Typical beach activity, Santa Cruz
Originally uploaded by Nooks

I would have liked to catch the lighthouse to the left of the frame in this shot but it didn't happen and I live the wave activity too much to use another image instead.

Santa Cruz Bongo
Originally uploaded by Nooks

One thing I like about several of the Santa Cruz pictures is that they have a couple of layers to them, such as this one, though I do seem to recall that background colors were less muted than they are here.

On the other hand, what's this drum doing sitting on the beach anyway? No-one seemed to be tending it.

Santa Cruz overlook
Originally uploaded by Nooks

This is where I started walking. The Boardwalk is to the right and the public beach to the left; the small sign is (of course!) a warning to stay behind the fence that I left out of the frame. The boat and bird were a happy accident. I have another shot of this same piece of land from below.

Child in the surf, Santa Cruz
Originally uploaded by Nooks

The background wave is nicely blurred and kind of matches the subject's hair, colors are good though maybe I could have brought the exposure up a little. Looking at this again gives me the impression that everything is moving very slowly here, which is kind of how I remember that long walk up and down the beach.

I don't think I will ever be a huge fan of beaches in the US, having been spoiled by Queensland's stunning quality and variety, but Santa Cruz is pretty nice.

Fractal Plant vs Mondrian
Originally uploaded by Nooks

I love this picture except for the lackluster execution. The small piece a flower visible on the left-hand-side and the lack of good focus in the lower-left corner make it a little disappointing. On the other hand I don't think I had a lot of time or attention to give when I took the shot, so, yay me!

Coneflowers and bumblebee
Originally uploaded by Nooks

I forgot to publish this last summer, I suppose now it's a welcome reprieve from winter!

Dead Tree Hydrangea
Originally uploaded by Nooks

The 20 inches of snow that fell on my apartment a few weeks ago ruined a downspout (and maybe some brickwork) but it also brought down the tree hydrangea outside the lower apartment's patio. This might be the last shot I'll take of it before it's disposed of.

Palo Alto Wines
Originally uploaded by Nooks

The colors of these wines was just one very small part of a wonderful dinner with friends in Palo Alto last week.

Jason gets his shot by annburlingham on flickr.

Here I am taking the flower macro shots at The Hole In The Wall from earlier in the week.

Google Cookies
Originally uploaded by Nooks

These were an after-lunch dessert at work a few weeks ago, and the colors were great so I bolted to retrieve my camera. There's something "off" about this image, either to focus or a tiny bit of motion blur that's very visible at full size I think. Otherwise I quite like it.

Originally uploaded by Nooks

I've completely forgotten what kind of flower this is, having taken the pictures of it some months ago when it was a table decoration at the Hole in the Wall Restaurant. It's quite pretty, though; the stamen remind me of camping matchsticks.

I have another similar shot that used a flash and tiny aperture to get much more depth of field but the color is not as nice (or accurate, if memory serves).

Originally uploaded by Nooks

Just a small plant that I snapped while at Phipps Conservatory about 2 weeks ago; the fisheye effect is mostly a gimmick but I like what it's done to attract the eye to the details of the main subject.

The Ginger-Man Guy
Originally uploaded by Nooks

The whole family came to Pittsburgh for the days after Christmas, and then after New Year's. On the second trip Ann and Henry brought along the gingerbread cookies baked by Henry's aunts, pictured here.

(I do love a square crop, and this picture really called out for it.)

The small child loves to shovel snow---certainly he spent more time shoveling last week than he did making a snowman. But there was quite a bit of snowball fighting too. He's starting to have pretty good aim (I wasn't much better off by the end):

Digital Double Exposure -- WTF?
Originally uploaded by Nooks

Henry was playing with cardboard roll as a sword and pointed it at the camera. A pleasing series of mistakes: ƒ/32, shutter speed just shy of 1/7th of a second. There are also color balance issues but I love how this looks a lot like I forgot to advance the film!

Focus for the eyes
Originally uploaded by Nooks

Focus on the eyes, they say. What to do when the subject has a nose almost as long as his arm? I don't think whichever Smurf this is would pay for this portrait!

Enigma Detail - #4
Originally uploaded by Nooks

The subject is one I keep coming back to whenever I can: there's an Enigma at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View but at the National Cryptologic Museum in Fort Meade there are two out from behind glass, open for children to mess with. I more or less monopolized this one for several minutes at time. Something about these machines responsible for so much wanton destruction and the birth of the entire study and industry of computation is endlessly fascinating to me.

I had to change the exposure by something like half a stop to get this right and it's still a little dark. There's no camera shake and the focus is good, though. I guess I should have moved the camera just a little and gotten both knobs into same plane, though.

A robin, yes, but which tree?
Originally uploaded by Nooks

I was lucky to get this as birds flew all around a few days ago; my hat's off to the truly dedicated types who can do this day in and day out. I like to think the blurry parts add to the overall charm.

Not actual size
Originally uploaded by Nooks

Ann noticed that there was a comic-book superhero exhibit starting up at the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester so we took Henry along about two weeks ago and heavily hinted that he might want to take along his Spider-Man. Before we left Ann had the brilliant idea of posing him on the car and getting a few shots, this is one of mine.

We're members of the Museum and get free entry, so we try to go as often as we can.

Not everyone's cup of tea, I know, but I kind of like Henry's neutral expression here, in my memory it's in heavy contrast with his ecstatic expressions as he played at the Museum. There's so many ways it could be read, especially with the somewhat grim (I think) Spider-Man in the foreground.

Mary Schenley fountain in Fall (attempt #1)
Originally uploaded by Nooks

I walk past this fountain when I go to the post office, so I've seen a lot of it lately, but *today* I dropped by when the leaves behind were stunning to behold and the sky was bright and overcast. I zoomed my lens as much as I could, manually focused, metered and panned (without a tripod) to get this. Ten images combined to make it.

What am I unhappy about? Try as I might I can't convince myself it's level and there isn't much scope for fixing it since I didn't pan high enough. I also didn't pan low enough; panning another row below the statue might have enabled me to level it properly. There are no people in it—I have another pan which does have some people in it and I suspect it will make a much better picture. Lastly I think it's destined to be pretty "soft" at high resolution because of the lens used.

But ultimately I think this is probably my best recent picture, hands-down. I also suspect I'll be back to re-take the same image later this week or next, weather permitting.