Dreaming of a White (Hallo)Weenie

This is an iPhone view of Morgantown this morning at 8:00 from the 5th floor of One Waterfront Place.  Surprisingly for me, there seems to be less snow in this view than if I'd shot a little bit more to the right.  Here, the roads look clear, whereas the South Park area to the right has slushy snow covering the roads.  It is slippery.  County schools are closed, but the University remains open for business.

My Forte

Prickett's Fort again.  The window in the center of this log cabin/smithy was featured in the previous posting.

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.