Rabbie Burns Day

Today is the birthday of the Scottish poet Robert Burns.  I'm not sure I can convince the family to partake of a Burns supper, but I can at least wear my kilt to work.  It's still 0F outside.  Woolen socks help a lot.

F Number	9.0
Focal Length	20.0 mm (35 mm equivalent: 40.0 mm)
Exposure Time	1/400
Exposure Program	Program AE
ISO	100
Exposure Compensation	0
Flash	Off, Did not fire

Midwinter's day

It's below zero today, -3F (-19C).  As is typical of such days here, the air is completely still.  Since the furnaces are on, there is steam or smoke coming out of most every chimney.  Because there is a high pressure system right over us, and the air is so still, the smoke rises straight up out of the chimney and into the air.

F Number	9.0
Lens ID	LUMIX G VARIO 14-45mm F3.5-5.6
Focal Length	45.0 mm (35 mm equivalent: 90.0 mm)
Exposure Time	1/320
Exposure Program	Manual
ISO	100
Exposure Compensation	0
Flash	Off, Did not fire

Throg's Neck bridge

Yesterday, I went roving with my friend KJ1K. 'Roving' is actually a semi-technical term in the sort of radio contesting that I do.  It means that you get in the car, drive somewhere (usually the top of a hill), set up your antennas and talk to as many people as possible before packing up and driving to a different location to do it all over again.  Yesterday's roving took us around and about in Brooklyn and Queens - New York City!  I hadn't been down there in a long time.  Man is it a busy place, even on the weekend!  One of our stops was a park near Fort Totten.  It's just to the east of the southern terminus of the Throg's Neck bridge, and this is what the bridge looked like at night.  I took it at 7:08 local time, which in January is definitely night time here.  Made a bunch of contacts here; a very successful location for radio.  And photography, too.

F Number	3.5
Lens ID	LUMIX G VARIO 14-45mm F3.5-5.6
Focal Length	14.0 mm (35 mm equivalent: 28.0 mm)
Exposure Time	2
Exposure Program	Program AE
ISO	800
Exposure Compensation	0
Flash	Off, Did not fire

Vale panorama

I decided to try another panorama.  This is Vale Cemetery, the north side of Cowhorn Creek.  It was a foggy day, but the fog doesn't really show in the more compact view.  Although some 14 inches of snow had fallen a few weeks ago, it's been so warm that there are many bare patches of ground here.  I'm standing on a gravel path that goes round the vale. The panorama shows the gentle hill across the way and the shape of the dingle sloping down to the water much better than a single image, so I'm pleased with the result.

F Number	9.0
Lens ID	LUMIX G VARIO 14-45mm F3.5-5.6
Focal Length	14.0 mm (35 mm equivalent: 28.0 mm)
Exposure Time	1/160
Exposure Program	Manual
ISO	400
Exposure Compensation	0
Flash	Off, Did not fire

I put the camera in Manual, and took all 3 images with the same settings. I overlapped about 40% of the frame for each image and used a program called Hugin to stitch them together into a single image. That image was a .tif file so I used the Gimp to export that as a .jpg.  I don't have much experience with post-processing, so I haven't purchased any programs; everything I use is free and open source.

Gecko eggs

We woke up yesterday morning to find two eggs in the gecko enclosure.  We have a pair of Crested geckos in there along with a Gargoyle gecko.  The Cresties are apparently one of each gender because they've obviously mated.  The one atop the rock is missing his tail - he shed it when we put a piece of decoration on him on accident.  It doesn't seem to bother him though.  As far as my referring to him in the male gender, my 10 year old assures me that he can tell which one is what gender.  I'll take him at his word.  He was musing what a cross between the Crested and Gargoyle geckos would look like; he does love his critters!

F Number	5.5
Lens ID	LUMIX G VARIO 14-45mm F3.5-5.6
Focal Length	35.0 mm (35 mm equivalent: 70.0 mm)
Exposure Time	1/30
Exposure Program	Program AE
ISO	400
Exposure Compensation	0
Flash	Off, Did not fire

St John's in the fog

Yesterday was a very warm day.  The air temperature was well above freezing, above 40F even!  This is the perfect condition for fog to develop - warm air over cold snow on the ground.  I took the opportunity to take a walk through St John's and Vale cemeteries.  I like the crow flying through this one.

F Number	10.0
Lens ID	LUMIX G VARIO 14-45mm F3.5-5.6
Focal Length	29.0 mm (35 mm equivalent: 58.0 mm)
Exposure Time	1/500
Exposure Program	Program AE
ISO	400
Exposure Compensation	0
Flash	Off, Did not fire

Festival of the Belly Button

In our first Festival for 2013, contributors are encouraged to reflect: to look back; and, to look within. To do some navel gazing. The 'Festival of the Belly Button' requires some reflective introspection.
 
Click the link to see the other bloggers' submissions.

Before

After

What have I learnt?  Not enough!  I still avoid photos of people, and that's something I intend to work on.  But this pair of photos does illustrate a change for me.  The top photo is a tree, gnawed by a beaver.  It's a vertical tree, dead centre of the image, surrounded by vertical trees with a very cluttered background.  The bottom photo is icicles hanging off of my house.  Still lots of vertical, but now they're not dead centre.  The background is less cluttered - depth of field helps.  Wish I'd hid the telephone pole behind one of the icicles though.
 
I'm not much of an omphalopsychite.

Icicles

A quick look at the icicles hanging down from the roof of my house.  I'm not walking under there until they fall off!

F Number	5.6
Lens ID	LUMIX G VARIO 14-45mm F3.5-5.6
Focal Length	14.0 mm (35 mm equivalent: 28.0 mm)
Exposure Time	1/250
Exposure Program	Program AE
ISO	125
Exposure Compensation	0
Flash	Off, Did not fire

Monthly Theme day - Best photo of 2012

Each month, on the first, the City Daily Photo community choose a theme, and we try to interpret it as best we can.  This month, the community is taking a break, so there's no official theme for January, but traditionally, we've done a retrospective - a 'Best of the year' photo.  Gerald at Hyde Daily Photo has put up a Linky that gathers the 'Best of' posts.  Sharing that is the main reason I'm posting today. 

I myself didn't have a prolific year, photo-wise.  I found my motivation somewhat lacking, and missed quite a few days.  No New Year's resolution to do better; I want to be more regular, but I'm not really sure where my inspiration has got to.  In that spirit, I found the October Monthly Theme to be an unusual source of inspiration.  I took a lot of photos of this slowly moving water, and then struggled over whether I should post-process any of them.  In the end, I decided I liked this one, just as it is.  I can see the man hole cover with bits of sand on it, and of course the water too.  Reflected in the water I see trees, my house, clouds, the sky and even a crow!  Serendipity meets persistence.

Is it my very best photo of 2012?  I'm not sure how to decide that, but it strikes me as the one I'm most proud of.