Hardly Harley

I'm still having difficulty believing it's December already, and 2011 is now measured in days. With the end of another year you'll be assailed by all kinds of "Top (Fill in the blank) of 2011". I thought I'd look back at the over 1400 photos I took in 2011 and pick my top 5 to be revealed over the final weeks of 2011. So I decided to count these two as one, mainly because they are of the same subject. This was one of my most fortuitous shots as everything worked out, the stillness of the water, the interesting clouds in the sky and a camera in the car. Nine times out of ten I'll have the first two but won't have a camera, or when I bring the camera all the other elements don't work out. This was an unplanned shot, which I think have been turning out better for me. Or I have lower expectations of these unplanned shots so i'm happily surprised after I see them. I'm especially proud of these shots because I was able to shoot for my two fav

The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal by Ben Mezrich My rating: 2 of 5 stars I should say I'm not the biggest fan of Facebook, but even so, I was disappointed in this book.The fault, though, is partially mine. After having read such enlightening books such as In the Plex and Steve Jobs I was hoping for a little insight into the beginning days of Facebook. What I had hoped would be some kind of documentary had more drama than documentary with the author filling in his perception of what might have happened. If anything the book leaves you with more questions than answers, and I look forward to an official Zuckerburg biography to hear his side of things, though I won't be holding my breath for that. If you saw the movie, then you're not going to get anything extra from the book, which I suppose should be a compliment to the movie. On a related note, this marks the 30th book I've read this year. Bac

I'm still having difficulty believing it's December already, and 2011 is now measured in days. With the end of another year you'll be assailed by all kinds of "Top (Fill in the blank) of 2011". I thought I'd look back at the over 1400 photos I took in 2011 and pick my top 5 to be revealed over the final weeks of 2011. In contrast of last week's large shot, this week's shot focuses on a smaller subject. With summer winding down my mom wanted some photos of her roses to put up in her office. I had taken some kind of boring shots but found this rose with some dew drops still on it. I originally featured a portion of this shot in this  earlier post. Click to see larger

I'm still having difficulty believing it's December already, and 2011 is now measured in days. With the end of another year you'll be assailed by all kinds of "Top (Fill in the blank) of 2011". I thought I'd look back at the over 1400 photos I took in 2011 and pick my top 5 to be revealed over the final weeks of 2011. Photo number three combines my two favorite types of photos, large panoramas and HDR processing. Originally shot as a standard panorama (Go here to see the original panorama) I decided to try to HDR it. Since I shot the six shot panorama using both JPEG and RAW file types I was able to adjust the exposure levels to give the appearance of taking 3 separate exposures. This technique isn't as possible with JPEG because the file doesn't keep as much information about the shot as a RAW file would. I wasn't sure how best to process this; HDR all the shots of the panorama then stitch them all together or stitch three separate panoramas

I'm still having difficulty believing it's December already, and 2011 is now measured in days. With the end of another year you'll be assailed by all kinds of "Top (Fill in the blank) of 2011". I thought I'd look back at the over 1400 photos I took in 2011 and pick my top 5 to be revealed over the final weeks of 2011. So let's start with a splash, literally. My first waterfall shot wasn't some exotic Hawaiian hundred footer, but a small one not more than a mile away from my house. I like how the foliage frames the fall and the sense of motion from the water. This shot allowed me to cross off a subject on my photography list, but I'm constantly in search of waterfalls. The shot is not an HDR, though I did take HDR brackets of it. Click the photo to see it larger This second shot is one of my favorites and decorates my TouchPad as the wallpaper for it. This was shot during an unplanned photo shoot at Fort Humboldt and it's logging museum.

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving, and were able to survive the Black Friday craziness. I, for one, did my fair share of pigging out on turkey and sleeping in a bit on Black Friday. I refuse to stand in line in the middle of the night for any sale. I also find it sad how Thanksgiving is so often overlooked because of it and it's far more commercially marketed cousin Christmas. It's like two opposing messages being played; be thankful for what you have, but go out and get what you don't have that's on sale at 3am. I've not been much in the photography shooting mood lately, so this is a shot from my archives. Having a superzoom camera, there seem to be two requisite shots to take with it to show off that zoom; birds, preferably in flight, and the moon. I have no interest in birds in flight shots, so I thought I'd try for the moon. I was surprised at how difficult it is to get a sharp well exposed shot. Obviously you leave the shutter open a little longer t