Photography

16
Nov
2020

Brandywine Zoo Photos

Everyone knows I like a good zoo. Animals are just fun to photograph. I’d never been to the Brandywine Zoo in Wilmington, Delaware even though it’s only a few minutes from home, so in July 2018 we decided to finally check it out. It’s a very small zoo, but it’s a lot of fun. You can get up close with the animals and it it’s easy to see all of it in a few hours. Of course, we chose the hottest day ever to visit, but we survived even if a few of the animals looked very tired due to the oppressive heat too.

Click here to view the photos.

Posted by Michael in Photography, Site Updates
12
Nov
2020

Toronto and Southern Ontario Photos

In July 2018, we traveled all around southern Ontario for the first half of the trip then spent the second half in Toronto. We spent a few days at a Scottish festival and highland games in Kincardine. We also visited a marine railway, a lift lock, the HMCS Haida, Port Credit Lighthouse and the Mississauga Rib Fest. Back in Toronto, we toured the Rogers Centre, CN Tower, Toronto Island, Fort York, Ontario Legislative Building, Kensington Market, Saint Lawrence Market, Ripley’s Aquarium and every other touristy thing we could think of doing. We even experienced a “credible terror threat” because there’s never a dull moment on our vacations!

Click here to view the photos.

Posted by Michael in Photography, Site Updates
08
Nov
2020

Southern California Photos

While in Southern California in May 2018 for a week of meetings at Port Hueneme, a few of us flew out a couple days early to do some sightseeing. After landing at LAX, we spent our first day exploring Santa Monica before driving up Pacific Coast Highway to our hotel in Oxnard. It’s the first I’ve been on PCH in about 15 years. The scenery is as great as ever! The next day, we drove down to Los Angeles and took a tour of Paramount Studios. After our tour, we continued south to Long Beach for lunch at a place that had been featured on Food Network and then spent the afternoon at the Aquarium of the Pacific.

We then headed back up north to Oxnard to meet up with our newly arrived coworkers from around the country at the hotel. The remainder of the week was spent at work, but I still managed to snap a few more photos in our off hours. Most were taken around our beautiful oceanfront hotel (Mandalay Beach Resort) in Ventura County and Port Hueneme. The weather was perfect and the scenery was quite nice!

Click here to view the photos.

Posted by Michael in Photography, Site Updates
04
Nov
2020

Northern Virginia Photos

A few times a year, we visit my cousin, Theresa (Buy her book! It’s on Amazon here.) in Northern Virginia. In April 2018 beside our usual sitting around, catching up on family news and talking politics as one does while hanging out in the DC metro area with a former ambassador, we also did a little sightseeing. We visited Middleburg, toured the Manassas Battlefield and went to the incredibly impressive Museum of the Marine Corps at Quantico. I highly recommend a visit if you ever get the chance! We also had a few really good meals ranging a cool little diner to our favorite Greek restaurant to a historic inn.

Click here to view the photos.

Posted by Michael in Photography, Site Updates
31
Oct
2020

Kentucky and Indiana Photos

In March and April of 2018, we took a spring vacation to Kentucky since we’d never been to the state before. We, of course, did all of the stereotypical tourist things like going to a bunch of bourbon distilleries, the Louisville Slugger factory, sites related to Colonel Sanders and his Kentucky Fried Chicken empire, Churchill Downs and other horse racing related places and some Abraham Lincoln historic sites. When we weren’t busy with all things bourbon, horse or chicken, we took a short drive north into Indiana for a two-day visit with a bunch of Gatti cousins. We haven’t seen most of them for quite a few years and we’d never some of the younger generation before. If you look at my 2004 California trip photos, you’ll notice these are my “California Cousins” who are now the “Indiana Cousins.”

Click here to view the photos.

Posted by Michael in Photography, Site Updates
27
Oct
2020

More photo posts coming soon

For about 2 years before I updated my site, I was unable to post new photos because the software that I used to do so was outdated. It was 32-bit software living in a 64-bit world. However, when I created the whole new site, I posted all of the photos that were in the queue for the past few years. It seems like a good time to do it since I’m not exactly taking many photos in 2020. So, over the next few weeks you’ll be seeing blog posts referencing albums that are debuting for the first time. Feel free to live vicariously through my past vacations and outings as we all stay home and wait out COVID-19. That’s what I’m certainly doing. Looking at the photos is about as close to going on a vacation as I’ll get this year!

Posted by Michael in Photography, Site Updates
19
Nov
2017

Photos from a Fall Train Ride

Red Clay CreekWe’re always looking for things to do in the Fall since it’s one of the best times of the year to be outside. This year we took a Fall foliage ride through the Red Clay Valley on the Wilmington and Western Railroad. Thanks to the terribly warm weather we’ve been having, there wasn’t too much color but it was a fun trip nonetheless. We upgraded to the open air car which gave me a better opportunity to test out my brand new camera, a Nikon D5700. Yes, I finally replaced my trusty D90. I’m very happy with the new camera and there will be MANY more photos to come!

In the meantime, take a look my first photos from the Wilmington and Western Railroad.

Posted by Michael in Photography, Site Updates
18
Nov
2017

Photos from the Rockies – My Colorado Trip

Rocky Mountain National ParkFor our late summer trip this year, we decided to go to Rocky Mountain National Park. We started in Estes Park, the eastern gateway to the park. Once we’d settled on this, we did what we always do. We mapped out everything there was to do for about 100 miles around and laid out a plan to hit every one of them. We changed hotels every night or two, but we managed to do everything on our carefully planned itinerary in Estes Park, Boulder, Colorado Springs, Canon City, Cripple Creek, Pueblo and Denver. We’d never spent much time at high altitude before so we weren’t sure how much it would slow us down. As it turned out, it didn’t slow us down at all. We walked over 50 miles and climbed more stairs than I can count (don’t worry, my FitBit did count all of it!). We saw innumerable wild animals and took in some of the most breathtaking scenery of any of our trips.

It’s taken a few months but I got all of the photos from the trip sorted and you can check them out right here.

Posted by Michael in Photography, Site Updates
03
Sep
2017

Hot Air Balloon Festival Photos

Hot Air BalloonsWhile looking for someplace to go for a day trip, we stumbled upon a balloon festival in North Jersey. Since hot air balloons always make for great photos, I couldn’t pass it up. We bought tickets and headed to Readington Airport. Unfortunately, the day was pretty overcast and there were scattered showers throughout the day. Some of the traditional balloons were able to launch but all of the larger shaped balloons either inflated and stayed tethered or just didn’t inflate at all. As it turned out, the unexpected part that made the price of admission worth it was all of the companies that were there handing out samples of their products. It was a bizarrely eclectic mix of stuff. From Advil to Minute Rice to flavored milk and on and on, we had to make the long muddy walk to the car twice just to offload all of the stuff we’d been given! It was a fun day and we managed to stay mostly dry while watching the balloons that were brave enough to take off despite the questionable weather.

Check out the photos here.

Posted by Michael in Photography, Site Updates
16
Jun
2017

Finally put tons of photos on Flickr

I’ve had a Flickr account for 12 years and a paid Pro account for about 5. Mostly, I’ve only used it for sharing photos with family members semi-privately. They’re photos that I don’t care if others see, but I also don’t want to bore you with photos of kids opening Christmas gifts, etc. I used to use Google’s Picassa Web Albums for this, but they went the way of the dodo a few years ago.

Up until now, the only photos in my public Flickr stream were photos cross-posted from my Instagram account so that I have an exit-strategy from that service since they’re now owned by Facebook and using any Facebook-owned property makes me a little (ok, a lot) queasy. Plus it gives the photos a some extra exposure.

That has changed change. I’ve spent the past few years tagging the photos from my website and preparing them to be uploaded to Flickr. As much as I’d prefer to drive traffic to my site, cross posting them to Flickr will get them a some more exposure and, if nothing else, make me feel like I’m getting my money’s worth from my Flickr Pro subscription.

So, I’ve posted almost 8000 photos in my Flickr feed over the past week or so. They’re broken down in albums and further separated into collections by year, so you’ll be able to navigate through them if you wish.

Enjoy the photos, and feel free to share them and comment on them which is something you can’t (currently) do on my website.

Posted by Michael in Photography