Random Photos

[fresh_42]

Just noticing: sealion is a strange word for a dog.

 

[jrmichler]

Stopped to talk to a neighbor while on my morning run last July, and the Google Street View camera car went by. The strange thing is that the Street View car went by two years ago while I was actually running. They posted that imagery for about three months. Then they replaced it with older imagery, but only for about three miles of road. I didn't think I was THAT ugly.

 

[morrobay]

Join the Club^^. Couple of Thai ladies walking in the Indian district.

 

[pinball1970]

Stopped to talk to a neighbor while on my morning run last July, and the Google Street View camera car went by. The strange thing is that the Street View car went by two years ago while I was actually running. They posted that imagery for about three months. Then they replaced it with older imagery, but only for about three miles of road. I didn't think I was THAT ugly.
View attachment 367643

You look in good shape!

 

[pinball1970]

Hyde

 

[pinball1970]

Sunset over Manchester, around 16.00 hours this time of year.

 

[berkeman]

If it came up under me, I would have shot several feet out of the water.

When I was in high school here in NorCal I learned to free dive for abalone off the north coast. Unfortunately, that was the same time that the first "Jaws" movie came out in theaters, so I was always a bit spooked and on edge diving in the murky kelp forests.

I was diving with a couple friends north of Jenner, and as I was surfacing one time I happened to see a sea lion skimming along the bottom (they look white underwater). I saw that my buddy was below me so I considered turning around to poke him and point to the sea lion to be sure he saw it, but I was out of air so had to keep surfacing. Well, you guessed it -- he looked up just as the sea lion was heading straight for him and very close, which scared the living bejeezus out of him and he shot to the surface. I guess it looked just like a great white coming at him!

BTW, our fears weren't entirely unfounded. A couple years later I was in the water diving at the same time as another friend of mine was bitten by a great white shark about a mile south of the cove I was in. He survived with just a big scar on his leg.

 

[Rive]

That's not our cat

 

[jtbell]

Stopped to talk to a neighbor while on my morning run last July, and the Google Street View camera car went by. The strange thing is that the Street View car went by two years ago while I was actually running. They posted that imagery for about three months. Then they replaced it with older imagery, but only for about three miles of road. I didn't think I was THAT ugly.
View attachment 367643

It happened to me back in 2012.

Post in thread 'Google Street View: How Long Are Updates?'
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/google-street-view-how-long-are-updates.605208/post-4048608

 

[collinsmark]

November 2025 Balboa Park pics (Part 1 of 2)

After running an errand in Balboa Park late Saturday afternoon, I decided to do some reconnaissance to search for a vantage point for a future photograph I'm planning. I found a good spot, but that photo will have to wait; the lighting wasn't right (should be better in early morning).

While I was there I decided to photograph other stuff. I mixed it up category-wise, landscape, architecture and street.

Figure 1. "Target is Closed." 35mm Summilux-M ASPH @f/1.4.

Apparently some forestry maintenance recently took place. I focused the lens on the second log. It was the perfect distance to give this image a real 3D-pop when shot wide open.

Figure 2. "California Tower and Museum of Us* dome." 50mm Summilux-M ASPH @f/1.4.

*The Museum of Us is an anthropology museum. They have exhibits for both physical anthropology and cultural anthropology [Edit: and also to an increasing extent lately, sociology]. The building it's in is called the "California Building," which includes both the dome and the tower.

Figure 3. Untitled. 50mm Summilux-M ASPH @f/1.4

Figure 4. "Lady in Red." 50mm Summilux-M ASPH @around f/4.8

Figure 5. "'Bit of luck with the sunset." 50mm Summilux-M ASPH @f/1.4

I did not plan on the sunset being so nice. I was really lucky to be in such a photogenic spot with my camera at the time.

Figure 6. Untitled. 50mm Summilux-M ASPH @f/2.8

The area in the above picture is a popular location for weddings. About 4 or 5 strides behind me (behind me where I was standing taking the picture) is a small overlook that stands over a bunch of nature stuff. People seem to choose to get married there (for small weddings).

To be continued ...

 

[collinsmark]

... Continued from previous post (this post is part 2 of 2).

Figure 7. "Broken bulb." 50mm Summilux-M ASPH @f/6.8

Figure 8. Untitled. 50mm Summilux-M ASPH @f/5.6

I posted a pic of the above location just over a year ago, but this picture was taken at a different time of day (after sunset).

Figure 9. "Casa de Balboa." 50mm Summilux-M ASPH @f/1.4

This building, Casa de Balboa (above), houses the Museum of Photographic Arts (MOPA), the Model Railroad Museum, and the San Diego History Center. There's also some other art exhibits in there. The location of where the photo was taken is just outside the arches of where the previous two pictures were taken (see Figs. 7,8).

Figure 10. "Gentle kiss." 50mm Summilux-M ASPH @f/1.4

Taken at the Bea Evenson Fountain.

Figure 11. "Georgia Street Historical Bridge." 50mm Summilux-M ASPH @f/1.4 (with a modest bit of cropping in post).

It may look like I'm driving but I wasn't. I was walking. This was between bus transfers. I needed to get on the other side of the intersection (behind me) to catch the next bus. I made sure I had time to take the photo: I pre-focused ahead of time and waited on the edge of the curb until the "walk" signal came on. When it did, I made a bee-line to somewhere near the center of the road (there was already a car waiting to my left, so I couldn't get dead center), and took a few shots.

Funny thing, I just noticed that car pulled over to the side (I didn't notice at the time). He must have saw me running and whip something out with my hand. I wonder if he thought I was going to carjack someone? Nope, no carjacking for me. Just photos. (Or maybe he just saw me veering off the regular path and just wanted to give me room in case I kept going.)

Figure 12. "MTS Trolley." 50mm Summilux-M ASPH @f/4.0

I took this while waiting for the final bus transfer. I stopped the aperture down a bit solely to get the diffraction spikes (sun stars) from the aperture blades (not for increased depth of field).

Although I did get the above trolley pic, I didn't take the trolley that day; the trolley does not go to Balboa Park. It just happens that the trolley stops at the station where I had to transfer busses. This trip was 100% bus for me.

 

[Andy Resnick]

... Continued from previous post (this post is part 2 of 2).

Really excellent photos- both compositionally and technically (exposure, etc)- thanks for posting!

 

[jtbell]

Figure 1. "Target is Closed." 35mm Summilux-M ASPH @f/1.4.

Looks like something out of Jurassic World, minus the dinosaurs!

 

[collinsmark]

Really excellent photos- both compositionally and technically (exposure, etc)- thanks for posting!

Thanks!

Looks like something out of Jurassic World, minus the dinosaurs!

Did I mention that Balboa Park also has a Natural History Museum?
https://www.sdnhm.org/exhibitions/dino-jaws/

 

[pinball1970]

Oldham sunsets

and sunrise

 

[morrobay]

Westside Thai restaurant on the Hudson with Staten Island sunset

 

[Algr]

You’ve likely heard the reason people never smile in very old photographs. Early photography could be an excruciatingly slow process. With exposure times of up to 15 minutes, portrait subjects found it impossible to hold a grin, which could easily slip into a pained grimace and ruin the picture.

Also because sometimes the people in early photos were... dead. Post-mortem photography.

 

[collinsmark]

Also because sometimes the people in early photos were... dead. Post-mortem photography.

Yes, this was a thing back in the day. You can tell by the people who look exceptionally sharp in the photos. Those who were alive were a bit blurry (due to inevitable motion blur) and were subsequently often touched up by the artist/photographer with a brush/pencil post-print. But the one person in the photo that didn't have any noticeable touch-ups but inexplicably remained tack sharp may very well have been deceased.

[Edit: that said, there's a lot of claims on today's interwebs that claim some particular photo was taken post-mortem, when it actually wasn't. Sometimes, people who were alive were just very good at keeping still. A sharp picture is not a guarantee of post-mortem. But it was a thing nonetheless.]

 

[DennisN]

Candlelight close-ups revisited

I shot some close-ups of a candle today for fun.
I reached 1:1 (life-size) reproduction on some of the shots using extension tubes.

A close-up of the flame and the wick:

A crop with the burning wick:

A shot of the candle with the entire flame shown:

A photo taken slightly from above:

And another crop with the burning wick:

(all shot with Canon nFD 100mm f/4 Macro + various extension tubes)

The gear (camera and lens with almost 100mm extension tubes mounted) looked pretty weird,
far from compact and discreet :

 

[pinball1970]

Quite nice cloud formation over Manchester, no snow yet so hopefully some nice colours to come in the next few months.

 

[jtbell]

Moonrise at twilight.

 

[gmax137]

Ditto but earlier in the afternoon.

 

[gmax137]

crop till you drop?

 

[morrobay]

Moonrise at twilight.

View attachment 367897

Assuming December 3. That would be the moonrise about 1700. Since the moonset in Thailand was about 0530 on December 4 . But then how does @gmax137 afternoon moon photo comport here ? It would clarify to log location date/time with sun/moon, rises/sets

 

[jtbell]

Assuming December 3. That would be the moonrise about 1700.

The photo's timestamp is about 1730 EST. Coordinates about 35° N 82° W. The actual moonrise (at the horizon) might have been 1 to 1.5 hours earlier? I wasn't outside then and we don't have a clear view of the horizon anyway.

Added: I looked it up... moonrise was about 1600 EST.

 

[morrobay]

Ok this clarified the @gmax137 photo:

 

[morrobay]

The photo's timestamp is about 1730 EST. Coordinates about 35° N 82° W. The actual moonrise (at the horizon) might have been 1 to 1.5 hours earlier? I wasn't outside then and we don't have a clear view of the horizon anyway.

Added: I looked it up... moonrise was about 1600 EST.

I asked ChatGPT at what local times on December 3 in Nevada and North Carolina did the rising moon have the same elevation above the horizon:

 

[pinball1970]

Ok ill see your moon in different time zones and raise you some stars and a rotating galaxy in my office.

Generated by this little fella. One of the ladies bought for her son and wanted to try it out in my office as I can cut out all ambient light.

Once they switched it on they realised I was going to claim it.

 

[collinsmark]

Figure 1. "All in a day's work." 50mm Summilux-M ASPH.

No, that's not me. It's just somebody passing by. I'm not sure how the person is holding the guitar. I've had many acoustic guitars in my lifetime, but I've never carried one around quite like that. I suspect the person is gripping the guitar through the sound hole. But I'm not sure.

 

[gmax137]

I asked ChatGPT at what local times on December 3 in Nevada and North Carolina did the rising moon have the same elevation above the horizon:View attachment 367907

I'm sorry, but I think I took that moonrise photo the day before, i.e., on 12/2. I was in my car, and the framing of the hills was just right, to my eye. Not sure about the time, late afternoon.
Per Google maps, close to
39.638. -119.667

Sorry for the confusion

EDIT:
So I looked at the photo metadata on my cell (learned how to do something new today!) -- I took my photo on 12/2 at 3:20 PM Pacific time (that's 8 hours behind GMT).