New computer for the new year

Stan putting the finishing touches on his latest computer

Welcome Home - The Rockaways!

Home sweet home rock rock rockaway beach. Great surf, and fun to see from the air!

Let the sunshine....

It was a little while later that a big red ball of fire started coming up on the horizon. (the wide angle iphone camera doesn't do it justice!)

Sunrise in Burbank - over Bob Hope Airport

We set out in the dark (5am) to get to the airport, the good news, no traffic on the busy LA freeways! Boarded the plane and looked out the window and watched as the sky got lighter.

On our way

Jet blue to jfk

Greetings from Pasedena

I have to add, after our beautiful holiday walk through historic downtown Pasedena, my sister called later that night to say she heard on the news there was a shooting in front of Mi Piaci, right where we waited to get our cars. 2 shots went thru the window of the candle place next door, we were only there a few hours before this happened, in the exact same spot!

Jet Blue to Burbank

The Christmas Tree

Ours goes back to storage every year because we travel, we live in an apartment attached to other apartments made of wood. A tinderbox in a row. This works for now for us.
Joe reminded Stanley how when he was little, he used to unwrap the little shiny gift box decorations, and he said yes, and there was foam inside! He was a great help cleaning up to make room for the tree and decorating, the unwrapping will wait til christmas after Santa comes.

All aboard! Santa's coming to town.

You better be nice or you won't get presents. - Stanley

Bye Citicorp Center

The 7 train ride home.

Citicorp Center

It must be time for The Station @ Citigroup Center

Citicorp Holiday Train Show

My model never wants to look at the camera or smile.

Inspiration from the past still looks Great!

Today I have to refer once again to the latest blog I look forward to reading. David Ziser's Ditital Protalk has a great combination of technical how to's including fantastic tutorial videos and links to articles on art photographers. This video today was embedded in his blog, and I would like to share it with you here.

License Plates at Roanoke Transportation Museum

Lightroom/Aperture, Lightroom/Apertue. Been trying to learn and decide which application to use. May end up with both, meanwhile David Ziser has great Photoshop video tutorials. I started practicing extraction, and grabbed this photo to work with. I decided I liked the backround (with a little cropping), and meanwhile failed at my extraction (there must have been some tiny hole in my line I could NOT find). So here is a photo to start, and will have to grab some of those car and car parts!

Nothing better on a frozen sleety day then to sit in bed with the labtop working on photography!

Usually we just look at and photograph the trains. Here's Joe's nephew Jonathan in a very cool coat!

More on the Neighborhood Holiday Theme

Duck in a tree...

and a little xmas lights in the hood

Holiday Greetings complements of iphone!

Happy Hannukah

Jane and Justine

I went over to Jane and Justine's (see their adventures with Stanley in The Green Knight and the Search for Cherry Blossoms) house to take some photos of them for their holiday card.

Their mom had some pretty new dresses for them to wear. It's definitely challenging to get kids under 5 to sit still for photos! And smile -at the same time. We did our best and came out with some decent ones.

Then today I read another photographer's blog -MeRa Koh on taking her kid's photos for the holidays. She mentioned all the things I went through and I had to laugh reading her post. Check out her tips! She mentioned 3 sets of bribes (all non-messy). We only had two. Ice cream for after, and I told their mom I needed something NOW. We used chocolate kisses, but had to wipe their mouths between treats. Plus the sugar adds up in the little ones for MORE movement...