PhotoHunt - Funny signs

Did Gene Kelly live here?

Shouldn't it be one or the other?

PhotoHunt - Thirteen by Ansel Adams

This photo required a real hunt. When we redid our family room last year, books and pictures and other moveable objects were packed and stored in other parts of the house. We still have not brought most of the books and pictures out of storage, so I hunted through various boxes til I found 13. (I know there are a few more Adams items still to find.) I retrieved a few of these earlier in the week for a post on my Project 365 blog. Ansel Adams was one of the people who greatly influenced the coming of age for photography in the 1920's and 30's. I have admired his work since I first saw pictures of the western US in Dad's photography magazines. Until I retired last year, I had one his calendars hanging in my office at work for about 20 years. Most were Christmas gifts from my kids (or grandkids) and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the outstanding photos every work day. Most photographers are familiar with his pictures of nature. One of the amazing things about him is that his letters from childhood were preserved and have been printed, along with letters on other issues great and small throughout his life. Of the books shown, Manzanar may be less well known. It is the story of the internment of US citizens of Japanese descent in 1942. This book was written by Armor and Wright, but used pictures taken by Adams in 1943 and donated to the Library of Congress. Some of the photos were published in 1944 by Adams in his book Born free and Equal.

More library photos

The first two photos were taken from the top of the parking garage on Jan 8, 2008. The part of the library seen here was a new addition, completed in 2002. In the picture below, the let part of the library was renovated, adding the curved roof and windows. The tower contains the spiral stair case between floors.

Below is the main entrance tower, as seen from creek side;

and a view of the library from the amphitheater across Carroll Creek.

For more library photos, see Marianne's and my posts of April 16.

Maple tree blossoms

These blossoms mean that the see pods (sometimes called whirly birds or helicopters) will be swirling down and covering the lawn.

Tasmanian photographers?

I ran across an interesting web site with some fascinating photos from Tasmania. A group of photographers went to Tasmania to photographer the varied nature of that part of Australia, as well as, road test Adobe's Photoshop Lightroom software. Photographs from the adventure are in galleries.

PhotoHunt - Twisted

This twist keeps Marianne's monitor and mouse cables from becoming a twisted mess.

Around the yard

This morning started with heavy fog hiding the fields behind our house and the tulip by the mailbox stayed closed.

By late morning the sun was out and by mid-afternoon the temperature was in the 70's and the little tulip was wide open.

The dogwood buds were sunning themselves

and reaching for the sky!

And the cherry bud was showing some color. Perhaps blooms this weekend?

Bridges Between - Roddy Bridge

Roddy Bridge - looking southwest

In the 1800's covered bridges were popular in the U.S. They were primarily built in rural areas and small towns and provided access between farm and neighbors as well as the towns where crops were sold and goods were purchased. At one time Maryland had over 50 covered bridges. Today there are only 6 on the public roads of the state. Of the 6, three are in Frederick County. The Roddy Bridge crosses Owens Creek near Thurmont. Marianne and I came across Roddy Bridge on our photo excursion on April 1. (See her post for another view of the bridge.) Though in a rural setting, with only one house within sight of the bridge, it is used. During the 15 or 20 minutes, we were taking pictures, somewhere around 25 cars crossed the bridge. Only car one stopped, a fisherman wanting to relax. he said he did not catch many fish in the creek.

Marianne has posted a picture of Loy's Station last year. We will make it to the Utica Mills Covered Bridge later this spring. For more information these bridges see the Maryland SHA web site. Dale Travis has compiled a roster of covered bridges on his web site.

View from the creek bed

View from Roddy Road going north

Owens Creek

PhotoHunt - Blue and red in glass

Just a blue marble, red glass beads in a glass.

April sunrise and clouds

This morning I was up with the sun and this was also about all the sun we saw today. The view is driving east out of our development. Below is another view about 15 minutes later from another road.

Light and water

While we were photographing Roddy Bridge, I experimented with metering options of my D40X. The group above is two almost identical views of Owens Creek. The top is looking down at the water and the bottom is with the sun reflecting off the water. The left pictures were taken with matrix metering (normal) and the pictures are what the eye also sees. The right pictures were taken with spot metering and we get a whole different effect.