Week 3 of the 52 week challenge - Brrr...

Yep, I missed last week. I procrastinated. I hemmed, I hawed and on the last night, I basically just fell asleep. This will hopefully be the last week I miss.

This week is probably not my best work. There were so many opportunities to get great shots of hoarfrost. It was everywhere and VERY thick. Good thing my iPhone camera white balance is putrid and I just couldn't bring myself to carry my good camera to work. Mostly just excuses. I suck.

Here's the snowman from our front yard complete with a 5 o'clock shadow of frost.

Ya! The Neon Graveyard continues

With the letters of long since retired signs laying everywhere, it was fun to find them sitting in a way to say a message. Some of them were obviously planned, others were well, ya!

Week 1 of the 52 week challenge - Caution Icy

And it begins. This is week 1 of our 52 week challenge. I have until midnight Thursday every week to submit the photo the group on Flickr. I'm not sure the other guys want me to share a link to that.

This shot actually took a trip through Photoshop. I know I rarely do it, but my back was against the wall. We see this view every day when I walk to work from this abysmal parking location. In PS, I made everything black and white except the face of the sign. Nothing really fancy but I prefer my winter shots black and white. It was also take with my wife's point and shoot. It's just too much to drag my kit to work with me. Maybe with an idea in mind it wouldn't be too bad, but when I'm clueless about what might shot might be...nah.

I'm not sure what I think of this shot. It's similar to one I did with my iPhone a few weeks back, only sharper and better perspective. I just don't know, what do you think? Major suckage? Last minute miracle? Let's discuss this....the forum is open!

Words and lines

All over the neon graveyard are words and images. There's so many possibilities for finding letters, phrases and meaningful words. Dollars just seems so fitting for Las Vegas.

Yellow Bulbs

There were so many cool textures and patterns at this place. most of which were too good to pass up. I found these bulbs just as you see them. I was afraid of losing my group. We were warned that if we fall too far behind, we'd be asked to leave. I didn't want that to happen so I only got to shoot this once. I would have loved to explore more angles and different focal lengths. Maybe next time.

More from the Neon Graveyard

Las Vegas really was a blast. The Neon Museum turned out to be a great place to head with the camera for a couple of hours. My last post a couple weeks ago was a shot that didn't need much post processing. The hardest part of my annual trip is that once I get back, we run almost head on into Christmas. Time, my friends, is very precious.

I had considered doing this before flying to the desert, but I was worried about the time. Well, now time is available. I took my 30D in for a good professional cleaning. I wish I would have done this sooner because once I got to National Camera and looked at it, I knew right then and there why it's taking me forever to clean the pics. That sensor was filthy!

This shot didn't need much processing either. It's a bit more abstract then some I took here but I really loved the lines and the depth of field. This shot is as shot and taken directly from the camera, converted to JPG, watermarked and posted.

I've been cleaning up pictures and should be posting them very regularly over the next few weeks. I've also done something really crazy and will be joining some other local shutterbugs and shooting 1 picture every week for the next year. gotta hope I can do this, even if I have to pull a Jim Brandenburg and just shoot something. A few may suck, ok, several, but hopefully, it inspires me to shoot something every week.