Big Blue Huddle

I am really bummed. . . I had some good photos from the last time I was up in Phily for training.  Some good shots down town and since my hotel was on the outskirts of Valley Forge, I had some really good ones from in there.  I'll keep looking, but not happy I can't find them

Quote from: LennG on July 29, 2020, 04:08:02 PM
Let's see what we can try today

For today, I need opinions.

I was trying different effects on certain photos. So many years ago, when film ruled the photo world, I used to shoot some pix in black and white, but really haven't done that in quite a while. so I took several pix I had taken in both color and then black and white and was wondering what you all thought. I tried for some things where it MIGHT look better in black and white. I have two images of an old farm house and the other two are of winter scenes where it is already almost a black and white shot, but not really.

Tell me what you thing of the differences and which you like better

This was the house originally



and 2 angles of it in black and white





Any opinions on them

Then We were driving after a snow and saw some great images, so I took them in color and then in black and white





then this





All comments appreciated.

I learned to develop black and white before I learned to develop color.  B&W will always be a favorite of mine.  Sadly, some of that is lost with the depth of color and clarity that many digital cameras are capable of.

With that said, I am a big fan of the B&W versions over the color that you posted above

Quote from: LennG on July 28, 2020, 05:37:27 PM
Jim

Great pix also.

What camera were you using for the underwater shots.

And where are those barracks?

See you had the sot of the Alamo, were you sationed at Lackland?

If I remember correctly, my wife was using her iPhone 4. . .maybe 5 (it was 7 years ago - what ever model was out that year - actually the one the year before since this was July and they usually come out in October).

The barracks are Lackland.  They are the old barracks that were torn down not to long ago.  I remember in boot camp that we were right near the back gate, over looking a 7-11 and Micky-D's. (the smell of the fries were torture).

When I went out for his Tech School graduation, we came back from dinner downtown and I pulled over into that parking lot.  I pointed to the dorm and said that's where I was (BMTS 3703) - My son said "That was my dorm too".  I looked at the door (each side of the ground floor had a door.  1 was chow hall, 1 was orderly room and 2 were classrooms).  I asked him what the door was that we were facing.  He said it was the Chow Hall.  So I pointed to the first floor up and said "that was my dorm floor (we had females one floor above us on the top floor) and when you walked in, the first bay on the right was where my bunk was.". . . he said - mine too.

That is one thing I will never forget - we shared the same dorm, same floor, same bay, 30 years apart.

As for the Alamo - I was never stationed at Lackland other than bootcamp, but we went down there when I went out for his Tech School graduation.  Heidi and I couldn't go together, so she went to his Boot Camp graduation and I went to the tech school since he is law enforcement and I was a deputy, we both wanted me to pin his badge on at graduation.

These were taken by my wife on my 50th birthday.  Getting scalped by a whale shark and then having a couple of Manta Rays come in to do summersaults in my air bubbles.





This is the rise over Cocoa Beach back in 2009



This is the slate alone the road in NY.  Both my wife and I completely forgot out these.  We dont see it down here.  We actually took some and put in the trunk to take home with us.



This is an old Plane that used to have a ladder and slide.  It is part of what we called

Quote from: Jolly Blue Giant on July 26, 2020, 12:25:10 PM

In this case, the electrician does not have OCD (which is a misnomer - a true obsessive compulsive person would never say "OCD". . .they couldn't.  It would be "CDO") 

But, back to this picture - being OCD, the blue wires are not together and the would drive me up a wall.  Same with some of the yellow, but they don't stand out as much as the sole blue wire off to it's self.

Lenn

I love the icicles, the waterfall/stream and the covered bridge.  If we created a "monster" then so be it.  Keep them coming.

Sadly, most of my pictures now consist of our pets or our progress on our "recoil therapy dates" = not really pictures I think would be appreciated/accepted here.  I will go back and find others that I have taken and post them though.

Here are the pictures from the photo album of a "Past Life".  These were all taken with my Olympus OM1 almost 40 years ago.  One of them is date stamped 1982.  These are both Japan and England.  Due to the age and loss of quality from scanning, I hope they are acceptable.

Hirosaki Castle, Hirosaki Japan for the Cherry Blossom Festival



Hirosaki Castle



Steam coming off waterfalls, Towada Japan


Waterfalls coming off Lake Towada,


Lake Towada, Japan.  This is a dormant volcano that over the millennia filled up



More waterfalls off the Lake


Ice Sculptures, Sapporo Japan


More from the Ice Festival


Looking down on Warwick Castle, Warwickshire England.  Wish I knew more about my family when I was here.  I have family from the 1500's that lived in Warwickshire.  What's even funnier. . . I grew up in a town called Warwick



More of Warwick Castle



The "Elephant Cage". . .the Antenna I used in Japan and England for my job in the Service



Tower Bridge, London England



Changing of the Guard, London England.

These are the last pictures I took with my Nikon D70.  Within the properties of Ft. Clinch State Park in Fernandina Beach

These jetties are interesting.  They dont go out very far and that is important for this:  I follow a few sharks on Ocearch.  A couple of Tigers and a Couple of Great White.  There have been a few times that Kathrine (a great white, 14' 2,300lbs) has been within these jetties.



This is one of the roads I like to ride my motorcycle on (when I had it).  This is going back to the beaches area and the actual Fort.



This is the Amelia Island Lighthouse.  It's quite far from the water.  Not sure how it actually helped.




When I get back this afternoon, I have some very old pictures (almost 40 years ago) that were taken with my Olympus OM1 using (probably) Fuji ISO 200.  These are prints that have been sitting in a photo album for the duration and recently scanned, so the quality is not really there.  I'm almost ashamed to post them, but they are prints that I did. . . .

These were taken 2 years ago.  I went to DC to visit my son, be at his ReEnlistment Ceremony and go to a TSO Concert with him.  We had some time to kill after his ceremony but before the concert so we went to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.  The shrine is the largest Christian church in the United States and in North America and the second-largest church in the world, only behind St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican.  It was very impressive to see.

I took all these with my iPhone 8

This is the Church, taken from a Block away!



This is looking up at the front doors from the street.  These doors are over 14 feet tall 



This is right inside the door, looking down to the main alter.  There are more than 20 chapels and alters inside, many of them dedicated to different saints.



A smaller alter in one of the chapels





The lower floor had names etched all over it.  A lot of them were sponsors over the 100 years it took to build this church and others were "in memory of".



Two names the jumped out at me:



and

Quote from: MightyGiants on July 24, 2020, 09:16:01 AM
Yes, your picture of what I could best describe as a castle

That would be our "Summer House". . . ==) ==)

That is Biltmore House in Asheville, North Caroline.  The "actual" summer home of the Vanderbilts.  When we lived up there, we lived near Brevard on the outskirts of Pisgah Forrest.  What I didnt know until we went up and toured the house and grounds was that Vanderbilt donated about 8,000 acres of his property to be set aside as a protected forrest area.  That area is Pisgah Forest.

Here are some more of our zoo crew:

This is Jetta.  She is named as such because she was found in an engine block of a VW Jetta.  The person who owned the vehicle drove from just north of Orlando to Fernandina Beach (215 Miles) and then another 30 miles down to Jacksonville to go to the Volkswagen dealership so they can take apart the engine enough to get her out.





This is my Treadmill Taskmaster, Smudge.  When we rescued her, she did not want to be seen at all.  Now, she is consistently on my lap looking for attention, when she isn't making me walk faster and farther.



This is Itzy (short for Itty Bitty), named that way because she was extremely tiny when she came home.  She was a stray outside Heidi's boss's house. Her boss is allergic to cats.



This is Odin again.  This is such a lovable, goofy boy.  We weren't going to get another dog after we lost Moses and Sophie (both my Shepards), just 5 weeks apart.  I started volunteering to walk dogs at the local animal control and he was in the puppy pen.  He was about 8 months, so much bigger than the normal puppies.  He is stubborn, but definitely a "daddy's boy"





This is the latest addition to our crew - Angus.  He was living in my work parking lot.  I saw him on and off for almost a year.  I thought he was an outdoor cat and just went home.  Apparently not.  I saw him in December and February, then Covid hit and I worked from home.  I went back to the office one day a week in June.  He was there and walked right up to me.  That day he ate most of my breakfast and lunch.  I knew we had to do something.

Turns out, he was already fixed without an ear notch which means he was not part of a TNR ferrel colony.  He is about 5 to 7 years old and is such a gentle old sole.

Here he is, the epitome of a cat flipping you off.  "yea, I see the trap and I know there is food in there, but screw you, I'm not falling for that". . . .



Took me three days to trap him.  But now, he is living the life as an indoor cat.

Quote from: MightyGiants on July 24, 2020, 08:46:41 AM

Tim, I love that color on your jeep, I was was really considering something similar when I got my car.  I love that affect they have now.

Just curious. . . did any of mine make the cut? 

Sem
[quoteI don't think I even own a camera anymore other than my cell phone.[/quote]

I haven't owned an SLR since my Nikon, which I unloaded probably about 8 or 10 years ago.  Everything I have posted has come from one iPhone or another.  Most of them are from my current iPhone X.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with camera phones now.  They used to be the joke of the photography world, but, and I think it was the iPhone 8 but definitely the X, where some photographers actually said the pictures they shot were better then they multi-thousand $ set up.

A dear friend is a professional photographer and not to pat my own back, but thanks to me.  In high school I started in Freshman year and learned to develop my own film.  I was on the yearbook staff all four years and he wanted to know how to do it.  I think it was mainly to get out of class.  That was a benefit for me.  Even though I had a darkroom at home, we had one in the school and one of my teachers saw my camera and asked if I developed film. When I said yes, she said I would get an "A" in the class and I could spend that class time working in the darkroom.

Funny how life takes us.  I have kept dabbling in it over the years, but he jumped in with both feet and is doing pretty good for himself, all things considering. . .

I only have my iPhone now.  Over the years, I have had many.  I stated with a Yashika 35mm in Freshman year in High School.  By senior year, I "graduated" to an Olympus OM1.  I went from there to an OM10, Minolta 7000i, and my last SLR was a Nikon D70 (? - I think that was the number).  I then had a couple of smaller Olympus digital cameras and now the iPhone is "just" as good for what I need

The late great Sophie.

I love this picture so much that I had a Tervis Tumbler made from it.



Ginger and Kracken

We rescued Kracken as a kitten about the same time we rescued Ginger.  They grew up together and Kracken loves Ginger.  They are always together.

We both love the mountains and waterfalls.  Last year, for our 30th, we went back to where we used to live when we first got married. . . the mountains of western North Carolina.

Here is our Summer Home ==)

xcom 2 wallpaper

One of the many Waterfalls we hiked to that week




and yet another