Random Photos

[DennisN]

Spiderman... (or woman).... Google says bridge-spider:

A nice, thoughtful quote I hadn't heard before:
(I thought it was so good that I took a photo of it so I would remember it )

Full quote:

Source: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/11213146-it-is-better-to-fail-in-originality-than-to-succeed


The frame with the quote was hanging inside an ice cream parlor, where they make their own ice cream and have quite unusual flavors.

I regard myself as a bit of an ice cream connoisseur , and I have to say it was one of the best ice creams I've ever had:

 

[jtbell]

"Where's our lunch?"

"Sorry, no lunch. You've got me confused with someone else!"

 

[DennisN]

I got this link from a friend recently... an amazingly cool way of processing and displaying multiple macro shots of a subject - something called Gaussian splatting. It seems to be an involved process, but the results are fantastic .

If you open the page there is clip showing various subjects being rotated in 3D, warmly recommended!
(I notify @Andy Resnick of course )

Dany Bittel - Macro Splats 2025
https://danybittel.ch/macro.html

Screenshot:

Edit:

And here is a page with the different subjects where you can rotate them all yourself in 3D:

https://superspl.at/user?id=danylyon

 

[DennisN]

Autumn leaves on the ground...

(shot with Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar 50mm f/2.8)

 

[Andy Resnick]

I got this link from a friend recently... an amazingly cool way of processing and displaying multiple macro shots of a subject - something called Gaussian splatting. It seems to be an involved process, but the results are fantastic .
<snip>

Wow.... just, wow. The computational tools (for example, Postshot) that are available now... it's really amazing.

 

[nsaspook]

 

[nsaspook]

 

[nsaspook]

 

[jtbell]

But where's Charlie Brown?

 

[collinsmark]

View attachment 366554

But where's Charlie Brown?

Nice.

(For reference:)

 

[morrobay]

The dry Northerly winds on schedule,air/water 29C. As seen in swell direction looking North , Jomtien beach. Then this Thai lady passenger on local transport.Couldnt talk her into seafood lunch. * She said she is living in London,so guess she is/was married to a Brit.

 

[collinsmark]

So I was strolling around downtown San Diego the other day (for reasons), and I stumbled across a couple of nice looking strangers in the middle of an intersection. I had my camera in hand (with a 28 mm lens attached) and reflexively snapped off a photo without even really thinking. I have no idea who they are or why they were standing still, motionless and smiling, in the middle of the intersection, but I figured a photo was absolutely in order.

I'm posting it here because I'm perplexed on how I would like to crop the photo. Now mind you, I'm pretty experienced with cropping photos with various "rules" of composition in mind. But I struggled for hours on this one.

Figure 1. Mostly un-cropped version. It obviously needs some more cropping; the people off to the right are distracting, and there's nothing even close to "filling the frame." (By the way, if you're wondering about the moiré patterns on the walls, they're not actually moiré patterns at all, but are rather actually part of the architecture. The pattern is actually there in real life.)

Figure 2. This is the crop I went with. It's a compromise. I'm giving up "filling the frame" here to highlight the subjects' isolation together with the unsettling architectural patterns in the background. I wish I had moved a couple of feet to the right to remove the "tree in the head" issue, but it's too late for that now.

Figure 3. Here's a tighter crop, but I feel it looses much of context of the background.

Figure 4. An even tighter crop that looses all background.

So anyway, I went with the crop in fig. 2. I have to say though, each crop brings up its own list of questions.

 

[pinball1970]

 

[jtbell]

They're coming after me again!

 

[symbolipoint]

#3264, that video does not play. Only shows black frame. Click on button, same thing.


EDIT: I tried right clicking on vid frame to see what would be presented. I selected "stats for nerds" and found nothing useful/nothing I could understand. I clicked in the frame a couple more times, some of it on a 'play' button which alternately appeared and disappeared, and then the video did play. Strange!

 

[BillTre]

Works for me.
on a Firefox, on an upto date Mac.

 

[DennisN]

Works for me too (Firefox, PC, Windows 11).

 

[DennisN]

They're coming after me again!

Here are two greedy mallards being fed (shot a couple of years ago):

Edit: If you get a play error, click on the link "Watch video on YouTube" in the window below.

Two mallards being fed

 

[symbolipoint]

#3264, that video does not play. Only shows black frame. Click on button, same thing.


EDIT: I tried right clicking on vid frame to see what would be presented. I selected "stats for nerds" and found nothing useful/nothing I could understand. I clicked in the frame a couple more times, some of it on a 'play' button which alternately appeared and disappeared, and then the video did play. Strange!

I tried rechecking again. No Play! All black frame, UNTIL I rightclick the frame and select "Stats for Nerds"; and then when click out of that, the PLAY button did work and the video played. Maybe should I try different browser, but not that important.

 

[sbrothy]

Alexander Shulgin’s (RIP) “well-ordered” backyard chemistry lab where he synthesized all his phenetylamines and tryptamines described in his books and which he subsequently tested on himself, his wife, and some close friends (and presumably a bunch of hippies at Burning Man), before having his DEA license revoked and having said lab raided by same. It’s not really surprising he died of dementia and liver cancer!

Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin (Wiki)

 

[sbrothy]

Alexander Shulgin’s (RIP) “well-ordered” backyard chemistry lab where he synthesized all his phenetylamines and tryptamines described in his books and which he subsequently tested on himself, his wife, and some close friends (and presumably a bunch of hippies at Burning Man), before having his DEA license revoked and having said lab raided by same. It’s not really surprising he died of dementia and liver cancer!

View attachment 366713

Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin (Wiki)

Another “fun” fact about the man is his infamous speech comparing The War on Drugs to the Holocaust!

 

[jtbell]

More from my trip to Virginia last month...

I first visited the Natural Bridge with my parents in 1962:

Last month:

A wooden fence at the top blocks the view from highway US-11, which passes over the bridge. I suppose it's to keep drivers from slowing down or stopping to rubberneck. I drove over it both coming and going.

George Washington is reputed to have surveyed the site in 1750 and left his initials on the rock wall.

Or maybe it was Gerald Witherspoon.

A pleasant trail continues along the creek to a waterfall about a mile away.

 

[jtbell]

The Natural Bridge was privately owned for a long time, starting with Thomas Jefferson, who bought the land in 1774. In the 1800s it was right up there with Niagara Falls as a tourist attraction. In 2016 it became a Virginia state park. The huge visitor center dates from the 1950s during private ownership.

This hotel was built on the other side of highway US-11 in the 1890s, I think. It was still there on my first visit in 1962. No, we didn't stay there.

It burned down in 1963 and was replaced by the current hotel. I didn't stay there, either, because I was on a day-trip from Roanoke.