Solomons Sunset

Nope, I'm not missing an apostrophe in the title - this is sunset over the Patuxent River as seen from Solomons, MD.

Solomons is at the very southern tip of Calvert County in Southern Maryland, at the mouth of the Patuxent River. Just a short distance East is the Chesapeake Bay.

In the background of this photo is the locally infamous Governor Thomas Johnson Bridge. Built in 1977, by 1988 it developed dangerous cracks in its elegant structure. While being repaired, many commuters between St. Mary's and Calvert counties had to take a shuttle boat provided by the State for the duration. This lead to jokes and even t-shirts around the theme of "the Boat People" of the two counties.

Lunch!

Nomiki has the best food and nicest personality of any of the lunch wagons on the University of Maryland Baltimore campus. You'll find her every weekday at the corner of Lombard and Penn. Fortunately for me and my co-workers, less than a block from our office.

Great breakfast too... come hungry!

West Side Story - That Afternoon

Here's that same garage as in yesterday's post, this time as the late afternoon sun shines down Pratt Street. Since the sun is in the opposite part of the sky, the shadows are different, and since the sun was lower, actually almost ready to dip below the buidings in the West, the light is redder.

Other than rotating the camera while taking the shot, no funny tricks this time - just some cropping and levels adjustment.

West Side Story

I started a new job last week at University of Maryland (Baltimore) in the Department of Psychiatry. My wife is tickled pink, because she says that's exactly where I belong.

After three years of walking eastward from the Light Rail stop at Batlimore Convention Center, I now walk west from that same stop. No more Inner Harbor, but of course, you can find good photo opportunites anywhere.

If you look for it, you'll see that here's what morning sunshine does to the Pratt Street side of UMB's Medical School parking garage.

Full disclosure: Although the brown metal fascia at upper left looks fine in real life, I wasn't crazy about it for this abstract, so I used the color replacer function in Photoshop to make it red.

Garage Photo Op...

You've heard of garage bands... well, this is a garage photo.

I took it this on a December evening in 2005 from the hi-rise garage where I'd been parking the previous few days. At that time, I was a contractor working at Constellation Energy in downtown Baltimore. Yes, sometimes it pays to be lazy...

I had been taking the Light Rail for the past two months and hoofing it the remaining three-quarters mile back and forth to CE's office, but if I had continued to do that, I wouldn't have seen this spectacular view from the southeast corner of the garage.

I had been treated to this scene on each of the previous few nights leaving the garage, getting a glimpse of the tent-like, sail-like roof on each floor as I spiraled towards the exit. Finally, I couldn't stand it any longer - today I brought the camera and tripod along for the trip.

At 4:45, sunset that early winter day in Baltimore, I left the office to head up to the 3rd floor of the garage, knowing that the best lighting would be arriving soon - the sky dark but not yet black, and the fabric roof lighted from the inside. I set up the tripod, framed my shot, and kept shooting every minute or so, bracketing along the way. This image, which I think was among the best of the lot, was from about one-half hour after sunset.

In the excitement and concentration of the moment, I had neglected to put on my gloves. The 30-degree weather did a job on my fingers, but I didn't really notice until I packed up my gear to head back to the office. Well, it was worth it.

By the way, what we're looking at here is the front of the Columbus Center, which is now the home of University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute. The huge tensioned-fabric roof is the most outstanding feature of the building.