it’s something…

Firetrucks are cool. Not sure why, they just are. I guess it is one of those inherent guy things.

And this one is called “Big Job”….HA! Big job, that is just too fucking funny.

So…if you leave a wooden boat at the bottom of a lake for a bunch of years, it does something neat to the wood. Especially when you toss in a rusty nail.

Sometimes a picture manages to tell the perfect story or send just the right message. I think this picture from my “backyard” is without a doubt one of those pictures.

I hope that you have all had a wonderful Christmas.

And to think I almost posted a picture of my new printer…

I was going to write a whole bunch of stuff tonight, but I think I just heard someone walking around on my roof…

Oh yeah this is hanging on one of the trees at Wilderness Lodge.

*edit: Here is another ornament from the lodge… click me.

I don’t think I need to say too much about this picture, except that it would have been a whole lot fucking easier to get this picture if we hadn’t got there 10 minutes before the fireworks started. So because all the good spots to get a shot of the castle are also good spots to see the fireworks it was a pain in the ass to get a shot that didn’t include someone’s head. I might try going over again later in the week, but since this is traditionally about the busiest week of the year for the parks…maybe not.

I have always liked taking landscape and nature type pics. If you have the right lighting these shots are generally not that difficult. See mother nature did all the hard work already, so all you have to do is point the camera and push the button…sort of. The big issue with nature and landscape is the light. The most dramatic light is early morning or late evening. So that only leaves a few hours a day to get the “great” shots. Sure you can get them at other times, but most of the great landscapes you have seen were probably taken during these “magic” hours.

Anyway I want to take pictures not sit around all day waiting for dusk, so I take pictures. I think having this camera has really helped open up my eyes. Or maybe I always “saw” some of these thing but didn’t like wasting film playing around. Now I can take the shot and look at it on the screen and know if it is “working”. And now that I am getting a good handle on the processing side, I can even see beyond what shows up on the screen. Like this picture…it looked a bit flat on the on the LCD, but I knew that there was more in there somewhere.

So what I think I am saying is that I actually like taking pictures of…stuff.

Every year we go over to one of the Disney hotels to see the Christmas decorations, and I have tried in the past to get a shot of some decoration like an ornament on the tree, but didn’t like the way the shot looked using the flash. With my old camera there was really no hope of getting the flashless shot without using a tripod. We are planning to head over to Wilderness Lodge on Sunday for dinner so I wanted to practice a hand held shot of the tree.

I am going to assume that most of you have bought film at some point in the past. So you prolly know that the film comes in “200″, “400″, “800″ and so on, but aside from the box saying “use for daylight” or “use for indoor” you don’t really know what the numbers mean. I say this because even though I kind of knew, I never really got it until I started getting serious about digital. The number, called the ISO, indicates how sensitive the film is to light. In other words the higher the number the less light that is needed to record the image on the film. So when they made the move to digital they carried over the concept of the ISO. The neat thing about digital is that you can actually change the ISO anytime you want, unlike film where you had to run out the roll before you could change to more sensitive film. So if you want to shoot in low light you can crank up the ISO. The trade off, which is actually the same with film, you tend to get more “noise” in the picture. This basiclly means the picture is more grainy…see the tiny little dots where some detail is missing….yeah that.

The thing is I would much rather have that bit of noise than the washed out look from the flash.

I have been thinking for a while now that a compact fluorescent light bulb would make an interesting picture, but I wasn’t sure that it would come out right. Today I saw a picture of a CF bulb and it did look cool. So I had to go ahead and try it for myself.

Turns out it was a real big pain in the ass. I had to turn on the bulb, point the camera at the bulb and mash the button. OK, I am over simplifying it a bit, because I did have to adjust the exposure to “dial it in” a bit.

Yes there is dust on the bulb…I clean it up some, but I got bored with trying to make it perfectly clean. I guess I could have just opened up a new bulb.

OH yeah…and my eyes are still wonky from staring at a light bulb.

Here is something I grabbed on the way home from work today.

We have a little three foot Christmas tree sitting on our mantle and being that we are just one week from the big day I figured it was time for me to get into the spirit a bit. So I am taking shots of the tree and realize it was just too boring for me.

So I changed things up a bit…

You are correct there are no ornamentals on this tree…just the lights. The big tree has the ornamentals…oh and the the kid has a tiny tree with tiny Harry Potters or something.