Spaceship Earth

As many of you guessed, this is Epcot Center, or, more correctly, it is the Spaceship Earth Pavilion at Epcot Center.

Context

We got some good guesses on Monday. Someone did recognize it and let me know via private message. It's pretty hard without any other context.

Hopefully, this image gives a little more context without totally giving it away.

Geometric

I know, it's been awhile - this is the first post of new work for this year.

Can you guess of what this image is?

Old Sign

Wordless Wednesday

Up on Cripple Creek

This weekend, a buddy and I drove up to Cripple Creek, Co to play in a poker tournament. We go up about once a month.

Cripple Creek is small town about a hour's drive from Colorado Springs, just southwest of Pikes Peak. The town came to be after gold was discovered in 1891. In modern times, Cripple Creek almost died out. The town was revitalized when the state legalized gambling there in the early '90s.

The surrounding mountains, the old Victorian buildings, the scars from past mining and the leftover dilapidated mining equipment makes for a picturesque little town. Mind you, most of the houses in Cripple Creek are in much better shape than this sad little shack.

You may wonder how I had time to take any photos if I was playing poker. I was knocked out by a 3-outer on the cusp of the final table...

Click on Sepia Scenes for some other great sepia photos.

Morning Reflections

Downtown Colorado Springs has a number of beautiful old historic buildings, statues, public art and, of course, great views of Pikes Peak. This shot, taken at sunrise, captures Pikes Peak and the St Mary's Catholic Cathedral as their images reflect off of the American Nation Bank building. I have to be careful driving downtown in the morning because I find this view distractingly dangerous.

That's my world. To view photos from around the world, travel on over to That's My World Tuesday.

Huntington & Hopkins Hardware

Today's Thursday Theme is "SIGNS" (Traffic, Building, Neon, Peace Signs, Graffiti, Religious,...).

This photo is of the Huntington & Hopkins Hardware building, one of the historic buildings located in Old Sacramento Historic District. These buildings date from the early California Gold Rush days.

Point your browser over to Photo Theme for Thursday to see other great photos.

Sunset Red Granite

This is my first entry in the Thursday Challenge. This weeks theme is "BUILDING" (House, Hut, Tent, Skyscraper, Green House,...).

In Texas, they brag that The State of Texas capitol building is largest state capital building in the US - everything is bigger in Texas!

This Italian Renaissance Revival building was opened to the public April 21st, 1888. The building is constructed with "Sunset Red" granite quarried from Marble Falls, TX.

Click here to see a photo of the dome from inside.

Blast from the Past: Hohenschwangau from Neuschwanstein

A view of Hohenschwangau from Neuschwanstein Castle (Schwangau, Germany 2002). Neuschwanstein was built by King Ludwig II of Bavaria and is said to be the inspiration for Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland. Bavaria is a beautiful place to visit: beautiful views, tasty food, nice people, wonderful beer.

Blast from the Past: Statue and shadows

This shot was taken from the back of a tour bus in London, UK (2002). Thus, I don't know what the statue is, nor what the buildings are. I liked the play of light and shadows, and luckily got the shot. To me, the shadow on the far right has always seemed ominous - it looks like the shadow of hawk's beak, heading towards the cute little kid.

State of Texas Capital

During a recent trip business trip, I took the opportunity to visit the State of Texas Capital Building. I used to live in Austin, but never went inside of the capital building. It is very impressive. This photo is of the dome.

San Francisco

On the day after xmas, the girls went shopping for brides maid's dresses in San Francisco. Meanwhile, David and I did the tourist thing in the city visiting the Golden Gate Bridge, Fort Point National Historic Site, the San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park, the Musée Mécanique, Ghirardelli_Square, and, of course, eating clam chowder.

Here is a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge looming over Fort Point. Its an impressive view from this vantage point.

We meet up with the girls later and spent a good hour or so sitting in traffic downtown at rush hour. What a mob of people! We finished off the evening with a nice dinner and a little Jazz.

It's always nice to get back to the city, and I look forward to my next visit.

Air Force Academy

Kelly and I started hiking along the Santa Fe Trail thru the AFA while waiting for 8:00am (when the academy open's to the public). It was extremely windy! I couldn't take some shots because the wind was blowing me off balance.

Here's an interesting shot of the Air Force Academy Chapel - whaddya think?

Golden Gate Park

Today, I took a trip to Golden Gate National Recreation Area to shot the Golden Gate bridge. I set my alarm for 3:40 AM so that I could get to Golden Gate Bridge at sunrise. Unfortunately, I got there a bit late. The sun was just rising as I got to San Francisco - the best time to drive around San Francisco, by the way. Here's one of the shots I got.

Downtown Sac on a Friday Night

It's Friday night, and I'm walking around the California capital building in downtown.
Another wonderful sunset out in on the west coast. I guess all the fires and pollution are good for something.

Lot's of great shots. I think I got a few, but missed a lot.

This photo shows the Tower Bridge off in the distance, silhouetted against the last dregs of sunlight.

Some of the shots were overexposed in places. I really need to start using the histogram more - I think that I would've come home with more shots. For example this shot of the capital building. I like the weird perspective, and the motion blurred trees in the foreground. But the overexposed parts of the building - not so much.
Common wisdom has it that one should expose for the highlights, but "develop" for the shadows.

A cop on a bicycle stopped and ask me if I was amateur or professional. Funny. Probably some legal reason (ie, permit required for pros).

Legal Stuff

I'm looking for places online to store my photo.

The first issue to think about is copyrights. If I upload my photos to a web service, what rights do they take on?

For instance, Goggle Picasa's 'Terms of Use' specifies the following:

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This licence is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

11.2 You agree that this licence includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.

This license seems to be in rather broad terms. The website Phanfare.com has a similar provision.

I like ImageEvent.com terms of use better:

ImageEvent claims no ownership rights in any image contained in any of your photo albums. For the sole purpose of displaying your images through your Album, and fulfilling any print and gift orders you or your album invitees place, you grant ImageEvent to use such images to fulfill such orders.

Flickr.com also uses the terms "worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive license" while professing to no claim of ownership rights.

Currently, I have a bunch of pictures up on ImageEvent.com and Picasa.

I've been an ImageEvent customer for a long time. However, I don't like the features of the service very much when compared to others. I'd like to find a new web 2.0 site, but the "worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive" licenses worry me. Perhaps needlessly.

Hmmm.

Experiment with cropping

Here's the Portland Convention Center, cropped.

Whaddya think?

Portland

During a business trip to Portland, Oregon, I had some free time to walk around and take pictures.




Canon 40D, ISO 400, 1/50, f/11, 33mm

The Portland convention center is cool building. Here's an (abstract?) picture I took outside of the building.



Canon 40D, ISO 400, 1/320s, f/3.50, 55mm

The rose was taken at the Portland International Test Rose gardens.