The Liberty Bell, with Independence Hall out the window on Flickr.
Heading to Philadelphia for work tomorrow, won’t have the same chance to take photos like when we were on vacation, but a great city for both history and photography.
Sunset through the columns. #houston http://bit.ly/1aHKddz
Stained Glass http://bit.ly/1beAKxW
I was thinking the other day as I drove past the frozen Scioto River downtown that I should go out and get some photos of it before it got warm enough to not be frozen. It has been more than a week without temps getting much above 20F and today was no exception, but we braved the elements and headed down to North Bank Park to get some photos. Unfortunately, we could only stand to be out taking pics for 15 minutes!
However, I did get a handful of decent shots, and with the dominance of white in all the photos I even got to practice some color enhancement, a new filtered B&W script, and some other tricks using GimpShop! I think they turned out pretty well.
You can see all of them over on Flickr.
OK, so it’s really not enough to have been a day off work, but since it’s Sunday, just a few inches was enough to convince us to stay home. Well, aside from a little trip around the neighborhood to get some photos.
Strangely enough, we brought a camera to the Ohio State basketball game last night because I had complained about the fact that I really hadn’t been shooting any photos at all since the first of the year.
I thought that would be my only chance this week, but the weather provided me with another today, which was nice. Now it can go ahead and melt. Thanks!
More photos available on our Flickr accounts, mine and Angela’s.
Spent the Christmas holiday with Angela’s family, it was a nice, relaxing long weekend, lots of good food, good company, and some down time to get caught up on reading, uploading photos to Flickr, etc.
One of the sets I was uploading this weekend provided a good reminder to me of why I feel a passion about photography. The Deep South set includes a bunch of photos taken in Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi, and Mobile Bay, Alabama in 2004, a.k.a. before Katrina went through and really changed the landscape down there. The photos I took I cannot go down there and get again. I can certainly go down there again and see some beautiful scenery, I can enjoy my time on the Gulf Coast just as much as I did then at some point in the future. I’m sure the area is rebuilding and evolving into something different than it was before, just as every area does. Heck, the hotel we stayed at in Vegas in 2004 wasn’t even standing when we went back this fall, which is yet another indicator of how quickly things change. When you’re traveling, you’re seeing a place as it is right now. Photography allows you to not only keep those memories with you throughout the rest of your lifetime, it can also record places, and sites that you can’t go back and see again, for a wide variety of reasons.
Our house has a great many photos on display, and Angela and I both display many, many more on Flickr, or as screensavers on our computers, or just share in an email to family and friends. I’ve taken thousands of photos over the last few years, and I cherish them. Each group of shots represents a moment in time and place that can only be captured once. Capturing photos of our niece opening her Christmas gifts this weekend can only be done once. Next Christmas she’ll be 2, and a whole different little girl, but we have the photos to go along with our memories of being with her. You can’t beat that.
A couple of photos from Water Fire on the Mile this weekend. One taken with a slow-shutter speed as you would usually see recommended for night time photos. It gives a nice shot, allows for a lot of light to enter the photo, get the lights reflecting off the river, etc.
The other, in order to get a tight detail on the fires, was taken at a 1/500 shutter speed, which required a whole lot of waiting for the exact moment the auto-focus on the Dimage was in perfect focus and getting the picture. The quick shutter speed catches the fire great, and leaves you with a completely black background, because of the lack of light that got into the shutter.
Click on thumbnails for larger versions.
Two different ways to take pictures and two good, but diverse, results.