Ice Formations

Yesterday the High never got above 19 degrees and then got down to 4 at night. The water around here was unfrozen prior to that. These interesting little ice formations formed on top of the ice and I thought they looked pretty cool so I took the picture. It's been a while since I've been out taking pictures because things have been so busy at work. It was nice to get out and I wish I could do it more often.

Fall Part 3

Continuing on my autumn theme, here is a fall photo I took back when we lived in Utah. Definitely one of my favorites. I think this was the first time I went up into the mountains to take pictures with my very first digital camera, a Toshiba PDR-60. It was a good first camera but crappy by today's standards. But with scenes like this you don't need to do much but point and click.

Fall Part 2

Here's another picture from the other day at the lake near our house. I really like the way this is "framed" by the shadowed vegetation closer to me. I had to hike through some forest, dodging snakes, spiders and scorpions to get here (ok, not really, but it sounded cool). The relatively clear water with the reflection is a plus too.

Fall is Here

We are getting near peak colors for this fall here in Illinois and so I've been going out the past couple of days. This is probably the best one I've taken (in my opinion), but I will be posting several over the next couple of days. So if you disagree let me know.

More Lightning

This thunderstorm season had pretty much been a bust for me as there was a serious lack of good night-time thunderstorms. This past weekend we had a bunch of severe weather break out, which produced some pretty good storms. This picture was taken during the tail end of the storms and I LOVE it. Lightning is probably my favorite photographing subject, it's easy enough to get (by leaving the shutter open), but it is difficult to capture well. I probably take 50 pictures for every one that turns out good, but when it turns out there is definitely a sense of satisfaction.

Fire

I was out burning our trash the other night and thought it would make a cool picture. So I went in and got my equipment and started taking pictures. Unfortunately most did not turn out too good. There is a fine line between the shutter speed needed to make the flames appear sharp and having enough light (even with the aperture as open as it will go) to show the flames well. A few turned out good and I've posted the best one here.

Cat in the Box

This is our cat Cali after a night of hunting. She and her mother are always sleeping in the flower boxes outside of our front windows, as she is here. I have never been that good at portrait pictures, but I think this one is pretty good.

Cool Sunrise

This was the sunrise on August 21 in front of our house. I have a lot of sunset pictures, but not too many sunrise ones. That's because I hate mornings, but now that school has started again, I am forced to get up to get the kids ready. On this morning I am happy that I was up. I did not use any filters nor did I alter this photo in photoshop. This is what it looked like and I don't think I have ever seen a orangish red fog before.

Mothra Lives!

This was a large moth that my wife found sitting on the side of our house. I don't know what kind it is but I had to take a picture as I don't see giant moths every day. I don't necessarily like the background of the house, but like the way the moth turned out. It was a little bigger than the size of my palm.

Rainbow

This picture was an attempt by me to produce a cool picture. I figured the rainbow would be framed well between the fork in the tree. Only problem is that it is difficult to see the rainbow well (at least for me, though I do have trouble seeing light reds). I tried playing with the picture in photostudio and decided after all my tricks the original was the best one.

Off the Coast of Belize

This picture was taken off the coast of Belize. Nothing spectacular in it, but I think it's a good picture. I have read a lot of photography books/magazines and they all talk about the "1/3" rule. I usually forget about that rule but sometimes remember like I did in this one and in this case I really think it makes this picture work. Just enough ocean and the bigger sky space allows for a good look at some nice cloud formations and gives the picture a lot of depth.

Tropical Sunset

This was the sunset on the last day of our cruise. It was also taken right after Yin and I renewed our wedding vows. It was a beautiful sunset and hopefully a good omen for some great years to come.

Mayan Temple

This is a picture of a Mayan temple taken at the Chacchoben Mayan site near Costa Maya Mexico. Yin and I visited the site during our cruise in April. Pretty neat stuff, this temple is actually the second outermost temple as each ruler would build a new temple on top of the previous rulers temple. I think that our guide said that there were two layers underneath this one. At the top of this temple was a notch that marked the southern and northernmost progress of the sun which they used to calebrate their calender that we were told was much more precise than the one we currently use today since it was based on a 52 year cycle.

Distant Storm

I finally get to post again. Well, anyone who looks at this regularly or periodically will quickly tire of seeing my weather pictures, but it is my passion and they will keep coming. This was a pretty big thunderstorm that I saw building in the east close to sunset. The only thing I didn't like about this storm is that it wasn't directly overhead.

Caught in the Act

Since it's getting close to Easter, I figured I'd include this picture. This is our dog Worf and the picture was taken several Easters ago. I came downstairs one night and found Worf exactly as he is seen here. Apparently he was trying to get away with stealing some of the kids Easter candy and thought he could do it without anyone being the wiser. He forgot to factor in the fact that his head was just long enough to wedge it into the basket, dooming him to the scene you see here.

Goodbye Winter

Since winter is pretty much over, I wanted to post one more wintry picture. This is a picture from an ice storm in North Carolina. As you can see the ice was pretty thick and caused some pretty massive power outages. Our apartment was among one of the last places to have power restored 8 days later.

Red Moon

Ok, nothing spectacular about this one. I just think it's a cool picture of the moon. I was surprised at the detail that my camera was able to get as well.

Crepuscular Rays

I'm continuing my theme of cloud-like pictures today. This picture was taken at our house in Utah. Just a nice picture of sun rays filtering through the clouds.

Above the Clouds

If you've seen all of my pictures, no doubt you can tell I'm a big fan of cloud pictures. It comes from my love of weather. This picture is kind of cool since it was taken from a jet and is in between two cloud layers near sunset. I really like how the cumulus clouds in the lower cloud deck create their own shadow on the smoother clouds beside them.

Sunset Fixer-upper

Here's another one of my favorite sunset pictures. Unfortunately, it was up at my in-laws house where there is a lot of development going on. So right in the middle of the picture was a large street light. I have cloned most of it out, but I didn't want to try and do it where a tree is in the background, so part of it remains. Ignoring that, the sun and clouds are in a perfect position to make this picture come to life.

Hilton Head Beach

This is another picture of one of my kids proving that I have no convictions (but you can't see her so again it's ok). Anyway this was taken on a family vacation to Hilton Head Beach in South Carolina. I like the silhouette of my daughter against the setting sun. It also depicts a typical kid act of picking up shells along the beach.

Setting Sun

Everyone has sunset shots and I'm no different. I like that the sun in this picture is fairly well defined and the phone lines in the distance add a little extra, at least for me.

Fun in the Leaves

I don't like to post pictures of my children on the internet, but in this case I figured it's ok since this picture is 5 years old and she looks nothing like this any more. I love this picture of my second, I like the lighting from the late-day sun. I also think it does a good job of capturing her personality with that big smile and carefree attitude.

Bryce Canyon

Ok, things were hectic and I didn't get a chance to finish my St. Patrick's Day pictures, but it's over and I'm moving on. This is a picture of my favorite national park in Utah. I know Nativeminnow grew up near here and has told me he thinks it's just a touristy place, but I think it is absolutely amazing. In fact, this was the last place we visited before we moved from Utah because I told Yin I had to see it one more time. Of course, it was freezing cold, cloudy and rainy the whole time. However, when the clouds weren't obstructing our view, it gave me some incredible shots like this one where the low clouds were drifting into the valleys shown here.

More Irish Hills

This is close to the site where my wife and I are in another picture I posted on here. This one just has the hills and stream though. Ireland was just a great place to visit and offered so many nice things to look at like this scene here.

Irish Landscapes

Well our computer wasn't working well yesterday so I didn't get to post a picture. So today, I'm posting two. Both are Irish landscape pictures that I really enjoy. The top picture was taken as we were driving between points. At the base of the mountains shown here is Lough Doo. The lower picture is of the Irish countryside in what is known as "The Burrens". It is so named because of the numerous hills in the area where the top is composed of rock with large cracks in them. One of these can be seen in this picture in the distance on the left hand side. I think both pictures do a great job of showing why green is often associated with Ireland.

Stone Circle

As I was looking through the 600+ pictures I took while in Ireland I realized that there are far too many cool ones to post in this short week. Oh well, I've decided today to go with something that is more early Irish. This is the Dromberg Stone Circle located in the Southwestern part of the country. I really liked going to these types of stone work creations. Maybe it's because these ancient people thought it so important to move these large stones great distances and arrange them in circles or tombs or whatever...I would like to know more about why.

Muiredach's Cross

We visited lots of old monasteries and cemeteries on our trip to Ireland, this one called Monasterboice is supposably one of the earliest Christian ones founded sometime around 500 AD. This particular cross is one of the best preserved dating back to around 923 AD. It is amazing that these monuments can stand up to all the wet weather that Ireland is known for. Fittingly, this was the coldest and wettest day of our trip. I think it stayed in the 50's and rained all day long (and it was late June!).

Blarney Castle

As the title implies, this is Blarney Castle site of the famous Blarney Stone. It is located in County Cork in the southern part of the country. This is the county that Yin's ancestry is from. There are many old castles in Ireland, too many to post in this week, but I may get around to it eventually. The funny thing is that some of them though run down can be found out in the middle of some farm field, much like you might see an old worn down silo here in the US. This is one of the better preserved and more impressive ones in Ireland though. And of course this post would not be complete without a picture of Yin kissing the Blarney Stone.

Cliffs of Moher

It is officially 1 week until St. Patrick's Day, so I will be posting pictures from Ireland until then. Unfortunately, this site reduces the pictures size pretty small and a lot of my favorites are panoramics. This is a picture of the Cliffs of Moher in the western part of the country. I once thought I would make a big print of this and hang it on my wall, but when I posted this picture in a photo contest, one of the critics pointed out that there is too much curvature in the distance. Dammit, he was right and it's bugged me ever since. Still it was an incredible place to see and not even this picture of it can make it look bad.

Thunderstorm Season

I've been away at a meeting the last several days but now that I'm back I see that I need to start posting again. This is my other favorite lightning picture and I'm posting it in honor of the start of the severe weather season here in Illinois. We've had our first bought the last two days though most of it was south of here. We have gotten over 4 inches of rain in the past two days. This picture was taken last year and as you can see is vary braided which is one of the reasons I like it. I had to do some photoshop work on this though because there was a large water drop in the lower right hand portion of the picture. Luckily it was in a portion that was dark and mainly uninteresting. Hopefully I did a good enough job that you can't tell where it is (but if you look really hard at the corn line, you might be able to tell). Anyway, here's to a productive severe weather season!

Dusky Salamander

This picture somewhat goes along with the last one. This salamander was sitting on the rocks next to that waterfall. In many ways this was a more thrilling sight for me than the waterfall was. I never get to see salamanders out in the wild and getting to see this one, one that I had never seen before was cool. I guess it just goes to show what a biology geek I am. Anyway, I looked it up when I got back home and I think it is a "Dusky Salamander". It is apparently one of the more common salamanders in Great Smoky Mountain National Park, but not a common sight for me.

Smoky Mountain Falls

This is a waterfall in Smoky Mountain National Park that I can't remember the name of. I really like this effect that requires leaving the shutter open on the camera for a longer than normal length of time, in this case .5 seconds. I wish I could do more of this kind of thing, but my camera doesn't have an easy filter attachment and to do these kind of effects easily I would need a neutral density filter. Luckily on the day we visited the falls it was overcast.

Crisp Mornings

One of my favorite things about autumn is in the beginning when you first start to get the brisk mornings and the lakes and rivers are still relatively warm. I always enjoy watching the steam rising off of those warm waters. This was one of the first brisk mornings in North Carolina and I got up extra early before work (those of you who know me will know how incredible a feat this is) and went out to get photos at the reservoir close to our house. I ended up with a lot of cool photos. This is one of my favorites. There is just enough steam and the water is calm enough to produce reflections that make it difficult to tell where the water begins. It just seems so serine.

Prairie Burnin'

Today the DNR burned the prairie next to our house. It was the first one I had ever seen and thought it was pretty cool. So I snapped a couple of pictures of it. This one was not the best since the focus is on the trees in the foreground, but it had the most impressive flames in it so I'm posting it. What was interesting to me is that even though the flames look impressive, the fire itself was quick and light. I went into the field after they were done and beneath the charred surface there was still green vegetation underneath. Many of the fallen branches hadn't even been blackened by the fire.

Depressed Bear

Although I enjoy taking my kids to the zoo occasionally because they like seeing the different animals, I don't envy the animals that were unlucky enough to end up there. Especially animals that have a large range in the wild like polar bears. I thought this picture captures what it must be like to be a polar bear confined to a small pen for life.

Rising Storm

This is an old picture that I took with my first digital camera back when we lived in Utah. It remains one of my all-time favorites. I love the way the light is hitting the building storm cloud and the wispy clouds in the background make an excellent background that seems to compliment the lighted cloud in the center. I'm not a good enough photographer to explain it any better than that, all I know is that when I see this picture, it just seems right.

The Buzz

Ok, I'm done posting Chicago pictures for now. I have a few more that I like, but they are similar to what I have posted so I'll wait on them. Today's picture is one of Yin's favorites. I thought it turned out well too. I took this picture in our flower garden at our previous house in North Carolina. One thing to notice that I didn't as I was taking the picture is that besides the bee, on the lower right hand side of the flower there is a little grasshopper.

Top of the tower

This is a picture from the 103 rd floor of the Sears Tower, about 1400 feet above the city floor. I like this shot because you can see most of the other large buildings in Chicago including the second tallest in Chicago, the John Hancock Building (black one in the distance on the left side). Plus you can see Lake Michigan (a name I learned this weekend that means "large lake") in the background. You can tell it's cold too, since the ice extends out quite a bit.

Sweet Home.....Chicago

If anyone reads our other blog you will know that my wife and I spent some time in Chicago this last weekend. We both grew up in the Chicagoland area and, at least I, never really appreciated what a cool city Chicago is. It has many good picture-taking opportunities, some of which I was able to capitolize on and many I will have to get another day. The next few posts will be from our trip. This was the first picture I took and maybe one of the best. All the glass on those buildings gives a great chance to play with reflective shots. With blue skies and decent lighting I think this one turned out pretty good.

Playing around

I've been a little busy so was unable to post anything yesterday and most of today. We spent the last several hours driving up to Yin's parents house in Chicago. Along the way I was looking for something to do and got out my camera and played around with long exposures on the highway. I've seen some pretty neat pictures that some people have gotten this way. As you can see by this one (my best) I am not quite up to form. Maybe I should rename this blog Yang's picture-taking failures. Oh well, I had fun doing it anyway.

A Rare Sighting

With it being Valentines Day, I figured I'd post a picture of my wife and I. Out of the thousands of pictures I have taken, this is one of about 5 that includes my wife and I in the same shot. This is a picture of us on our 10th anniversary trip to Ireland and I thought it was appropriate for today as the scene is a romantic one with the beautiful Irish countryside and waterfall in the background.

A Beautiful Failure?

When I took this picture, I was attempting to capture a reflection of our front yard in my wife's eye. As you can plainly see I was unsuccessful at capturing anything but a blurry shadow of the reflection, but in my attempt I did capture something that I don't give my wife enough credit for. She has beautiful eyes, which I often overlook because of my resentment that none of our kids got my brown eyes. When I can stop and look at it objectively as I can in this picture, I guess my kids should consider themselves lucky.

Weather

I think I've said this in our regular blog, but I love the weather. Many of my pictures reflect this passion of mine. While I have taken pictures of all kinds of different weather related phenomenon, the most spectacular pictures I have are of lightning. This one is one of my favorite, not only because there are two bolts in it, but also because of the proximity of the one on the right. You can see that it is in front of the treeline which means it hit in the farm field I was parked next too. I've gone out on quite a few nights to take lightning pictures and rely on the idea that you can't get hurt by lightning while sitting in your car. Still during the height of the storms (and this one in particular), my adrenaline is certainly flowing and I am often left questioning my own sanity. Oh well, pictures like this one are worth it for me.

Work in Progress

Well this is my first post for my picture blog, Yin might post pictures too, but she doesn't usually take too many pictures. I on the other hand love photography, and figured I might as well post some of my pictures here and if anybody likes them they can tell me or if anybody has any suggestions on how to make them better I'm all ears. Right now I take my pictures with Nikon coolpix 5700. I like it, it takes great quality pictures but the automatic focus is slow so it limits my ability to take action shots. I hope to get a digital SLR sometime in the future, but unfortunately for me it is in a long line of expensive toys that I would like to get.

This first picture, as the name implies, is a work in progress. I have always wanted to take one of these. Finally this last year I got around to actually remembering to take the picture on the summer solstice, autumnal equinox and winter solstice. Having a large lake less than a mile from my house now gave me a backdrop that I liked too. I would still like to blend the transitions between the pictures taken on different days better. Fortunately for me the sky conditions were pretty similar and I think I can get the colors similar with a little work, but as you may be able to tell (the picture is pretty small), the lake is frozen on the winter solstice and it makes for a pretty rough transition. I'll post again when I have it looking better.