Wreath laying, Arlington National Cemetery, December 11, 2010

I think the images speak for themselves.

The following were the most difficult to take, from the "new" section where loved ones were placing personal gifts of love to those that would never again make it home for the holiday.

Here a mother sits in front of her Marine Corp son. Simply awful.

Everyone else is playing with their Droids and iPhones.....

but I just got a Lensbaby Composer to play with since Verizon isn't yet carrying the iPhone.

A soldier, along with her daughter,  was feeding the geese out at the Marina. She had a nice jeep and allowed me to take it's picture.

She said her husband had pulled two tours in Iraq and got out. For some reason I assumed she was still serving.

There's probably something in focus on the above images. I'm liking the Lensbaby as post processing is held to a minimum, or at least mine is.

The old Honda's check engine light came on again for the second time in as many months, so I'm out car shopping again.  I thought the Toyota 4Runner was ugly at first, but it's starting to grow on me, and it would probably be a good cross-country sight-seeing vehicle. I wish I could decide between full-timing with a very large truck and a fifth wheel, or just going on very long camping trips. I do know that I want to see everything this country has to offer.

This song sparrow was in my backyard. A Peregrine Falcon landed on my deck the other day, but I didn't get it's picture, which was a very memorable moment.

Bombay Hook/Prime Hook

Went Sunday to Bombay Hook with friends Greg Daily and Don Rosenberger to photograph migrating birds. There wasn't much to shoot at Bombay, although a couple of birders were excited about seeing a barnacle goose there. Don asked around and got driving instructions to where a couple thousand snow geese had landed in some ponds next to the road at Prime Hook.

That sort of reminded me of a scene from Gadsby.  On the other side of the house was a beach with another nice view.

Sunset reflecting off a pond on the other side of the road.

Don packing it in.

Greg sighting down the barrel of a 500mm cannon. I wonder if the Japanese are aware they misspelled Canon on all their equipment?

I didn't do well in the form of bird photography, but had a good time and I didn't have to drive.

Fooling around with the D-90 and 80-400mm lens.

Wild life, two words.

Great Blue Heron searching for food.

Oops, he came up with nothing after all that time and work invested.

Here he had moved over a few feet and came up with ........ a leaf. No entitlement programs here, so he moved on and was fishing another spot the last I saw him. You work, or you don't eat.

This guy just doesn't want me to photograph him so he keeps swimming further out whenever I get near, but I'll keep trying. I prefer photographing animals in their natural environment as opposed to shooting in the zoo, but zoo photography can be fun, I just credit the zoo. So far I haven't "shot" any captive animals. It seems to me that would be like hunting over a baited field, therefore not as challenging. I think I would give credit to the organization that owned the animal though, and certainly wouldn't try to pass it off as being "in the wild." Nothing wrong with that if that's what you prefer, it's just not my style. I'm not sure my photoshop techniques are good enough to clone the tethers off the birds feet either. And if an owner does pose his animal for you, do you say "cheese" before snapping the shutter?

Just some pesky geese in a nice reflection. Nature is beautiful, even on a dreary day.

Starducks

I headed over to Starbucks to do a little workin' women watching over a cup of coffee and a bagel before heading over to the Marina with the camera. Lightroom 3 has been improved in many different ways, but if you don't watch what you're doing when you download images, it's a real pain finding them.

Ducks were there, and not much else.

That's not the order I wanted to download, but it really doesn't make any difference. It's just that kind of day.

Below is autumn as seen through the window over my front door. That's a Bradford pear tree in my neighbors yard, the leaves of which fall on my yard. My neighbor won't rake the leaves up, claims she's too busy, so after cleaning up my section a couple of times I just start blowing them back on her. She doesn't notice so what the hell?

After taking the duck photos at the marina, I headed over to the Dunkin' donuts to see what they had to offer. I think the coffee there was disappointing, and the donut just ok. At least they had a tv to watch, but from now on I think I'll just have my coffee at home where it tastes much better, and is a lot cheaper.