Kevin's Watch

Beautiful pics everyone. Here are some random pics from 2009/2010

November 09: my new party room kitchen downstairs finally is ready to use.


Autumn 09 - everything dies


Christmas Market 2009 in my town. A bit blurry. It sure looks how most of you picture Germany to look like.


The Vadress enjoying the snow ...


... and doing the classical snow angel


Santa was here (he should eat more as it looks ...)


The two new guinea pigs are doing fine.


Looks kinda hopeless - haven't had so much snow in years (gobal warming? Not here at the monent!)


More snow.


Walking in a winter wonderland.


Look how much snow there is on the roof deck table:

The large icicle already is 3ft. Another few days of winter and I'm like behind bars.

Great stuff Vader. As I've said before, the photos of so much snow are amazing (especially since I'm currently sitting here in 34C/93F temperature, and snow is far from my mind....)

I love the photos too Seareach. Having been to those places myself obviously helps - (next time you'll have to head further south )

Here's a couple pictures of my grandpa's property in Napa, CA. I went for a visit recently.

The vineyard across the street:


The vineyard next door

Pictures, pictures! Good stuff, everyone! (Rubs hands in glee.)

Sea, I had never heard of a quoll before. It's terribly cute.

Vader, cool winter shots. The 'winter wonderland' is a knockout!

Say, maybe Vader could think up some recipe ideas for the quoll, and Kaydene could provide the wine from her grandpa's vineyard.

Just kidding!

matrixman wrote:Say, maybe Vader could think up some recipe ideas for the quoll [...]

Walking through my town I once was being asked by some animal activists what I thought about "animal tests". Being the grumpy old b*st*rd I can be from to time I simply answered that I had already tested a lot of animals and had came to the conclusion that almost all of them tasted great with enough garlic, olive oil and thyme.

Looking at our quoll friend below, however, I 'm not sure if there's enough olive oil on earth to make that creature taste acceptable ...

matrixman wrote:Say, maybe Vader could think up some recipe ideas for the quoll, and Kaydene could provide the wine from her grandpa's vineyard.

Just kidding!

I'm glad you're kidding. They're way too cute to eat!

Here's a pic of my darling daughter! Since this is a photography thread, I thought you might appreciate it - photo taken by my father-in-law.

That's a beautifully expressive black-and-white shot, Stevie! My compliments to your father-in-law.

And Vader...wow, those quolls can suddenly turn mean, eh? It's always the cute ones you have to watch out for.

Heatherly, Chris aka Bloodguard Bob, Moose and Millie went marching around stow lake today out in Golden Gate Park. It was gorgeous and we had a great time.

It does look like you all had a fine day, Jenn. Seeing all that green sure is nice for those of us in the middle of winter.
Did you bring your Canon macro lens on this outing?

omg all these photos make me need a trip OUT OF THE CITAY!!! i need me some greeeenery!!!

good pics everyone! thanks for sharin!

I actually took those with the stock lens that came with the camera, MM.

Lucimay, you don't need to leave the citay, GG Park is not that far.

Ocho Rios turtle place.

So first the river freezes. Then it's warm for a few days, and the ice breaks. And it gets caught trying to go over the waterfall, and starts to backup upstream.

Heh, that's what winter's good for, Fist - getting shots like those.
Do you perchance live by the river? (I couldn't - I'd be paranoid about flooding.)

I've been delinquent in contributing to this thread, so here's a bunch to make up for it.
These were taken a couple of weeks ago at the park when conditions were just right for hoarfrost.
I snuck out of work long enough to get these shots (nobody tell on me!).
I converted some to black and white, while some were already fairly monochromatic.

Fantastic MM! I wonder who would be game enough to sit on those park seats!

Heh heh...not me. My fingers were numb by the time I was done.
The lengths I will go to for pictures...

Glad you like them, Stevie!

My first try at an HDR (high dynamic range) image:

It's a combination of two exposures, one for the Moon itself and one for its corona. I merged them in Photoshop using the mask layer function.
Our eyes automatically take in the brightest and darkest areas of a scene, but cameras can't capture both extremes in one shot.
HDR photography is a way to overcome that limitation.

I used these settings for the two exposures:
Moon: shutter - 1/125 second, aperture - f/13.0, sensitivity - ISO 200
Corona: shutter - 6 seconds, aperture - f/13.0, sensitivity - ISO 200

That's amazing!! I don't even know how to describe the feeling it gives me.

Beautiful, neo.