New Old D2h

My friend gave me his old camera, a Nikon D2h. Fabulous. I like the way it sounds when I press the shutter release button. I clicked away just to hear it, sometimes. I carried it with me when I walked around after supper this evening.

Cappadocia George: Tonemapped

The HDRs so far have come from my old photography files and from the single image I extracted. Ideally, one would employ a tripod and capture three images at different exposures to subsequently merge into one image in your favorite High Dynamic Range software. Thus far, I've used Photomatix.

George's image, above, and Christ's, below, painted on the cave walls in Cappadocia. 

Sumela George: Tonemapped

HDR version above; original image below.

Painterly HDR or Otherwise

           My friend Nancy loves the images we saw in Trabzon, Turkey, of the Sumela Monastery. So do I, and cannot resist working with High Dynamic Range photography on the images I took during our visit there. Here we can compare two images of Karl composing for a photo of the chapel built in the side of the mountain.

Pig Pen on a Wheat Field

         Fred the Farmer put us in a combine. We harvested wheat for about an hour before I had to leave to attend a board meeting (argh) or I would have remained in the cab watching the combiners at their work. We see them for only a few weeks every year. 

The combines are constantly surrounded by a cloud of dust and wheat grass particles, and I was remindful of the comics character Pig Pen.

This is the view from the cab of the uncut wheat ahead of the combine.

Looking directly below, the tines keep the cut wheat on the belt that moves inward after the blades saw off the stems. 

In the cab, the driver can monitor information on each run, such as how many bushels per acre, groundspeed, and moisture on the wheat plant.

The window behind the driver shows the combine filling the compartment.

          When the compartment is full, a light flashes outside the cab to alert the tractor driver to approach. Tractor and combine drive side by side at more or less two miles per hour as the driver of the combine fills the tractor's trailer and directs the combine down the field. (Kind of like chewing and walking of a higher order. Kids, do not attempt this at home.)

Once full, the tractor transfers the wheat to the eighteen-wheeler. Note the tires on the tractor. 

Tone-mapped Karl in Sumela

Fiddling with HDR

Tone-mapped Virgin Mary of Sumela (top).

On the South West Side

We drove around exploring.

Old trailer along the dirt road.

Gas chart.

Common Nighthawk.

A Black Angus cow stands belly-deep in the water cooling off from ninety-degree Fahrenheit temperatures. 

A cow, accompanied by Cattle Egrets, stands in the shade of a Mesquite plant.

Hunters left behind chairs now flooded by the risen lake level.

Looks like a dwelling for a little animal. 

Briefly Visiting "Jenny"

Click on the title of this post to visit the Museum of North Texas History's site about the "Jenny." 

D-Day today. Thanks to you across the pond, fallen. Rest well. 

The WWI biplane, Curtiss Jenny, was built between 1916 and 1918.

Tom Danaher poses with Gabriel.

Tom shows Gabriel the oil indicator on the biplane.

Cranking up the Model T Ford.

Tom and the Model T.

C47 Converted to DC3

Back at the Well

I visited the completion well again.

Replacing the swab cups. 

Frac tank containing oil. 

A device to measure the oil inside the frac tank. The paste can indicate the amount of water in the oil by changing color. 

One of the camels on the Hudson approached us. 

Fledgling Yellow-crowned Heron

      This little fellow fell out of his nest, thirty-feet onto the pavement. His sibling did not survive, unfortunately. This morning, Alicia will drive him to the sanctuary in Lubbock.

End of Spring: Exhausted Hounds

Dogs feel tired after chasing birds all spring. 

Flags for the Fallen

           We spent the first part of the morning placing flags on the graves of the people who served during the wars. The flag I placed on Delphus' tomb in the mausoleum a couple of years ago is still there, but I placed another one there for him, for his spirit, for insisting in joining the US Army as a forty-year old man to serve his country.

Art in the Den of Sinners

         The church MyMrMallory and I attend has beautiful stained glass windows. I look up at them in awe and feel some inspiration by the images. On a side note, the windows are close to one hundred years old. Mr. Chris said today that one may not stop service, or retire, but one may continue to serve for as long as one lives. I wish the beauty of the windows representing the devotion of those who lived before us to inspire everyone to serve and to quit sinning. With a history of two thousand years of sermons, lecturing, and Bible thumping, to no avail, this may seem too much to ask of some folks. So far away are they from a relationship with God, that they cannot even understand pictures that surround them as they kneel, much less comprehend the words over which their eyes glaze over when they open a Bible. And the choir continues to sing to deaf people sitting in the pews who are as deaf to the words and the music as they are blind to the message of the art in the windows.

Kathmandu Cat

I found Kisses meditating on my cosmic tankha. 

The Combines are Here!

It's time to harvest the wheat!

These fellows drove down from Kansas to begin harvesting wheat fields in Texas. They bring new technology: The blue machine pictured above removes the wheat head and leaves the plant intact. The plant is later cut and bundled for cattle feed.