Fall Pictures

My girlfriend and I went out to a nearby park a couple weeks ago and I took some pictures. Most of them turned out pretty crappy because I still don't really know how to adjust my camera for the lighting. These were the best pictures we got. The pictures we took in the woods all make her look really pale because there wasn't much light... and the pictures we took in the open have really harsh shadows.

The next two are the same image just cropped differently.

I shot all of these in raw mode because I've read that gives you more control over things like white balance after the fact. Unfortunately I don't know enough photoshop to know how exactly I should be adjusting it!

Waterfalls

Over the July 4th weekend we went to Moss Glen Falls in Stowe, VT. I took a whole bunch of pictures but haven't had time to sort through them yet. Here's one image.

I took a couple autobracketted images that I hope to try turning into HDR (High Dynamic Range) images.

Downpour!

We've had a lot of storms lately. Last night was a pretty strong one with lots of lightning. Last winter I had a leak where ice crawled in under the gutters so the condo association decided to remove our gutters. There was a huge waterfall where the corners of my roof meet during last nights storm.






I've got a few potted plants that I keep on my deck so they can get sunlight and water. You can probably guess where I'm going with this... the torrential downpour focused by the angle of my roof landed right on my potted plants... and washed most of the soil out of the pots!






so much for growing my own herbs...

Weebles Woble but...

I recently tested for my second degree blackbelt in Aikido. My test went very well and I owe a lot of that to my Sensei for preparing me for it. As a thank you gift I bought him a Daruma doll


I realize the cultural connotation is a bit off (it's traditionally a "good luck" gift rather than a "thank you" gift) but seeing as how it's a symbol of resilience I thought it was apt. These dolls are supposed to get back up after you push them over just like a weeble wobble. The base on the one I bought seemed to get in the way of it getting back up. I talked with some of my crafty friends about what my options were. In the end I decided to build a small bowl to sit the doll in that would be weighted and more rounded allowing it to get back up. I glued some metal washers to the base and then covered it with felt. Then I built the bowl out of plaster with some magnets in the bottom so it would pull the washers and lock the doll into the bowl.



Here's the bowl I made



and here's the doll going into the bowl.




and here it is rocking up and down as well as back and forth. I was playing around with my camera trying to get a good image showing it in action... which was tough when I had to push it over then quickly snap the picture...




So after making the bowl (which took days because each section of plaster had to dry before I could do the next) I found out that the washers and felt I glued to the bottom added sufficient weight that the bowl wasn't necessary! I included it in the gift anyway but I kinda feel like a tool!

Hardware

A few years back I broke my collar bone. After 4 months it hadn't mended so I had a plate and 8 screws installed to help it heal. It's been about a year and a half since I had the plate put in and this morning the hardware came out!

Everything went well with the surgery and now I've just got to take it easy till the screw holes fill in.

Here are some pictures of the hardware.

My "Garden"

Despite the fact that I work for a gardening supply company, I know nothing about gardening. Last year I planted a sample pack of bulbs. They all bloomed last summer and I assumed they were annuals so I wouldn't have flowers again. This weekend I looked out on my deck and the flowers were back!






Some of them grew up through the leaves. What is pretty cool is they didn't go between the leaves, the literally grew through them!

More Long Exposures

Last night there was a nearly full moon and a perfectly clear night. I decided to go out and see if I could get a good picture of it. Apparently not! I'm not sure what I need to do to fix the problems I had...

The first one I used my light meter while not looking at the moon to adjust the settings, then took this shot.

It was waaaay overexposed! So I played around with the different settings and came up with these:



And here is the best one I made...

I need to figure out how to get rid of the "twinkle" and the lens flare.

After taking those, I took these shots of some trees nearby. I'm surprised how they turned out. These were taken well after sunset but look like they were taken in broad daylight. And the colors look like they were taken in the fall. It was too dark for me to properly focus and the autofocus went crazy.