Flag and Flag Kite

Our flag billows and a 4th of July kite flies at the shore of the Chesapeake Bay last Saturday.

Lemmon Street, 8 AM

Fremont Ave Gingkgo

I carried my DSLR with its new "walkaround" lens, a Tamron 18-270mm zoom, with me to work today for the first time.

There are some gingkgo trees just before I get to the entrance of our building, but I tend to only notice them in the fall, when their leaves turn yellow and carpet the sidewalk. But today, I finally "saw" them and took a few photos.

The new lens seems to have nice bokeh, as I was able to smoothly blur some cars, grass, and brick walkway in the background.

I bought the lens in early June after a few weeks of gearhead anxiety. Once it arrived and I had a chance to shoot with it, I wasn't sure if I was going to keep it. But I decided to do just that over the past day or two. More on that later.

Lawn Chair Flyer

I was enjoying the spectacle of dozens of hot-air balloons taking off in the morning when I spotted this fellow - he instantly became my hero!

This is one of the last photos I took with film before my conversion to the Digital Dark Side. This was back in my all-Commie-camera days, using a Praktica MTL5 with a 135 mm CJZ Sonnar, both made in the now-deservedly-defunct German Democratic Republic (aka East Germany, which was neither democratic nor a republic.)

Steamboat Springs, Colorado, July 2003

Lime Shadow

Proteus Bicycles is a well-stocked, well-equipped and friendly bike shop in College Park, Maryland. This is a very old building by College Park standards, built in the 1930's as a car repair garage. The stucco exterior now sports a flourescent lime paint job that screams to be photographed. I had passed the shop on other sunny days camera-less too many times to let it happen again.

Casing the joint, I did find several good images. My favorite one is this one, the most simple imaginable - just a little pipe vent, it's shadow, and that maginificent lime stucco

I call this a "Seinfeldian Image," that is, it's a photo about Nothing. Just light, texture, and shadow.

Swedish Donut Brigade

I noticed these brightly-colored trucks at a commercial bakery along MD Route 100 several years ago during my daily commute.

Acting as if I knew what I was doing, I brazenly went onto the parking lot as the sun was low on the horizon and tried to capture the bold blues and yellows.

Crossing Bay Bridge