Well, we are back at work here in Miami. The storm has been an extended rain storm with periods of strong winds, but overall the damages have not been so bad. On sunday though, I took advantage of the calm before the storm. I used an 85mm lens to take these pictures and I was happy with the results, but the 85mm offers new challenges as far as tracking and limitations as far as not being able to shoot larger fish or scenes. Changing lenses is a little more complicated in the water so I tend not to bother when I am just shooting for fun! I hope everyone else here in Miami had a safe storm!

Enjoy! For More see link below.

http://www.emergentphotography.com/Fishies/

I'm a newbie to the forum, and pretty much a newbie to "serious" photography... but having fun nonetheless!
These are a couple of the better shots I've gotten to date with my D40. 

The snow picture was shot lying down on the lake, and exposed for the snow. 

The picture of my girl (3 months ago already!) was from as far across the room as I could get, with the 55-200mm tele zoomed way in to shorten the depth.  She is of course my favorite subject to shoot, but then again, she's also the main reason I don't have a lot of time to shoot carefully thought out pictures :-)

We had a sudden blast of rain yesterday in the afternoon.  These are some of the shots I got after the rain let up.  Enjoy.

 Clouds 1  Clouds 2  Clouds 3

Smile!

 A little humor 

I happen to love low light photography. Here is my first submission.

The first picture I took at the University of Miami while I was studying there, and the other two are of my friends who dance. One of them choreographed this piece about friendship set to very low light.

Here are two for the contest

Dave

Here are four shots in the dark for the challenge.

- The first is an 8 second exposure of the ferris wheel at Valleyfair (a local amusement park) taken with the aid of an ND filter.

- The second is an HDR photo of a catholic church here in Chaska.

- The thrid is a shot of some fireworks from a local festival.

- The fourth is a 2 second exposure of a girl playing with a lightsaber at the same local festival.

Enjoy.

 Lightsaber Fun

The tiger romp was at metrozoo. A sudden burst of energy. The panthers were in a privite collection. I shot these photos to show a use for center metering rather than full field metering. Lysie was just standing there and she never knew I had shot the shot at 20 yards and 200mm. None of these photos are cropped or altered.

Hi all, here are a couple weekends worth of diving widdled down to three pictures. Hope you enjoy! Happy Shooting.

http://www.emergentphotography.com/713reefdive/

http://www.emergentphotography.com/NavarreBeach/

Enjoy!

Before my birthday flowers die...decided to take a few close-ups of one of the flowers. 

I've been so excited because I just got a sweet new lens....the Nikkor AF-S 17-55mm, F2.8!!! Its so awsome, I love it.  I got it right before my 4th of July trip to my families house in the colorado river.  Unfortunatley because my buddy and I pulled an all nighter, gambling all night and into the morning, we passed out 4pm and woke up the next day, missing all the fireworks!!! oh well, i'll just goto Disneyland! haha.  Here's a few of my favorite shots from the trip!

Sorry about the lack of participation, just been focusing on photos for art shows here in SoCal.  I won 2nd place at the Korean American Museum competition and I'm gettin a print displayed at the Palos Verde Art Center on July 25th, not sure if I won anything yet (if anyone is interested in going here in SoCal).

Hope everyone is doing well! 

4th of July River Trip 

Yes, I have been on vacation - just back today. Sorry about the challenge and thanks Mima for bailing me out.

Now all I have to do is edit about 2000 pictures of BC and Alaska !

Then I'm off to the UK for more trains and vintage racing.

This retirement is hard work !

This flower is one of my favorites here in the Southwest.  El Paso, Texas is located in the Chihuahuan Desert, where both "green" and "blooms" are rare, so this plant is a double treat.

It is called by many names:  Red Bird of Paradise, Mexican Bird of Paradise, Peacock Flower, Dwarf Poinciana, Pride of Barbados, or Flamboyan-De-Jardin (Caesalpinia pulcherrima).

I found out that it is a shrub growing to 8 feet tall native to tropical areas of the Americas. The divided leaves that are about 8 to 15 inches long, consist of 6 to 10 pairs of broad leaflets along the stem. The flowers grow on 8-inch long stalks and the seeds are borne in 6-inch pods.

This particular plant is fast becoming a popular addition to our city, since it is fast-growing and drought hearty.

:o)

 Red Bird of Paradise_1 (Caesalpinia pulcherrima) 

 Red Bird of Paradise_2(Caesalpinia pulcherrima) 

 Red Bird of Paradise_3(Caesalpinia pulcherrima) 

P.S. I'm not liking the one-story-a-day rule. If it was instituted in any way because of some previous multiple posts on my part, please forgive me, and I promise to be good in the future!
Sometimes you want to post a couple of different themes in one shot, and you may not have the chance to come back around 24 hours later.

What are everyone else's thoughts about this?

This is a spiral honeycomb that some bees constructed by one of the rain gutters at our church. I estimate that it is 18 inches wide, and about 25 feet above the ground near the roofline of the building.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I have never seen anything like this before in my life.  I think it's simply amazing, and all I could think to say over and over was, "You are amazing, God!" . . . and the bees get an A+ for their work of art.  :o)

 Spiral Honey Comb 

It has been pretty quiet around here lately, but I haven't been sitting on my hands. On the cadet front, I attended the commissioning ceremony for the newest navy cadet unit, TS Diamantina. It was held at the Brisbane Maritime Museum where the original HMAS Diamantina is in a drydock. It was a fitting location and was attended by a number of local and interstate dignitaries. Some of our unit's cadets participated in a support role to boost the numbers on the parade.

 Chief of Cadet Policy gives the commissioning speech. 

 Training Ship Diamantina crew on board the original HMAS Diamantina. 

Recently, we have had have our beloved cat Annabelle put down due to a very virulent cancer in her lungs and spine. The poor little thing was only 8 years old and we miss her dearly. A few weeks after that event, this sweet little abandoned Tonkinese decided we might be suitable carers and she wended her way into our hearts. She was very skinny and in poor condition when she came to us and with a lot of loving care she is now our latest family addition. We named her Sirikit, after the reigning queen of Thailand. Something that is quite illegal in Thailand, is to name anything after the queen. Only the queen has that power!

 She wandered into our life. She needed us and we fulfilled her need. 

On one of our usual weekend picnics, I saw this cloud developing. It eventually became a rain cloud. I thought this was an unusual shape for a developing rain cloud.

 Unusual cloud formation. 

And finally, the winter sunsets can be quite boring but this one of the sun setting and just highlighting the tops of the taller buildings offered some sort of interest to the shot.

 Sunset over Brisbane City. 

I've been trying to get some of my son who is currently heavily into freestyle BMX. We are trying to tee up some time in the really early morning before anyone gets to the skate parks for some photos. Let's not forget that he IS a teenager... 11:00AM rises are the norm...

Dang! I just discovered that I can only post one story per day!

I'm not sure how often us Canon users upgrade their Canon software, but there were a raft of upgrades in June. ZoomBrowser, Digital Photo Professional, EOS Utility, PhotoStitch and Picture Style Editor are all new.

I upgraded all my stuff and didn't have any problems. Some minor feature additions in the new versions. Upgrades are free from www.canon.com