LV City Center

Water Fall at the Mall

Practice with moving water. I need more practice.

Mangled Car

I took this photo when I was at Pick A Part. I don't think there are any usable parts here. It's a nice piece of art though!

A Night at Strip

This month is friends and family visiting month, so I'll be posting lots of Vegas pictures :)
Canon SD870

The "Dam" Chipmunk

Gotta love those chipmunk at the Hoover Dam :)

Canon SD870 Digital Macro cropped

Costa Rica (Jaco)

Here is picture from a balcony we stayed at in Jaco, Costa Rica. Shot with a Nikon D90. Used a "Tonal Contrast" filter to give it a painting look.

Pixel

I figured I better post a picture of my dog, since everyone else is. Border collie mix, about a year old. Handheld with Canon 5D, flash bounced off of ceiling.

Pink Halite

This was collected Sunday at the Searles Lake Gem O Rama field trip. Halite is normally clear or white - the pink color comes from halophilic archaebacteria that live in the brine pools

Doggie Week

This was very difficult getting good pictures with moving targets that don't obey and do not understand "STAY!"

A little backyard doggie fun!

My 30 years of love

Chewy

Mom's Dog

Mud Field Trip

This is the first field trip at Gem O Rama 2009 in Trona this weekend. Everyone is digging for Hanksite crystals. I found some nice specimens - photos to follow later...

Jamaica Beach

Bee

Just wanted to add to the collection of Bee photos on our Blog

Age of Chivalry

I made it to the Renaissance Festival just in time for a little parade and ended up taking a couple hundred photos this weekend, but only a couple worth posting. There were some great costumes running around. Hopefully next year I'll be able to take more interesting pictures . I removed a light pole from the lower photo and added a little more contrast and saturation to both.

Big Al

Serious

I took about 50 shots of this scene and really only this one came out decent. I need a lot more practice.

Couldn't Resist

The plastic over the sign makes it difficult to come-out clear. And, I was trying to hurry. The sign encouraged me to take the picture.

Hack job

I couldn't get a good shot of the moon so I slopped together two photos in PS to get this one.

Lake Mead, trail to Lava Butte

Vignette is too noticable now that I look at it again

Lava Butte, Lake Mead

Iron-Oxide covered Lava Rock

More artists

For all the problems I was having with the camera settings and the lighting, I'm fairly happy with these shots.

Multi Singers

I did a photoshoot with 3 artists at the Luxor this weekend. I found it extremely difficult to shoot indoors without extra lighting and it sure it much harder to shoot multiple people than it is to shoot just one. This photo was taken in valet looking toward Mandalay Bay. I wasn't sure I shot anything usuable but I'm mostly happy with how this one turned out.

Dragonfly

This is the second time I was able to take detailed pictures of a Dragonfly in the Redrock area. For some reason these dragonflys are fearless. This giant let me take about a dozen pictures with the lens less then a foot away from him, until I accidentally kicked the branch that he was perched on. At that point he snatched my camera, hit me over the head with it and flew off. I consider myself lucky.

Dex

This is a photo I took at another video shoot a couple of weeks ago. I was messing around with settings in Lightroom and then brought it into to Photoshop for some more fun.

another rock

A rock I found in the hills east of Cima in the Mojave Preserve. The green specs are probably malachite or chrysacolla (relatively common copper minerals).

Barite

This represents two technological advances. First, I used a custom white balance for the exposure (I've been eyeballing the color correction in photoshop, but this is much more efficient and accurate). Second, I created a diffuser by cutting the top and bottom off of a plastic jug and placing it over the specimen. The highlights didn't blow out - the real test will be when I try to photograph something shiny and metallic again like muscovite or iron pyrite. The stacking software created a weird double image on the scale though - the small numbers are tenths of an inch. The smallest lines are hundredths. The white bladed crystals are barite, also called heavy spar. This was collected at the Yellow Pine Mine in Goodsprings, NV.

Iron Pyrite

This is iron pyrite (Fool's Gold) and crystal quartz. The field of view is just under a half inch. I used the same undiffused lightsource as the last post so the specular highlights are all blown out. This was collected near the bottom of the Colisseum Mine (a huge open pit mine located in the mountains west of the dry lake bed between Primm and Nipton Road).

Peridot

This is another attempt at focus stacking. I used four bright hot bare bulbs for light, which means the highlights are all blown out. As before, this isn't as sharp as I'd like. This specimen was collected from Dish Hill, which is a volcano in Southern California just off of Route 66 east of Barstow. The yellow green crystals are peridot, the dark green crystals are fayalite and the black mineral is pyroxene. This is a xenolith (which means it originated in the Earth's mantle and was ejected up to the surface during a volcanic eruption).

Calico Basin...Random Nature Shots

Bee There

Just a touch of sharpening in PS. I also brightened and saturated the colors around the Bee.

IGT Sky

Another from my iPhone looking out the balcony by my cube.

Aloe

Red Rock from Spring Mountain Park

My first time using the Night Scenery mode.