Let's go to Hawaii! This was growing outside the house we stayed at the last time we visited our son Jon, who worked in Kona on the Big Island. I think this flower is called "Bird of Paradise."
10-01-09 Not From South Dakota
in Travel
Travel
09-30-09 Gondola Ride
in Travel
I skipped the gondola ride the last time I took students to Venice, but my students didn't. I was killing time while they took their ride, crossed one of hundreds of bridges and, low and behold, there they were! (They are in the 3rd gondola from the front.)
09-29-09 First Frost
in Travel
By Scott Shephard
The weather report suggested a "frost advisory" for this morning. As much has I dislike winter, I do like the early frosts that come to our back yard. This photo might suggest why. I love the contrast between the color of the foliage and the white frost crystals that rim it.
09-28-09 Don't Tell the Security Guard. . .
in Travel
By Scott Shephard
. . . but I took a bunch of photos of this tree before I got kicked out of the courtyard I mentioned in yesterday's post. This photo is a variation on yesterday's theme.
09-27-09 You Watch for the Security Guard While I Snap the Photo!
in Travel
By Scott Shephard
Shortly after I took this photo in a courtyard of a downtown Seattle building, a security guard came over to tell me that I couldn't take photos of the building, the courtyard or trees in the courtyard. I left baffled. Security issues? Copyright issues? Who knows. I wonder what Mother Nature would say about this?
09-26-09 Wine Country - Burgandy, France
in Travel
By Scott Shephard
You are looking at some of the most valuable "farm land" in the world. And interestingly, the land behind me (on the other side of the road I am standing on) is even more valuable. This photo was taken a few miles from Beaune, France.
My wife and I had taken the train from Dijon to spend the day in Beaune but when we got off the train, we saw a bicycle rental shop and decided to bike around wine country instead. Though it rained, it was a great day. However, wine country is hilly and a the ride was a little more strenuous than we had bargained for.
09-24-09 Fishing for Photos
in Travel
By Scott Shephard
I don't hunt and fish but to me photography is occasionally like both of these enterprises. When I gear up in the morning, as I did the morning I took this photo, I never know what I'm going to "catch."
In this case I was wandering around Center Lake in the Black Hills and found this fisherman just as the sun was poking through the trees behind him. The light does a brilliant job of rimming the fisherman and of bringing the reeds along the shore to vibrant life. I was in the right place at the right time! There is no limit to the quantity of photos you can catch, but I feel lucky if I get one good one per outing. And I never talk about the one that got away.
09-21-09 Arrow Marching Band
in Travel
By Scott Shephard
Sometimes a photographer has to go where he/she isn't supposed to. In this case, I wouldn't have gotten the photo if I had taken my place in their formation. Fortunately, I was mostly hidden since we are facing the audience here. This photo was taken during the 2008 WHS homecoming game.
20-09-09 Woman In Black
in Travel
This photo was taken in a small village named Vrboska in Croatia. But I could easily be somewhere in Italy or Greece, where I have observed the same fashion for older women. I don't know why they wear black, unless it has something to do with the tradition of mourners donning black. Perhaps women such as this one who wear black are widows?
09-19-09 Soft Geometry
in Travel
By Scott Shephard
I like what Nature has done to the man-made lines in this sidewalk at a public building in Olympia, Washington.
09-18-09 Another Trinity
in Travel
By Scott Shephard
Flowers again. This is post #200 and I'm starting to repeat myself. I should have called this blog "A Picture Every Other Day." :-)
09-17-09 Sponge Bob and Patrick Star
in Travel
By Scott Shephard
What do math, Sponge Bob and Patrick Star have in common? Yesterday, in a rare confluence of cartoon characters and real humans, they were one and the same. You see it was "Famous Person Day" at WHS as part of our homecoming week. And I can always count on my esteemed colleagues Stephanie and Susan to do things right.
Do I dress up on days like this? Once, I came dressed as myself only to find that my "friends" in the social studies department came dressed like me. What day were we observing? It was "Nerd Day."
Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi 1/60s f/5.0 ISO800 50mm