Cozy Cottage, Minimal Neighbors

 

A small pond in Maine...

A house with no neighbors.

Oh, the peace and quiet.

~

What am I saying?  It's Maine!  It's blissfully quiet in most parts there!

Image year:  1994

A Man Walks Alone

 

A solitary walk down a lane rimmed by trees.

~

(N. Leeds ME, 1994.

The "road" to the back of the property.

I'm off to play bear whisperer)

The Stargate at Comic-Con

 

The Stargate Portal,
At Comic-Con

District 9 at Comic-Con

District 9 at Comic-Con

It's an awesome movie!

Brandon Routh At San Diego Comic-Con 2009

Brandon Routh
Cool guy.  He took the time to let me take a picture of him at Comic-Con, San Diego.

Photography Products On Amazon

Field Guides to Nature Photography

Digital Cameras on Amazon.com

Camera Supplies on Amazon.com

Bicycle Blurs

Bicycles at speed, Velodrome near San Jose
Photo by Robert Keene

When I saw this photo, I thought it was a great speed / motion blur perspective and asked the photog to send it to me. He did. Thanks Robert!

Photography Books on Amazon.com

The City Behind Me

It's what you can't see behind you,
that's best illuminated by reflection.

Much like hindsight.
(Downtown San Jose, Ca - 2009)

Wind Chimes

In the shade of the porch,
in the push and pull of the ever persistent wind,
this bell makes the sounds of an ocean buoy bell on the waves.
It transports one to another place.

Spring Time Pictures and Shadows

Spring presents many artistic offers
of life, sun and shade.

Making Your Point And Shoot Dance

When you have a simple point and shoot, you don't always have the best ability to set your lighting to the best it could be when taking a picture.

I'm somewhat fixated on not doing post processing of my images so I needed to learn a few tricks for my older P&S. (Point & Shoot) If you need to make your camera think it's brighter than it is, or darker than it is, I've found that if you have something at the same distance that is of a different light exposure, aiming at that, letting the camera set itself, then pointing it at your true subject can give you what you might be hoping for!

These 3 images that I've strung together here show that very practice:

A View From Mt. Shasta

It's 1998. Road Trip to Mt Shasta!
This is the view from Waverly Peak, looking West.
Ah, the expanse of space,
for the lucky eagle whose wings,
let him take advantage
of all that blue.
(OK, hazy bluish space.)
[this image was modified from the original scan to bring forth the trees in the foreground.
otherwise, they'd be a dark blurb. I did lose what little blue I had.]

A Mountain Town Indeed

This is one of my favorite little towns:
Wrightwood, CA.

It's here that you can listen to the evening as it comes in from the East.

The gently evening breeze browsing through the tall pines
always announces the coming of night.

Like washing the deeds of the day away,
making room for tomorrow.

This is an older (2002) image from a non-digital camera.
I used Picasa to "enrich" the colors. I used the "feeling lucky" button.

From Under The Tree in Time of Summer

Sometimes, trees just reach out for you saying,

Welcome to my shade,
please enjoy this glade.

The Patience of the Hawk

With the new year here, the hawk sits and waits,
watching the field for the next best opportunity.
Waiting for the right moment, the right breeze, the right opportunity.
Quiet, patient, knowing.

Oh yea, and letting me get this close,
knowing he can kick my butt,

Oreo Cows - They Do Exist!

They are actually known as banded cows, if you really must know.

Photography Books on Amazon.com

Starting The New Year With A Fresh Look

With the new year, we must look down the river we will travel,
and plan our paddle work from what we see ahead of us,
and what we want to do to, with regards to the current of life.

I Thought You Dug Up Your Fish Bait!

Modern technology lands in Idaho.
How live can it be!?

For some reason, I thought you would go out and dig up your worms.
Now, you just go dig up some coins then head down to the street corner!
Bait vending machines. Sheesh. What's next?

Happy Holidays to All

Happy Holidays to All!

Thar's Elk In Them Thar Hills!

This is 10 miles outside of Boise, Idaho.
That fence keeps them off the freeway.

Photographing The Moon

I've been using a Sony CyberShot P150 for some time now, having taken almost 15,000 pictures with it.

It's done me good since I bought it back in 2005. But I've wanted a bit more on those occasions that call to the photographer in me.

Last weekend, I upgraded to an Olympus E-520. I will be writing on that experience later.

Right now, I'm looking at trying to take pictures of the moon. That is one subject that has eluded me with my point and shoot.

As you can see, it ain't going so well. The LR image in my Mutilated Moon Collage looks like it worked, but I have to get it focused on the subject for it to be any good. Details!

While I am trying to figure out the camera, I am having multiple issues. (There are so many buttons on it that every time I pick it up, I change some setting.) But after looking around I found a few resources on shooting the moon and have come to the following conclusions:

I know absolutely nothing and I need to learn all these new buttons and menus. It's a long cry from my Pentax K1000.

Onward about Moon shoots.
The first rule of thumb I discovered is the Moony 11 rule. That is to set your aperture to f/11 and set your shutter speed as close as you can to the reciprocal (1 / x) of the film speed.

IE: If your ISO is set to 100, set your aperture to f/11 and your shutter speed to 1/90 sec. We are reminded that the moon is merely reflecting sunlight and why this works.

Another resource I like is DPS (Digital Photography Shcool Forums). In one post here were the settings of one marvelous moon image (I'm extremely jealous.)

• Exposure: 0.003 sec (1/320)
• Aperture: f/0
• Focal Length: 0 mm
• ISO Speed: 100
• Exposure Bias: 0/2 EV

And a great thread that touches on shooting the moon on the DPS Forums.

My own settings for the LR image in my mutilated moon collage, aside from not being focused were:

• Exposure: 1/4000 s
• F Number: f/5.4
• ISO: 400
• Focal Length: 132 mm
• Exposure Bias: 0.00 EV

Enjoy the labors of my research.

Moony 11 Source: PhotoNotes.org

These Days, This Might Be A Good Investment

In this housing market,

this could make a great investment.
At least they can say it's got great airy rooms with a view.

Real Estate Available!?
Oh the times and things this place has seen.

Filling in Your Subject With Flash Work

Sometimes for me, natural light works for me, other times it doesn't. Every now and then I find that the subject is darker than I would like. I have a tendency to not want to modify my images after I've taken them. Call me stubborn. So I employ my flash.

Employing my flash brings the subject to the forefront in a rather abrupt fashion. Then you can see the subject clearly and still see the background as well.

I like the results it creates like this pic I've previously posted where the leaf to the left is brought to the forefront while we still see the rest of the scene.




In this case below, if I had not used the flash the leaf would not even show up except as dark shadowed highlight:

Sighing In Silence, Helping The Family

One of the most confusing things to experience.
Helping the family pack and move,
stoic silence smothers your frustration,
sadness envelopes the day,
but it's not about me,
and I must help
for they are
family.

Sighing in Sadness.

Time Life Photo Archive to Go Online

LIFE and Google are in the process of releasing over 10 million new pictures on the internet that have never been seen before.

These images can be found when conducting a search on Google.com or on Google Image Search. Users can also search through the LIFE Collection directly by visiting http://images.google.com/hosted/life.

The collection will be one of the largest collections of professional images on the internet and as the scanning project moves along, more images will become available. (I think I remember seeing this job position when is was open on-line!)

If you think about it, this is ~70 years of photos folks.

On top of the standard fare of Tim-Life imagery, the LIFE Photo Archive will include

• The Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination;
• The Mansell Collection from London;
• Dahlstrom glass plates of New York and environs from the 1880's;
• Hugo Jaeger Nazi-era Germany 1937-1944;
• DMI red-carpet celebrity shots;
• Pix Inc. personalities;
• the entire works left to the Collection from LIFE photographers Alfred Eisenstaedt, Gjon Mili, and Nina Leen.

Imagery will also be available to purchase through QOOP.com, a leader in online art sales.

All comments are welcome from Bruce's Pics readers.
source: Time Warner press release