Happy Hump Day!

Here's a B&W of this morning's sunrise...

   

Things I like about this image:

1) The composition seems balanced without being static.
2) There is a nice range of values and good value contrast.
3) I think the various large shapes (some man-made and some natural) are pleasing.

What I don't like is how noisy the sky is (maybe not visible in this small version, but very obvious in full size).

I'll work on the color version later today or tomorrow

You folks all have yourselves a nice day or evening.

'Tis morning here on Monday. I caught the end of the eclipse.
   

TGIF friends.

Here's a photo taken in July 2020 and just now completely reprocessed...

   

What pleases me about the shot is that it seems (to me at least) to have a calming, serene mood to it.

I finished my 2025-2026 NFL predictions before yesterday's opening game:

I have Philadelphia beating Detroit for the NFC title and Baltimore over Buffalo for the AFC title.

Then I'm going with Philadelphia to beat Baltimore in the Super Bowl.

But it's a long season, and injuries to key players on any of the top teams could change things dramatically.

Every year, we have a Corn Palace Festival. It used to be a week long, the last week in September. Now it is 4 days in August.
Back in the day it was a celebration of the corn harvest. Now it is more of a carnival celebration. Shown are photos of some carnival games. I will post a video of some rides later.

Here is a short video of part of the carnival midway. https://youtu.be/GQCf3i97dJc

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Good morning all - last weekend in August!

My Alma Mater played their first game Thursday night and barely escaped with a narrow victory over a team that they were "supposed" to beat by 30+ points. Promises to be a terrible season. Some are already predicting a 1-11 season. Ugh. The other 2 teams we follow (Alabama and Georgia) play this afternoon.

I was removing some photos from my phone yesterday and pulled these two from those archives. One is a sunrise taken on a camping trip down to Florida and the other is Lake Louise in Canada, I believe from 2016.

By the way,  anyone know what happened to Lorell? Haven't seen her in here for a while.

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Good morning all -

Promises to be a nice day here today, highs in the lower 80's F and just a slight chance of showers this afternoon. 

Today we will begin our packing in earnest for the upcoming Great Lakes cruise. We will drive up Sunday to Atlanta, stay in a hotel near the airport where we will be parking our car for the trip duration, and take the hotel shuttle to the airport Monday morning for our flight to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We will take a taxi (probably) from the airport there to the ship, which I believe gets underway later that Monday evening. This cruise is something DW wanted to do. 

Still have a bit of discomfort on the back of my head where the yellow jacket stung, but the one on my leg is just itching a bit. Should be back to normal by the end of the day or in the morning. Those yellow jackets are nasty little critters. The most i have gotten stung by the was about a dozen times, some years ago. It was a miserable couple of days - good thing I am not allergic to the stings like DW is.

Good day, folks.

Yesterday was a good day from a photographic perspective, but not good for other reasons.

This shot was one of many I took on my early AM walk; very little processing: no cropping, no darkening of the background - all I did was slightly lighten and desaturate the reds and do a little sharpening...

   

But when I got home I didn't have my wallet with me - it must have fallen out when I got down on hands and knees to take photos. So I retraced my steps but couldn't find the wallet. As I neared home my wife called to tell me that a neighbor had found the wallet and returned it.

WHEW! Quite a relief.

This is one of a series of photos I took in the backyard way back in May of 2014. It's an adult female hummingbird, either an Allen's or a Rufous. They look almost identical, but since the Allen's species is much more common here, it's probably that.

I recropped, rotated and reprocessed it this morning...

   

Have yourselves a pleasant day or evening.

Goo day to you. I wish us all a pleasant weekend.

   

I call this a survivor because it's one of the few healthy looking roses remaining of late friend Ron's once spectacular rose garden.  Ron died several years ago and his widow sold the house. Neither the current owner nor the renters have done anything to care for the roses, so what was once a neighborhood treasure is becoming an eyesore.

So sad.

I figured I'd get one more post in before Don turns out the lights.

I wish I had a better photo, but this is all I have - a shot of some flowers in a large tub in our front yard.

Without checking the image's file name, can anyone guess what sort of plant this is?

   

As indicated, I suspect the site will disappear soon. Before that happens if anyone wants to keep in touch, please PM me with your email address and how to see your images om other sites (Flickr, other photo sites where, maybe some sites displaying paintings - whatever you feel comfortable sharing. I'll respond with my email address and a link to my photos on Flickr.

In the meantime, have yourselves a good day.