the ball is within feet of the bare hand.  And as I’m ready to clench my fist tight around the baseball, “SMACK!” My forearm whacked the lens of my camera and the ball bounced off my hand and under the wheelchair in front of me.

Stupid camera, who brings a camera to a baseball game anyway?

As a golfer in Ohio you must be ready at a moments notice for a round, especially if you want that round anytime between say mid-November and mid-March.  Its pretty much a play it by ear scenario.  And well, I was playing today by ear.  The Metroscap Gallery is closed on Mondays, and today’s weather was going to be questionable.  A chance of showers in the late morning /  early afternoon, but dad and I decided go for it.  So we headed down to a course we knew would be open, Westchester Golf Club and played nine.

There wasn’t anything too spectacular about our 9 hole round today, other than the fact we had the opportunity to play before St. Patrick’s Day.  In fact this post was scheduled to be a Rub-it-in-I-played-golf-today-and-you-didn’t-cause-you-have-to-work-on-Mondays type of post.  But then I noticed something about the photos I took with my iPhone of our round.

SIDE NOTE: Look at how incredibly straight my left arm is in both of these shots (your humble author is in the black shirt).  Very nice. Especially for March. Holding the wrist cock very deep into the swing in the bottom photo.  -Oh, and yes, I know, my pants are too short. There, no need for 12 pages of comments about the jeans, they’ve been addressed.

What I’m fascinated with by these series of photos from the iPhone is the severe distortion of the golf club on a downswing.  I can’t figure out what’s going on here in these.  If this were a real camera, and the sensitivity of the CCD were super high, like ISO 3200 or even 6400 and the shutter speed was even 1/125th second, I imagine it would still be able to freeze the club shaft with out the heavy distortion that’s IF a shot at f/2.8 @ 1/125th ISO 3200 wasn’t completely washed out.  I just can’t grasp what is going on here to make these photos look like this. (by the way, I’m guessing at these settings as I can’t seem to find any EXIF data other than the F-stop, which was 2.8)

The last one really baffles me.  In that photo, you see the club on the downswing, the ball still on the ground, and then the ball in flight – that’s no lens flare to the left of his leg, that’s the ball.