Rood's Photo Gallery

Since the early 1970's I have taken a fairly large number of pictures of astronomers, mostly at meetings. Since many of my friends who have seen these pictures have enjoyed them, I assembled this Photo Gallery. Let me know if you enjoy looking at these.

The gallery now contains almost my complete collection of older pictures. There are a few that I remember but cannot find for now. Eventually they will show up.

If while browsing you find a picture of yourself and you object to having your photo included please let me know and I'll delete it.

As with all of my pictures the technical quality is highly variable. I try to get pictures of people interacting naturally which is impossible using a flash. Before 2004 I used high-speed film (often pushed for the older B&W). Slow shudder speeds and wide aperture make motion and focus a problem. Pictures are often heavilty cropped. All of the factors often lead to pictures which are often grainy, poorly lit, slightly out of focus, or suffering from some other technical deficiency. Even after the switch to digital I was forced to use the equivalent of ISO 1600 film inside. Digital offers the possibilty of bringing out shadow detail but such images are grainy. I suppose I should just toss compromised pictures, but sometimes all pictures of some individuals had problems, or there was something I liked about the picture which made me keep the picture despite some problems.

With digital photography I have been taking pictures at a much higher rate, especially at meetings. Sometimes I do this as my gift to the person being honored at a meeting. Perhaps I'm over compensating for the years I did not take enough pictures. To some I'm a pest at coffee breaks and lunch. My daughters point out that taking pictures forgives me from having to interact.

One of the pleasures that many of my friends have gotten from these pictures is reflecting on our youth. I hope that the younger people in the newer pictures enjoy them decades from now and that someone else takes on the task of second epoch exposures.

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