Earth Curvature

I took this photograph from the 94th floor of the Hancock Tower. The sun was setting and it was just perfect. The one thing I didn't notice at the time when I took it though was that the curvature of the Earth was so clearly visible. Now I guess this could be an optical illusion that the lens of the camera created, but my guess is it's the curvature of our planet. The calculations I did says that the horizon line in this photograph was about 40 miles away. So in conclusion I think we can say it's safe to assume that the world is in fact round!!!!

All Tyred Out

Ok so you got me, it's a play on the English spelling of the word "tired". Isn't it amazing that words in the English language can be spelled in different ways and mean the same thing. Now in England we use the word tired to mean worn out and the word tyre for the rubber thing on a wheel.

So anyway this photograph was another taken in Joshua Tree National Park at Keys Ranch. The junk that was laying around in that place was amazing to say the least. There was old cars, bits of old cars and even an old truck. There was a windmill and even a big workshop there. The 'A' Team would have a great time if they ever got imprisoned there while fighting the bad guys. 

Where's Bubba??

During our evening adventure to Hancock Observatory in Chicago, we headed over to Navy Pier and the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. restaurant. I always wondered what the tie in with the Forrest Gump movie and this restaurant chain was? Well it took me taking this photograph and posting it here to look at the history of it. It would appear that Paramount Pictures partnered with a restaurateur, to create the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. making full use of the Forrest Gump movie back in 1995. The food was good and so was the atmosphere. Here is a link to the Wikipedia article about the restaurant chain.

Chicago From Above

For the best part of the past two weeks my photo posting has been a little sporadic, at best, and I apologize for that. I had to spend 11 days living out of a hotel room in Chicago for my work.  We were finally signing off on the system that Motorola is going to ship and install for us at the County.)  It was a major milestone in a project that I have been working on for over three years and it went off without a hitch!  The first 4 days there the weather was wonderful; a nice 60+ degrees, then Friday night it snowed, got windy and dropped to about 20 degrees. So, the Saturday photographing in Downtown Chicago got snowed out but, I made up for it on Wednesday evening when five of us headed to the Hancock Observatory; 94 floors up Hancock Tower. The view was spectacular and the photograph above was taken just after the sun had set. (This is looking south with Lake Michigan off to the left.)

A Joshua Tree

Sorry for the sporadic posting of photographs, I have been in Chicago since last Tuesday and still have 4 days to go. Unfortunately I haven't managed to get out much to take many photos either because of the work I'm doing here. Today the plan is to head to Downtown Chicago and go up the Hancock Tower, lets hope.

The photo today is of the whole reason that Joshua Tree National Park got it's name, The Joshua Tree. 

Desert Water

Desert Water was taken in Joshua Tree National Park. This was a normally dry creek, close to Keys Ranch that had still not dried out from a snow storm a couple of weeks before. This area was really pretty in the morning sunshine, although it was a little chilly and even colder when the wind picked up a bit later on in the morning.

The Jerry Can

This is a photograph I took at Keys Ranch in Joshua Tree National Park. It's a wonderfully preserved area and only accessible via a guided tour. Time has truly stood still at Key Ranch. The photograph is over a Willys Jeep parked and left to rust away in Keys Ranch. Also spread around the area is a lot of other old cars, trucks and parts of old vehicles. A ranch house and a workshop is also there left as the owners left them. As far as the name of the photograph, I gave that name after leaving the color of the cans in the trailer. As a kid growing up my dad had a couple of jerry cans he kept in the garage with fuel for the lawn mower. These can were old Army surplus that dated back to WWII. The reason for their name, they were named after the people that designed them initially, the Germans (Jerry being the name the Germans were called during WWII). In fact the Jerry can has an interesting history that can be read here.

My Weekend

Saturday was a fun day that kicked off at just before 7am at a Visitors Centers in the town of Joshua Tree. Once we had all met up and signed in we headed into Joshua Tree National Park for a long, full day of photography with an instructor. We got to go to some weird and wonderful places that are generally not accessible to the public. Then towards the end of the day we took a hike with all our gear to a place called Ryan Ranch. It was built in the 1890's by the Ryan family and today is just ruins of it's former self due to vandalism and natural deterioration. One of the more interesting things we saw at Ryan Ranch was 3 graves that are placed nearby with the year 1897 painted on the rocks above them.

One of the people in the class with me was Elsa, our accountant at work, this is her photographed above. It had been a long day and the tiredness from the hiking through the desert and an early start was beginning to show for all of us. Unfortunately for Elsa, she sat still long enough that I got to photograph her.

Top Secret Mission

This is the last Mission Inn photograph I will post for a while. It was taken from one of the roof top walkways and gardens at The Mission Inn here in Riverside. It amazes me the secret places that The Mission Inn hides and yet you go inside and these places are there for you to see and walk around. Definitely worth a visit. I was originally going to post this as a color photograph, but I thought the black & white one looked better. If you want to see the color version click here.

On a different note Friday I leave for a photography workshop in Joshua Tree National Park. I am so looking forward to that. Then Tuesday next week it's Chicago here I come for 10 days. I have a weekend in Chicago this time, so hopefully I'll find some more places to photograph and share with you.

Riverside, Pre Sunrise

This is Downtown Riverside prior to sunrise, well it may be after sunrise but the clouds took care of us knowing one way or another. I thought today I would show you why I love HDR (High Dynamic Range) photographs. The photograph above was made up of 3 photographs taken of the same scene at three different exposures. The three then got blended together to show what was in the highlights and the shadows of each one and bring out a greater tonal range. If I hadn't have used the HDR technique the photograph I would have ended up with is shown below. I'm sure you will agree when I say "I prefer the one above"?

These were taken from about 3/4's of the way up Mount Rubidoux last Saturday.