Low Flying Helicopter

A few moments ago a helicopter flew only a few hundred feet over our house – it was a private helicopter, no official markings, not red and white like the CDF (California Fire Patrol), not marked like a hospital or police helicopter, not black like DEA helicopters (people set up Meth labs way out here on people’s property sometimes), not black and unmarked like we’ve seen sometimes too (not a myth – LOL!). It was white with blue striping, and I’m suspicious that it’s someone who brings people in to hunt and then takes them out again – trouble with that is that, from what I hear, most of the time it’s without the landowners permission or awareness.

They flew in really low the first time, and then, after just a little while, flew out again, much higher. I didn’t know what direction they were coming from, but I did manage to get this silhouette shot; they were flying MUCH faster this time so it was hard to catch:

They were a lot lower the first time – had I been a little quicker getting out the door I would have been able to see the facial expressions on the pilot and passengers I think! Still, at least I got a mildly interesting photo out of it all.

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New Gallery & Fine Art Prints

I’ve taken the plunge and created five galleries for my art and photography over at Imagekind, offering framed and unframed prints:

Celtic Art Gallery
General Photography Gallery
Watercolor Gallery
Black and White Photography Gallery
Abstract and Macro Photography Gallery

They have so many frames & mats available, and wonderful paper choices too. Their real-time online framing engine lets you see exactly how your print will look with the specific combination you’ve selected – that alone can be a fun time-waster – LOL!

BTW, just click here if you want to open your own gallery there too. Their basic/free package comes with one gallery with up to 24 images, I believe, so it’s easy to try at first without making any major commitments. Overall, I really just like the feel of the site, it’s, well… classy? I actually still have a prints shop through my Deviant Art Account as well, and although their prints are terrific, the overall prints shop doesn’t seem to promote itself beyond the DA community itself. Also, their Prints Management interface need SERIOUS retooling to be at all usable after you have more than a handful of prints available. They say a new interface is in the works, but it’s been in the works for a while now already.

Anyway, even if you don’t check out my galleries (above), feel free to go check out Imagekind in general. Lots of terrific artists there, including a number of the classic masters as well.

Posted in Celtic Art, Fine Art | Leave a comment

PostEaster NewBunny

Easter may have been yesterday, but we still have a ton of rabbits in our yard who are doing their best to act like rabbits. Case in point, here’s a photo of a new baby bunny we’ve been seeing lately:

I know, there’s a ridiculous ‘cute factor’ going on here, but what can you do?

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Wild Turkey Surprise

I was working on the computer, windows open, listening to the sound of the neighbor’s dog barking, when suddenly I heard a really weird sound that I was pretty sure was NOT a dog. When I looked out the front window, I saw a wild turkey in our yard! About 10 feet from the window! Then I saw another one – looked like a male and a female – just walking through on their way up the sage covered hillside across the way. I ran to grab my camera so I wouldn’t miss them, but I needn’t have worried, there were more coming. There must have been about 8 or 9 humungous wild turkeys (taller than our black lab) just ambling through the yard! I took this first photo through the kitchen blinds – it’s a female, with a male in front (his head is behind the post):

Then, I chanced going outside on our porch to see if I could get any other photos. They ran a bit when I came out, but I still managed to click off a few, like this one:

There are actually 4 turkeys in this shot, but I cropped out all but one because they blend in so well it would be hard to see unless you saw the original high-res shot. I also scared one of the stragglers, and let me tell you, wild turkeys can SO fly. LOL. It was noisy and probably will never go far distances, but it got him to the hill to hide in the sage quickly. Then they gobbled amongst themselves as they continued on their journey. How cool is that?

Posted in Pets & Animals | 2 Comments

Presidential Booger

My friend Tom wanted to see an example of how the super macro function worked on my new FujiFilm s6000fd digital camera, so I grabbed a penny out of my desk drawer and took a picture so he could get an idea of relative size and resolution. When I saw the final shot, a tiny dust mote on the penny came out looking like a huge booger right under Abraham Lincoln’s nose – LOL! (Just when you think you’d outgrown booger jokes! Oh well!)

(I cropped this image and then shrunk it down to be web-friendly – the actual image is larger.)

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