SkyWatch Friday; Storm Clouds and Balloons!

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My World Tuesday; Up, up and away!

We live in between Grove City and Groveport, just outside the 270 loop around Columbus. And this weekend we have the pleasure of watching the hot air balloons take flight from Grove City. They're hosting a Hot Air Balloon Festival and I hope to capture more balloons. ENJOY!

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Look! Up in the sky!

The Grove City Hot Air Balloon Festival started on Friday and runs thru Sunday.

I captured this balloon around 8am from my backyard. Enjoy!

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SkyWatch Friday; Just point and shoot!

I've said before how close we live to Rickenbacker Airport and have the pleasure of seeing all types of aircraft flying overhead. I was returning home a few days ago and saw a cargo plane circling the airport. Carefully steering the Corvette with my knee, I turn my Nikon L20 on, pointed it out the car window and started clicking. The first picture came out well for not really knowing what I was shooting. The second is of the cargo plane beyond the church.

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One more big web

I was looking through my walk-in-the-park pictures and came

across this spider web. It was taken as we were leaving the path

and heading towards the car. When you enlarge the photo you can

really see the detail of the web. ENJOY!

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My World Tuesday; Spider webs

My niece and her fiancé came to visit this past weekend. While Nick and

Derek washed and detailed his car, Steph and I took a walk in one of our local

parks. Three Rivers Park is where Alum Creek, Big Walnut and

Blacklick Creek all meet. Maybe they should call it Three Creek Park. As we

crossed one of the bridges we noticed a few spider webs. After we confirmed the

absence of spiders we moved in and photographed them. You can see the

prey just waiting to be consumed later by the spider(s). I encourage you to enlarge

the images to see the details of the webs.

Enjoy!

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SkyWatch Friday; The Storm and the Reward

Nick and I were driving home from North Carolina when we drove into this storm

somewhere in the mountains of West Virginia. It was just before dusk and the

setting sun made the storm clouds pop with color. As we drove in and out of the

rain I was able to capture a rainbow.

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My World Tuesday; A day at the park

As Nick and I were going to our seats prior to the start of the Clippers game on Saturday, I had to get a picture of this "larger-than-life" Louisville Slugger, ball and mitt in the middle of Huntington Park concourse.

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Take me out to the ballgame...

On Saturday Nick’s company picnic was held at Huntington Park, Home of the Columbus Clippers. It was my first time visiting the park since our move in 2007. We had really good seats; the first row on the third base line. I guess I’m used to watching baseball at Jacobs Field,( I can't bring myself to call it Progressive Field), because I was surprised at how small the park is.

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SkyWatch Friday; More of My Moon Obsession

I was a bit more prepared last night as I set up shop to capture the full moon. With pen and paper at hand I made notes when changes were made. Since I loaded these pictures backwards, I’ll just detail what settings I used looking back.

The first 2 photos were my best shots. I finally figured out that changing the metering mode to "spot", I was able to get a better defined picture. Shooting mode was action/sport with the flash off.

The 3rd photo was prior to changing the metering mode to spot. It looks a little dark to me.

If you enlarge the 4th picture you’ll see a small dot of light in the lower left hand corner. I’m not sure if it’s Jupiter or a really, bright star.

I began shooting in AUTO with the flash off and the last photo shows us how successful that turned out. A-Big-Glowing-Glob wasn’t what I saw in the night sky.

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My World Tuesday; Shootin' the moon!

It seems I've been obsessed with the moon lately. Specifically, getting a

really detailed photo. I captured these pictures on Friday. The first 2 just

before dusk, it was around 8pm. I set the Olympus on auto with the flash off

and proceeded to adjust the compression ratio. I could see very little, if any

difference. After I transferred the first batch and was completely unsatisfied with

what I saw. Then I noticed the moon was a bit brighter and it was just after dusk (9pm).

Since I'd already drug all my equipment back in the house and I didn't want to

clean my lenses again (humidity was at 95%, yuk), I decided to set up the

tripod in the kitchen and shoot thru the window.

ENJOY!

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