Blue Ice

A co-worker had left his water bottle in is car for a couple days, and it froze (because it's winter, and that means it's cold outside, duh!). Well, what makes this water bottle different, is the ice froze with a pocket in it, AND it's in an Icelandic Glacial bottle (glacier ice!), AND I photographed it.

Organized Pens??

Now Christmas is over, and so is our busy season. Now it's time to relax and... clean?!?

A New Project

So, like many other photographers, I have decided to do the picture-a-day thing. Here's my first picture of the new year, after the jump:

HDR

I have always been interested in HDR images, but never had the software to do it. I tried Qtpfsgui, which is an open-source (free) application. They have several presets and I played with them all, but never found quite the effect I wanted. I started looking again and found out about Photomatix. I downloaded the trial version and played with it a bit, and before long I had the effect I wanted. I have to give a big thanks to Matt Nicolosi for his blog and all his info on how to create an HDR image.

Bad Day For Me

I went on a 5 mile hike in Cedars of Lebanon State Park and wound up making it closer to a 7 mile hike. I don't know about the weather where you are, but here, it has been raining all week. I knew it would be wet, so I prepared. I got my stowaway rain jacket to keep me dry, baggies to keep my camera dry if it started raining again, and my tripod (you never know when you might need it, and 5 miles is a long way back). Oh, one last thing I hadn't eaten lunch so I grabbed 2 Clif bars and 16 ounces of water. I drink 32 ounces a day normally, and it was 82 degrees today.  Don't know what I was thinking...

Tree Canopy

My son and I were walking around our neighborhood yesterday and I saw this photo op.  I love this particular area anyway, but it just spoke to me more yesterday than ever before.  I think it is the combination of the sogginess, leaves on the pavement, and the way the light is coming in through the canopy that really got me.

 I have seen this area in all kinds of weather, and with the rain we have been getting, it really looks fall-ish on the ground, but spring-ish in the trees.  The mailbox kinda kills it for me, but this is in front of a house, so what can you expect?