A Vision of the Present

Repetition

2012-02-10T20:07:00.000-08:00

These are all from the Computer Science and Engineering building at University of Michigan. The first two are of the Eniac computer (front of vacuum tubes and back of vacuum tubes), which was one of the first ones ever made. The last is some stairs.

Amsterdam

2012-02-05T06:39:00.000-08:00

I took a trip to Brussels last week. On Monday, there was a strike throughout the country, so I couldn't take the train from Amsterdam (where I flew into) to Brussels. So, I had to spend the night in Amsterdam. I just grabbed a hotel near the airport, and it turns out that there is a great park with a lake in it very close to there. I walked over and was able to get some pictures. It was a very overcast day (seems typical of Amsterdam), so I converted all of these to black and white.

I was hoping to have more opportunities to take pictures on the trip, but, as usual, there were no breaks during the day that were long enough to get away, they sequestered us during lunch, and the meeting ended after sunset. Oh well.

Monochromatic Flower

2012-01-29T08:21:00.000-08:00

My daughter has an Amaryllis which just started to bloom a few days ago. Digital photography school had a challenge this last week for a monochromatic (but not black and white) picture. So, I took these, reduced the yellows and greens and kept the red. I don't think that this is pure monochromatic, since it has greys in it instead of pinks. I don't really know how to do that (probably a red filter in PS?) Anyways, I like the first of the three best (I entered this one), but the second has some nice features too, like more texture.

Snow in the Woods

2012-01-27T17:35:00.000-08:00

I took this while eating breakfast this morning.

Puerto Rico

2012-01-26T16:21:00.000-08:00

I went to Puerto Rico a couple of weeks ago and had the chance to take some pictures. We went up onto a mountain in the rain forest. It was raining for a while, as you might expect. Some of the pictures turned out ok, while some were just sort of blah. You be the judge.

Mushrooms

2012-01-08T19:16:00.000-08:00

I found a log with a lot of mushrooms on it while I was stacking wood on Saturday. I took a bunch of pictures, obviously. I used a bunch of different light settings, with the lights above to the left and above to the right, but really, the best shots (in my opinion) were with the lighting from below. That way you could really see the undersides of them. Here are the best three.

I like this one, since it looks like this little shroom is venturing out on his own. Like he is coming up to me to say "We come in peace!"

The Mighty Huron River

2012-01-05T18:07:00.000-08:00

I went to Hudson Mills Metropark the other day to take some pictures. It was colder than crap, but I got some pictures. I think that they turned out pretty ok. I took about seven that I like, but I will post them a couple at a time. Here are two.

A House in the Woods

2012-01-04T19:20:00.000-08:00

On the way to work a bit ago, I came across this house. It is clear that it has been abandoned for at least 20+ years, since there is a tree growing from right next to the front door. I really liked the feel of the place, so I took some pictures. These are probably the best two:

Blacksmith Shop 1

2012-01-01T12:57:00.000-08:00

We went to a blacksmith shop a couple of weeks ago, and I took a bunch of pictures. I think that I got a few interesting ones, that I will post slowly here.

Milkweed at Sunset

2011-12-31T08:00:00.000-08:00

Car

2011-12-30T13:53:00.000-08:00

My dad took us to look at some cars at a place where he is restoring his Morgan. Very cool cars there. It was relatively dark, and there were a ton of people, so I didn't take too many pictures. This is probably one of the better ones.

A Vision of Winter

2011-12-29T07:40:00.000-08:00

I think that this is one of the best pictures that I took this year. It is very rare that you actually catch snow in the trees so clearly as this. I really like that the snow is deep in the lower part of the trees and almost non-existent in the upper parts. Also, the sky is so blue that it really gives a nice contrast. It was a spontaneous picture on the way to work, again.

Pond at Dawn

2011-12-24T08:12:00.000-08:00

Sorry that I have been gone for so long. I have been a wee bit on the busy side. Actually, I have been taking lots of pictures, but just haven't had time to process and upload them. So, over the next many days, I will try to catch up with some pictures.

Here are some pictures that I took in early November on my way to work, just after dawn.

Alumni Band

2011-10-29T14:21:00.000-07:00

Here is a picture of my Step Mom at the University of Michigan Homecoming game. The top image is a full image taken at 53mm, so a tiny bit zoomed. The middle is a full image, but at 135mm, and the bottom is the same image but cropped. This is taken from almost all the way across the stadium. I really like my camera. It is probably best to actually click on the images and look at the "full sized".

Tree at Sunrise

2011-10-26T04:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I took my camera to work with me and got this on the way to work. I walked out in the middle of a field to take this picture. It is the first sunrise picture I have taken in a long time. It is a rare occurrence. Once again, I was searching for the elusive lone tree in a field with nothing in the background. It seems to be quite hard to find this type of tree in Michigan. I very much notice sight lines now, and the sight lines around here are quite short due to all of the trees. I need to find some places in which there are large fields.

Fall Set I

2011-10-09T18:59:00.000-07:00

On the way to work the other day (on my bike!), I took my camera and took some pictures. Nice fall colors, some fog, a tractor and water. Uber-cool!

Washington DC

2011-09-24T15:58:00.000-07:00

We were in Washington DC about a month ago or so. I took a few pictures and have processed them and such, but have never posted them. I have been just a bit too busy. Here are some of them. I really like taking pictures of people, but I am extremely hesitant to do so. I decided to take some pictures of people anyways (fight the fears!) I feel like some of these turned out pretty nice.

Yet Another Flower Picture

2011-09-18T19:03:00.000-07:00

I spent an hour last night playing with my light box and some flowers. I took a LOT of pictures. What I find truly amazing is that you can have a flower in front of you and never see the spider webs until you take a macro shot and look at it on the computer. Then, all of the flaws come out.

One thing that I have noticed is that it is very hard to get rid of pollen. It is everywhere! So, I guess I chose to embrace it this time. With these pictures, I am just trying to get good composition, focus and such. I could not really find "perfect" flowers in the garden. I really do like some of these shots, though. Here are four of them.

Matthaei Botanical Gardens

2011-09-10T20:05:00.001-07:00

We went to the Botanical Gardens for a Meetup Event. It was nice to be around other people who are interested in taking pictures. The big problem is that I had both kids with me. One is very interested in photography now, and the other was bored, bored, bored. So, instead of being able to take my time and try to get perfect pictures, I had to move from place to place trying to get pictures as fast as possible. Oh well. Here are a few that I sort of like.

Portrait at 10mm

2011-09-04T16:48:00.000-07:00

One of the posts on digital photography said to never take portraits at less than something like 50mm or 85mm or something like that. Very good advice. Here is why.

More Flowers

2011-08-16T19:03:00.000-07:00

I took this on a whim as I walked into the house after taking a lot of other pictures (of the kids). Maybe some of the pictures of the kids will come later in the week.....

Summer Flowers

2011-08-13T20:33:00.000-07:00

I went out into the yard today, braving the mosquitoes, and took a few pictures. I got a few pretty nice ones, which I will trickle out over the next few days. Here is my favorite of the day.

Goat & Chicken

2011-08-09T19:47:00.000-07:00

I took a few pictures of some goats and chickens and a barn and other stuff this last weekend. Here are two of the better pictures that I took.

Solar

2011-08-05T19:20:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago we got solar panels. Our electric meter runs backwards sometimes!

Five Pictures of Australia

2011-08-04T19:16:00.000-07:00

I have finished going through my pictures from Australia, and have narrowed the 800 or so pictures down to 200 that are somewhat interesting or nice. From these, I shall now try to convey the entire trip in five pictures (at this exact moment, I don't know which five - this is going to be exciting!)

I have to put a picture of Melbourne in here, since we were in Melbourne for many days. I am not sure that many are very artistic though. I am really a sucker for bridges. I love them. I don't feel like I do justice when I take pictures of bridges at all. But, here is a bridge that I walked over many times:

I figure that I should have at least two pictures from the Great Ocean Road. This was the nicest part of the entire trip and really deserves more than two pictures. This first one is from one of the places that you could stop and walk down to the beach. I won't really say that anything more about it.

This is another picture of the 12 Apostles. There aren't 12. It was unbelievable fabulous.

Moving on down the road....

Here a picture from the Taronga Zoo. I took a good 350+ pictures here. There are quite a few good ones, but this is one of the best. This should be called "Juxtaposition".

And the last picture..... This is probably very typical for a picture of Sydney, but how can you resist? Well, I will throw a slightly different spin on it.

And that is Australia.

The Best Picture That I Have Ever Taken

2011-07-22T18:54:00.000-07:00

I love this picture. I put it as my desktop on my computer at work. And, at 27 inches wide, it is fantastic. I wish that more of my pictures could be like this. Really. I do.

My wife says that the scene helped. Whatever. This is the 12 Apostles, just off the Great Ocean Road in Australia. It is truly a Great Road.

A Tiny Bit of Australia

2011-07-20T19:54:00.000-07:00

I have a huge number of pictures of my Australia trip, but haven't had the time to finish processing them all. Here is one of them.... More later....

Its been a while

2011-07-01T14:55:00.000-07:00

I have been massively busy for the last month or so. So much so that I have not had time to post pictures. Very sad. I am actually in an airport right now, using the free wireless. Since I am in the airport for a couple of hours, and have just finished my conference (off to the next conference), I have a few minutes to actually upload pictures.

One of the reasons that I have not posted much lately is because I have become much more critical of my pictures. I see "flaws" in all of them. I don't like most of them after I take them - even as I am taking them I am thinking that this is not going to be a very good picture. Or, how is this picture original at all? I get very frustrated with this, and don't really enjoy it much. I know that if I had more time and more patience, I could look around for better opportunities, but I just don't have the time. So, I take pictures that are not very good (in my opinion).

Maybe I can find some interesting things to take pictures of in Australia.

Here are a few of the best of my latest not so great pictures....

This one looks like a nice cloud with a sunset, but it is actually smoke from the fire that is going on right now near Los Alamos. I didn't have a car while in Sante Fe, so I walked about a mile to get a semi-clean line of sight to the sunset. I really couldn't find a very good vantage point. This is the best of the pictures that I got.

I should also note that I am not very good at playing with colors in photoshop. You seem to have infinite control of colors, but I can't figure it out. In picasa, there is a simple slider going from more blue to more red. There doesn't appear to be something that trivial in Photoshop. I will have to investigate more. So, the above photo has very little done to it.

Oh, another thing that is bugging me is that my camera is relatively cheap, and it has a lot of noise in the CCD. My pictures end up with a lot of grain, and I feel like I am constantly trying to fix this in Photoshop. I have no idea if a better body would improve this. Oh well. Yet another thing to complain about.

This picture was taken just a few minute after the above picture. It is someone's fence. I like this picture a bit more, since it has a lot of texture.

Lastly, I took a very long walk (4 miles) in very hot temperatures (>100F) in Albuquerque and took my camera along. I found some interesting things to take pictures of, but I am not really happy with many of them. Here is one that I am semi-happy with, although I think that it is quite boring.

PS. Here is another picture that I took on the same walk that is a tab bit more interesting that I may use as a banner for something.

Cow

2011-05-22T17:43:00.001-07:00

I really like the right side of this picture, but I wish the other cow was much more blurry. Oh well.

Church Near Estes Park

2011-05-20T05:42:00.000-07:00

I would image that many people take pictures of this church - it is really majestic.

Besides a Really Big Rock

2011-05-16T14:08:00.000-07:00

The last picture of Crab Boy is better than this one, but I like this one too. I like the massiveness of the rock with the smallness of the family next to it. I have some more zoomed in pictures, but I like how much you can see here. Not a family picture, but I think that it is good for other reasons....

Crab Boy on the Rocks

2011-05-14T18:39:00.000-07:00

Tree in California

2011-05-11T05:49:00.001-07:00

On a morning a few weeks ago, while in California, I had about 20 minutes of free time before the meeting started, so I found a trail and hiked up the side of a hill. I was hoping to get some nice mountain pictures with fog around them, but I just couldn't get a very good angle on anything, and I was very rushed. So, I took a few pictures of different things, and this is probably the best of the lot.

Reflected Tree

2011-05-09T14:54:00.000-07:00

I am not actually at home, but I have a back log of pictures. I thought that I would put them out there one at a time, to make it seem like I am actually doing something. I did do something a while ago. Actually, we just took a trip to Colorado and I have some ~ok~ pictures from there, which I will eventually post. These will be catching up from a few weeks ago.

So, besides the cow, here is a picture of a tree that I really like. It is somewhat sad.

269

2011-05-07T20:19:00.000-07:00

I've been away for a little while, and unable to post. It has been a little crazy for a bit. #269 represents the stress in my life right now - in my face. But, it will get better.

Alex and Jamie

2011-04-12T19:19:00.000-07:00

We launched three balloons today. This was taken at the second one we recovered. When I sent around the pictures, people thought that it was very Beetles-like.

Vine Barn #18

2011-04-10T19:15:00.001-07:00

Barn Panarama #17

2011-04-10T19:13:00.000-07:00

Silos and Dead Barn #16

2011-04-10T19:12:00.000-07:00

Half a Barn #15

2011-04-10T19:09:00.000-07:00

Two Reflective Barns - 13 and 14

2011-04-10T19:06:00.001-07:00

Silo (Barn #12)

2011-04-10T19:05:00.000-07:00

Raptors

2011-03-26T18:59:00.000-07:00

Crab Girl and I went to the Leslie Science Center today. We were supposed to go to a Photography class on Raptors. When we got there, we couldn't find where we were supposed to go. It turns out that it is next week! So, we ended up taking pictures of the raptors anyways. It wasn't ideal, because they were all behind fences, which ended up causing the pictures to be washed out. But I think that some of the pictures turned out pretty good. We'll probably have more next week.

Delapidated Barn #11

2011-03-13T19:59:00.000-07:00

This is a very sad barn, on the verge of collapse.

Tree Farm Barn #10

2011-03-13T19:58:00.000-07:00

This barn is right next door to the beautiful barn. I love its angled edges and the half painted front. I am pretty surprised how many barns are half painted. It seems like people decide to paint their barns and run out of time/money/energy before they get very far in the process, making a unique building.

Modern Barn #9

2011-03-13T19:55:00.000-07:00

This looks like an extremely expensive barn that houses only the best horses (no pigs). This is really a beautiful barn. Very unlike many of its brethren.

Brick Barn #8

2011-03-13T19:51:00.000-07:00

I don't think that I have ever seen a brick barn before, but I ran across this one yesterday while driving around. I really like the tones and colors in the barn. Before I started the barns (but after I pretty much had finished the 365 project), I was smoothing things with Photoshop, but these barns shouldn't been smoothed. They are very gritty and grainy. Most of the pictures are in great focus, because they are taken during the day with lots of clouds, so you can get plenty of diffuse light, so the graininess is all part of the barn, which is very nice.

Painted Barn #7

2011-03-13T19:47:00.000-07:00

The main barn is much better, but there is a pole right in front of the main painting and electric wires strung across the entire front face, which is quite sad. This is really the best picture. I really like the dilapidated silo in the background, too.

Metaphysical Barn #6

2011-03-13T19:44:00.001-07:00

We pass this barn everyday.

Scary Barn #5

2011-03-13T19:43:00.000-07:00

This is totally out of Silence of the Lambs.

Barn #4

2011-02-28T13:54:00.000-08:00

I am just posting a few pictures that I have been working on over the last couple of weeks, but have not posted. Sorry that I am posting so many at one time!

With these pictures, I am working on two main things - lighting and straight lines. I am a pretty big freak about straight lines. I want everything to be parallel and orthogonal and symmetric, etc etc etc. I really don't like it when I use a wide angle lens and the straight things end up at an angle (like the silo below). See, right at the center of the picture, the barn's corner is perfectly vertical, but the edge of the silo is not and the opposite edge of the barn is not either. This is because it was taken with a wide angle lens, and was not perfectly set up. The problem is that I am not entire certain how to set up the picture so everything is parallel. I think that I have to use a non-wide angle lens and move back a ways. But, trees and other things get in the way. So, I am working on it.

With lighting, this is an evening that I went out when the sun was nearly set. I like the shadow of the tree on the barn. I like the lighting in this. I also like the coloring with the blues of the sky, the red barn and the "green" grass.

Barn #3

2011-02-28T13:38:00.000-08:00

This was taken a short time after the setting sun picture of the tree..... I took a few pictures of this barn, but sunlit and not. I think that this is the most interesting.

Barn #2

2011-02-28T13:37:00.000-08:00

Three Visions of a Tree

2011-02-20T15:52:00.000-08:00

I really like the picture of a solitary tree in a field. They are relatively hard to come by, though. Especially with nothing in the background but open skies. This is the closest that I have come. I took a bunch of pictures under different lighting conditions. Not sure which is the best. I thought that the one with the sun shining on it directly would have been the most interesting in terms of tones and colors, but the wife didn't like it at all. Any thoughts?

Moo

2011-02-15T18:49:00.000-08:00

Barn #1

2011-02-14T18:20:00.000-08:00

To motivate myself to take more pictures, I am going to start a new series. I really like barns. You see all sorts of barns in Washtenaw County, nice barns, run down barns, red barns, grey barn, etc. So, I am going to take a bunch of pictures some barns and post them here. I will post 52 of them here. I'll post other pictures too, but this will force me to use my camera more.

52 Barns. Here we go!

Tree and Cloud

2011-02-08T18:55:00.000-08:00

I am not really sure if this is a good picture or not, but I like it. I like the greens and blues, as well as the placement of the tree with respect to the cloud. It is very simple, too. I like it.

A Classic Car

2011-02-07T17:57:00.000-08:00

My wife really liked this picture, so I give it to you:

And Another

2011-02-05T08:01:00.000-08:00

I am going through pictures that I have taken over the last year and playing with them. I am not picking out anything that I have uploaded before, but trying to find other nice pictures. Now that I know how to use Photoshop a bit, I am cleaning them up and playing with the color and lighting and such. Almost as much fun as taking pictures!

Another Flower

2011-02-02T19:11:00.000-08:00

Sunglasses

2011-01-31T19:56:00.000-08:00

I am sure that I am going to take some flack for this one, but I just ran across it, and I think that it is a great picture. I won't say whose buttocks these are.... :-)

Orchid #2

2011-01-27T19:36:00.001-08:00

On the Way to a Goal

2011-01-25T18:37:00.000-08:00

Orchid #1

2011-01-24T19:06:00.000-08:00

A Spiny Plant

2011-01-23T19:01:00.000-08:00

Mother-in-Law's New House

2010-12-26T06:35:00.000-08:00

I was asked to take pictures of my Mother-in-Law's new house. My wife brought the camera (she picked me up from work), but it only had my 50mm lens on it. This was good because it was relatively dark in the house, but I wasn't able to get far enough away from things to get wide-angle shots. I decided to do slightly more artistic shots of the house. I would consider these the best three:

The Long Break

2010-12-24T13:07:00.000-08:00

Sorry that I have been absent for so long. Life is insane. I have been taking pictures a lot over the last many months, but have not had time to even read other people's blogs, let alone post anything to mine. I will try to post some things over the next week. Here are some pictures that I took a couple of days ago, looking for the perfect pictures of the kids...

A Few Random Pictures

2010-11-20T17:17:00.000-08:00

Ladybug on Smart Phone:

Fall Colors:

Top Flight Dragster:

Crab Mama:

Neighborhood at night:

Halloween 2010

2010-11-20T17:11:00.000-08:00

Crab Boy = a Professor; Crab Girl = Zombie Bo Peep.

Rocket Launch 2010

2010-11-20T16:41:00.000-08:00

As many of you know, I teach a class called "Rocket Science 101". It is a general science class for non-science majors. This means that there is very little math and lots of entertainment. One of the things that I do to keep their attention is to give extra credit for bringing a model rocket to class on a particular day. We all go out to a field and launch rockets. Imagine launching about 100 rockets in an hour. That is what we do. Here are the three best pictures from the day:

Rally to Restore Freedom

2010-11-20T16:31:00.000-08:00

Crab Mama and I went to Washington DC to attend the Daily Show's Rally to Restore Freedom. It was a pretty fun day. There were an estimated 220,000-280,000 people there. Here are some pictures from the trip.

This is the line that we waited through to get onto the Metro at Greenbelt.

When we got there, we dove right into the crowd, which was a little stupid. Here is what everything looked like from inside the crowd (except we can see color - well, a bit of color). Notice that we couldn't even see the stage. I could see the last Jumbotron, but Crab Mama was too short. So all she could see were the people.

We fought our way to the side where there were significantly less people. From that point, we could see the Capital and the Washington Monument with all of the people.

People were so desperate to see that they climbed up on top of the port-o-potties:

The signs at the Rally were very good. There were a lot of very creative people there. Here is one of my favorites:

This is after the Rally, behind the stage, in front of the Capital:

A picture of the Washington Monument:

An extremely symmetric building:

We met some friends after the Rally. Here is a picture of Will sitting in his living room reading the paper.

And, finally, Todd and Laura standing in front of the Smithsonian:

Some Pictures from Sunday

2010-10-13T05:10:00.000-07:00

On Sunday I got a little time away from everything. I had to go run some errands, which gave me an opportunity to stop the car and take pictures for a little while. Here are some of the ones that I like. As you might be able to tell, four of them were taken from roughly the same spot. There is a really nice metropark close to our house (ok, there are 5 of them within spitting distance), which is very pretty.

This is from a random lake that I was zipping by.

These are from the dock at the metropark:

(I will probably use this one as a screen background. I love these types of shots with nothing being the focus. Just sort of abstract.):

As we were headed home from the store, there was a balloon coming over the trees next to our neighborhood. I waited for about 5 minutes so the balloon and tree would be in the right lighting conditions. (Patients, eh?)

The Camera In Front of the Man - Day 365 (Last Day!)

2010-10-04T18:28:00.000-07:00

Crab Mama suggested that I take a picture of all the camera stuff that I have purchased over the last 8 months. So, for my last picture, I present a little bit of camera love.

The Man Behind the Camera - Day 364

2010-09-30T18:37:00.001-07:00

Sitting in my hotel room in DC.

Cloud Shadows On Lake Erie - Day 363

2010-09-30T18:36:00.000-07:00

So close to the end, but no time to take nice pictures. Must take picture from airplane. Must. I got better framed shots of more interesting things, but the window was so dirty, that they looked like crap.

Looking up at Night - Day 362

2010-09-30T18:32:00.001-07:00

Boring! But love the detail...

A Pirate - Day 361

2010-09-30T18:20:00.001-07:00

Here is another amazing sight from the Renaissance Festival.

Hawk - Day 360

2010-09-30T18:19:00.000-07:00

We went to the Renaissance Festival today and saw many amazing things, including this hawk. You should blow up the picture.

Monarch - Day 359

2010-09-30T18:17:00.000-07:00

The caterpillar turned into a butterfly! Here it is moments before it flew off into the wild blue yonder.

Fam and Clouds - Day 258

2010-09-30T18:14:00.001-07:00

Up the Stairs - Day 357

2010-09-30T18:13:00.000-07:00

This is looking up the 8 story stair case in the hotel in Washington.

Sessions and Sessions - Day 356

2010-09-22T19:43:00.000-07:00

I am here in Washington DC organizing a meeting in San Fransisco in December. There were 18,000 suggested presentations. I was in charge of organizing 700+ of those in a total of 50 different sessions. Each session is one note card. My note cards are the light green ones in the foreground. It is hard to image how much work goes into organizing this meeting until you see the cards.

Two for the Price of One - Day 355

2010-09-22T19:38:00.000-07:00

I had some hopes for the picture from the airplane, although I knew as soon as I elected to not take my low light lens with me, I would want it. But, the picture is not very good at all. I was able to take the picture at 1/4 s exposure to minimize some of the airplane motion, but still, an airplane moves around a LOT. The second picture I took because I thought the airplane picture turned out badly. I was totally going for The Shining look. I think that it accomplished this. So, two for the price of one. And, if you combine two marginal pictures, you get one really good picture, right???

Rooftop - Day 354

2010-09-20T19:01:00.000-07:00

I walked a little extra to get this picture today. I decided that I had 10 minutes before class to look for some interesting shots, and I walked towards the smoke stacks that you can see from the bus stop. Then I went into the Undergraduate Science Building (really?) and looked for some nice shots. I taught in this building a couple of years ago, and knew there were some interesting views, and this is the first shot that I took. I thought it was going to be horrible, but I really like it. It has a lot of stuff in it, but it is all clean lines and various colors. I will post another picture from just down the hall tomorrow (unless something better comes up...)

A New Shower Head - Day 353

2010-09-19T18:36:00.000-07:00

Having a removable shower head is very useful when one needs to wash a dog. This isn't in the one for the new shower, but, since we were at our local big box store, we thought we would pick this up too.

Bowling - Day 352

2010-09-19T18:31:00.000-07:00

Another Tree - Day 351

2010-09-19T18:29:00.000-07:00

This was taken on the way to work. The sky here is rarely so blue.

Horses - Day 350

2010-09-16T17:17:00.000-07:00

Today was a bit foggy outside. I was hoping to get yet another nice fog picture, but there really wasn't enough for that. So, I took a picture of the neighbor's horse, standing there looking at me.

Spider on the Wall - Day 349

2010-09-16T17:15:00.000-07:00

Homeschooling - Day 348

2010-09-16T17:13:00.001-07:00

Moon on Day 347

2010-09-14T18:02:00.001-07:00

You have seen this picture before. Sorry.

Building - Day 346

2010-09-14T18:01:00.001-07:00

The Caterpillar - Day 345

2010-09-14T17:56:00.000-07:00

The kids captured a bunch of caterpillars this last weekend. This one was curling up getting ready to make a cocoon.

Hawk - Day 344

2010-09-10T16:31:00.000-07:00

This guy has been hanging around campus for the last couple of weeks. I have seen him/her eating some road kill in the street and hanging out on a different lamp post (much higher). This is the closest to a wild hawk that I have ever come. Since I took this at 55mm, you can tell how close I was.

Venus as a Trap - Day 342

2010-09-09T19:07:00.000-07:00

This was an idea from the kids.

The Return - Day 342

2010-09-08T19:22:00.000-07:00

Today was the return to teaching. My first trip into the student population in 4 months. Here is a picture on campus of the craziness of the second day of classes.

The Wall - Day 341

2010-09-08T19:17:00.000-07:00

I built this wall in the basement this weekend. It is for our shower stall and will be covered with tile. So, no one will ever see this wall again in a few weeks. I also put all of my soul behind this wall and will never let it out again. Just kidding.

Flowers - Day 340

2010-09-06T19:05:00.000-07:00

Since I am on a kick of getting inspiration from others, I tried to take pictures of some flowers in a lightbox today. This is inspired by FotoGraf-Zahl. His pictures are much better than mine. I actually used my tripod to take these pictures in the light box, but really screwed up in a few ways: (1) I couldn't find my black background (CrabMama rearranged the entire basement over the last few days and I can't find anything!); (2) I used my 70-200 lens with an extender. I typically like this combination, since this is the best lens that I own, but it shook too much on the tripod, and I don't have a remote shutter. I set it for a delay, but I couldn't get the camera to stop bouncing. Grrr... I should have used a different lens; and (3) patience. I have no patience. This is my biggest problem with photography right now - lack of time to just relax, set up the shot well, and work it. I am so pressed for time that I have to get my shots done as fast as possible. Anyways...... Here are two shots that I am pretty happy with.

Queen Anne's Lace. I like this one because it looks like fireworks.

Black-eyed Susan. I love these flowers, as I have stated on numerous occasions. This is a completely different take on it. Really, really inspired (stolen) from FotoGraf-Zahl.

Up the Water Tower - Day 339

2010-09-05T19:29:00.000-07:00

Here is a view up the ladder on a water tower.

Bawk, Bawk, Bawk, BAWK - Day 338

2010-09-04T20:06:00.000-07:00

We went to my sister's house today and I snapped some pictures. They are somewhat related. In case you haven't noticed, I am stealing my sister's ideas for pictures lately. Or, you could say, I am paying homage to her....