A rose by any other name.........

Here is one of the nice things about living in San Diego Area, Deinna found this Rose blooming a few days ago.  The  summer garden has given up the last zucchini, tomatoes plants are on the compost pile. The only thing left are Jalapeno peppers, but the avocados are almost ready to be picked.









I did get a comment on how this was done. I just purchased the David Honl  (LINK) Lighting accessories kit and thought I would test drive it. The overhead SB800 has his 8" snoot on the strobe and the second SB800 Camera right has the 1/8" Grid, casting the spot on the background. So far I like his stuff.

Adobe Lightroom 3 Beta

Lightroom 3 Beta is ready for download, testing and Adobe is looking for input prior to it's formal release. If you have never used it here is your chance to test it for free. Remember this a BETA version, meaning it's for testing only until the final release.

From the Adobe Web Site:

What Is Adobe Photoshop Lightroom

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom software is a digital darkroom and efficient assistant designed for serious amateur and professional photographers. With Lightroom, you can organize, enhance, and showcase your images all from one fast and nimble application that’s available on Macintosh and Windows® platforms.

• Manage your growing photo collection in a visual library that makes it quick and easy to organize, find, and select your images.
• Get the absolute best from every shot—whether raw, JPEG, or TIFF—using state-of-the-art nondestructive editing tools.
• And when you're ready, showcase your images with the impact they deserve using customizable print layouts, powerful slideshows, web gallery creation tools, and connection to online photo sharing sites (may require third-party plug-ins).

Link to Adobe Site and download click HERE

Sunny Side up!

This morning Deinna asked me if she could make me breakfast. She asked, "How many eggs do you want?" I said, two. She cracked the first egg open and was surprised to see double yolks. We both replied that this was unusual. Then she cracked the second egg, and we were surprised to see that it also was a double yolker! These eggs were bought from the normal grocery store, where we seldom get two yolked eggs, much less two in the same carton, and then to see TWO in the same pan! Pretty cool.














Naturally, I said, "Stop the cooking! Wait for me to ge my camera." Yeah, she said, like how hard is that to do. So she took the pan off the burner and waited. Well, what can I say. I take advantage of all photographic opportunities. She laughed.

I'm on my way to the liquor store to buy a lottery ticket.

The Punkin' Patch

While in North County visiting the art show at Valley View Casino, we decided to make a quick trip to Bates Nut Farm ( 15954 Woods Valley Road, Valley Center, CA) to photograph a few Pumpkins for Halloween. We turned on to Woods Valley Road and joined a line of cars that was almost three miles long with an average speed of - oh, about 3 miles an hour! Lots of mostly stop, and then a little go. For the next 25 minutes I tried to convince Deinna all these cars could NOT be going for pumpkins, especially the limousine that we were following. Well, seems I was wrong! As the limo turned into the driveway at Bates Nut Farm, we could see that the parking area was nearly full and, as I was reminded frequently, every single car on that road turned into the farm. All we saw was an enormous amount of people amid acres and acres of pumpkins.






















The Sea of Orange.




























Rides with the Mule team.



































Pumpkins are just plain fun.





































The Scarecrow Contest.
























































All sizes and shapes, just load 'em into your wheelbarrow, have 'em weighed, and off you go.














Tractor and wagons rides too.

How well do you see Color?

Check your color challenge from X-Rite.
FACT: 1 out of 255 women and 1 out of 12 men have some form of color vision deficiency.
Take the online color challenge, based on the official FM100 Hue Test by X-Rite.

My Score was 18
Test yours HERE

Red photo day

Struck by the contrast of this this brick wall. I used my iPhone for these images.


















Then we went to lunch at the Olive Garden and here was a red armored car.















A red pepper in the garden.

CCD co-inventors share Nobel prize

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has recognized the work of Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith as co-inventors of the CCD image sensor. And the work of Charles Kuen Kao for his work in fiber optics, that now provides the means for our high speed communication today.

Here's a link to the Nobel Prize website.

Here's a link to The Imaging Resource website that has a good article