Peter

3D -- First Attempt

The following two images should be viewed by crossing your eyes until the two merge to form a third image.  If you need instructions on how to do this, this link seems to be a good place to start.  Without further delay (no French here....  wait, is "ado" French?  Prolly not, since it would be spelled "adieu" if it were) I present the monkey.

Monkey see, monkey see 3D?

So if you're not any good at this whole crossing your eyes thing, you'll have to settle for the lame "wiggler" version:

Click me to view

Next on my list:  3D landscapes!

Lame Blogger



Box Springs and Sugarloaf Mountains

Apparently there is a 20 MB/50 MP upload limit on images for blogger.  This particular photo is originally 88 MB and 127 MP, so what you see is a horribly scaled down version.  I was going to give prizes (translation: praise) to those who could find various places in our stomping grounds, such as our church building, the "Big C" our house, etc., but you'll just have to admire what the University Heights section of town looks like in the winter.

End of Nondescript Titles

Blue and white seems to make for a better photo than red and white.  See the following exhibits:

Table Salt

These make my nose tingle

Ignition

Not really white, but where it's overexposed it is

And an all-red to show just how boring that is.

I do like the iridescence, though

Now for some Blue and White:

"Greatest meeting of Land and Sea"

Venus... and some other lights

Near Cabazon, CA (at 80 MPH)

Our sink started doing this on its own, recently

Why would they put a fence there? (Pt. Reyes)

Armageddon

Despite any complete self-destruction exhibited in the collegiate world, at least blue-and-white can triumph over red-and-white on my blog.

Some Number - Some Bigger Number

Happy 4th!  Er.... 11th.

We went to our city's firework show this year.  They ended up starting 6 separate grass fires in the process.  They blamed the wet year (tall grass) combined with the recently hot weather.

San Diego Skyline beyond the Naval Air Station

Gray skies do occur in Sunny Sandy Ego.  This one surely won't fit nicely in your browser window.

Mystic Lake

Liz wants to buy the house and farm we saw down in that valley.  I'm going to have to learn to run a dairy...

21-22

No particular reason for the photos chosen today...  Just some from my "portfolio" (fancy word for hard drive).

From our botanic gardens

Stairway *from* heaven

Bonus Photo! (I missed posting last week, and this photo is related anyhow)

Pt. Reyes lighthouse

Week 20

One of my favorite features of the greater L.A. area is "May gray" and "June gloom".  Typically at this time of year it's foggy every morning, which burns off by midday (at least in Riverside).  I like the daily morning fog, and I like the cooler weather that it brings... only one problem - no fog so far this year!  Sure we've been having cool weather (it's been within a few degrees of 78 every day for the last couple weeks months) but no fog.

By the way, if the following photo looks familiar, I believe it made an appearance in the SlimySatisfaction blog last year (when it was taken).

What it's supposed to look like around here

Weeks 18 and 19 (Blackbirds)

I doubt it caught a fish that big.

Crow, Raven, Rook?  Some member of the corvidae.

P.S.  The answer to last post's question is posted in the comments.

Week 17 - Abstract Art

Abstract art.  I can't stand abstract art for abstract's sake (e.g. painting squares and lines and pretending that it's profound), probably because I don't understand it.  I can appreciate the beauty in things that common people (people without a special perspective) don't understand (e.g. the beauty I perceive in the Navier-Stokes equation), but I can't imagine that anyone can understand "art" that looks like it was made by a grade-schooler.  I mean, is there really all that hidden meaning, or is the observer making the piece out to be something more than it is (like English literature classes... but I digress).

I'll take my personal definition of abstract art to mean something that is devoid of references to the physical world.  I take pictures of what becomes "abstract art" because it is visually interesting... nothing more.  Feel free to add your interpretation and fix a value of thousands of dollars to the following image if you are so inclined, just understand that no deeper meaning was intentionally captured.

That all being said, anyone care to guess what this is?

Week 16

IN GOD WE TRUST

Another metaphor this week.  No matter what abuses we have undergone, or what imperfections we exhibit, we have reason to hold up our heads and smile if it's IN GOD WE TRUST.

Week 15

Family has flown the coop for a couple weeks.  Here's the metaphorical moment of the week (hint: I'm the bird in the foreground).

Cabrillo National Monument

Weeks 12,13,14

As stated in the previous post, this is a catch-up post.  Since it will include three photos, these will be related.

Not that they're particularly nice photos, but I like these three.  We have a lot of bugs around here, and we often see these around our house (usually outside...).

Juvenile female latrodectus hesperus

Found this guy (er, gal) rappelling from our living room ceiling one morning.  Liz wasn't as excited as I was.

Adult female latrodectus hesperus

There's a reason that the sternum and coxa look like a pipe manifold... the legs are apparently controlled by hydraulics!  Sorry... the engineer in me is coming out.

This is the one that got away from Pumba

Apologies

I have missed two weeks, and including today, I need to catch up on three posts.  Previously my routine was to catch up on email and blogs on Sunday evenings, after our kids went to bed, but a fundamental shift in my Sunday night routine has occurred.

In accordance with my omnipresent obsession with gadgets, we purchased a NookColor a few weeks back.  For those who aren't aware, it is an ereader produced by Barnes and Noble.  It's acquisition instigated a fundamental shift in my routine for a couple of reasons:

1.  We now own TWO ereaders, and Liz and I can now read at the same time (I could never figure out how to work the "traditional" books that we have), so we now do that more often.

2.  I boot an unlocked version of Android on the Nook, which transforms it to a fully-functioning tablet.  The device has replaced all the functions that I would previously use my laptop for... that is email and web-browsing.  My poor laptop is now only used at home for photo-management, and thus blog posts.  I don't get it out on weekends anymore, so I miss updating my blog until I think about it during the week (while I'm in my office at school).

Yes, this is an excuse, but I figured I'd offer one anyway... sharing the blame for my negligence with a tablet is lame, but I find myself doing it anyway.  I s'pose I'm lame.

P.S.  It's still a large expense for essentially a toy, but consider the Nook if you are planning to get a tablet anyway.  It's half the price, and 95% the function as the other offerings...

Week 11

Crepuscular rays at Point Lobos State Natural Reserve, CA

Week 10

Milky Way setting over the foothills of the Orocopia Mountains.
The glow on the horizon is Imperial Valley, 50 miles away.

Week 9

Week 8

Week 7

Otospermophilus Beecheyi

Week 6

Alpine, UT

Week 5

Point Reyes, CA Headland

Week 4

Week 3

California Gulls

Week 2

Joshua Tree National Park

Week 1

Introductory Notes

My wife has been bugging encouraging me to share my talents. Not having any real talents, I will share one of my hobbies with you - photography. This blog won't attempt any real insight into my life. Really it is only intended to offer weekly glimpses into moments of my life.  As I am not a writer, or a reader for that matter, aside from brief commentary, I intend that this blog will be dominated by photos that I have taken.

I've always loved gadgets (the physical kind... not the "look my blog can violate copyrights and play annoying music" kind of gadgets).  I also love technology. As consumer digital photography entered its infancy, I was definitely interested by this high-tech gadgetry. As a high school graduation present I opted to get my first digital camera. The camera was a 1 MP Kodak, purchased at a popular retailer in 2001. Sadly, a hard drive failure wiped out most of the pictures acquired from that camera, yet the camera was invaluable in the development of my new obsession. The camera was slow, bulky, and had very poor (by today's - 2011- standards) image quality, but I loved the camera, and I began to love photography.

After my first year of college I left the country for a couple years on an LDS mission, taking with me a 35mm film camera - just to record basic memories. The Kodak was too larger, and depended on memory and batteries... both of which may be hard to come by in third-world countries. Towards the middle of my mission I was partnered with a missionary who had gotten a new Sony digital camera, which I enjoyed playing with during the evenings and preparation days that we had. After visiting a local mall, and seeing the next iteration of Sony digital camera development, I knew that I would have to get one for myself. As soon as I could, I did.

The appeal of a digital camera, to me, is that images are free.  I've been bred as a tightwad, and trained as an engineer, so I would always think about how much a photo will cost me whenever I took a film-based image.  Digital has allowed me to relax about taking images. I can play with light or composition. I can make images that are worthless, or can take a hundred photos of something worthwhile and later determine which image is the "best". Digital photography has allowed me to create without inhibitions.

My beloved second camera died after about three years of very heavy use, and I knew that I would need a replacement soon. The only problem with that is that when I got the first camera, it was top-of-the-line. The second camera was also the best the industry offered at the time (without spending 10s of thousands on a camera), so I knew that my spoiled camera preferences would be satisfied with nothing more than the best (within reason). This was a problem because I was recently married when my second camera died... and finances were tight. However, after two years of waiting (and after two very large tax "refunds") I was finally in a position to get the camera and lenses that I had been wanting.

Now having acquired a fairly serious camera system, I was ready to create my vision. This blog will feature those images that I feel fulfill the vision that I have. The images won't be necessarily from the preceding week, but I feel that this blog will encourage me to work harder at making share-worthy photography. The quality of the photos may not be what you might consider "pleasing", but my motivation is capturing the beautiful world that God has created for us, and sharing what I feel is particularly noteworthy.  It is not meant to be comprehensive in any way... it is simply sharing a moment of the week.