Lesson 1 from San Antonio: I need a trypod of some sort. I had a great time in Texas; the conference was nice, I stayed in a very nice hotel, I got to visit with my sister, etc. On the whole, though, I wasn’t thrilled with the quality of my pictures. The problem, it seems, is that I enjoy taking pictures at night. I think that one of the main reasons I enjoy it is that the digital camera is better at it than my 35 mm camera. Given the same level of light, the digital camera can operate at a much faster shutter speed, producing a sharper image. Nonetheless, my hands still aren’t still enough to make it perfectly sharp. I guess for that I would need a trypod. Who wants to carry a tripod all over the place, though?

Anyway, as you can hopefully tell, this is a shot of the Christmas Tree in Alamo Plaza with the Alamo in the background. Despite my ranting about the overall quality of my pictures above, I was very proud of this one.

It poured rain for nearly all day today. Then, about 45 minutes before sundown, suddenly the sun came out. It continued to pour rain for the next few minutes – resulting in a beautiful rainbow which we could see almost from end to end. Unfortunately, I wasn’t that pleased with the pictures of the rainbow…

As the sun started to set, though, we were left with a gorgeous sundown. I snapped several pictures of it. Unfortunately, the view from our apartment, while lovely, tends to be very cluttered by the tops of other buildings, parking lots, and whatnot. That’s what we get for living downtown – even in a tiny city like Ithaca. In any case, even though the sunset colors aren’t quite as bright in this one, I liked it the best.

Tomorrow I depart for a conference in San Antonio. I’m not very excited about flying – it will be my first flight since September 11 – but I have confidence that my flights will be safe and uneventful. Assuming that I am able to make it through security with my vast array of electronic devices, I should be bringing you some pictures from my trip. Unlike our trip to Maine, this one should include some sightseeing. (Electronic device inventory: digital camera, PDA, cell phone, and laptop. I should star in an episode of Dilbert.)

We went to visit my wife’s grandmother in Maine for Thanksgiving this year. We had a very nice time and a wonderful thanksgiving meal. We didn’t do much “sightseeing,” but I’ll post a couple of pictures from the trip anyhow. Actually, I have quite a number of pictures that I want to post today, but that’s good because I also have a lot to say.

This first picture above is a picture of a pile of lobster traps on the beach at low tide. That’s Casco Bay in the background.

The second picture is a picture of the mooring yard at Town Landing in Falmouth, Maine. When we visited in May, there were probably 100 boats moored here. As you can see, the boating season is pretty much over for this year in Maine.

A few days after posting the photograph of people playing chess, I ran across the following article: Etiquette for Nonconsensual Photography. Now, I suppose that the author has a point, and I don’t want to take pictures of people who don’t want their picture taken. I also think, however, that he may take it a bit far. Does one have a right to expect not to be photographed when visiting a public place? What about security cameras and the like? Also, I think that there are some photographs which simply could not be captured if you asked permission first – the moment would be gone. This author suggests that such photographs should simply be missed. Nonetheless, reading the article has caused me to take a break snapping random pictures of people I don’t know, at least until I have time to formulate my own opinion on the subject. Thoughts, anyone? Use the comment feature; this is the first time I’ve tried it on this site, so I hope it works.

Last Sunday afternoon, we were sitting in our apartment and we heard bagpipes. This isn’t very unusual, as we live near a pedestrian area where there are often musical performances. I thought I would get a picture – bagpipes are such a unique instrument. When I got outside, though, I had missed the bagpipes; it turns out that they were part of a parade. I caught the tail end of the parade, but I thought these kids were cute.

Here are some autumn leaves in a streetlight. I stole this idea from another weblog writer, but I thought this picture turned out pretty well. I’ve taken a number of pictures with my camera at night lately. The digital camera does better than a film camera with nighttime pictures, but I still need some practice. So, maybe there will be some more nighttime shots up soon.

Also, I’m going to try posting a second entry today. We’ll see how it goes.