Columbia resident Justin Butts smokes a cigar prior to the True/False Film Festival's annual March March parade.
It’s not every day a clown will tap you on the shoulder and ask for help buttoning his collar, but that’s what this guy did. I gladly helped, chatted for a minute, then snapped a couple photos.
I wanted to shoot something today, so I planned my evening to make sure I’d be able to catch part of the annual parade/street romp/bizzarro-fest that happens every year during Columbia’s True/False Film Festival. Film Festivals aren’t exactly my thing, and in three years I’ve never made it to a show or ventured to check out the parade. I’m glad I finally did. Clowns, dancing gorillas, brass bands, Teletubbies, and general weirdness are the perfect recipe for awesome photos. It’s almost cheating. » Continue Reading…
Chocolate covered strawberries: easy to make, delicious to eat.
After Chris and I made angel food cake for the Super Bowl last week, we had five strawberries left over. I made a chocolate sauce and dipped them and they were wonderful. The only problem was that there were only five. Solution? Buy a fresh package of strawberries and dip them all.
Wanna do it yourself? Combine and melt over very low heat:
- two or three one-ounce semi-sweet baking chocolate squares (or chocolate chips)
- 1/4 cup heavy cream
- 1 teaspoon butter
Stir constantly until the chocolate is completely melted and smooth. Take off the heat, and wait until the chocolate is cool enough to touch, but still melted enough to drip freely off a spoon or spatula. Dip strawberries, place onto a flat surface, and chill. Wait 15 or minutes, then eat.
And yes, Alex, yours look better!
Steel beams rust away on a single-lane bridge over a half-frozen Hinkson Creek near Old 63.
I’m not a huge fan of the distortion that typically comes from ultra-wide angle lenses, such as the Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 used for this photo, but I do like the almost symmetrical framing. I stopped down the lens a bit to get more of the background in focus, which I think definitely adds to the harsh feel of the image.
Check out Chris’s photos from the same shoot.
A view of RJI and the J-School from the Hitt Street Garage
It was supposed to stop snowing hours ago but apparently the clouds didn’t get the message. Coming out of Advanced Techniques today, there was a fresh coat of snow on sidewalks and some streets, with flakes still falling as the evening sun peeked through the clouds. I walked to the top of Hitt Street Garage to get a higher perspective and some color in the sky. I regretted that immediately, since it felt about 10 degrees colder and much windier 60 feet above ground. Since Chris is borrowing my D700, all I had to use was my old D2Hs and kit lens so I had to shoot pretty wide.
Leaves of all colors bask in afternoon light on trees near the Hinkson Creek recreation area in Columbia.
Hot air balloons rise over the Columbia as foliage turns at Gustin Golf Course.
Between innings of the Fall World Series (see next post), I got bored and started shooting trees. I put my D700 on the “Vivid” picture setting (I usually shoot “Standard”) to bring out the most of the color in the autumn leaves. Taylor Stadium is located at one of the highest elevations in the area, and there are several vistas around the stadium. I used a couple different lenses, but both of these were taken with a 400mm f/2.8 — hardly a typical landscape lens. I really like the compression effect, and it obviously brings things closer to the eye. In the first shot, those trees are probably a quarter mile away, and in the second, I would guess the balloons are at least a mile away.
From the "Wings of Fancy" exhibit at Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, Md.
This (slightly) overprocessed butterfly photo was actually taken this June on a trip to the popular Brookside Gardens Conservatory, part of Wheaton Regional Park in Montgomery County, Md. Every year, the nature center holds a live butterfly show with thousands of common to rare species flying around a giant atrium in a natural environment.
1/160s, f/2, ISO 640, 28mm+2x close-up
During a break from reading last night, Dann and I decided to play with some close-up filters and take photos in one of the THREE aquariums we have in our apartment. I don’t like filters, finding them cumbersome and hard to focus with, especially when using manual focus lenses with my already bad eyes. My first 10 attempts were pretty much all out of focus because with the filters and an aperture of f/2, there is very little depth of field and fish tend to swim very fast in and out of the focus plane. All of a sudden, this fish darted to the top of the tank and paused for a second, enough for me to focus sharply and get a shot of it and its reflection on the surface of the water because I was shooting from a low angle. Of the 30 or so shots I took in the aquarium, this was the only one perfectly sharp and exposed correctly.
Manhattan, seen from the Brooklyn Bridge
Seen from Washington Street in Brooklyn
