The Man Behind the Camera - Day 364

Sitting in my hotel room in DC.

Cloud Shadows On Lake Erie - Day 363

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

Boring! But love the detail...

A Pirate - Day 361

Here is another amazing sight from the Renaissance Festival.

Hawk - Day 360

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

Monarch - Day 359

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

Fam and Clouds - Day 258

Up the Stairs - Day 357

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

Sessions and Sessions - Day 356

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

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

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

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

Another Tree - Day 351

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

Horses - Day 350

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

Homeschooling - Day 348

Moon on Day 347

You have seen this picture before.  Sorry.

Building - Day 346

The Caterpillar - Day 345

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

Hawk - Day 344

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

This was an idea from the kids.

The Return - Day 342

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

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

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

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

Bawk, Bawk, Bawk, BAWK - Day 338

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....

Blah - Day 337

I was hoping that I could do some experimentation with different lighting conditions and doing a HDR picture, but it turns out that I only have Photoshop CS on my computer.  I didn't have time to upgrade this week, since I have been wickedly busy.  So, I took one of the pictures and did the best that I could.  It was already a blah picture of my driveway anyways, just to experiment, but I think that I just made it more blah (i.e., washed out).

Update: Here is an edited version of this picture:

Maters - Day 336

I actually took this on about the same day that my sister took the same type of picture.  So, I waited a few days.  Here is a picture of some tomatoes that my wife grew, I picked and then smashed up into sauce.

Smokies, Again - Day 335

On my way home from Clemson, I thought I would shoot some more pictures of the Smoky Mountains.  Here is one.