Conservatory at Night

As I was driving by the Franklin Park Conservatory after work one night, I noticed that the Palm house was lit by bright lights and thought to myself, "I need to get a shot of that". I drove by the following week and had forgotten my camera but noticed the building was a different color.... Now I had to get a shot. This week I remembered my camera and tripod and took the following shots. The colors cycled every 10 minutes and went from purple to red to the green and red in this shot.

The last shot is of some stainless steel art in the garden courtyard that looked really cool in the light and turned out well for my first night shots.

Our local Ritz camera is going out of business and is having a clearance sale. I purchased a new Mono-pod that has a section of legs that convert to make it a tri-pod... I know, what's the point of a mono-pod if it is actually a tri-pod? It takes up a lot less room in crowded areas and has a magnet lock for the mount. I love it!

Sunday Stills Barn Challenge

My Sunday stills posting this week was a real treat. We didn't have to drive far to find several good spots to take photos. I had my girls in tow, my wife Andrea with her camera, my 12 yr old and my 3 yr old.

We found a few good spots but I knew that I had seen a really good one on my way back from a show not to long ago. Andrea and I got some similar shots but with different cameras and eyes for composition. We posted the same shot...

I haven't used Photoshop much (I have CS3) and decided to convert a couple to black & white. I posted one of my favorites here.

Not bad for "city folk" ... Okay, not real city folk... I lived on a mountain farm in Southwestern WV for a couple of years.

I enjoyed my time on the farm and learned a ton. We live on the edge of the Columbus City limits or the "burbs" as my friends call it so we aren't real far from the "country".

I am looking forward to the next challenge.

what a week!

I started my week on a bad note. I went to use my Canon 1:4 70-210 Macro Zoom EF lens and noticed it had a small fleck in between the filter and lens. I unscrewed the filter and cleaned the lens and couldn't see anything wrong with the lens. I took a few shots and notices a halo and flares in the LCD after each photo. I pulled the lens and looked closer... I found a small chip in the edge of the lens that was almost undetectable. It was like a small windshield chip would look like and totally ruined the lens. My favorite and oldest. I still have the lens on my shelf and look at it like an old friend... I can't seem to throw it away....sad isn't it... I have had this lens for about 12 years or so and was my main film lens before I bit the bullet and went digital. The beach scene was taken with this lens.

I did get a great deal on a Canon EF 1:4-5.6 lens and use it but still like and miss my old friend...

Here are some photos on my Flickr from our recent zoo trip using the new lens. It seems to work okay...lol

I have always been a big fan (but have a healthy respect) of Reptiles and have a couple of shots of some of my favorites. http://www.flickr.com/photos/carrollbaker/

Enjoy the photos and let me know what you think.

May your Tri-pod always be level...

Sunday Stills - Religion

The new challenge theme this week on Sunday Stills was Religion. I knew that we have a large collection of some of the coolest churches for architecture in the mid-west.

I took my wife Andrea out on a crappy day and struck gold at our first stop. We decided to go to St. Joseph Cathederal in Downtown Columbus. The church was built in 1866 and is the oldest standing church in our fair city.

When we pulled up, we were also right in the middle of a TEA party parade to bring notice that Americans are sick of being taxed to death on of all days... IRS tax deadline, April 15th! I snapped a few shots of the crowd as well.

It was a true blessing to be able to see the church in all of its glory and from what I could tell, the way it has been seen for over 130 years.


Here are more shots from the church.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/carrollbaker/

Wow! How time flies...

I can't beleive that we are at Mid-April already...

The assignment for sunday stills this week was "Red". I was torn between two shots, the first is from a classic car show from August and from a new shot from the Butterfly exhibit at the Conservatory in Columbus, Ohio. so I am posting both.

The dark butterfly wasn't supposed to be in the shot but he flew in last minute....

Sunday Stills

I have recentley subscribed to a group called "Sunday Stills" and each week they provide a challenge to go out and take photos of whatever the challenge is that week. This week it is "animals of Husbandry" like cows , horses etc. I think I did well at getting the right feel for the photo assignment.
Here is the link to my submission for the group.