Ants

These are a couple of shots I took at my mother-in-law's on Sunday. She lives on a farm in Greenup, Ky., and has tons of flowers, so the place is a photo goldmine. I'll post some more of my shots from there later, but for now here's a couple of close-ups of ants crawling on some of the flowers that are about to bloom.

Neat effect

This photo of an award sitting in a mirrored case looks pretty neat because of the type effect. Normally, in a reflection, the type is reversed, but the mirror is picking up the back of the glass (which is also reversed) so the reflection shows the text correctly again. Little things like that amuse me, I guess.

Shiny New Building

To crop or not to crop...

Here's a flower pic that I shot with the intention of cropping really tight to get a really zoomed in close-up, but I think I ended up liking the original shot better before cropping.

Taking over the yard

I don't know what this stuff is, but it is taking over our yard and flower beds. It's some type of ivy-like stuff that in the spring has these little purple blooms. In summer, it just grows like crazy and gets thick fast.

More Patterns

Patterns

Dandelion

No wonder my allergies are acting up.

B&W Barn

Cool flower on plant

I can't remember what this is called, but it's some type of flowering houseplant at my mom's house.

Blog No. 2

While I'm still posting stuff here, I'm putting a lot more stuff over on my 365 Project blog, in which I'm trying to take a photo a day every day for a year. Needless to say, most of the new stuff is there, but I'm still trying to keep this one up as well with as few duplicates as possible.

HDR Sunrise

I've been fooling around with some new software that creates High Dynamic Range images, which is basically one composite photo from multiple differently exposed photos. In this sunrise photo from yesterday, normally if you expose for the sky, you get nothing but silhouettes of the trees and houses and such, or if you expose for the trees and houses, your sky completely burns out. This photo was made by taking three photos at different exposures, and then the good areas of each photo are combined to make one image.

Clouds and Moon

Really nice sunset last night with a really cool cloud formation. As I was out shooting it, the moon peeked from behind the clouds.

A Bug's View

A common rule for flower photography is to not shoot down on flowers, because that's the way we normally see them. Instead, try another view. In the first shot, I'm at eye level with the flowers, but in the second shot, I thought I'd try something different, and put the camera on the ground to shoot up at them. The problem at first was the bright sky in the background made silhouettes out of the flower shapes, so I added and flash, and got a pretty dramatic effect.

Daffodils

Yesterday must have been a good day to shoot daffodils, as photographer Rick Lee posted a shot of one today as well.

Bubbles

Tree Moss

Tree and Clouds

Apple Glow

I also put this on my other blog, but thought I'd post it here, too. It's a 5-second exposure of my PowerBook with the camera sitting on the countertop.

Time for Wine

Possum Blogging

We saw this critter outside the house yesterday. I'll have to credit this photo to my wife, she shot it out the van window.

Not-so-happy Valentine's???

Perhaps the worker who etched this candy heart was feeling a little disgruntled.

A new blog

I've started a new blog to do in addition to this one. A lot of people are doing a 365 project, where they take and post a photo every single day for a year. It sounded both challenging and cool to me, so I thought I'd give it a try. You can click here or on the link to the right in my sidebar to go there.

So far, it's day one completed.

Aerodynamic Chevette

Being a former Chevette owner myself, I always appreciate seeing on that's properly accessorized.

Snow on the Holly

We just don't seem to get many good snows around here anymore. Today, we're up to almost an inch, but it's supposed to heat up and all melt away later this afternoon. The Onion has this article with a pretty good take on our lack of winters around here anymore. Anyhow, here's something I shot while walking around earlier today.

Pool Reflections

I shot this during a break in the action at my daughter's swim meet this past weekend at the Beaumont YMCA in Lexington, Ky. Originally, I was just looking at the lane lines for composition, and thought that might be interesting, but after I looked at it on the computer, I think the reflection and the thin row of just feet at the top makes it kind of interesting.

Ready to Swim

My daughter swims for the Ashland Area YMCA, and here she is waiting for her turn during a weekend meet in Paris (Kentucky, not France).

Nature's ice sculptures

You'll want to check out the bigger version of this shot by clicking on it. During Sunday's freezing rain, all the plants in our yard became encased in ice. However, after this one melted a little, the leaf that was inside fell down, leaving just an empty ice shell shaped like the leaf. Pretty neat.

Sculpture

Here's a detail from a sculpture piece. It's supposed to resemble a bird, but I've had a few people comment that it looks like part of some type of medieval battle axe.

Angles

I thought all the lines made this an interesting pic.

Reece

A Winter Flower

Since it's all gray, gloomy and rainy out today (at least here where I am), thought I'd dig back into the summer photos and find a nice flower to post.

Pez

I love my Pez dispenser collection, but I rarely eat the candy. I'll have to post some shots of the collection sometime soon.

Monsters Inc. on Ice

Took the kids to the Disney on Ice show at the Charleston Civic Center over the weekend. Here are a couple of shots.

Sunset

The rain gave way to a beautiful sunset last night.

Lamp Reflection

I love when I'm just goofing off and get an interesting shot totally by accident. This is my desk lamp which I captured by lying the camera on its back pointing straight up and I just guessed at a location and snapped the shutter. The reflection part on the lower right is the back of my iMac. As Bob Ross would say, thank goodness for happy little accidents.

Full Moon

Blue Grate

Thursday Morning Sunrise

Inside a Baby Grand

One Week to Christmas

Red Sky this morning

I actually did quite a bit of work in Photoshop to make this look better than it actually is. Bumped up the saturation to deepen the colors ... burned in a bluer sky and added some soft-focus effects to it.

Yellow Lockers

Up the flag pole

Curves

Saturday Sky

Here's another shot from the weekend ... really neat cloud pattern on Saturday afternoon.

Christmas Light Abstract

I turned my camera's ISO down to 80 and shot this from a moving car to get the blur effect. That's the great thing about digital, it gives you the opportunity to experiment a little bit and do something different with, say a Christmas light display.