Ant Fight!

I did have one more thing to post. I found this ant fighting what appeared to be another ant while walking around the Downtown Albany Plaza. Wild stuff.

Downtown Albany, NY

So, I took my girlfriend on a trip to witness NY Giants training camp during the first week of August. I posted a bunch of football pics on FB, but here are a few from our trip downtown on Saturday. We had a good time wandering around and managed to get in a tour of most of the History Museum before it closed. These pics are mostly from the plaza. Most are self-explanatory, except the egg-shaped thing. Apparently, it's a concert hall, appropriately called The Egg.

P.S. I'm breaking a sort of personal blog rule. These photos belong more in an album, but I haven't posted in a while, so I decided to put up a batch instead of just one or two related pics.

Nature Hike and Other Wildlife Captures

As promised, here's the second post of the evening. These pics are from a nature hike I took a few weeks ago, a bird shot from the 4th, and I don't know maybe a couple others.

4th of July photos

It's been a couple weeks since my last post, so I think I'm going to double-up this evening. To start, here's a few pics I took during Fourth of July fireworks in Manassas, Virginia. I don't think I've mastered capturing the fireworks yet, but I'll get there.

Cloud shots

The other day I took a few shots of clouds hanging out around my office. Here are a few that I really enjoyed. The one, twin clouds, reminded me of the Star Destroyers chasing the Millennium Falcon in A New Hope. And the other one kind of reminded me of an animal paw. The other one was just a cool cloud spray that I shot while I was directly under it.

Rainy storm

Every few days in Maryland lately, we've had thunderstorms. One night a week or two ago, I decided to take a few pictures while shooting out of my bathroom window. I was trying to capture some lightning (and failed), but there was one picture that I thought came out nicely. I particularly like the lonely, somewhat gloomy street lamp and the misty feel to the pic. For some reason, now that I'm looking at it again, I can't help but think of the Goonies. Also, I touched this photo up a bit to make the trees stand out a little better, thank you Photoshop Elements.

Fun with glass

Okay, so I have these short rocks glasses that have fun, thick bottoms and weird curvy shapes on the sides (for gripping). Anyway, I have been trying to figure out a fun way to photograph through them for some time. So, I threw caution to the wind the other night and using the 18-55mm lens, I went to work. I only took a handful of pics. But here are 3 that I thought were really cool. I tried a few with the flash and without. Oh and the green picture is not of the rocks glass, it's actually the top half of a Hershey's Kiss candy dish I received for Christmas one year. Fun times.

Wallpaper

So, my lovely sister asked me to take some photos at a family function this past weekend and since I am reluctant to put pictures of people up on the web, I thought I'd share a pic of an inanimate object that I really enjoyed. It's a set of chairs (as you can see) sitting in the front yard of my sister and brother-in-law's "river" house over looking the Potomac. This was the first time being down there for me and it was quite nice...secluded, serene, just the way I like it. Anyway, I liked this pic, and it's currently my desktop image. Enjoy.

Flowers at the store

Okay, so in a previous post, I mentioned my fascination with out of focus shots. The following pictures feature more of that technique. My objective was to again paint a sort of picture using the camera. In these photos, I feel like I had more color to work with, which was cool. And I think they came out pretty well. The first pic (depending on how they display...you'll know which one I'm talking about) is the flower itself, just a plain shot. The others were made using different apertures and by moving the camera in toward and away from the flower. Enjoy.

photo contest

This is the photo I submitted for a local Calvert Co. photo contest. If it's chosen, I think it might make it into a calendar or something.

Out of focus

I have come to enjoy taking out of focus shots. In fact, it has sort of become my mission to find interesting things to shoot that actually look better or at least different in that hazy out-of-focusy manner. Here are a few of my faves. What I like about these shots is there's a certain painting-esque quality to them. Having never mastered the art of painting (realism, expressionism, heck, even pointilism didn't work too well for me), I've tried to find ways to shoot subjects so that the supple qualities of painting kind of come through...if that makes any sense.

If I had a complaint about these two shots it would be that the colors are really drab. But that is mostly due to the overcast day and the subject itself wasn't exactly colorful. I'll try to seek out some more vibrant subjects in the future.

Making up for lost time

Here are two pics I took of the moon last Thursday night (4/9?). The night was very clear and crisp. These were taken from the parking lot at my bookstore.

Ugh...well, so much for one a week. Last Wednesday my friend Rachel and I took a photo field trip to Calvert Cliffs Park. Here are a couple highlights. My favorite is the one in which the tree appears to be upside down. It's actually the tree reflecting in the water. So you can see the debris underwater giving the tree shape some color, and then the very overcast sky is being reflected as well.

More Fun than Work

Wow, I've had a flurry (ha!) of camera activity the past few days. I took the telephoto out today around my office (after work...). Here are some highlights from my walking trip.

Snow Day

So, it snowed in Southern Maryland today. I think the final number was something like 10 inches which is the most I've seen in a while. The wind was whipping around pretty good, thus it was not a very serene scene, but it was still fun to watch come down this morning and even last night. I took a walk around noon and took the macro camera with me. Here's a few highlights from my little nature walk. I might take the telephoto out tomorrow around Calvert county after work. That should be interesting.

P.S. The worst part about this snowstorm, of course, is that it will be a cue for morons to page Al Gore to get him to straighten out this whole Global Warming mess. I have given up trying to even talk to these people, but I won't lie and say it isn't frustrating to hear stupid comments such as those equating one snowstorm (and really any cold weather) with obvious proof that climate change is a total hoax. Anyway...on with the pics.

My second blog of the day

This is just for fun. I took this pic a few weeks ago. It's the entire run of Promethea comics (I highly recommend). And to quote Obi Wan..."They're not for sale, if you want them." :)

Funky eye pics

This is sort of an homage to Jeunet and the opening to the theatrical version of Alien Resurrection (yes, the lousy Alien film—which I thought had some cool ideas working for it, but in the end, a lot of things failed...I blame Joss Whedon, which I realize is sacrilege, and perhaps unfair, but hey, I'm just not enamored with his work). Anyway, I took these with the macro lens and I thought they came out pretty well, if not suitably funky/creepy. Enjoy.