You Have To Love Digital

This may only be of interest to my photo enthusiast friends, but you have to love what digital can do. This image was taken at this past Saturday's wedding. It is a nice photo, but what you need to appreciate is that the lighting was really poor when this was taken. It was late afternoon and there was a pretty heavy overcast. In film days I would have said "forget about it". Even Saturday I was lamenting the poor quality of light. I cranked up the ISO to 3200 and just hoped all would be well. I knew my camera (Nikon d700) was capable of good clean photos at 6400 ISO, but still get nervous with it, especially when photographing people. Anyhow, I'm impressed with how well this photo held up under the conditions. You would think this was taken under much better lighting conditions than what was really the case. No flash used. Digital rocks.

Mitch & Lindsay December 11 Wedding

Here are a few quick picks from Mitch and Lindsay's wedding Saturday. Always fun to work with a couple Park View grads. Some of these images were shot at Claude Moore Park. It was a bit cool, but the mid 40's temp was definitely better than the low 20's this week and the week before. Click on image to enlarge.

Defining Life

So this week NASA announced the discovery of a microorganism that is able to thrive and reproduce using  the toxic chemical arsenic. Presumably this raises the possibility of the existence of life beyond Earth. Says Ed Weller, NASA's associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate: "The definition of life has just expanded. As we pursue our efforts to seek signs of life in the solar system, we have to think more broadly, more diversely and consider life as we do not know it." This excitement by scientists reminds me of back several years ago when what I believe was a meteor was discovered in someone's backyard. While dissecting this meteor's remnants, scientists came to believe that there was evidence within the meteor for the possibility of the existence of life (again, I believe) on Mars. Because of this finding, scientists went to great lengths to protect this meteor.

Perhaps I am reading too much into this, but whenever I hear people talk about the possible existence of life or signs of life on another planet, I cannot help but think of the abortion issue. Here we have NASA scientists going all crazy about a microorganism as being a "life", something to be valued, protected, and looked upon in awe; and yet every day hundreds of actual human lives are aborted with little if any consideration. No value, no protection, no awe. Imagine an alien scientist from outer space, not understanding human reproductivity, seeing for the first time a baby in the womb of a human. Would they be as amazed of this "life" as our scientists seem to be about life beyond Earth?

Wittenberg University

I took a recent trip to Ohio to visit friends and family and was able to make a stop at my alma mater Wittenberg University. Wittenberg was included in the Princeton Review's list of the 20 most beautiful college campuses in the country. My pictures here don't do it justice . . I was mostly taking pedestrian shots of some of the changes around campus.  I really wish I could have been there about two weeks earlier for full fall foliage. At any rate I enjoyed walking the campus, seeing my old house, and seeing all the changes that have occurred over the years.

FlashMob Feel Good Video

Ethan & Megan at Stone Manor, Maryland

Here are a few images from Ethan and Megan's October 29 wedding at Stone Manor in Middletown, Maryland. This was the first wedding at Stone Manor that I have photographed. There is a lot to like about Stone Manor, even more to like about Ethan and Megan. They were great to work with, and all went well on their wedding day. Click on image to enlarge.

Punish Your Enemies

You may have heard President Obama's comment a week or so ago that hispanics should "punish their enemies" at the voting booth. Much has been made about such a divisive comment coming from a president, particularly one who campaigned for president as a uniter. Here is the quote:

"If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, ‘We're going to punish our enemies and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us,' if they don't see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it's going to be harder and that's why I think it's so important that people focus on voting on November 2."

Now Obama is trying to walk back his comment:

In Monday's radio interview with Michael Baisden, Obama said: "I had a conversation with a Hispanic radio outlet, Univision, and during the course of that conversation, one of the things that I had to say to the Latino community, which is frustrated that we haven't seen progress on immigration reform, was that they can't sit out of this election. There were arguments being made that because Democrats hadn't gotten this done, that Latinos should vote against Democrats or just sit out the election.

"And I said, well, you can't punish your friends when - the folks who've been supporting it. Now, I did also say if you're going to punish somebody, punish your enemies, and I probably should have used the word ‘opponents' instead of ‘enemies.' Now the Republicans are saying that I'm calling them enemies. What I'm saying is you're an opponent of this particular provision, comprehensive immigration reform, which is something very different.

Can anybody interpret these additional comments from Obama? Is he apologizing? I don't think so. Is he saying that Republicans are falsely accusing him of using the word "enemies"? He did use the word, right? Or is he saying that he was not referring to Republicans but rather to people who oppose immigration reform? Really? This from the same guy who told Republicans that they can come along for the ride, but they have to sit in the back? No, don't fall for this spin. Even in his spin Obama refers to the Democrats as the "friends" of hispanics. If, in Obama's mind, Democrats are the friends, who then are the enemies?

Obama was telling us how he really thinks by first using the word "enemies". For Obama, anyone who disagrees with him is the enemy . . not an opponent, but the enemy. And who are his enemies? Not Islamic terrorists, not people who want to see the United States destroyed, not even those who want to see our Constitution torn apart. No, Obama's enemies are those who don't buy into his policies or his politics . . namely Republicans and those people who identify with the Tea Party movement. Well Mr. President, right back at you.

Obama Hope and Change Not Selling Anymore

If you look through my posts over the past two plus years, it is clear that I was one of many who never bought into the Obama hysteria. I knew he had no experience, I was skeptical of his still largely unknown background and associations with dubious socialists, and I did not not buy into his undefined "hope and change".

Today an article in American Thinker gives a good big picture overview of how Obama got to where he is today.

"Perhaps, as he opined himself in The Audacity of Hope, the throngs loved him in '08 because he was a "blank slate" upon whom voters cast their own pictures. Now that he has an actual record of governance, his audiences are no longer fodder for easy bamboozling. In '08, the people saw what they wanted to see; reality bites back in 2010.


So when he took his deceptive oratory on the campaign trail as a political blank slate and offered up the "hope" and "change" that would make all our problems go away, the American community bought his lines faster than you can say "snake oil." In '08, Obama looked like Al Gore at a global warming tent revival, smiling, passing the hat, basking in the glow of ethereal hope, and laughing all the way to the bank.

But the community organizer is and always has been nothing but a used-car-salesman-type middleman. The community organizer's job is not getting things done, not improving conditions for real people, but talking a good game and somehow forcing government money out of the hands of the haves and putting it into the hands of the have-nots. He is a middleman sent in to make the sale and take a handsome cut from the pilfered money. "

Call Me Senator

Josh & Natasha at Rock Hill Plantation, Stafford, VA

Here are a few images from Josh and Natasha's October 17 wedding at Rock Hill Plantation. Click to enlarge.

Brian & Ali at Merriweather Manor, Leesburg

A handful of images from Brian and Ali's October 9 wedding at St. Johns, followed by their reception at Merriweather Manor in Leesburg. Click on image to enlarge.