Big Blue Huddle

Dave was a friend and fellow tailgater. Along with Ed and his brother, my son Dan, Tommee and his crew, Brian and sometimes Rich and Jim from Maine we had a great crew. Three of this group has passed away over the last year or so. Never a bad word about anyone. A nice guy and a good friend.

His family had season tickets in the upper deck around the 40-yard line that were handed down to the kids, Dave, his brother Vinny, and his sister Joyce, from his father. My condolences to Cyndy and his family.

Dave and Vinny

 

Quote from: MightyGiants on August 05, 2023, 04:36:06 PMIt would be a bold move to have 2 rookies at the boundary CB positions

Yes Rich I agree, but it would be nice to eventually have Jackson covering lamb in the slot.

This is sad news to say the least. Tomeee lived in Yorktown Heights, NY only a few miles from where I lived in Somers NY. When we had group get togethers we would carpool to the event. I got to know his family.  One of his daughters went to school with my niece. I had a small group, Ed and Linda, Tomeee and his wife, and Rich over to my house for a Sunday Barbeque. I really enjoyed his company at the tailgates before a game.

RIP Tomeee we loved you; you will be missed.

I just saw this. I knew that Jim was sick but didn't know that he passed away. I remember the Ramses Barden bet and the steak that Jim totally enjoyed, and Dave given a wonderful Peter Lorre impersonation. Lenn is right, Jim's favorite Giant was Gifford. Every time One would mention Gifford in a conversation Jim's eyes would light up.

For a 1 PM game we would begin the tailgate at about 9AM. Jim would come down from Maine which meant that he had to get up real early in the morning to get there at about 10 AM. He would bring down Maine Lobsters for the tailgate which we totally enjoyed.

Jim came over from the Patty Traina site when she had to close it down. Has anyone notified her about Jim passing?

Rest in peace Jim, you were truly respected and loved by the members of this Giant community.

In our group get together once a month, a lot of the discussion on composition relates to how we want to lead the viewer in the photo naturally with leading lines, contrasting colors, and tone variations like Dark to light. You want to direct the viewer to a specific location in the picture. Another thing is the eye of a person or animal or bird. If the eye is not sharp than the picture is not good. Some of the new cameras like the Sony a1 or the A7rV have an auto focus system that is really sophisticated. It has focus modes that can recognize the difference between a human and say a bird. It even has a mode to recognize and focus on an insect's eye. Imagine being able to get a tack sharp picture of an ant's eye.

Ozzie, thank you for your comments. Much appreciated.

I was worried about this one. I took in on a raining day at Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge. He was just standing on a stump and wouldn't move. I just love his mad or angry look. Something pissed him off.

I got close, within 100 ft and used a 300 MM lens, but I still had to crop. My camera has 42.4 MP but I had to crop it to get in as close as I wanted and when you crop you lose megapixels. As a result, I ran it through Topaz Denoise AI and Topaz sharpen AI. 

At the last meeting of a meeting of a Photography Group that I belong to I received a comment that the feathers on the back were too sharp. I took it into Photoshop and put a blur on the feathers and also blur the background to soften both. It worked and I think that the bird looks better than before.

We read from left to right while this bird was looking from the right to the left. As a result, I flipped the photo so that the bird was looking from the left to the right the way our eyes are trained.

Here is one that I've been working for the past couple of weeks. Let me know if this works haven't done this in a while.
I just clicked on the link and it brought up the picture.
[https://i.postimg.cc/6pqPgYJg/Prime-Hook-Blue-Heron-Flip.jpg]

Some Sunset from Duck NC in April.

Haven't posted here as of late as I was taken lessons of Lightroom and Photoshop in an attempt to improve my post processing skills. Here are a few random that I hope you like.

Photography, Flash and Macro.

Photo editing, Lightroom, and Photoshop.

Not so much an expert but more like an avid hobbyist.

Question for the group.

I take thousands of Photos each year.  I cull them down to a select few.  I'll go out in my neighborhood or around my house and take several 100 photos for each shoot.  Of those I might get 2 or 3 that I think are good enough to work with.  In Adobe Lightroom I will import my photos and place them in folders based on year, month and day.  I then create a subject in a collection and flag them as good enough to possibly work with.  I then take those that are considered the best and rate them as a five star.  The overall collection is named say August flowers. I create 3 sub folders named Full Shoot, Picks, and Select.  I normally work on the Select photos sometimes the picks but not the others.

Would like to know how some others deal with their photos.

Here is another set of maps.

I like the Chef with KFC.
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-723787-1.html

I found this on one of the Photography sites that I frequent.  The maps gives some insight into the US and populations.

https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-723698-1.html

I was named after my father Frank.  When my father was asked what was his middle name he replied "Frank".  There is a pattern with the name in my family.  Both of my grandfathers were Frank.  My mother's father, Frank, named there first son Frank.  He had a son that he named Frank who just recently had a son that they named Frank the fifth.  Get the pattern here.   My mother was 1 of 4 sisters and 2 brothers.  Three of the 4 sisters married a Frank.  When we were at a family gathering all you had to do was call a male Frank and there was a good chance that you would be correct.  Also, there was a cousin Frank on my fathers side.  Many of my female cousins had a middle name of Frances.  Two of my 3 sons have a middle name of Francis.   

My grandfather and all of my uncles are gone but the name Frank lives on with Frank the fifth.

By the way my name is, you got it "Frank".

Ozzie, I simply love Macro Photography.  It's just another world.  You get things that you don't normally see.  By the way I love the one with the Bee (second Picture) and all of the pollen all over his back.  Also the fourth one down.  How transparent and how big the wings look until you realize that it can fit in the palm of your hand.  Great shots.