The candle holder lady

This our candle holder lady. I had gotten her from the dollar shop a couple of years back. Since then she has been standing on our mantle with her bouquet of flowers. Pretty isn't she? She has been lit may be twice since we had her. She surely looks pretty when lit up!

Guest in our bathroom

We had a guest in our bathroom the other night. I was ready to take a shower and find this guy on the bathroom sink. He was bright green in color. I really wanted to take his pic at that time but I was all undressed and the camera was in the other room.

By the time I was done with my shower and had grabbed my camera, he had changed colors! The guest you see in the pic looked bright green in color may be 15 minutes before I took this pic of him!

My wifey is way too scared of anything that crawls or moves or flies that is not human or machine (I think I covered all the exceptions to her scare list). Hence, after I dressed up, my first task was to take this guest out but I did not feel like killing it....afterall he was the subject of my photograph. So, I took a inverted plastic cup and a paper plate to scope him in the cup and let him go out in the lawn. He seemed kinda slow though....probably was his hibernation period?

Muhuhuahahaa...Dirty laundry is haunting me!

The basket full of clothes to be washed was lying on the table waiting for me to pickup and put in the washer. Snapped this pic while zooming our the lens to give the effect of..of...umm.....the basket actually haunting me in my dreams...."Come....Wash me.....now"

On that topic, I find that ad about the GE Washer Dryer very irritating "6 Months of laundry can be a scary thing" In this ad there is this huge ball of laundry chasing the family around and then finally the washer comes to the rescue. The biggest selling point they focus on is that the washer comes with a reservoir that can hold up to 6 months of laundry detergent!!

Big deal, if pouring the detergent was the suckiest part of doing laundry, I would have been washing clothes all day!!!!

My attempt at HDR imaging

This is also at the park...just a grill. Took two exposures, one at f/22 for 1/140s and the other at f/22 at 1/10 sec. Both at ISO 400, 18-55 at 18mm. Then used HDR editing software to blend the two together. Looks kinda surreal, doesn't it?

Phillipe Park

I was at the corner of this road to the right taking my pics of the rising sun. Looking at this pic, it shows how beautiful the eary morning light really is. If I take the same pic around 60 mins later, it will look bleh but this one, I really like. It actually looks like early morning (it might pass as a late evening too)

(18-55 at 55mm, f/22, 1/3s, ISO 100)

And here's the same one in portrait. In this case I like this one better than the landscape. It seems to visualize the beautiful morning sky a lot better than the landscape version. Thoughts?

(18-55 at 55mm, f/22, 1/30s, ISO 100)

Portrait v/s Landscape - part 2

Same day, slightly different location, around 30 mins after sunrise. Here's a pic in landscape....
(18-55 at 55mm, f/22, 1/20s, ISO 100)

Oooh how I wish I was in the boat instead of that guy in the left! This boat was circling around the bay that morning. If they were on the job I would like to have that job...especially if it pays well!!

(55-200 at 200mm, f/29, 1/60s, ISO 400)

Same view but a different perspective. I'm not sure which one I like better. Most of the landscape pics I have seen have been in well...umm... landscape orientation however this and other pics I took on this morning seemed to look very good in portraits too.

(18-55 at 55mm, f/22, 1/13s, ISO 100)

Here is the original version of the pic.

It was a very beautiful view of the sunrise. The weather was also very lovely. These days are the best days to be in Florida. If you ever decide to visit Florida, do so between November and February (or March).

We have a few chilly days when the temperatures do stay in the 35 - 45 range but other days its in the 50 to 70 range all through these months. I think this day it was around 55 in the morning. I was out there in my shorts and wished I had worn my trousers instead.

(18-55 at 18mm, f/22, 1/13s, ISO 100)

The dawn of a new year....

The morning of January 1st 2009. I was up almost all night on the 31st so I decided to make the most out of it and head out for some early morning photo shoots. It wasn't all that early a morning but then these days the sun rises at around 7:30'ish. I left home almost around 7:00 AM.

I headed out to go to Phillipe Park in Safety Harbor, FL. This park is about 6 miles from home. I don't know why I don't come here more often. I have come here for a couple of birthday parties but both of them have been in shelters that are away from the water. Once I've been here just to hang around but it was a chilly day and we did not stay around long enough to enjoy the views.

It's a beautiful little park with lots of walking and jogging trails and some beautiful views of the upper Tampa Bay. I've heard that you can also see manatees swimming it the bay if you are here at the right time.

About the pic - It has been cropped a lot to highlight the sunrise. I'll post the original pic in the subsequent posts. I think this was my first ever sunrise photo shoot. I have not been a morning person in the past however since the past 4-5 months, I have been up by 6:00 AM almost every weekend.