Tag Archives: Calendar

Photography

April Wallpaper

Sunset from Waterrock Knob, Blue Ridge Parkway, NC
Sunset from Waterrock Knob, Blue Ridge Parkway, NC

Well, that was sure fast!  Last I remember I was posting the March wallpaper.

For this month’s calendar I’ve gone way back into the archives.  This photograph was taken in May, 2005 at Waterrock Knob on the Blue Ridge Parkway near Waynesville, NC.  This is one of the first photos I made with my then-new Canon 20D.  In fact, this was frame number 194 on that camera.  Considering that I turned that camera over at least twice, shooting well over 20,000 files, this was truly in the very early stages of my digital era.  The file was in pretty good shape, but had not been updated to the latest process version in Lightroom.  I made the conversion, which improved noise reduction and sharpening primarily, tweaked the contrast and color just a bit, and here it is.

Things are cranking here at the House of Dills.  We’ve got some interesting projects going on, some of them photographic, some not.  But April promised to be exciting, so stay tuned as things develop!

Uncategorized

March Wallpaper

1 Comment
Spring dogwood in Salisbury, North Carolina
Spring dogwood in Salisbury, North Carolina

Spring is a great time of year here in the Carolinas.  While we have seen the occasional snow storm, March is usually when spring comes roaring in, splashing with both feet to put an end to winter.

This photo, taken last March just down the road in Salisbury, NC exemplifies spring for me.  Crystal clear blue sky, te beautiful dogwood blooms and the joy that spring has not forgotten us.

I’ve been laying a little low lately.  Kathy & I have a few irons in the fire, so to speak, that have kept me away from the computer more than usual.  It’s all good though, not to worry.  But stay tuned, I haven’t gone far.

Photography

February Wallpaper

2 Comments
Sunset over the Bahamas aboard Celebrity Equinox sailing toward Fort Lauderdale
Sunset over the Bahamas aboard Celebrity Equinox sailing toward Fort Lauderdale

I’m a few hours early, but here is my wallpaper for February.  I generally shy away from sunrises and sunsets for my wallpaper, but this one looked pretty nice and I thought it was a photo someone wouldn’t mind looking at for a month, so here it is.

This photo was taken on the last night of our recent cruise.  The land is one (or more – it’s hard to tell) of the Bahamas islands.  I don’t often get to include land in the foreground when we’re on a ship, and while it doesn’t add a lot it is an extra element of interest.  Great sunbeams and color make this a special sunset.

Here in the south we’ve survived our 72 hours of “winter” and will be soon looking forward to spring flowers and buds on the trees.  For those of you in the colder climes – sorry! 🙂  I hope everyone has a wonderful February, wherever you might be!

Uncategorized

Happy 2013!

6 Comments
Evening Light, Corolla
Evening Light, Corolla

Just about the time I figure I’ll stop doing this monthly wallpaper thing, I hear from someone else who really likes it.  So here you go, a start to another year!

This image is from a style of photograph I don’t post very often on the blog, and I’m not sure I’ve ever used one for wallpaper.  But I really like these impressionistic photos, as they often reflect a peace and calm that a “normal” photograph can’t capture.  I recently sold a group of prints that included this photograph, and I liked the print so much I decided I’d like to look at it for a month or so, and hoped that my blog followers would like it too.

For those interested in the technical details, this was shot in 2009 on the beach in Corolla, North Carolina.  And even though I’ve been calling it “Morning Light, Corolla” for a number of years, in looking at the metadata for this blog post I discovered that it was actually taken in the evening.  Oops…I guess I’ll have to start calling it “Evening Light, Corolla!”  It was taken with my lowly Canon 40D with the 24-105 lens at f22 for 1/4 second, panning with the wave movement to give it the blurred effect.

I know I’m looking forward to the new year and can’t wait to make new photographs to share.  Thanks for reading and for all the great comments.  Hopefully I’ll get to meet some of  you in person soon!  Happy travels!

Photography

December Wallpaper Calendar

Joy of Christmas light show at Firestone Park, Columbiana, OH

Our Thanksgiving visit to Ohio and Pennsylvania, despite not being a “photography trip” per se, resulted in a number of decent photographs, one of which I liked well enough to use for this month’s calendar.  I like to keep with the holiday theme for December whenever possible, and I’m usually able to come up with something.

Firestone Park, named for Harvey Firestone (the tire guy), is located in Columbiana, OH.  Kathy & I lived here before migrating south to North Carolina.  And a late November visit reminded us why we moved!

Firestone Park has an annual “Joy of Christmas” light festival, and we had a chance to pay a visit one evening while we were there.  I didn’t take a tripod with me, figuring I wouldn’t do a lot of photography, but who can resist Christmas lights?  And with ISO 6400 or higher, who needs a tripod, even at night? 🙂

I hope everyone has an exceptional December and a warm and joyous Christmas holiday season!

Photography

November Wallpaper Calendar

Sunset from Currituck Heritage Park near Corolla, North Carolina

Here in North Carolina,  we typically still have a lot of fall left in November.  Especially in the lower elevations, there is often a decent amount of color around until Thanksgiving.  Time will tell what the impact of the late-October storm will have on the fall for this year.

This month’s photo returns to the scene of the September calendar – Currituck Heritage Park in Corolla, North Carolina.  In fact, this photo was taken about 35 minutes before the photo of the Whalehead Club that I used for the calendar just a few months ago.  While it was still very warm when I took this photo, the colors are more fall-like.  Winter is on the way though!

Photography

October 2012 Wallpaper

Morning light and fall color with an early snow fall from the Deep Creek Valley Overlook in Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Last fall we were treated to a relatively rare (for me, at least!) mix of fall color and snow.  We had driven up to Clingman’s Dome in the Smokies for sunrise, only to be chased back down by gale-force winds and blowing snow.  The morning light a few hundred feet below proved to be a good consolation.

October is definitely my favorite time of the year here in North Carolina.  We have a number of interesting adventures planned, including a long-overdue visit to Florida (not for fall color) so stay tuned for updates on our travels.  Whether you manage to see snow or not, I sincerely hope that your October is a wonderful one!

Photography

September Wallpaper

The Whalehead Club at Currituck Heritage Park near Corolla, North Carolina

I set this up to auto-post on 9/1 and hopefully it will work!

This is one of my favorite photographs from a visit to the northern Outer Banks back in 2009, and I thought it might make a nice intro to fall.  The nice clear sky hints at the return of autumn while retaining just a hint of summer’s warmth.  I had walked around this building earlier in the day and loved the windows.  The possibility of a reflection of the sunset in those windows at dusk were what brought me back.

The building is known as The Whalehead Club and is located at Currituck Heritage Park near Corolla, North Carolina.  It is the restored private residence of northern industrialist and conservationist, Edward C. Knight Jr. and now houses the Whalehead Club Historic House Museum.

Photography

August 2012 Wallpaper

1 Comment
Moon Over Price Lake at Sunrise, Blue Ridge Parkway, NC

Well, how did that happen?  We just finished June and already July is over!  Of course that means we are edging toward Fall, and an end to Summer’s heat is just around the corner.

Price Lake is a hit-or-miss spot for me photographically.  A decent photograph here generally depends on getting something interesting to reflect in the water.  Sometimes it is fall color, sometimes you can catch some good clouds at sunrise or sunset.  Such was this case on an August morning back in 2005.  One morning prior to attending the annual Camera Clinic at Grandfather Mountain, I was up to shoot the sunrise and shortly after the sun came up I ventured down to the lake to see what was happening.  It’s a little hard to see in this photo, but a nearly full moon was playing hide-and-seek in the clouds.  I got a few shots with the moon in the clear, and a few with it partly or mostly obscured.

This photo was taken with my Canon 20D and 17-40 lens.  It was originally processed using Photoshop Elements, then reprocessed using each of the prior versions of Lightroom.  For this calendar I converted the file to Process Version 2012 and updated my settings one more time.  It’s amazing what newer software can do with photos that were taken with cameras that are now sitting in storage.