Moving Day Revisited

As of today this will be my last post at this site. I’ve moved everything over to my main site and integrated the blog into it, so no real need to double post here as well. The address is www.emasterphoto.com, and all updates will show under their respective headings on the main page. Much easier this way for everyone, so come on over.

Movin’ On Up Pt. 2

Just a note that over the next few days, links to my main site will be broken for a while. This is due to an upgrade to integrate my main site and blog into one complete site. It should be really sweet when it’s finished, so apologies now for the inconvenience until it’s done.

Jackie O’

Just a few shots with some Halloween spirit for you from my archives. Enjoy!

Pittsburgh Today

Very quick post tonight. Had two shots published on the homepage of the Pittsburgh Today website. Pittsburgh Today is a non-profit project that measures the progress of the region compared to its surrounding areas. One of the shots was from the demolition derby at the Lawrence County Fair this past August, and the other was from the Fort Ligonier Days event a week or two back. Always feels good to see my work presented outside of my own usage. Here’s some screen caps from the site:

Backcatalog

Just spent a little time playing catch-up on my backcatalog of recent photos. Had some from the first or second time we went to Mill Creek Park a month or so back, and out of those, these three caught my eye:

This first one is a downstream shot from Lanterman Falls, taken from the deck at the mill. That bridge is so much more impressive looking from below. When you drive over it normally, you almost can’t even tell there’s anything significant below worth looking at — it just looks like an overpass in a normal residential neighborhood.

Next is a Monarch butterfly I found resting at the Fellows Riverside Gardens near the northern-most tip of the park.

And for last, this really cool scarified tree trunk also found at the Fellows Riverside Gardens. Interesting thing about it is, aside from the whole trunk being covered in grafitti, you’d never know it was even there unless you looked for it as the tree’s branches form a complete canopy over it, kinda like a weeping willow tree, and you have to go inside to see it. Very cool I think.

I’m So Blue . . .

This is just a quicky for the evening. Had some time to kill yesterday with the family, so went out to the local park so the YardApe could burn off some energy stored up from nearly a week of rainy days. Took a camera with just in case as the weather was beautiful, though chilly. Didn’t get much really aside from family snaps, but this caught my eye and I like the way it turned out, especially the color:

Also, got a chance to repost my “Free Wallpaper!” gallery up again, though this time it’s on Flickr. I lost it a short while ago when I switched website hosts, but now it’s back and free for you to browse and download wallpapers from. Click here to get to the gallery, hope you find something you like there.

Speaking of wallpapers, this is the latest — just finished yesterday. It was a shot of some clouds I noticed out our front window one day, with a bit of magic tossed in to give it a mood I felt was appropriate. Download it from the gallery in the link above.

まだ Mill Creek

“まだ Mill Creek” — Mill Creek Again. Yup, like I posted yesterday, we went to Mill Creek Park in OH again to check out the fall colors. Unfortunately, we were a bit early, so the leaves and trees still had a fair amount of green on them. Just the same, got some nice shots of Lanterman’s Mill and Falls, the nearby covered bridge, and the nature path behind the Ford Nature Center. Got a lot of exercise too, which is never a bad thing. Here’s my faves from the day:

This last one I’m posting just because it’s interesting, but not art or anything. What is it? Well, it’s essentially rust. In this area, the rocks that make up the landscape have a high concentration of iron in them that runs in veins. Water enters the rocks through cracks and the like, hits those veins of iron, causes them to rust, and then the water leaches out through cracks like in the picture, bringing the rust with it and the brilliant orange color too. Long ago, Native Americans apparently used this rust as paint for their bodies and other items, so it was a fairly important and useful phenomena.

Fort Ligonier Days ‘09

Went with the family today to the Fort Ligonier Days festival/reenactment in Ligonier, PA. Fort Ligonier is an accurately re-created copy of a historic fort from the French and Indian War period of American history (www.fortligonier.org). The event is a yearly item and features a battle reenactment and artillery demonstration, plus the whole town has a festival going on as well with food, bands, a parade, antique farm equipment show, crafts, etc. It’s really a nice way to spend a fall day and we enjoyed ourselves very much. Of course, I took the D3 to get some shots of the action, but unfortunately we got a bit lost on the way to the fort, so I couldn’t get in a position in time to get clean shots of the battle, and didn’t want to muscle my way in front of the others who did luck out. Still, I did get a few that I liked, though mostly taken after the battle just walking around the grounds of the fort. Here they are for your pleasure:

Also took this picture of some historic tombstones found in a small cemetary on the way to the fort. The large stone is dated 1873, and I really like the composition and color contrast between the stones and the fall colors of the tree behind them.

That’s it for today. Tomorrow we’re planning on going to Mill Creek Park in OH again to wander around and enjoy the fall colors, plus get pictures of course!

Lately . . .

Hmmm . . . been a while hasn’t it? Unfortunately, I don’t have any new images to post at this time for you, but it’s not for lack of working. I did just shoot a company party last week, but since it was a private event, I can’t post anything from it to show you. I did have a good time shooting it though, because I’ve always liked the freedom that comes with these kind of events. Going with the flow can be great fun, and showing people enjoying themselves is very satisfying. It’s also a good feeling to hear people’s excitement when seeing the finished pics as they get a chance to re-live the event to some extent. Hopefully, I’ll get more of these in the future.

In other news, recently got a new laptop — a Dell Studio 1555 15.6″ widescreen. Nice little machine, but I realized again just how much Windows is a PIA to deal with. It’s not that it’s difficult to use, but it’s just a bit of a hassle to set up, and after 10 years being exclusively Mac, I find that my patience for dealing with it runs thin a lot quicker. FWIW, I was a support tech for a major ISP in the not too distant past, so it’s not like I can’t get my head around working w/ a PC, I just prefer not to anymore. Complaining? No, just an observation. And why did I buy a PC? No free cash to cover a MacBook Pro at this time and I needed something now. Plus, I’m looking into hackintoshing it in the near future, so Windows may be just a small bump in a very long life of laptop usefulness otherwise.

So that’s it for now. Coming soon may be some images from my back catalog I’m revisiting. Also, still have stuff on my editing backlog as well I hope to get to. When I do, of course I’ll post them here.

Mill Creek Redeaux

Feels like Hollywood around here lately with all the re-makes I’ve been doing. This time I went back with the family to Mill Creek Park in Youngstown, OH again yesterday. We’ve had a fair bit of free-time on our hands lately and getting out to the park is a nice way to spend the last days of Summer. In case you’re wondering, it’s a BIG park, so going there often is still fun as there’s always things to see and do it seems. As promised earlier, I took the D3 and re-shot the one location I took with my phone and posted earlier. Pics came out grand, and aside from the MUCH improved clarity, the cell phone pics still hold up quite well when viewed at a small size. Anyhooooo, here’s the redone shot and a few others from the day.

This one’s from the Lily Pond just a few minutes drive away. (And yes the water really is that blue. Not sure why, but that’s not all the sky’s reflection causing the effect.)