Which one?

Color?

Black and White?

A few more shots from my Sunday shoot at Fort Churchill State Park.

Hercules

Fort Churchill State Park (The Orchard).

At the Natural History Museum

Part of the Smithsonian, the Natural History Museum on the National Mall is a must-see. There is no admission charge to any of the Smithsonian museums, so get yourself to Washington DC and you are good to go. Word of advice: Allow yourself lots of time to explore!

The greeter.

There is so much going on in this simple photograph!

The view from the front.

Good Luck, Mr. President – UPDATED

It is Inauguration Day in the United States.

For all the silliness of the election season, and regardless of the winner, I like inauguration day and the peaceful transition of power it symbolizes (or in this case, the assent of the people to the continuation of the current administration). I’ve got a number of friends who are there and I hope they have a great time.

I took these shots of the White House last March. You can see the lights on in the Oval Office and I wonder if they are on all the time, or only when the President is in residence. I’m pretty sure President Obama was in D.C. at the time, so seeing the lights on was kind of cool.

UPDATED to add: Okay, now I’m feeling rather foolish. I’ve been operating under the misapprehension that the Oval Office is located in the White House. It is not. It is located in the West Wing, a separate building on the White House grounds.

Take Three

I’m finally going through my photos I took in Washington, DC last spring. Nik Color Efex Pro has some pre-loaded recipes and I’ve also created some of my own, so I took this shot I took of the Smithsonian Castle and gave it a couple of different treatments. (Click on images for larger version)

“Soft Landscape”

Vintage (my recipe) and Detail Extractor:

This last one uses the Warm Sunset recipe and Extreme Detail Extractor filter. I really like this one. It looks more like painting than a photograph.

Day 330 – Bowers Mansion

I took Nina and Buddy on an outing today. One of our stops was Bowers Mansion Park. Here are a few photos from that stop.

On the playground, these swings caught my eye. I liked the repeating shapes, so I processed the photo in black and white to bring them out.

At the front steps of the mansion.

There is a very large fallen tree on the property. This is just a portion of the exposed roots.

A view of the mansion from the playground. Out of the frame to the left is a covered picnic area and horseshoe pit.

Day 161 – Lake Merritt

It’s been a long day and I’ve got a lot of photographs to go through, so I’m just going to post a few. The Congenital Heart Walk was at Lake Merritt in Oakland, CA. It was a picture perfect day and the temperature was great too.

Rowing Club: