Memoirs of Fall

Ok, just one memoir. This is not my favorite picture, composition-wise, but I needed the practice. I messed around with different settings tonight.

Original

All the yellow sucked out. Interesting.

Pushing the envelope further...Almost all color sucked out.

Even more harsh here...I left just a touch of color in.

Looks kinda morbid, no? This reminds me of the recent Sleepy Hollow or The Brothers Grimm movies.

What do ya'all think? Any favorites?

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I haz Interweb

Woot! Roommate patiently put up with Verizon for two-plus hours to get it fixed. I don't know what the problem was - haven't gotten all of the details. But it was definitely an issue on their end. I admit, I'm pretty relieved. Although I ran tests and was confident that it wasn't my computer, I still had lingering doubts. And fretted a wee bit over how much it'd cost to fix my computer's innards. Got my mom's worrying genes, it seems.

Now I can get back to jobhunting and prowling the web! And of course posting pictures.

Original

Not too bad, but I feel like I have a gauze over my eyes when I look at this picture, especially when comparing with the following ones.

"Lomo" effect

I like, but it's a bit bright over to the right. My eyes keep drifting over there, which isn't necessarily good - the focus should be on the fallen tree. I'm going to try darkening the leaves a touch later. It could use a bit cropping along the top as well.

I forget what effect was used here.

I have mixed feelings on this one. On one hand, the picture is more balanced overall and more true to the original. And it's got a sort of vintagey, faraway almost faerie-like feel. But on the other, it's not as exciting/interesting as the lomo one above.

What do you folks think?

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Lazy Saturday Afternoon

It was plain gorgeous out today, so I decided to go check out a small park nearby. We staked out a spot in the park and just hung out there for a few hours. It's rare that I take Apollo somewhere to just relax, so he wasn't sure what to do.

They say the eyes are the windows to your soul. Can you see mine?

As mentioned, Apollo wasn't sure what to do
...so he barked at...nothing.

Gorgeous clouds

Sun makes an appearance.

Surveying his domain.

Udda udda! Apollo shakes his head.

Surveying his domain some more.

More to come later.

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I Truen!

It's after midnight...but in about 20 minutes (as of this post), it'll be midnight again.

I'm pretty exhausted. I finally made it out to Shenandoah park today. I almost talked myself out of going, which is pretty easy when I have no one else coming along. It's harder for me to say, "I don't feel like it" to someone else. So, this morning, I overslept. Then made an excuse after an excuse. "I'm too tired." "It looks like rain." Blah blah. Lameness.

When the clouds cleared up, and blue skies broke through, I knew I had no excuses. And that if I didn't go, I'd regret it. It was a bit late in the day though (around noon), so I didn't get to hike much.

For those of you who don't know Shenandoah park, it's quite possibly one of the largest parks in this area. I drove about...Oh, I think, a little over three hours, and only just made it to the midpoint. Basically, it's this mountain ridge that stretches for about 50 miles, and is about, what, 10-15 miles wide (although other parks butt Shen's borders). There are about two dozen different trails and about a hundred different-yet-same scenic vistas parking lots.

Since I got a late start, most of my photos are of those "scenic vistas", but as I'm finding, as I browse through the pictures, they're not very interesting. And for some reason, they always seem blueish. I'm not sure why...I remember seeing same with my point and shoot digital camera when I went out there last year. Smog, humidity, pollution?

I'll load more onto flickr later, right now I'm too pooped to look at them closely. In the meanwhile, here are a couple teasers that I do like.

Closeup of some leaves.

Not a stellar view, but the bird gives it some perspective, which makes the vastness of this view a little easier to take in. If you can, try clicking on the picture to view a larger version.

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Stalled

This blog has temporarily stalled, partly due to long work hours and a writer's block. I need to think of more topics to write about. And take more pictures, which is proving difficult when it gets dark so early after work.

To tide you over, here are a few old pictures that I have on my flash drive..

Find the interloper!

Poor picture (I had just gotten the camera), but still cool.

A September storm over DC.

Somewhere over northern Florida (taken with a disposable camera on the plane)

Actually, this picture is fairly recent.
Apollo is lazy...or smart? He lays down when he's playing tug with me.

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