Sunset

I went to Hawaii for work a few weeks ago, and finally got them downloaded from my camera.  I must say I'm disappointed in myself that I wasn't able to take any better pictures, but I suppose I was there for work, and didn't make an effort to get out and concentrate and making images.  (I did get plenty of opportunity to get out and spear fishing with my buddy Chris, well, I went diving, er floating, Chris went spear fishing....)

I wasn't patient enough with the light, and got only a few pictures that I liked....Of course, I left Hawaii, and went on to Asia, where I didn't even take one picture, so I suppose I did much better in Hawaii...

Bench by Wakiki beach

Sunset and one last surfer

This makes me so sad to see this kind of thing.  To think that a few months ago, a few of my work buddies took a walk down to see the Gate one night.  It really was odd, in that you could walk right up to the gate, at 11pm at night.  It was more an open park, no fences or anything.  Just a giant traffic circle around the outside, and a few tourists.  I took a few good pictures (I wasn't carrying my camera, so while they went 'juicy', I walked back to get my camera and a few pictures.)  That was the end of our trip (I was going home that day) and we had just came over from Pyongtaek-City --- 50 some miles, but 3-4 hours in Asian traffic.   I really didn't want to go out and see anything, but now I am glad I did.

SEOUL, South Korea — The destruction in a fire of the 600-year-old southern gate to what was once the walled city of Seoul, a landmark that survived foreign invasions and wars to be designated South Korea’s top national treasure, has shocked the nation.

A 69-year-old man suspected of setting the fire was arrested Monday night on Kanghwa Island, west of Seoul, The Associated Press reported the police as saying. The man was identified only by his family name, Chae.

South Korean Gate Destroyed in Fire - New York Times

Here are a few pictures I got that night in October

I was trying to find an old photograph, and I found this one last night.  I took this when we went out to visit Carol in San Diego in April 2006.  Carol had so much fun with Libby and Jasmine.   This was taken on the beach on Coronado and Jasmine was still very afraid of the water.  Jasmine would only look at the ocean if Carol held her (look how Jazzy looks!)  Libby had no such fears and ran right into the surf.

Carol Anne Eick, July 9, 1955 - November 27, 2006

I miss you so much.

I've been using this program for a few months now in beta and it's working out pretty well.  I have thousands of images that I have scattered around, and Lightroom has done a decent job of trying to tag and manage them.  Although it says for the professional photographer, I am far from it -- I'm just looking for a digital shoebox to allow me to tag and find my images quickly.  A bit pricey at $299, but for the sale price of $199 (sale ends April 30, 2007)....Now if they just had an SDK so I could write a Flickr plugin... 

New Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom™ software is the professional photographer's essential toolbox, providing one easy application for managing, adjusting, and presenting large volumes of digital photographs so you can spend less time in front of the computer and more time behind the lens.

Source: Adobe - Photoshop Lightroom

Various Photoshop filters applied to the same picture of a blue flower….

I just picked up the Canon S3 IS camera.  When we went to Europe I bought a little Nikon camera for Denise to use, but was really disappointed in the quality of the pictures.  After reading the reviews it seemed the S3 was a nice middle ground between a DSLR and a point-n-shoot.  What I like about it so far is the size — it’s much smaller than my D5, so I find I carry it with me more places.  I’ve never wanted a video camera (I work hard enough to get 1 frame right, I give up at 30 frames a second), but the video mode is fun to take pictures of Jasmine and Libby.

The picture at right I took with the S3, as are all my videos.

All in all this is the perfect camera for the job.  It takes good pictures, and let’s you have full manual control.  What I don’t like about the camera are the view finder (When zooming, I still have trouble ‘controlling’ where I am looking.  (Possibly because I’m used to ‘turning to zoom”?)  My thinking is that because the view finder is just a monitor, it doesn’t refresh as cleanly.  I get around the problem by just using the ‘flip out monitor’ on the back of the camera.

The nikon is now Jasmine’s camera, and I’m sure it’s good enough to take pictures of her thumb.