CC's WOODEN GRILL

CC's WOODEN GRILL, originally uploaded by Otto Phokus.

Thought I would post some pictures from my Flickr account that have not received any views. I always liked this picture because it reminds a bit of a medeterranean theme with the bluish background, and the color of the tiles of the outdoor patio area. Anyway it has been a long, harsh, cold, wet, icy, snowy winter season so far, and I need to think of some warmer places. Can't wait for the spring weather to arrive and stay.

Marigold flower unopened

Marigold flower unopened, originally uploaded by Otto Phokus.

It's amazing what pictures people like, you can't even guess it right, you just have to put up your best, and a lot of variety, and see what takes off. I happen to like this one, the bokah, blur, and colors of this picture; and someone else marked it as a favorite too.

Taking pictures with my Lensbaby, and new Car

I was at a picnic Saturday, took about 250 pictures with the Lensbaby 2 lens,and f 2.8 aperture disk, with 1.6x telephoto. Not many keepers in the bunch (series), still weeding through them all. Artistically I like some of them, but they are not in the normal sense, to the average person, the idea of what a picture should look like. A lot of blur/bokah (selective focus), and softness.
I choose the wrong aperture. I should of went with f5.8 or higher. I thought with the overcast, lowlight, indoor ,and outdoor change of shooting scene, the 2.8 aperature would give me a lot of light to work with, but it also gave me more blur and softness, when I wanted more strong focus. Plus the fact I am shooting from the hip, not composing many shots, and then the indoor lighting giving the yellowish tint, I should of changed my camera setting to reflect the indoor lighting but forgot. Even with the 1.6x telephoto, it is still bascially a foot zoom lens, meaning you have to move with your feet to focus, rather than moving the lens, so sometimes you get the picture, and sometimes you don't. I should of known the 2.8 aperture was too low, so unless I have the time to compose the picture, take my time, and review afterwards, I will go with f/4 or above from now on.

Bought my new car on Wednesday. A 2008 Suzuki SX4 Sport. 0% financing. Took about 1 1/2 hours at the dealer to seal the deal, and then I drove home, and got a ride back in to pick up the new car. The car has everything I was hoping to get when I started my search. I will have to write more on this later, especially the fact that the Ford Focus looks strikingly similar to the Suzuki SX4 Sport. Just like my Suzuki 2 door Vitara, looks like a Chevy Tracker. In both cases I got the better deal with Suzuki. Once the weather clears up I will post some pictures of my new car.

First Blog Post - mostly a test.

One of many pictures I have taken with my digital camera, a Nikon D40x. This one of the Caterpillar, was taken with a lensbaby 2.0 Selective Focus Lens. I am mostly using one of my 2 Lensbaby lenses right now for pictures, and will post a lot more links to my Photrade page. Hope you like them.