More March

Continuing on with more calendars for March, here are the wall calendars. The one above shots a great sunset at Boca Grande, Florida. The lighthouse is doing it's thing just after sunset, and the moon is about to follow the sun to the horizon. Sometimes, you just have to be in the right place at the right time. Ditto on the shot below. I was at a restaurant called Shooters in the Flats district of Ohio City, which is really just the West side of Cleveland, Ohio. The sun was setting to my left as I shot the bridge over the Cuyahoga River. Just beyond this railroad bridge is where the Cuyahoga empties into Lake Erie. Look closely and you can see little lighthouses on either side marking the ends of the breakwaters.

March, The Third Month

These two pictures are pages from my CD-sized desk calendar that I first described to you yesterday. Both are for the month of March, the one above for Florida, the one below for Ohio. The shot of the pelican above is one that I've always been proud of. You've got to just hope that something like that turns out for you. I pointed, shot, and kept my fingers crossed the whole rest of the evening. The land you see out on the horizon is Ft. De Soto, an old military base south of St. Petersburg that's been turned into a recreational area and is consistently rated as the top beach in the continental US. I shot this from what used to be the north approach to the Sunshine Skyway, but was turned into a giant fishing pier after the old bridge was destroyed in a freighter collision. The new bridge was built slightly to the East of the old one, so they could keep what was left of the old span open during construction. The shot below is the skyline of Cleveland, as shot from the Hope Memorial Bridge. This was my first time wandering alone in downtown, and I must have spent hours walking for miles and miles, back and forth across the whole town. By the end of that day, I was just happy to get home and fall asleep, I didn't care how my pictures turned out.

The First Few Days Of March

Here's the calendar page for the few days of this week that happen to fall in March. The rather localized storm you see above occurred over Sarasota, Florida, on either July 3rd or 4th of last year. I don't remember exactly what day they had their fireworks display, but I do remember that as being the reason I was on City Island waiting for the sun to set. This storm moved in an almost straight line from where it formed, just behind the downtown area in the picture, over the downtown, then straight at me. I had to spend 10-15 minutes in the car about 10 minutes after this shot was taken in an attempt to stay dry. It was pretty fast moving, and was long gone by the time the fireworks finally started.

Catching Up-Part 4

I think these are the last two calendar pages I need to share with you before the month changes later tonight. Again, these pictures are from a CD-sized desk calendar I put together back in December. The shot above is a covered bridge in the Cuyahoga Valley of Ohio. I think it's the Everett Road Covered Bridge, but the road doesn't actually cross the bridge anymore. And the bridge isn't the original, anyway, it's a reconstruction from the 80's, if memory serves. The shot below is a wonderful beach scene from Sanibel Island here in Florida. I was actually standing on what used to be the channel between Sanibel and Captiva Islands when I took the picture. Over the years, it has filled with sand, and created one big island out of what used to be two. But there's still a bridge in place, just in case a strong tide or a small hurricane decide to split it in two again. I hope you enjoyed all these pictures. Stay tuned tomorrow for all of the shots for March, there are some real winners in there!

Catching Up-Part 3

I suppose while I'm at it, I should go ahead and share some of the other calendar pictures I have made for the year 2007. The two pictures you see here are from a CD-sized calendar I put together as a promotional giveaway for another company I work for. We handed these out to customers in hopes that they'd put it on their desk and think of us whenever they need some powder coating done. (The other pictures I shared with you tonight are printed out to 11x14" and hung in lucite box frames on the wall.) For this project, we were in a bit of a hurry, so many of the pictures are recycled from older, larger calendars, with some occasional new pictures mixed in. So if some of the pictures seem familiar, that's because you've seen them here before. The top shot is from the Florida set, and features a stunning shot of sunrise beneath the Sunshine Skyway. I had to get up awful early in the morning to get that one, but it was so worth it. I need to do that again, but I'm lazy... The shot below is back in Cleveland, showing a detail of The Thinker, from an original bronze in front of the Cleveland Museum Of Art. I had no idea it was there when I stumbled across it one day. Imagine my surprise...

Catching Up-Part 2

As I mentioned just a few seconds ago, I'm trying to catch up and show you my monthly calendars before the start of the new month tomorrow. This post is the pictures for February, which technically aren't late, since it's still February for another 3 hours or so... Anyhow, the shot above is a statue of Lincoln near the library in downtown Cleveland. I'm not entirely sure what Lincoln's connection to Cleveland is, but there he is. If you're wondering about the little red S&B logo, that's the company I work for. They're hanging the complete set of calendars on the wall at their various plants both in Florida and Ohio. These quite the conversation starters with the customers, except when the customers want to know why they don't have pictures of stuff we make. But that's neither here nor there. The shot below is a little blue heron looking for a spot of dinner near Ballast Point on Tampa Bay. The out-of-focus cityscape in the background is downtown Tampa, Florida, about 5 or 10 miles in the distance. Maybe I should check that, since I'm really not sure how far it is...

Catching Up

It may be the end of February, but I just today released my 12-month wall calendars for 2007 to the printer. I seem to be physically unable to get these things done before the end of the year. So, I wanted to go ahead and get you caught up for the year by sharing out some of the old pages before it's time to share the new pages for March tomorrow. The picture above is for a set of 12 calendars featuring all Florida pictures. This particular shot is of Tampa Bay, taken from one of the smaller bridges on the North approach to the Sunshine Skyway. It was such a beautiful day that I had to stop while I was on my way somewhere else and shoot this. Something about the low fluffy white clouds reflected in the nearly dead calm water. Look way out on the horizon near the very center of the picture and you can see the Big Bend power plant, or at least a little bit of smoke from it's smokestacks. The shot below is from the set I made for our office in Ohio, and it features shots of well-known landmarks in the metro Cleveland area. This shot is a closeup of the Soldiers & Sailors Memorial in the shadow of Cleveland's most famous skyscraper, Terminal Tower, which looms in the background. Pretty cool, eh?

Coming Attractions

I found out this morning that they are going to have Airfest at Macdill AFB again this year. They skipped last year for whatever reason, but now it's back. You can search the blog for all the pictures I've shared from this event in the past, and you'll see some great picture of some great planes. It's coming up on the last day of March and the first day of April, and I'm actually toying with the idea of going both days. Depends on how I feel after a full day in the hot sun on the hotter tarmac. I'm also looking forward to Sun N Fun, another great aviation adventure, but this time with a civilian slant. That's sometime around the third week in April. So if either of those sound interesting, keep watching the blog, you'll see more pictures than you can shake a stick at. I'm also headed to Ohio next week for a few days, but I don't know if I'll have time to get any pictures for you. Maybe, you never can tell...

Two For Tuesday, Full Speed Ahead

I know I've been slacking lately on my Hi-Fi Living series, so here's a little something to help make up for it. I've got two full albums that I shared out ages ago, back when no one at all read the blog. Now that I've got two or three readers, maybe it's time to repost them. The LP above is one of my favorite finds of all time, one I've been unable to find much info about over the years. Please be my guest and download Leo Perrachi And His Orchestra-Brazilian Cocktails (Capitol T 10122). And from the more jazzy side of the tracks, the LP below is Marty Paich-I Get A Boot Out Of You (Warner Brothers W1349, 1959). Did I ever share this one out? I can't find where I did. Here's where I shared the doodle from the backside, though. Maybe I never got that far. This one is OK, but if you only grab one, grab Brazilian Cocktails above.

What A Difference A Day Makes

After I complain yesterday about never catching these two eagles on their branch in nice weather, guess what I see today? Yep, there they are. Compare this picture to the one from yesterday, shot from the same spot, same time of day, and tell me how important light is. Now if only they had the same cool pose as yesterday...

Eagle Eye

I spotted the local neighborhood bald eagle pair this evening. There seems to be a direct correlation between how cloudy it is, and how likely they are to be perched together out in the open like this. I've never seen them out like this when it's nice and sunny, when I might be able to get a nice shot of them with some blue sky in the background. Instead, I see them out there when it's totally socked in by low cloud cover, and even slightly foggy. Thankfully, I can now get closer to them that I used to, since they've put a road through near their nest. I could probably have gotten closer than I was when I took this shot, but I was talking on the phone and shooting one-handed already, so I didn't spend the time. But someday...

Frogger

I shot this guy at my parents house on Saturday. He was hanging around near Mom's fish pond. I'm not sure when these white frogs started showing up. When I was little, they were all green. I don't know if it's even the same type we had back then. Maybe they're just a light-colored variation of the same ones, but I doubt it. Cool gold eyes, though... (Before I left their house, I made sure this was set as the background on Mom's computer. I got a rather curt email a couple of days later from her. Can't imagine why...)

The End Of Last Year

I mentioned in my last post that I had reached the end of my 2006 weekly calendar, which isn't too shabby, given that we're two months into 2007. I wanted to share the picture off the back cover with you though, before I laid the whole thing to rest. This is a family of sandhill cranes that I used to pass on the way home every day. The only chance I got to shoot them happened to be one day in the rain, but I think I still got a decent shot.

The End Of February

Here are two images for the last little bit of February. The shot above is a monument on the Nevada side of Hoover Dam. (I believe I talked about it more here and I really don't feel like repeating myself.) The shot below, which is actually the last weekly picture from the 2006 calendar book, is the facade of a condo on South Lido Beach. I've always liked it for some reason, maybe because it's so huge. The panels you see are each about 20 feet high, and the whole thing is probably more than a hundred feet tall. And it looks best when it's lit by the setting sun as it is here.