And To All A Good Night: December 2010

[masthead image: And To All A Good Night]

I love Christmas - so to start, let me wish you a Merry Christmas. I got home tonight just after midnight, after visiting my folks and driving the short distance back in heavy snow. Since tomorrow (actually today, if you want to get technical) is Christmas Eve, I thought this would be a great shot of my little humble hometown getting its White Christmas on.

The image was made on a Kodak EasyShare C183 that I bought on inventory clearance. While it is not nearly as clear as I'd like, I think that for being made with a simple point and shoot, it is still remarkably good. I used the "night scenery" Scene Mode and this is the only time I've really tried that out in snow. I'm sure I will get much better at these shots in the future - maybe even this winter!

One thing I did like about the image was the way the glow from the lights was captured - both the street lights, and also the holiday snowflake light decorations. Snow is so wonderful for light images - it makes even the most primitive hack photographer (me) seem like their photos could inspire Terry Redlin to paint a similar scene. From my own experience, the most mundane items or people can be made to seem interesting by utilizing nature's lighting helpers: snow and sunsets.

Downtown Train: March 2010

[masthead image: Downtown Train]

I was going through some of my pictures from last summer when I came across a group of digital photos from a long weekend in Seattle, Washington. These images stirred up fond memories of a fun weekend catching up with old friends and making new ones, and they also inspired a spurt of creativity in me. In addition to writing a new blog post, I also created a new header image. It was long overdue for a refresh. As you may have noticed, I carried over the railroad theme from the previous image.

This image was made in downtown Seattle one day in late August and I don't usually photograph the Burlington Northern railroad, so this was a rare privilege. I liked the shot because of the perspective when looking back at the train. Obviously, there is too much foreground with nothing in it, so I was going to simply crop that out and use the image somewhere.

The theme I'm using on The Midnight Blogger will only allow a fixed size of image, so it auto-crops images to fit. Although I would have preferred to keep the upper part of the original image, I think the end result turned out really well. I love my blog's new look. I hope you will too.