European Identities

This was posted at one of the Yahoo photo-groups I belong to, I thought it was pretty funny. Credited to musician Richard Thompson, twixt-song banter at a concert.

In heaven:
The English meet you at the door,
The French do the cooking,
The Italians provide the entertainment,
And the Germans organize everything.

In hell:
The French meet you at the door,
The English do the cooking,
The Germans provide the entertainment,
And the Italians organize everything.

Wipeout?

Yesterday we had my son’s birthday party; he turned 7 years old last Thursday. He opted for a skating party at the local YMCA, where a good time was had by all (It seemed). This image is during the game of “Wipe Out”, where (on cue) everybody tries to fall down as quickly as possible. They compete girls vs boys, and the last team with someone standing loses the round. They do 6-8 rounds to determine a “winner”.

Solitary Study

A young man studying in the cafeteria of the local High School, after an evening event.

Old Barn #077

This is an image from about a year ago. I reworked it for microstock, think it turned out OK….. I also re-entered it at BetterPhoto, but I don’t have high hopes for it there.

Sunrise on clouds; tree silhouette #795

Early morning sunshine lights up the clouds. Framed by still-bare trees, waiting for the warmth of spring… Just the view from a hotel room in Seattle, WA. Now available on Shutterstock.

National Engineer's Week!!

Yep, it's that time again. This week (2/18 <-> 2/24/07) is National Engineer's Week!
As we used to say back in my college days: "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem". And yes, I are an engineer.

Sailboats in a Snowstorm

Last weekend, we took my younger daughter to an event at Murray State University, in SW Kentucky. While she did her thing, her Mom and I took a short drive through nearby Land Between The Lakes. Very cool, and someplace we need to explore further. Here’s a couple of shots of a frozen marina during a snow squall…. I was experimenting with horizontal and verticle compositions:

But we always have the chance to mess up. Below is one I had high hopes for, but not high enough to actually make sure I got the shot right. The autofocus seems to have gotten confused, resulting in a lost opportunity. Actually, it’s not TOO bad reduced to 450 pixels wide, but it is junk at full size (3000 pixels wide).

Towels

A simple little image, a “slice of life” from a business trip. The towel rack at the Fairfield Inn in Peru, IL. For some strange reason, this is my 2nd most popular image on Shutterstock, behind the smokestacks image posted last week.

Because Spring IS Coming

This dogwood tree is not far from our house, I drive by it 5-6 times a week. And in the spring, it is glorious. This shot is from last April, as a reminder that the cold and snow will be gone before too long….

Smokin'

In my first week at Shutterstock, I had over 50 downloads! That's more fun than a Finalist” or “Picture Of The Day” at one of those on-line contest sites! This smokestacks photo has been my most popular, with just over 20% of my downloads. It probably didn’t hurt that I put “global warming” in the keywords! Meanwhile, the dramatic "smoke" here is mostly condensation, the temperature was in the mid-teens when I shot this. Kinda like seeing your breath, ya know....

Countryside by Leefoster

One of the microstock places I’ve joined, iStockphoto, has a cool feature. All along, they have free files for download, kind of like iTunes’ free downloads. iStock isn’t painfully long review time for uploads, but they seem to be a pretty good site. This is the "free Download of the Week" for this week. I thought it was pretty cool.

Conducting

Last night was my younger daughter’s next-to-last band concert before she graduates high school. Seems like we’ve been to a lot of these over the past few years, and have enjoyed them all (well, at least most of them!). It’ll be a few years before my son starts band, so we’ll have to suffer in silence.

Art!

A couple of years ago, when he was in pre-school, my son did this funky finger painting. I still think it’s really cool.

One of 50,362 Photographers....

As I noted a couple of weeks ago, I've been playing around with Microstock lately. Well, I've was finally accepted at the top site, Shutterstock. And I've already had a few sales! And you can join too....
My most popular image, after a day and a half (with a whopping 3 downloads - hey, it's a start):

Download unlimited stock photos!

Working On The Illinois Rver

Another image from the Peru-to-Ottawa drive, as posted last Wednesday. I saw a cool old drawbridge, and just as I pulled into a park to snap a photo, here comes a tugboat. Cool!

Powerlines on the Prairie

Central Illinois, a few miles south of Springfield, a few miles off I-55….. On a cold winter's day.

Blogger By Google

Well, I finally took the plunge and shifted over to the new Google version of Blogger. I figured it was just a matter of time until they forced it. Hope it works ok......

Things Fall Apart

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been drawn to decrepit old buildings. Especially barns, and buildings isolated among nature (moreso than urban buildings). Anyway, I can across this barn the other day, near Lewisburg, IL. Here’s a series of takes, all the same basic point of view. Which one is your favorite?