Sunday, May 30, 2010

Over The Rainbow

Last week traveling along the edge of a thunderstorm made for a seat gripping bumpy ride, but was rewarded with this perspective right before landing. Not a great pic but enjoyed the view while it lasted. Pic was taken with a phone camera (3megapix) and the image was "juiced" lowering the exposure, upping the color saturation, contrast, and sharpness.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Magnolia Moon


Original photo taken in August 2003
Altered with Adobe Photoshop 2010

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

China Syndrome

The last China installment (I swear). Towards the end of the trip we visited the port city of Shanghai and the new-wave modern metropolis appears to have a solid handshake with its historical roots, and seems to manage growth a bit better than Beijing.

Kite being flown over the top of bamboo scaffolding


Water goddess meant to keep the ghost from traveling across the moat

Beijing cops headed into work

Shanghai historic district after the sun goes down the lights come on




Sunday, May 16, 2010

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Forbidden City & Summer Palace

Beijing's Forbidden City is right across from Tiananmen square and Summer Palace is only a sardine packed subway ride from downtown and both were well worth the effort. These sights, while have been neglected until only recently, still give a real feel of historic and imperialistic China during the Ming Dynasty (1368 -1644).




Thursday, May 13, 2010

Beijing

The capital city Beijing is home to approximately 22 million people and is the political and cultural hub of China. The city is currently going through dramatic changes with modern Western influences colliding with ancient Eastern history. All of it making for great subject matter for a tourist shutter bug.

5th Avenue equivalent in Beijing:


A View from the Summer Palace:
Apartments outside of the Birds nest Olympic coliseum:
Army "calisthenics" on top of the Great Wall:

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Point n Click

Seemingly from thin air a business trip to China popped up last October, and I jumped at a chance to visit the Far East. Fifteen hours later I peeled myself out of a sweaty airline econo-seat and stepped into Beijing's ultra-modern airport for a two week adventure.

I'm a basic point and click camera punk with no training, so bear with me and I'll post some of my favorite images from the trip. These were taken with our little Panasonic 7.2 megapixel Lumix digital with 10x optical zoom. And these first two snaps were captured towards the end of the trip while visiting Shanghai. At night this place reminded me of the movie "Blade Runner", and I think you can see why...






Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Indian Paintbrush and Summer Storm


How did I get the same photo twice? Parallel universe?




I barely have a clue what string theory is, and now it's all about M theory???!!!! Sigh - will look at some beautiful photo's instead.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Lookin' for Sugar


They're everywhere. Capturing is the hard part.