Xenopus

Heron Sculpture

2008-08-12T15:02:00.000-07:00

One shot at 28 mm and the other at 200 mm.

Chimacum Creek 8/6/08

2008-08-11T15:08:00.000-07:00

Chimacum Creek looking north after the installation of large wood obstructions (logs) for Conservation Reserve Enhancement (CREP). The white bits are to protect native plantings that will in time shade the creek and lower the creek water temperatue.

Chimacum Creek 6/9/03

2008-08-11T14:17:00.000-07:00

Chimacum Creek looking north before the installation of large wood obstructions (logs) for Conservation Reserve Enhancement (CREP). A salmon recovery effort.

The Goats Are Leaving for The Jefferson County Fair

2008-08-09T17:47:00.000-07:00

The Goats Are Leaving

2008-08-09T17:44:00.000-07:00

Clematis Duo

2008-08-02T15:22:00.001-07:00

Clematis

2008-08-01T16:27:00.000-07:00

Witches Cottage In Winter

2008-07-23T19:24:00.000-07:00

Old Apple Tree

2008-07-22T10:53:00.000-07:00

Dew Spangled Leaves With Egg Sack

2008-07-21T17:59:00.000-07:00

Mountain Laurel

2008-07-20T12:35:00.000-07:00

Rhoddy

2008-07-18T11:41:00.000-07:00

Swordfish Pin

2008-07-17T16:30:00.000-07:00

Brooch.

White Flowers

2008-07-16T11:35:00.000-07:00

Snow In The Trees

2008-07-15T11:31:00.000-07:00

Lily

2008-07-13T15:12:00.001-07:00

Dragonfly

2008-07-12T16:58:00.000-07:00

Lilies

2008-07-11T12:54:00.000-07:00

I'm Ready for My Closeup

2008-07-10T15:52:00.000-07:00

Three Flowers

2008-07-09T09:52:00.000-07:00

Closeup of Flower

2008-07-08T12:15:00.000-07:00

More Flowers

2008-07-07T12:50:00.000-07:00

Stars

2008-07-06T12:26:00.001-07:00

Three Sisters

2008-07-05T11:18:00.000-07:00

Iris

2008-07-04T11:38:00.001-07:00

Wings

2008-05-01T14:11:00.000-07:00

Some wing structures at the Port Townsend Aero museum.

Rain On Leaves

2008-04-30T13:49:00.000-07:00

Frere Jacques

2008-04-29T15:22:00.000-07:00

Replacement rooster for Hank. Very pretty and fiesty, spent Sunday night and most of Monday in the woods behind the goat pen. It took three of us to get him out of the wild roses (ouch). He is a banty like Hank but doesn't seem as violent. His personality is similar to Collette who was taken by the Couper's Hawk

Moonlight Over Chimacum Creek

2008-04-28T14:36:00.000-07:00

Alice at Sheep Dung Estates

2008-04-27T11:56:00.000-07:00

Alice at Sheep Dung Estates in Northern California. The accomodations seems to have changed over the years since we visited there (1998 in this photo). Wonderful isolated solar cottages with great hiking. Alice adored the place, and so did I.

Spring Buds

2008-04-26T10:32:00.000-07:00

A tree begins to bud along Chimacum Creek.

Self Portrait

2008-04-25T11:55:00.000-07:00

My cat Irving tete a tete with his master (yes that's it).

Hank in Memoriam

2008-04-24T16:16:00.000-07:00

Tragically Hank our banty rooster died defending his flock from a coyote yesterday. The flock was in the chicken tractors as usual when as near as I can tell the coyote stopped by for lunch. The chickens freaked and crashed into the door and worked the hook and eye clasp loose. They then scattered and hank appears to have remained behind to defend them. There were a lot of feathers over an extensive area. He had been a pain, attaching people for little reason, but he was a brave guy in the end. This picture was made April 20th and shows him in typical pose of agressive challenge.

Yellow Flower

2008-04-23T13:25:00.000-07:00

A tree on Bernal Heights in San Francisco that I snapped while walking the dog. She still get excited when I get my camera out.

Ms America

2008-04-22T10:05:00.000-07:00

One of the Buff Orpingtons relaxes after her sun bath. Her name reflects her penchant for strutting out of the coop last.

Sun Bathing After the Snow

2008-04-21T15:37:00.000-07:00

Sunday morning was snowing and so I let the chickens have the day off. The usually work in the chicken tractors during most of the day. In the afternoon it got sunny and warm and they appreciated the time off and took a sun bath. The rooster is a bantam Brahma. The blonds are Buff Orpingtons and the blue is a Chochin.

Great Blue Heron on Raptor Pole

2008-04-20T15:50:00.000-07:00

Great Blue Heron on raptor pole near Chimacum Creek.

Contemplation

2008-04-19T15:49:00.000-07:00

Man on Bernal Heights.

Daffodil

2008-04-18T16:57:00.000-07:00

A Daffodil.

Roddy Bud

2008-04-17T10:27:00.000-07:00

The rhododendrons will be blooming soon.

Blooming

2008-04-16T12:05:00.000-07:00

A flower in my side yard.

Yellow Flower

2008-04-15T10:58:00.001-07:00

A yellow flower.

Irving Watches

2008-04-14T11:20:00.001-07:00

My cat watching out the window and thinking no doubt of the carnage he would like to inflict.

Crocus

2008-04-11T16:45:00.000-07:00

Another crocus.

Tree & Moss

2008-03-28T14:32:00.000-07:00

A cherry tree with moss.

Ernie

2008-03-24T17:52:00.000-07:00

Easter

2008-03-23T14:33:00.000-07:00

Peace.

Great Blue Heron on Chimacum Creek

2008-03-22T17:11:00.000-07:00

Red Flowering Currant

2008-03-21T12:12:00.000-07:00

A bud of a red flowering currant (Ribes sanguineum).

Guarding Skips

2008-03-19T14:55:00.000-07:00

Door guy at Skip's in San Francisco.

Leaves

2008-03-18T16:46:00.000-07:00

Getting ready for spring.

March Bud

2008-03-17T17:18:00.000-07:00

A bud on a furry tree in my yard.

Snowdrop

2008-03-16T13:44:00.001-07:00

A snow drop in Port Hadlock, WA

Spring Is Near

2008-03-15T14:40:00.000-07:00

Another early flower.

Crocus

2008-03-14T15:38:00.000-07:00

A crocus prepares to open.

Hawk Stare

2008-03-12T15:57:00.001-07:00

Cooper's hawk in pin oak again.

Irving In Repose

2008-03-09T15:55:00.000-07:00

My cat in an unusual posture.

Dawn on Chimacum Creek

2008-03-07T16:05:00.000-08:00

Dawn indeed.

Alder

2008-03-06T15:59:00.000-08:00

An alder on Chimacum Creek.

Take Off

2008-03-05T12:43:00.000-08:00

A Cooper's hawk takes off from a pin oak, note the bird feeder beneath it's perch.

Flower On Lawrence

2008-03-04T17:20:00.000-08:00

A macro of a "flower" on Lawrence in Port Townsend, WA.

Crocus

2008-03-03T14:48:00.000-08:00

And the crocus opened yesterday.

Iris

2008-03-02T17:14:00.003-08:00

An Iris along side Ness' Corner Road in Port Hadlock, WA

Wedding Cake

2008-03-01T08:36:00.000-08:00

Mine in San Francisco, CA

Pussy Willows

2008-02-28T11:05:00.000-08:00

In the Port Townsend Community Center.

Leaves

2008-02-27T15:11:00.001-08:00

Close up of leaves in Port Townsend, WA.

Cooper's Hawk

2008-02-26T10:15:00.000-08:00

The Cooper's hawk out my breakfast window.

The Eye

2008-02-25T14:01:00.000-08:00

The Cooper's hawk in a pin oak scans for song birds. The bird feeder is near by.

Alice Works Out the Kinks

2008-02-24T14:38:00.000-08:00

Alice works out the kinks on Bernal Heights in San Francisco, CA.

Same Maple A Little Latter

2008-02-23T11:27:00.000-08:00

An immature Cooper's Hawk in the same maple at 10:33 today.

Dawn Maple

2008-02-23T11:25:00.000-08:00

A maple at 7:30 this morning.

Snowdrop

2008-02-22T12:53:00.000-08:00

A snow drop up close. I never noticed the green strip before I took this picture. About 10X

Moon Over Chimacum Creek

2008-02-21T09:55:00.000-08:00

A full moon over Chimacum Creek.

Experience With Aperture & Lightroom

2008-02-19T11:13:00.000-08:00

I downloaded the demo versions of Aperture and Lightroom to compare them and to look at whether I could dump PhotoShop for the new version of Aperture. My tests were conducted on a Mac G5 2GHz Dual Processor with OS 10.4.11 and 3.5 GB of RAM.

The key factors for me are:

1. Color correction and ehancement.
2. Basic image manipulation and editing (rotate, crop, etc.)
3. Retouching
4. Print on my Epson P2200 (PhotoShop CS2 leaves a lot to be desired)
5. Write jpegs for web use.

#1 is a tie, Lightroom and Aperture are different but equivalent. Because Aperture 2 is substantially faster and less resource hungry than LR, Apeture would be the winner. I mean here both the speed of the application and it's impact on the speed of the computer's other applications. For most image operations Aperture is only slightly faster than LR but it's impact on other application is much less.

#2 is a draw. I cannot develop a preference for either application. Aperture remains a winner here because of the speed difference.

#3 would go to Aperture by a huge margin with more convient retouching tools and better retouching options (edge retention is a clear winner).

#4 is a crash and burn for Aperture. The demo doesn't have Page Setup (the help files say it should be there but it isn't) and when you print it just sends the data without setup. This means you cannot determine if it will print well or not and the print dialog is dramatically inferior to LR. The printer capability in LR is really easy to use and works flawlessly. I don't believe I can get along without it now that I have tried it.

#5 is also a crash and burn for Aperture. There is no provision to control jpeg quality in the Export dialog box and the images created are huge. LR writes a much smaller file because it allows setting the quality level. PS writes an optimized jpeg that is half that size or LR for the same quality level. These means I cannot dump PS and will need to keep using it for web graphics.

So I will need to update to CS3 with LR. Aperture is fundamentally a better application but trails LR in capabilities that matter very much to me.

The roses are examples of a LR exported jpeg to one passed to PS and Saved To Web. Both images have lost color fidelity but this worse in the latter case.

A Magpie & Hawk

2008-02-18T10:57:00.000-08:00

A magpie harasses a redtail hawk in Bernal Heights, San Francisco.

Wood Pattern

2008-02-17T12:38:00.000-08:00

A wood pattern in the redwoods of Northern California.

Alice

2008-02-16T17:20:00.000-08:00

My dog Alice somewhere in San Francisco, CA

Bridge

2008-02-12T10:16:00.000-08:00

A bridge in Klamath Falls, OR at sunset.

Exercise

2008-02-10T16:09:00.000-08:00

An exercise jockey at Bay Meadow in San Mateo, CA.

Alice On The Beach

2008-02-09T16:03:00.000-08:00

Alice enjoying the beach at Carmel, CA.

Dawn Clouds

2008-02-08T14:21:00.000-08:00

Dawn near Chimacum Creek, Port Hadlock, WA.

Preparation

2008-02-07T15:49:00.000-08:00

Getting ready to scrum for rugby seems to involve a lot of difficult to reverse locking up of body parts.

Big Ben

2008-02-06T10:18:00.000-08:00

Big Ben with some nice sky.

San Francisco Sunset

2008-02-05T10:33:00.000-08:00

Another Sunset of San Francisco skyline from Bernal Heights.

Queen's Guards

2008-02-04T14:34:00.000-08:00

Queens Guards in London, UK.

Walter Lampl Bracelet

2008-02-03T16:26:00.000-08:00

A Walter Lampl semi-precious scarab bracelet.

Scrum II

2008-02-01T14:52:00.000-08:00

Another scrum this time between Reed and Stanford.

Getting Ready to Scrum

2008-01-31T14:43:00.000-08:00

Getting ready for a rugby scrum at Reed College in Portland, OR.

Chimacum Creek at Dawn

2008-01-30T10:54:00.000-08:00

Chimacum Creek at Dawn in Port Hadlock, WA.

Steer Skull

2008-01-29T13:26:00.000-08:00

A steer skull over the doorway to my studio in Port Hadlock, WA.

Dawn on Chimacum Creek

2008-01-28T17:02:00.000-08:00

Dawn on Chimacum Creek January 28, 2008.

Yellow Flower

2008-01-26T10:55:00.000-08:00

A yellow flower in the wetlands next to Chimacum Creek, Port Hadlock, WA.

Sunrise Over Chimacum Creek

2008-01-24T10:56:00.000-08:00

Sunrise over Chimacum Creek in Port Hadlock, WA.

Barn Bird House

2008-01-23T16:26:00.000-08:00

The other Zoe bird house built after the barn. You will need to scrowl to the right to see the barn in this panorama.

Bird House

2008-01-22T15:00:00.000-08:00

A bird house desiged and built by Zoe and modelled on the house it now is attached too.

Bird Contemplation

2008-01-21T13:37:00.000-08:00

A bird contemplating Chimacum Creek near Port Hadlock, WA

Maple Shedding Leaves

2008-01-20T12:50:00.000-08:00

A maple shedding fall leaves near Chimacum Creek in Port Hadlock, WA.

Flood On Chimacum Creek

2008-01-19T14:07:00.000-08:00

Flood stage February 2006 on Chimacum Creek near Port Hadlock, WA

Autumn Leaf

2008-01-18T16:37:00.000-08:00

An autumn leaf.

Rose Love

2008-01-17T14:21:00.000-08:00

I just love roses.