walls of the city

If you want it, the beta version of Adobe Lightroom 3 is free from now until April of 2010 – just head over to the above link, fill out the appropriate information, and off you go.

So here is a taste of the geography of the Everglades, where we spent our vacation last weekend. The first image is the *.jpg after being touched up by Picasa’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” function, and the second image is [...]

An interesting taste of some pictures to come, courtesy of Rollip.

At Les Jones’ suggestion, Better Half, some friends, and I spent some time out at Burgess Falls and the Black Mountain Loop Trail.
We stopped off at the latter first, and traipsed around [...]

Well, it looks like my XTi is back to fully-operating condition. I took a few pictures around my town yesterday, and then tinkered them into HDRs – gotta love RAW images, apart from the whole “MASSIVE filesize” thing… As [...]

Well, it is looking like my shiny new XTi will be headed back to see its maker. Neither I, nor Better Half, nor a friend of ours, can get it to focus properly on much of anything. [...]

… or so.
So what was I up to this afternoon? Shooting through somewhere over 700 pictures, and these were among the best…ish.
Anywise, I got to watch these guys:

Be beat [...]

A while back, I mentioned that I was upgrading my old-and-busted S200 to a new(er)-and-shiny XTi, and, well, the toy got here:

(As in most cases, click on [...]

Taken through the window of my apartment, so excuse the poor quality:

They appear to be chowing down on the flying insects (not ants) that are infesting our potted plants on our porch. That [...]

Coincidentally appropriate for the day, while North Korea was testing their new nuclear toys, Better Half and I were exploring Alcoa’s own “Millennium Manor“. Les Jones has probably the best collection of news [...]

Since I have the joy of having today off, I thought I would introduce you all to the weather that prevented me from going to the range last Saturday:

And now for something not normally covered on this weblog… camera porn:

I am a sucker for taking pictures of old buildings, especially ones that have started succumbing to entropy, whether it is due to abandonment, of simply the ravages of copious temporal displacement. One such structure I have had the [...]

The copious amounts of rain we received this morning, in conjunction with a conversation on IRC, reminded me a bit of how my car looked after Katrina had its way with it… For clarity’s sake, this is what a [...]

Some old pictures I took on a drive through the Blue Ridge a few years back:

While I have never really lived anywhere where this particular epiphytic plant was prevalent, I have always considered “spanish moss” to be rather photogenic. A trip Better Half and I took a while back afforded me the [...]

By way of a break from the doom and gloom that seems to be permeating our society these days, I give you some new flowers that just bloomed on our back porch:

All of the following pictures were taken at or in the Al-Fateh Grand Mosque in the Kingdom of Bahrain. This mosque ranks as one of the largest in the world, and is capable of accomodating [...]

How is it that I am just now finding out about high-dynamic-range photography?
My new (“new” as in “five years old, and graciously given to me by my father he purchased a screaming DSLR and my cruddy [...]

While Better Half and I never actually went in the park, these pictures were taken around the Great Smokey Mountains:

For those interested, below is how those black and white pictures from earlier turned out.

One of the more random things we snagged on our short foray into the Church of Commercialism on Black Friday was a couple 12-place fames from WallyWorld, holding 4 3.5″x3.5″ (random-assed size, that), 8 4″x6″, and one 5″x7″ [...]

Well, reminding myself of DoGA reminded me to reinstall it on this new computer of mine, which prompted me to test out its rendering capabilities. Considering that it can render a 1600×1200 image sprouting far too many [...]

I promise there is a turkey underneath all of that bacon. See?

See you all when the tryptophan wears [...]

While I do have a tendency for preferring black-and-white photography, there are still uses for colors, and one of those uses would definitely be sunsets:

Yes, I like monochromatic pictures, deal with it.

There is something comforting about a having a little fire in your abode, especially when you learn the outside temperatures are supposed to get down to [...]

Well, this drop in gas prices will certainly help me fund the construction of B.O.M.B.E.R., though I feel certain that the Second Coming will save me from both of those [...]

One of the more random things I collect (aside from firearms, books, nutcrackers, and movies) is shotglasses – they are small, easily portable, and relatively easy to come by in just about any corner of the world. Thankfully, Better [...]

So, apparently, way back in the day, all American-made furniture was made in the vicinity of Hickory and High Point North Carolina, and the towns around them. These days, those same companies that used to [...]

One of the byproducts of our most-recent move is that Better Half and I have realized just how little we have in the way of furniture. Two dressers, a bed, two futons, an arm chair, a desk, a desk [...]

So if I was not at the gunblogging event of… at least the year, then where was I? Well, Better Half and I took something of a short vacation up in the hills of Western North Carolina with her [...]

So, I have to admit, those stupid little five-dollar tool kits from WalMart make all the difference in the world. As a child, I was only able to make use of the tools, knives, and implements I could scrounge [...]

So I do not actually have any pictures of the flames, but what I do have are some semi-decent pictures of the smoke:

You gotta love new toys.  More on it later.  [...]

I have a new tripod…  can you tell?  [...]

… for living almost a year and a half in this apartment, I admit, but behold, the wines of Linoge’s abode: 

Though, despite their low number, or perhaps due to it, they do fit rather conveniently on [...]

… so to speak.  I finally got up off my lazy ass and took a short walking tour of the city in which I am currently residing…  just as well, considering that I will be moving out of it in [...]

One of the few (only?) advantages of living in northern coastal Florida is the easy access to a plethora of different beaches, be they straight on the ocean, on brackish inlets, or on full-blown marshes.  There is absolutely no shortage [...]