The “selective light” image of trees couple of weeks ago was well received here on the blog, so I looked through the Lightroom Library again for another candidate. And I found one. This picture was actually taken in high contrast light, so not much work besides turning into black and white was needed. Similar technique, but completely different feeling to the image.

I should title my iPhone photos posts something like “Quick snap” or similar. They are so fun to take and so easy to process before putting on blog. This one was taken on the same walk as last week bluebells. Just strolling around town on a sunny spring day with ice cream in mind.

Another from my “found around the house” series. The regular potato doesn’t look like an exciting object to photograph, quite unlike to red potatoes, I suppose. I thought it my be an interesting challenge. The basket looked like a perfect prop for the shoot, I set up two speed lights, and started looking for a composition. I cannot resist using my Lensbaby, mostly because I have this macro kit with which I can get real close and personal. And it gave me my favorite shot of the afternoon.

It was more then a months ago, when we went on weekend to photograph interior of Hacienda restaurant in Cedar Rapids. Walking around and photographing the rooms, we were drawn to all the objects and details in that place. One of them the cabinet with wine bottles. The metal gates were really interesting subject. We put some effort in lighting it just the right way. And finding the most interesting point of focus.

I have a lonely tulip under the deck. This tulip also doesn’t look like it will present any flower this season. Out of desperation, I bought a pot of blooming tulips then. This old one was white when I bought him couple of years ago and before he was placed in the soil. The new set is red. More like between red and magenta? I am not sure. I spend almost a week, with Lensbaby and macro kit, photographing it from all distances and directions. Here is the gallery of the efforts.

I haven’t seen petrified forest before. Well, technically I have not seen it last time in Utah, either. Just this year, Southern Utah received well above average of snow, and I happened to be there middle March, a day or two after last snow storm. Escalante Petrified Forest State Park was basically closed, and all I could see was a representative display at the visitors parking. Not much, but gave me some ideas what petrified forest is about. And several nice photograhs, which I thought my need some Details Enhancement. And believe it or not, it was done without use of Photomatix. Just smart Lightroom Details Enhancer preset (sorry, I cannot find the source of the preset right now. If you are the creator, put the link in Comments, I will be happy to add it to the post).

This week, it was a second time I heard about Woopra
First time, it was when Trey Ratcliff reviewed it on his blog last winter. And now, Frederic Van Johnson recorded a podcast where he interviewed John Pozadzides, who distributes Woopra. And yesterday, if you follow @MartinBailey on Twitter, he tweeted about how he installed it and enjoyed. The user pool is apparently growing.
This time, I decided to sit and write this post. To protest. And express my opinion why I will not use it. And why I will make every effort to make it unsuccessful to use it for everybody else.
As a blogger, I do understand importance of statistics. I am using Google Analytics myself. I like checking how many people visit my blog, from which countries or even towns. When I prepare the new web page, I would look which browser they use and what resolution of monitors prevails. I appreciate it. But when I hear about Woopra, I have the impression that they are going too far. It is reaching the point that I do not feel comfortable anymore. I do not want anybody follow me and my preference on any given web page. I do not want to be recognized as returning user, I do not want anybody to see which pages I visited, in which order and how much time I spend on each. Nor the fact that I am using Mac and Mozilla browser. I am fine with those statistics being collected for all anonymous users on the page. But I do not want somebody collecting information which can be used to profile me as a single person. And compiling it in a package, with my home and IP address, system, software, and possibly any other pages I visited, as apparently Woopra keeps the stats for all the pages using its analytics.
And besides, surprising me by starting a chat with me when I visit a page- it is not funny. And not useful. If I want to interact with people, there is Facebook, Twitter or even I can leave a comment. Which I will be careful now. I don’t want anybody solicit me to buy a print for example when I browse through online gallery.
I am really surprise how all the people so concerned about copyrights are so excited by such an invasion of their privacy by other blog users.
I don’t know about you, but I am not installing Woopra on my blog. Moreover, I am going to make sure that my browser will block all its java scripts.
What is a fun toy for you now, can one day result in selling your preferences to highest bidder. Because you are not only a bloger. You are reader of other blogs, you are a user, too.

I had this collection of abstract, blurred landscape images in mind for a blog for a long time. They are all done with panning on the steady subject, with longer shutter speeds and movement corresponding to the direction of shapes. I was taking them on different occasion for last three years, so I was able to pick a theme for a blog gallery. The colors and atmosphere of the final images correspond to changing season in the nature.

When was the last time I shared a photo taken spontaneously with my iPhone? Must have been a while. I was just checking if there is something interesting hiding in Camera Roll, and indeed there was this image. I took it on a walk to creamery last week. With all free time I have now, I am discovering that you can actually ride a bike or walk around our middle-of-nowhere Iowa town, so I can observe the season’s changes. And my iPhone is always with me, to document all the buds, spring flowers and emerging green leaves.

I spend most of weekend preparing photograph for submission to the Iowa State Fair Photo Salon. Sounds serious, doesn’t it . I was far more into contests last year, I guess this year more time goes into stock submissions. The thing is, these are different criteria to pick images. In any case, it made me to browse through last years images, and I discovered at least one real good one not featured on the blog yet . This photo of bald eagle was taken in Toledo Zoo.