The man in the bow tie caught my eye more than anything else. I didn’t see the reflections above the books until I had him in the frame.

livrets de banque gauches

Since the last post was really to honor a request, I’ve decided to post the picture I’d already selected for “past photo” posting today. This way, I’ll still have to think about digging into the older photos tomorrow.

Yasaka Shrine, Gion in Kyoto. I stretched out on my back in the dirt to get this shot and apparently attracted the attention of some high school boys. Just after taking this picture, they decided I’d spend part of the afternoon speaking English with them while they gave me a personalized tour of the shrine. We had a blast – gave them my card in hopes they’d email, but never did hear from them again. Not yet anyway….

fortunes

Not a “daily photo” post, this is a requested photo from the past. Thanks for the suggestion Mike M. – who asked to see pictures of whales from Africa.

There’s actually a sad tale to go with this shot. My laptop drive died on the way home from this trip. Last backup? Before I left home of course… I lost every photo I took on that trip save a few down-sampled JPGs posted to a server while still in South Africa. Sad tale, but lesson learned. I now travel with a tiny USB powered backup drive – and use it.

This was taken perched on a guard-rail along Chapman’s Peak Drive south of Cape Town. I’m only vaguely familiar with the whale route around the southern tip of Africa, but was captivated watching these huge, graceful animals.

southern whales

Today looks promising for pictures – a little overcast, but fresh falling snow and ice. I’ll head out for some shots after work today and see what I can find. Maybe down by the river…

This morning’s blast from the past was one of those shots where I was walking past – saw something – took a quick photo, and then had to run catch up with my nieces as we were playing in and around Edinburgh Castle. Was so beautiful on top of the castle… would’ve given my eye-teeth for my tripod and a little more time.

spires

Canon Rebel XT
Can’t remember the rest…

Nice to know folks are looking at the site; thanks for the emails! A few folks have suggested posting two photos a day – one I take today, and one from my past files. I like that idea; we’ll see how this goes for a while.

I shot this through the clock on the top of Musée d’Orsay back in October.

d’Orsay

Perhaps one of my challenges with this blog will be to limit myself to one photo a day when the weather doesn’t allow me to take pictures. I’ll try to be good, but posting pics in the rain has me flipping through old shots and I wanted to post just one more. Friends, meet my ego.

Sometimes we only get one shot to make it work. This photo was taken with my old, much beloved Pentax K-1000 (best manual SLR ever made!) using Fujichrome Velvia RVP 50 Color Slide Film in a market just outside of Kumasi, Ghana. With such a slow film, I sometimes struggle with the light, but when it’s right the shot is so often worth the effort. And I still love to shoot with the K-1000.

These girls were playing in an unoccupied booth and I didn’t notice the look from their mother (out of focus behind and to the right) until after I developed the slides.

Slides were scanned with a Nikon Coolscan 4000 at 600 dpi, 24 bit and reduced to JPEG for posting.

Market Girls

Pentax K-1000
50mm
Fujichrome Velvia RVP 50 Color Slide
Other settings forgotten….

see more Ghana photos

It’s raining and overcast today, so I’m going to post a picture from my files. This was taken in Sydney over Christmas while visiting my brother, sister-in-law, and new niece.

I’ll admit, I took somewhere the other side of 8 gajillion pictures of this bridge while in Sydney, but this is one of my favorites. Everybody takes this picture – because you simply can’t not take this picture. It screams for a photo.

I didn’t write down the camera info. I know…. I’ll do better.

Fingerpainting

Canon Rebel XT
Tripod mounted
Maybe 4 sec exposure? I forget…

more Sydney at night