Fun with Sway

I’ve been lucky to get on the Sway preview, and am having a blast playing around with it. Here are a few of my first Sways. [UPDATE: I’ve added a few more Sways created later, just to have them all here in one place.] As an example of how a Sway can […]

Alice Knows What To Do!

Yesterday I took a hike with the dogs, to a spot I’ve known about for many years but had never visited: Sauk Mountain. Megan had other plans for the day, so it was just the three of us, and for a variety of reasons – many other people and dogs on the trail, cliffs at […]

Post-processing: the key to better photos

It’s an old cliché that the photographer matters more than the camera, when it comes to taking attractive and eye-catching photos. And in my experience, most people understand and accept this. There’s a third aspect, though, that many amateurs don’t think about, and I think it makes a bigger difference than the camera. Post-processing, which […]

Targeted Advertising

I was thinking today that we should check out Maxim’s, the former “gentleman’s club” on Rainier Avenue in Hillman City that is under new management this year. We seem to end up at the Spot Sports Bar & Grill down in Renton most often when we go out for a drink, and we have no […]

Walking the Moors

For two years Megan and I have been planning a vacation around walking the moors (for example, see Gearing up for Dartmoor), and like any long-anticipated vacation it seemed forever in coming, and then over in an instant. This blog post, written mostly on the flight home from London to Seattle, sums up my feelings […]

Getting better color on Nokia 1020/1520 photos

I love my “real” cameras, but the Nokia 1020 (which I used to have) and 1520 (my current phone) have great cameras in them that I use every day. And I’ve developed a simple little trick that I do with most of the photos I take, to get more vivid colors and increase the contrast. […]

How many photos have I taken with my camera?

Cameras wear out eventually, but a quality lens is a lifetime investment. This is an important concept to remember, the next time you’re tempted to buy an expensive lens. Go for it, it’s an investment! One of the things that wears out on your camera is the shutter. And each model of camera from the […]

Middle Fork Road update – 6/28/2014

This morning I drove the dogs out to the Middle Fork Road to see how the paving project is going. I’m not a fan of the paving project (as explained here), and hadn’t been out there since the beginning of April. The project is well underway now, with heavy equipment at several spots along the […]

Dad’s 35mm Slides

It being Father’s Day today, I posted a photo on Facebook that I had found in some slides my Dad shot during the years 1949 to 1953. Dad was an amateur photographer his entire adult life (it’s genetic, you see), and those slides are just a tiny subset of all the photographs, negatives and slides […]

Jamie has 5000 followers on Facebook!

This morning, Jamie Samoyed hit the 5000 follower mark on Facebook. It’s been quite a ride, four years of daily posts that have introduced us to people and dogs from all over the world. Jamie’s social media career started a few days before we ever met him. Megan and I had decided, over a drink […]