Final Storm Picture

Ok, this is the final picture from the latest storm and my personal favorite. Like I said before, this has been a good year for photographing lightning and I have learned a lot. The most important thing I've learned is how critical aperture is when photographing lightning and the need to adjust it as the distance to the storm changes. A small aperture for a storm too far away produces a bolt that can barely be seen. Too large an aperture for a storm that is close produces a bright white spot with no discernible bolt. Interestingly, my favorite shots are from my first attempts when I didn't know what the hell I was doing. So I guess luck plays a large role as well.

More from the latest storm

This is another picture from the storm last night. I liked that there were multiple bolts in this picture, though I was upset at myself for not framing it correctly.

Last Storm of the Season?

Last night we had some pretty good lightning displays and I managed to catch a few that I'll be posting over the next few days. This may have been the last good storm of the season and I'm glad I decided to go out and get some pictures.

Rising Moon

Nothing too special about this picture, I just like taking pictures of the moon just after the sun goes down and some type of landscape can still be seen. I have a really cool one from when I was camping in Zion National Park, but that's on actual film, so I don't have it to post online.

More Lightning in the Sky

We've had a lot of night-time thunderstorms around here lately, unfortunately I haven't had much luck getting good pictures...until last night. Last night was especially good since the lightning lasted well after the main part of the storm had past.

Soft-Shelled Turtle

Another one of the cool creatures that lives around here and which I've never seen before is this soft-shelled turtle. I often see them sunning themselves on the gates to the ponds where I work and have always wanted to get a picture. However, they are extremely fast and dive into the water before I can get anywhere near them. This one came through the drain when we drained one of the ponds, so I took the opportunity to capture it and release it far enough away from water so that I could take this picture.

Bird-Voiced Treefrog

It's been a while, but I'm back for a few pictures. I have been trying my hand at photographing small reptiles and amphibians that I think are cool. This particular species of frog are neat in that they can be this color, but can also turn a bright lime-green too. They also make an interesting call as the name suggests.

Last Day

What cruise photo collection would be complete without a sunset picture? Certainly not mine. This was the sunset on the last day of the cruise looking out towards the Bahama Islands. I have about 20-30 pictures of it and have been made fun of by my family, but I was not the only one out there. It turned out to be a pretty good one, complete with sun dog (rainbow on left hand side of the sun).

St. Maarten Again

Here's another picture of St. Maarten (I spelled it wrong last time), this time looking the other direction along the beach. A very beautiful place.

St. Maartin

This is a beach in St. Maartin. I like this picture because I think it captures what I think of as a typical tropical tourist destination. For some useless St. Maartin trivia, there are two sides to the island, one Dutch and one French. The French side includes a nude beach. Unfortunately, this is not that beach.

St. Thomas

My only experience with Caribbean islands prior to this trip was the Florida Keys and a small island off the coast of Belize, so I was expecting the same kind of thing (flat little islands). I was surprised when I woke up and saw St. Thomas looking like this.

Night-time St. Thomas

This is a photo of the harbor at St. Thomas at night (obviously). I thought the blue lights were cool. I found out it is difficult to take one of these night pictures without a tripod or some other surface to rest the camera on. In this case I had to try and steady it against the ship rail and try not to move as the shutter was open. It turned out ok, but I still think it would have been better.

Royal Caribbean

We recently went on a cruise (during Christmas break), so naturally I have some pictures to post from that trip. This first one is of our ship, Royal Caribbean's Mariner of the Sea. I'm posting this only because when my dad saw this picture he told me that it looked like a photo you would find in a brochure or on a postcard. So if there's anyone from Royal Caribbean out there reading my wildly popular photo blog, just contact me to discuss buying the rights to my photo :-).