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Here’s some “b-sides” from this week for your amusement.

Ugly bathroom wall-walker and alternate angle
Ugly welcome to a municipal peer
Ugly Jumping Cactus fruit
Ugly salt/mud formation and another one in the Salton Sea

The spider was tiny, but looked pretty gruesome up close. The flash reflected off it’s body creating that odd blue arc. I should have hauled the tripod out for those shots, but it was in the trunk of my car and I was feeling lazy!

[Choc-Ful-A]

Ironically, also, we went out both yesterday and today, and I’m pretty set for ‘Frankly my Deer’, and possibly a few for as-yet-to-be-scheduled contests, but the cemetery in Coloma was almost a total dud (except for one ‘maybe’) because of both the topology and the number of unmarked graves. Got one pic for this week yesterday at least, but as you say, we’ll see.

I got halfway through a reply about how the various cemeteries in Colma seemed good for photographs when I’ve visited. Then I decided to double check something before I hit “Submit”… And to my surprise, when I looked up Coloma Ca on Google Maps to make sure my “extra o” typo assumption was correct, I learned there IS a Coloma Ca. So I’ll just add that if/when you’re near the SFO airport and would like a good cemetery to explore, check out Colma. 🙂 Sorry to hear Coloma was a bust!

[Choc-Ful-A]

I like the dark/monochrome palette you used and how much that makes the saturated red rollover text pop. Also, the watermark-like arrows with “next” and “previous” arrows and dialog are nice when you rollover the image. So what everyone else said, nice job!

[Choc-Ful-A]

the canon 100mm f/2.8 is outstanding. it’s a little outside of your budget, though. there is also the 60mm EF-S lens, which I’ve heard great things about.

I have a Tamron 180mm macro lens that I’m thinking of selling so I can get another copy of the 100mm canon. The 180 can be unwieldy due to its length. It also doesn’t focus nearly as fast as the 100 canon I used to have (that was stolen, dammit).

I have a Tamron 70-300mm lens which can be switched into “macro mode” when between 180-300mm. It’s definitely not the best lens in the world, it’s f4-5.6 and autofocus is slow. But I don’t use autofocus, so that doesn’t bother me. And for outdoor shooting in sunny CA, it’s been workable. It’s light too, so it works for hiking. Plus the price should be like $130.

[Choc-Ful-A]

I like all of them, but did find some criteria that let me cast a vote. I don’t want to post those thoughts until other people have voted. But I did want to note that I think those are some great shots and perfect subjects for B&W.

[Choc-Ful-A]

Thanks Elsinor. It’s my fault. We have our two grandsons this week for their spring break and I did not take the time to go back and check the photos after I entered them.

I wondered why that one was off when I went through the entries and voted. I like that shot, am glad you turned it on, and just went back to add my vote.

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The last time I took a vacation planning to take lots of photos, I took 2 32G USB RAM disks to offload the photos from my camera. You still have to upload to your laptop to copy them, but you can do it anyplace since no Internet is needed to create the backup. So everyday I backed up the photos twice, a copy of each of the USB drives, and deleted them from the camera.

I forgot to add the copying photos from a laptop to a USB disk is considerably faster than uploading them too. 🙂 Also, USB disks are really inexpensive these days.

[Choc-Ful-A]

I feel like I overdosed on saturated colors after reviewing (and voting) tonight. Lots of the photos tonight practically jumped off the monitor and smacked you in the face. I’d love to see this theme get repeated as a “classic”.

I had lots of b-sides this time (there’s a gallery here if you need more flower mojo). But there’s one I wanted to call out. I took a picture of a vibrant light purple daisy shaped flower on a drive in southern California last fall. It’s very small and bobbed around in the breeze. So I just concentrated on getting part of the flower in focus and moved on. I didn’t see the “bonus” creature behind the petals until I opened the image on my computer. I think there’s a spider waiting to ambush the next hapless insect that lands on the flower. You can see two long legs spreading out from behind one petal. Maybe it’s doing that to sense vibrations on the adjacent petals? And I would never have noticed if I didn’t take the picture.

I didn’t submit it cause the explanation required is pretty long and it sort of detracts from the flower itself. So I’ll save it for another theme, but wanted to mention it here for your amusement in the meantime.

[Choc-Ful-A]

In case you’re looking for some inspiration, here’s a set of amusing photos along the same lines as this contest. I found it by accident GIS’ing tonight and had to pass it along.

[Choc-Ful-A]

Here’s some b-sides from this week for your amusement.

Lead singer in action

Bass player, lost in the moment

And from a different band, different outdoor concert

Stage presence

And some random shots

Faux blonds at the rodeo

Motorcyle IQ

Old School Political Protest

That last one was taken at the joint anti-war protest and mass zombie drag Thriller video dance performance in Dolores Park in SF. And no, I’m not kidding. Here’s a link to coverage of the event and also a YouTube video of the Thriller zombies dancing.

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is that blood on it’s back from the picadore’s lance? If so, it’d probably get pulled for you.

That’s quite a lot of blood and it’s caused by someone intentionally wounding the bull. So while I’m not a moderator, my guess is that it’s against the rules.

[Choc-Ful-A]

Here’s a couple “almost made it” photos from this week for your entertainment.

I had this image of summer fun in the Pacific just off the beach in Santa Barbara,

Heavy traffic in the surf

but is was too chaotic IMO. So I cropped out two kite surfers passing each other to see how that looked.

Wind pulls each his own way

Given how little of the image I was using it came out pretty grainy though.

Also, I had a bunch of shots from a Barrel Racing event at a rodeo. I really like the color of the horse in this one, especially the mane.

Tan beauty with platinum blonde locks

But I wound up picking a shot of a horse in full gallop where all four hooves were off the ground instead.

[Choc-Ful-A]

Yeah, that’s sucktastic. Happened to me during the ‘Neon’ theme. I had the same feelings. 🙁

aw *hugs*

i know i over-reacted — though i hope it didn’t show TOO much 😉 — but i’ve just had so much hard shit handed to me lately that it seems like there aren’t any little things some days. other days just about anything could roll off my back, as long as it’s not actively trying to kill me. this just happened on one of the weak days.

There’s a lot of that going around lately so I’m very sympathetic. I’ve been consoling people on weekly basis who find themselves wading through rivers of chaos and frustration. I hope it’s short lived for you. For me just getting out and taking pictures is good therapy, since I stop thinking about normal issues for awhile. Pets are great too. 🙂

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Wow, that’s amazing…

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The montage is an overload of photographic goodness, thank you!

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