Photo of the Day

Left to right:

Gavin, Kim, Will, Fumiko touring around the 天草 Amakusa islands.

Canon 20d, 10-22mm efs, canon 580 exII into a bent up (after being taken by the wind) shoot-through brolly camera left, fiery celestial body subject rear

Photo of the Day

OK, OK, photos this time. Still working on my portraiture skills.

Canon 20d, 10-22mm efs, canon 580exII into shoot-through brolly cam left, canon 430exII subject rear onto wall

Click the slideshow to jump out to the full album.

Time Warp Online

Adobe Zoetrope permits seeing online content change over time in ways more powerful than ever before.  Check out the MIT Tech Review.

Photo of the Day

Fumiko and I spend the whole day exploring the countryside last weekend. I have quite a few shots I'd like to share with you all; here's the first of them.

Canon 20d, EF-s 10-22mm @ 21mm
1/90s @ f4.5
580 EXII on shoot-through brolly camera left, ST-E2 transmitter

Self Critique: I need to be more cautious of hair. The flyaways on the left (our left) areas of her temples is pretty much a deal breaker. An edge light to camera left, subject rear would have added some pop and helped pull the subject out of the dark background.

They Say History Repeats Itself

He claimed that he would happily reverse his vote if the president could prove that first blood was shed on American soil, but since he "can not, or will not do this," he suspected that the entire matter was, "from beginning to end, the sheerest deception." Having provoked both countries into war, Lincoln charged, the president had hoped "to escape scrutiny, by fixing the public gaze upon the exceeding brightness of military glory . . . that serpent's eye, that charms to destroy." He went on to liken the president's war message to "the half insane mumbling of a fever-dream." Perhaps recalling the turtles tormented with hot coals by his boyhood friends, Lincoln employed the bizarre simile of the president's confused mind "running hither and thither, like some tortured creature, on a burning surface, finding no position, on which it can settle down, and be at ease."

-Doris Kearns Goodwins, "Team of Rivals", Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2006, pg 121-122
On Lincoln's criticisms of the handling of the Mexican War by then-president James Polk