Tagged with spring …

Mar 06 2009
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Journal, Photography

Middle of the Road and the Yellow Line :: Friday Feet

Double Yellow Line on Road

Double Yellow Line on Road

Double Yellow Line on Road

Double Yellow Line on Road

Double Yellow Line on Road

On a side note, we will be at the Ole Auburn Ale House (who is in serious need of a new website, sorry) in Auburn tonight to listen to Rob and Jen with Martha’s Trouble, if you are in the area stop in and say hi.

This turned out to be one of the nicest days in months with a beautiful 75° sunshine with nice puffy white cumulus clouds and a soft breeze.  I must read hundreds of blogs each week and hardly ever read them talking about the weather.  Makes me wonder if I should just skip that as not relevant material to my blog or wonder if no one can take the time any more to appreciate a beautiful day… either way, it was gorgeous outside today.  Being that today was Friday and was a great day to be outside, I ended up doing one of my more bazaar photos shoot requests I have had lately.  More of a stock photo / image request, but the request was for “road” shots.  It did end up being a good exercise in depth of field, and it’s always a good day when I can get out and do some photography.

Double yellow line photos and pics with some shots that could be turned into a brush or two in Photoshop.  Not a bad idea.  I looked at many of the Google images available on double yellow line photos and none were from around here and if you are looking to be middle of the road in the south, there were not many options.  Now there are a few more.

It is really hard to get creative with a double yellow line and make it look good but I gave it a go and today I choose a few different middle of the road pics for Friday Feet.  I am sure there is some to the “middle of the road” on this but I’ll use it down the road.  Which feet shot do you like the best?  Yes, they were both taken by me, unassisted.

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Mar 01 2009
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Journal

Rare March Snowstorm in Auburn 2009

Deborah watching the snow

A rare snowstorm hit the state of Alabama this weekend.  It was 3,319 days since any measurable snow was recorded at the Birmingham airport and today they reported 2 inches of snow.  That said, we are two hours southeast of Birmingham so I am sure it has been even longer down here.  It was quite a storm and it snowed almost all day today until the sun went down.  It is supposed to get into the mid-20′s tonight so all that snow is going to freeze and should stick around at least until tomorrow.

I took these images today on my way to Cornerstone and some here at the house once I got home.  No telling when the next heavy snowfall will come down to Auburn so I tried to take as many photos and video as I could.  The one unique shot here is of our tree swing.  This will make just about every weather season we could get from the same angle.  I now have Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, snow, rain, and several others which I will post all together.  You can see all the photos from the snow storm on my flickr account here or go right to the March 2009 Snowstorm gallery.

Flower in the snow

Heavy Snow on the Trees

Tree swing in the snow

Stop Sign in the Snow

Deborah and Ebby in the Snow

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Sep 08 2008
3 Comments
Journal, Photography

Hand Feeding a Ruby Throat Hummingbird :: Photos

Photos of a Ruby Throat Hummingbird in Flight

Photos of a Ruby Throat Hummingbird in Flight

Did I mention we have some crazy, very aggressive eating Ruby Throat Hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris) here at the house? These little guys are not in the least bit shy, and will act more like a hungry dog if you let their food run dry.  These images were taken as Deborah was trying to put their food back on the window.  A family of about 10 Ruby Throat Hummingbirds live in our yard, I think there are probably 10 more or so that live in the close surrounding area, and when you go out to change their food, they dive bomb you.

This female Ruby Throat Hummingbird finally sat down for a meal, and stayed a while.  Usually she is fighting with the males for a seat, and this time, she decided to be bold and take a seat to eat with Deborah.  The males didn’t seems to interested in chasing her off, but not happy she was the only one eating. She sat, alone, on this feeder while Deborah held it in her hand for about five minutes without getting up (all while flock of other hummingbirds buzzed around her head trying to figure out how to also take a seat at the table).  I have found over time, birds will get to know you, and trust you.  I have also had small wild birds eat out of my hand like the common gray finch, but this was the first time with a hummingbird.

I did upload a few more images of this shoot in the nature > small small creatures gallery.  One in particular is a wider angle shot that shows my wife and her holding the feeder, not just her hand.  We have had hummingbirds at this house since we moved in and each year they come back to the same window letting us know they have arrived.  They seem to have a great memory (even from year to year) and will return to the same location, feeder or no feeder.

Do you have any crazy hummingbirds at your house?  The season is almost over for them here in Alabama and soon they will be off to their winter home in Mexico, Central and South America and the West Indies.  If you want to see them next Spring, just put out a feeder and they will find it.

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Apr 15 2008
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Journal, Photography

Yet Another Cold Day in April on Tax Day

Red Flower with Spider

This weather for down here is just crazy. It was almost below freezing this morning and we had frost on the roof. It is mid-April, time for the upper 70′s to come back.

Another Cold Day in April

Today is tax day, and yes, I did my taxes today. I usually don’t wait this long to do our taxes but we were in Dallas for quite a while with DK’s mom in the hospital and I never got around to finishing them up and sending them to the good old IRS. They are now finished and filed.

A New Day, A New Image

I unpacked and installed the new scanner today. I don’t have much time to start scanning in all the slides and photos but I did do a preliminary scan of a slide I had sitting in my bookshelf. The results are not bad at all and I am pretty happy with the whole installation and setup process for this Epson.

This photo was taken August 4th 1997 in Birmingham. The scan was from an original slide and then minor adjustments in photoshop. Not bad, can’t wait to scan in all the multitudes of others. I am going to try to do an image of the day post a few times a week with images like these from my stock. We will see how many I can keep up with. I did start transferring all the digital images I had moved over to DVD to the new 1tb HDD. This will take a while as I have over 100 full DVD discs full of RAW NEF files and edited jpg’s.

The Changing View

The property directly across from our house is being logged and left to what looks like a stump filled waste land. They will come in and replant, but I have watched them today as they pull up 50-75 foot trees, 10 at a time and lay them on their side for the trucks to come pick them up. The view was pristine. Should be that way again in 30-40 years or so.

Orders and Dinner

We took in all our orders for the past week, probably about 100 book orders in total and went to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants here in town. The number of boxes we had to pick up today from our book supplier was unbelievable. We filled the entire trailer with books. We have now received about 10,000 plus books in the last few days. Tomorrow I will have a full trailer of boxes of book to unload. I did not get a chance to do my daily walking today since we drove into town, hopefully it will be a little warmer tomorrow and I can put in a few extra miles.

Dinner was nice. First time we had been back to Loco’s since we had to leave for Dallas. This restaurants is usually populated with college kids since it has probably the cheapest drinks in town, but it is always lively and fun. The college kids always have a great energy about them. I managed to get a few blog posts in and some guitar practice as well. My first official lesson will be next Tuesday although I have had a sudo lesson via DK before we left. Tomorrow we finally get a day or two to work at home. The weather should be getting warmer as the week goes by.

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Mar 28 2008
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Photography

The Reddest Red Found in a Flower Bloom

Red Flower with Spider

Some images just jump out at me when I see them in nature, this one I loved because of its deep color. This will be posted as my first image of the day on this blog.  I love contrasting colors in nature and two of the best (in my opinion) is when you can find red and green together.  Luckily in nature, you can usually find green, so if you do find red, green is not far behind.  This flower was taken at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens in Birmingham Alabama.

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