Boston, MA (HDR from 5 bracketed exposures)
I recently attended a 4-day GI, liver, and pancreatic pathology course in Boston. I made my way down to the harbor during my first evening in town to get this shot of the Financial District just after sunset.
The National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. (HDR from a single RAW)
Admittedly, the food court makes for an awkward backdrop. The abundant glass windows at this end of the building allow a lot of natural light to hit the exhibit. This enabled me to get a nice indoor single RAW HDR without a tripod.
Excerpt from the museum’s website:
This is an actual lunar module, one of 12 built for Project Apollo. It was meant to be used in low Earth orbit to test the techniques of separation, rendezvous, and docking with the command and service module. The second of two such test vehicles, its mission was canceled because of the complete success of the first flight.
Great Falls Park in Northern Virginia (HDR from 5 bracketed exposures)
According to a nearby sign, you are looking at the ruins of “the first of 5 locks on the Great Falls portion of the Patowmack Canal. Used from 1802 to 1828, they lifted or lowered riverboats the 75 feet that the river drops in going over the falls.”
I recently stayed with family in Great Falls to attend the USCAP 2010 Annual Meeting. During a break from conference activities, I found myself exploring the Great Falls Park. Walking beside the Potomac River and the falls was a nice, relaxing break from everyday life. For instance, today I spent the late morning doing an autopsy on someone with blunt force injuries of the head and multiple gunshot wounds. Immediately upon completion of that autopsy, I walked a short distance to the scene of a suicide. It was just another day at the office.
I have been unable to work on my photography very much lately. I have a lot of things going on. I’m winding down my forensic pathology fellowship, I’ve got a clinical faculty position in GI pathology and cytopathology coming up very soon, my house is currently on the market, and I’m in the process of building a new home. Things are crazy, as they often seem to be. And, when things get crazy, my photography suffers.
The Washington Monument and Washington Monument Lodge in Washington, D.C. (HDR from a single RAW)
I was recently in the District for a work related conference. The weather for most of the week was downright dreadful. But, I made the most of it. In this photo, the Washington Monument in the background towers above the Washington Monument Lodge.
The girls were able to come up and spend a couple of days with me. It was their first time in D.C. We visited a couple of museums and did a lot of walking on the National Mall. We miscalculated the weather and decided it would be safe to walk all the way to the Lincoln Memorial, which put us about 1.2 miles from the Smithsonian Metro station. Just as we started to walk back, we got hit with a deluge. The kind that renders umbrellas useless. The wetness, combined with being pummeled by stuff getting knocked out of trees, made for a pretty rotten commute back to where we were staying.
Piney Wood Park in Durham, NC
Piney Wood Park is a small city park in Durham. There are a couple of these unusual buildings with locked blue doors, which I assume are some sort of storage facility.
As part of my forensic pathology fellowship, I get to spend a week rotating through the various parts of the SBI Crime Lab in Raleigh, NC. Here are some of the things I’ve learned:
- The only thing dumber than committing a felony is bragging to your “buddies” about committing said felony (audio analysis).
- “State of the art” video security systems are often equipped with low end cameras (video analysis).
- The ever expanding capacity of hard drives is essentially there to accommodate large porn collections (computer analysis).
- Proprietors of clandestine labs who emboss their product with an original logo get an A for effort (drug chemistry).
Work on my HDR tutorial is progressing nicely. I hope to have it published by the end of the weekend.
The Rotunda on The Lawn at UVA (Charlottesville, VA)
This photo was taken back in September of 2008. We took a day trip up to Charlottesville to show Kate where she was born and where she spent the first year of her life. She didn’t remember any of it, but she had a good time.
We caught a lucky break with the weather. After it rained nearly the entire drive up to Charlottesville, the weather improved when we arrived. In fact, we were greeted by some really nice clouds.
Charlottesville is a neat town. Graduating from medical school on The Lawn is something I will always remember.
Pullen Park in Raleigh, NC
I have a half marathon coming up soon. I originally intended to start training 12 weeks out. Then, 12 weeks became 10 weeks. Then, 10 weeks became 8 weeks. I finally forced myself to go for a run this morning. It was nothing to brag about (2.5 miles), but I have to start somewhere.
The Sailboat Pond at the North Carolina Museum of Life and Science in Durham.
We make it out to the North Carolina Museum of Life and Science on a pretty regular basis. The ‘Catch the Wind’ exhibit features a neat little concrete enclosed pond where visitors can captain radio controlled sailboats. In this photo, I was fortunate enough to capture three of the sailboats in a staggered formation. The boat reflections turned out well and are enhanced by the gentle ripples on the pond’s surface.
I’m working on an HDR tutorial which I will debut in the next week or two. I also have several exciting photography opportunities coming up over the next couple of months, if I can break away from doing autopsies on moldy exhumed bodies long enough to take advantage of them!
Animal Kingdom Park in Walt Disney World
While making our way from the Asia portion of the park to the Africa portion, we ran into DiVine at the beginning of one of her performances. Performing on stilts in front of a crowd takes some impressive talent. At one point, she paused to pose for pictures which allowed me to get this photo.
Cinderella Castle at the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World
Up until this point in the trip, I had not had much luck with the clouds. There were either no clouds, or the entire sky was gray, or the clouds were puny and blowing by too fast. I happened to be at the right place at the right time to get this shot.
One of the benefits of having the Nikkor 12-24 mm lens, is that I can walk right past everyone and get photos without people in them. I’m sure I’m in the foreground of a lot of people’s vacation photos. 
Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge at Walt Disney World in Florida
This was the view from our balcony every morning. Pretty awesome, huh? On one of our last days, there were five giraffes outside of our balcony at sunrise.
This photo almost never happened. As always, the days leading up to the trip were hectic. And, as a result, I put very little effort into making sure I had packed everything I needed. Last year when we went to Disney World, I forgot to take my camera battery charger (and no, I’m not yet sophisticated enough to have a backup battery). Fortunately, the battery life with my Nikon is incredible. This year, I remembered my battery charger, which I again didn’t need. And, I remembered to take my tripod; however, the tripod does little good if the quick release plate is back at home over 500 miles away. After unsuccessfully searching my BlackBerry for local places selling quick release plates that would match my tripod model, it was off to the closest Wal-Mart to purchase a cheap, and I do mean cheap, temporary solution. Not to worry though, I kept the receipt…and I got this photo.
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World
About 24 hours after our visit to Buena Vista Urgent Care for Kate’s bronchitis/ear infection, she bumped her forehead while riding BTMR and developed an impressive abraded contusion. I was told that she was fiddling with her headband and that somehow cause her to bang her forehead as the train hit a bump or curve. She’s tough, and it didn’t slow her down, but I think she was lucky that she didn’t get a laceration and end up right back at urgent care for stitches.
We felt a little cursed at this point. Unbeknown to us, we would have one more serious close call towards the end of the week. I’ll probably get around to telling that story later.
As for the above photo, I was holding Natalie in my left arm and operating the camera with just my right arm. Anyone who has ever held a D200 with a lens attached will tell you that this is no small accomplishment. Fortunately, Natalie wasn’t squirming.
Disney’s Hollywood Studios at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida
After spending part of the morning at a local urgent care getting antibiotics for Kate’s bronchitis and ear infection, we headed over to Hollywood Studios. Kate was a trooper. We spent most of the day carrying her from place to place.
It was an exhausting day for everyone. As we were nearing the exit of the park, one of the "cast members" approached us and asked the girls if they wanted something special. She led us to a backstage "dressing room" where the girls got to meet Mulan, Jasmine, and Aladdin.
The girls look tired in this photo, but they were very happy. I think it was just what they needed at the end of a rough start to the vacation. I give a big thumbs up to Disney for doing this kind of thing.
Expedition Everest at Disney’s Animal Kingdom
We just got back from a trip to Disney World. Our trip started out kind of rough. We spent the first morning in a local urgent care where my oldest daughter was diagnosed with her first ear infection. I felt so badly for her. Fortunately, the antibiotics had her feeling better very quickly.
Getting back to this photo, Expedition Everest has now overtaken the Tower of Terror and Splash Mountain as Kate’s favorite Disney World ride. In fairness to Splash Mountain, it wasn’t operating the week that we were there.
The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, NC
I took the girls to the Natural Sciences Museum in Raleigh today. We’ve been there several times before, but I got a couple of new and interesting shots today. This is shot from the second floor, overlooking the Coastal North Carolina Exhibit. The giant whale skeletons are pretty amazing. I’ve never had much luck shooting up at these from the first floor.
I’m working on integrating my Facebook, Flickr, Digital Photo Project, and Imagekind websites. What a pain in the ass! I need more time to devote to this stuff. I’d better cut back from 5 hours of sleep a night to 4.
