So...it's been a year since I last posted. While I was in DC watching Jill's sister participate in the MCM (Katie finished in 2:54, 7(?)th place for females), we were walking around the National Mall and such. While we were out and about, I snapped this shot of the tip of the Washington Monument (haha). I liked that it dominated the left of the frame, while two jet trails from passing aircraft added a little something to the right part of the frame.

I'll see if I can't get a little better at adding pics to this thing. We'll see how that goes.

After while crocodile

This past weekend, my girlfriend and I took a trip to the Baltimore Aquarium. It was a lot of fun and we got to see lots of creepy crawlies and swimmy swimmies (?). I took this shot of a restful crocodile, who looked much less menacing from above the water. Go fig, right?

Oh and before I forget, I upped the temperature on this pic slightly. I thought the 'heat' gave the picture a little more texture.

Training Camp 2010

So, two weeks ago, I traveled up to Albany, NY, to attend my 6th NY Giants training camp. While there, I took a ton of pics. Here are 6 pics displayed sequentially of Eli Manning throwing a deep out (?) to Ramses Barden in a drill. You can follow the ball from the QB to the WR—well for some reason the pic of the actual catch wasn't so hot, but you get the idea!

STL window

On 7/16/2010, Jill and I were on our way to the Cardinals v. Dodgers game in St. Louis, and while we were walking I snapped this picture of a building reflected off the glass side of another. It's sort of a thing I like to do. I darkened the image a bit in Elements, but I was pretty happy with it either way.

Capturing lightning

We had a wicked thunderstorm pass through the area the other night and I tried to catch a few lightning strikes from my bathroom window. Here are two shots, one with actual lightning and the other was just kinda moody.

Sunset at the River House

Okay, so we had a little Father's Day dinner down at my sister's family's river house and after food, I took the camera out and shot a good 30 pics of the sun going down. I monkeyed around with this RAW pic in Elements and I think it turned out pretty well.

Tree leaf

So, I was in DC the weekend of June 5th and 6th to witness the Race for the Cure. Afterward, I wandered around with my girlfriend, her sister and her sister's hubby. Here are a few pics. The tree leaf one came out pretty well, if I do say so myself.

Pollen pool

A few weeks ago, I took this pic with the Nikoon P&S. It had rained earlier and we've had massive amounts of pollen in the area lately. So this is a pic of pollen swirling around in a pothole outside my bookstore. I had the flash on (haven't figured out how to adjust the intensity), so the pollen appears white, but trust me, it was green.

Red window in NO

With the weather clearing up, maybe I'll get a few more pics on this thing. For now, here's an oldie but goodie from my December trip to NOLA. I darkened this one a bit in Elements.

Burke Lake Park walk

Here's a shot from a walk I took around Burke Lake Park. There's something about the color and the shade that really did it for me, and I'm glad I was able to snap this pic.

Long time, no blog

Okay, I haven't done this in a while. So, I'm going to just post a pic and be done with it. I took this last December during Maryland's first major snow storm of the season. I liked it.

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.