Sunday, May 2, 2010

San Francisco streets

I was in San Francisco a few weeks ago because I organized a session at the MRS conference. I barely got time between sessions and social events to take a few images in the neighborhood of the Moscone. San Francisco is a fantastic vibrant city where I really should spend more time. I earlier posted the cliché image from the BART station at the SFO airport taken using my cellphone. Here are a few pictures that I put on my flickr stream for you all to enjoy.

This is one of our grad students checking the news:
What's the news today?

I call this Yellow, Green, and Girl. I like how she is lit up by the reflection from windows on the building behind me.
Yellow, Green, and Girl

This guy had a great suit (and a great voice). He was singing gospels.
Suit

A cliché but I couldn't resist.
Standing in judgment

Don't wanna follow the arrow?
Counter culture - disobeying the arrow

Another BART platform picture from the cellphone:
Yellow and Blue

Friday, April 30, 2010

Captured: A Look Back at the Vietnam War on the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon – Plog Photo Blog

Because it is 30 years ago today that Saigon fell at the end of the Vietnam war, many publications have retrospective galleries on their websites. The best I have found is on the Denver Post. 141 images, many of them iconic and etched in people's memory.

Captured: A Look Back at the Vietnam War on the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon – Plog Photo Blog

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Saguaros

Saguaros are the iconic cactuses from the Sonoran desert that spans Mexico and Arizona. I was in southern Arizona this spring on a little vacation with my family. This was before the rather ill-thought out law requiring non-citizens to carry immigration papers on their persons came into effect. Although I do believe a lot of the reporting on this law has been overly sensational (the requirement is already a federal law), being a very legal immigrant myself I am quite ambivalent about it as it reeks rather of racial profiling. But enough of that. I have lots of pictures from that trip that I haven't put up yet. One thing I put up was some sunrise pictures from the goosenecks, which we visited on the way back. We also hiked a little in Picacho Peak State park, which I put up as a featured gallery a while ago. I will write later about that place which is a lot of fun to visit in early spring when all the poppies and other flowers are in bloom. Right now, I'll just put up a few pictures off a Saguoro that my daughter chose as her Saguaro for her junior ranger program in fantastic Saguaro National Park. This was a big giant with lots and lots of arms.

This one I call "the rocket" for obvious reasons:

Flickr link for this image.

and this "the arm." Another appropriate name would be "the finger." ;-)

Flickr link for this image.

Here is my daughter next to "her" Saguaro


It takes Saguaros 75 years to grow their first sidearm. This one has seen quite some history. I have many more images of seas of Saguaros that I still have to work up, so more later!

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Lens correction will be included in Lightroom and ACR!

See the scuttlebutt here. The video is alas private at the moment but the text of Tom Hogarty's blog post is pretty clear. This is a great development.

EDIT: here is the video. Be sure to watch it on youtube in highdef.

Friday, April 23, 2010