Remembering old friends

We had a great time with old friends visiting this past week.  They now live in Roanoke, so I decided to post the Roanoke Star in their honor! If you can't read it, right-clicking on the image will generate a larger image.

Friday night concerts

One of the great things about Bloomington is the wonderful arts and crafts that are available.  One of my favorites is the Parks and Rec Friday night series.  This evenings concert was the Bloomington Community Band.  It is almost as entertaining watching the children as it is to listen to the band!

And still more...

I'm still going through my county fair photos, and I decided to post one or two more.  I was playing with using slow shutter speeds to "blur" the rides.  This certainly gives a feeling of speed!  I really like how the shadows are so distinct on the spinning ride????

Keep in mind that not everyone likes the rides!  This young lady told her mom "I never want to do that again!".

More fair time.

You can't go to the fair (or you shouldn't go) without looking at all the farm animals.  I like roosters and this guy was willing to pose for me.

Fair time!

It's county fair time, so it is required that everyone has to eat at least one corn-on-the-cob, one elephant ear, and other low-calorie foods.  But the real joy is to take in the scenery and watch the fair-goers.  Below is a photo of the midway taken at sunset.

I actually took this as an HDR photo (three shots at different f-stops), and combined two "final" images, one with ghosting removed and one without. I rather like the effect on the Ferris wheel.

Flowers with personalities

Having fun with photoshop.  This is a closeup of an orchid blossom with the color inverted and then modified with the "glowing edges" filter in photoshop (don't ask me why).  It looked so much like a creature that I felt it necessary to add the eyes.

Getting ahead of myself (or is that a head?)

I played with this to get the contrast up a bit and to fill in some distractions at the bottom.  This is a view of a human head that researchers can examine using 3D virtual reality systems.  As I understand the images were from a convicted killer who "donated" his body and allowed it to be frozen, sectioned, and then imaged in thin slices--yeech!

The winner of the ugly bug contest.....

This is one of those little fuzzy guys that love to eat green bean leaves.  Thank goodness they don't grow big.  I do wonder if the "thorns" are soft.  They certainly look like the thorns on a locust tree.

Garden update

I decided since it is Friday that another garden shot was appropriate.  This is from the same spot I started with in "Chapter 1" early in the spring.  We are currently swamped with tomatoes, peppers and summer squash and  I should be out picking green beans (there is probably a gallon or more just about ready to pick).  It looks like we are done with the lettuce and spinach for the year (not the heat--the gopher), and all but one cucumber vine has wilted away.  We do have a lot more coming on (swiss chard, okra, kale, winter squashes, pole beans, ......) so all in all it has been a fantastic year in spite of the recent heat wave.

The heat index has been hovering around 90-95 all week and is expected to hit 107 today, so it doesn't look good for cool weather crops.

Vacation time

You should always have one or two "reminder" photographs handy to look at if your wife says: "I have an idea, let's go camping".  The van was a wonderful "refuge" on our last outing.....

I took the photo above while I was running around outside rescuing some items (the water was running two inches deep in areas). The picture below was taken through the van window after throwing wet tents and gear into the back of the van.

Actually, I wouldn't mind going back there, but not during the rainy season!

More Waterfire from Providence

This is a photo from 2008 that I finally got around to looking at with Photoshop.  I think I can see detail that I wasn't able to see that night!

More shadows to like

I was sorting photos today and came across this one taken last thanksgiving.  I like shadows!  The only problem I have is figuring out what/who is making the shadows (there were several people and many dogs present that day).

More little bugs

This guy was on a leaf in the garden--surely he can't eat too much!

Yet another spherical pano

This is the Park Ridge East spherical "small world" pano stitched from 66 individual photographs using Adobe CS5.  I am impressed at how well it actually handled the data and the speed.  I had tried to stitch this one earlier using both Photoshop (CS4) and Hugin, but with no success.  The final size of the image was 6000 x 6000 pixels--this one is reduced for faster loading so you can't see all the detail.

A new look at an old Columbine

This is a photo I took earlier this spring by simply holding my small point-and-shoot near the ground and pointing it toward the flower.  The exposure was terrible and it was nearly a silhouette, but playing around with the HDR toning filter in Photoshop made it almost good (or at least interesting).

Abstract(?) art

Several people in my photo club have been doing this lately--I think it works better after a few drinks.

I have no idea...

I snapped this while on an outing in the wetland area of Lake Monroe.  I have no idea what is is other than a bush with really neat flowers!

Looking up (again)

With a little help from Photoshop.

This is an electrical tower shot during the day (in RI) and a moonshot from the back yard.

Favorites....

We loved our first car!  It took us everywhere and without rear seats held an immense amount of camping gear.

Too much fertilizer?

Maybe I am using too much fertilizer.

Railroad oddities

It's wonderful living next to the railroad.  I go out every morning, listen to the birds, and watch the wildlife while I drink my coffee and read the paper.  I'm not sure my wife believed me when I told her I saw a fox walking down the track a week or so ago, so I've started keeping a camera handy just in case.  You can imagine my surprise when I saw this one!  This poor guy has to walk along the railroad and gather up all the dinosaurs.  I see that he had to use a choke hold on this one.

(click on image to enlarge)

Another butterfly

I like all of them!  This one was on a sunflower in the back yard.

Garden 2010--Happiness is.....

All I can say is that the work this spring was worth it!  This is one days harvest from the garden, and we are about to get inundated with more than we can possibly eat!  The tomatoes are starting to get ripe faster than we can eat them and it looks like this will be a bumper crop on peppers this year.  I have about six of the lettuce plants (in the clay pot), and I may start some more.  We can get two good salads from each pot.

Yummy!

More spiders

Unfortunately it is easy to find spiders in our house!  I thought I had put this one up earlier, but I can't find it so I will assume that I didn't.

And this one looks good in stereo!

Farmer's Market

Anyone who has been to the Bloomington Farmer's Market knows this one--the "Chili Lady".  I always buy several of her plants and one has survived for over four years.

Save some for me!

I was snapping a few pictures of a butterfly on my Echinacea and did not even realize the little sweat bee was in the photo.

The "Brick"

While visiting relatives over the holiday I snapped this photo of the old Huffman House.  It took quite a bit of touch-up with Photoshop to remove all the power and telephone wires (and a wee bit of junk in the yard), but it still looks like "grandma's house".

Huffman Covered Bridge

A quick trip south on Independence Day to visit family and friends!  While there I took a series of photos of the covered bridge from the new bridge over the Anderson River and I was surprised at how well it turned out.  There are 24 hand-held photos stitched together (using PhotoShop).  The bridge is scheduled to be extensively repaired and raised in the near future.

Still more scanner art

This one actually would be suitable for framing!  This is just a cosmos that I picked and scanned on my Canon scanner.  I turn out the lights during the scan and set the resolution at 800 pixels/inch.  You do get a large image, but it is easy to work with.

I did resize this picture so that it is only 1500 pixels across.

Garden update

Well, I said I was going to quit the regular Friday updates on the garden, but after posting yesterdays image I decided to try a little scanner art on the garden.  This is a leaf and fruit of my incredible climbing cucumber.  I have been picking about two or more cucumbers each day, and two other bushes are coming on strong.

Wind Chime

I wish I could remember who taught me this trick, but I can't.  I just laid the geode slice (part of a wind chime) on my scanner and scanned it with the lights out.  It is kind of amazing that it works, but it gives a good resolution image.