Window to the Past

Friday afternoon (yesterday) was a gorgeous sunny day.  I took the last couple of hours off from work as vacation and drove to Prickett's Fort, camera in-hand.

This shot was taken from the front of a log cabin workshop, looking out of the back:

The building below doesn't look like it's from the same period as the rest of the fort reconstruction.  This was shot at my lens' widest angle, but I wish that I had framed it better.  Colors are striking, but the polarizing filter that I was using caused the sky to lighten noticeably in the upper-right of the picture.

Misty Morgantown

Duh!   Duh!

That's the sound of a dense fog horn.

I thought I would get an interesting shot of town from the 7th floor of my building.  At the time, there were just patches of fog with sun shining through.  By the time I actually got up there and set up, however, you could hardly see a thing.  So I shot anyway.

In the center-right, you can see cars on Beechurst Avenue with their headlights on.

Valley Falls State Park

The leaves are starting to turn, and the sun was out on Saturday morning, so I took a photo excursion to Valley Falls State Park, near Fairmont, WV.

I used the slowest shutter speed that I could (1/8 sec) with a polarizing filter.  You really need a neutral density filter to get those stunning water flow shots, however.

I fell in love with the big tree in the upper left of the picture.  Something about it just looked perfect.  Here's a closer crop to show off more of that tree.  Less rapids, but the composition is more pleasing, IMHO.

Here's a view pointing downstream from the rapids, rendered as a landscape oil painting with SnapArt.

Love is a Rose (and you'd better not pick it)

We had our first frost yesterday morning, but it didn't seem to deter this rose that I saw on my evening walk.  I wasn't feeling very creative here; hindsight tells me that I should have shot this from a lower angle.  I also had to filter a bit for color fringe along the left side of the petals.

Our Town

Morgantown after lunch. Just picked up a new lens at the post office, and these are the first shots from it.  Taken without a tripod (joys of image stabilization).  This is two pictures stitched together.

Checking for Pods

I shot these juvenile large milkweed bugs (Oncopeltus fasciatus) on pod a couple of weeks ago, on Sunday, September 23.  Luckily I wasn't also in my pajamas.

They don't look any better close-up, either:

Daily Kos blogged about them too, recently.

Goodbye Bubo

Not my usual macro subject (i.e., flowers).  I took this one to put up on eBay, but I'm happy with the lighting effect on this silver proof coin in a plastic mount.  A small incandescent, low from the side really helped to contrast the mirror finish on the coin.

This Ukrainian 10 hryvnia coin depicts a Eurasian Eagle Owl (Bubo bubo).  It is one out of only 3,000 coins of this denomination minted.

This is probably my good-bye to a coin that I've had for the past ten years.  What I make from its sale will go towards a Canon lens that I now have the hots for.

Update Oct. 17:  can't believe it didn't sell.  There's no accounting for taste, I guess.