Thursday, February 18, 2010

Austin Local Flies Aircraft into Office Building

Today at approximately 10:00am, a local Austin Software Engineer flew a single engine Cirrus aircraft into a seven story office building which housed the local US Government Internal Revenue Service office. The man, 53 year old Joseph Stack, has apparently attempted to burn down his house with wife and child last evening. A message on a website owned by the man read like a suicide note, and quoted sections of the US tax code.

As the incident occurred close to where I work, I took an extended lunch break and took some photos. I also managed to attend the press conference that occurred at 11:30am local time.

Photos below, with more on the way.




Friday, February 12, 2010

Fake Tilt-Shift Miniatures

Somehow I ended up reading about tilt-shift miniature photos, which then led me to read about fake tilt-shift miniatures. This is where you use image processing software like GIMP or Photoshop to turn regular photos into photos that make their subjects look miniaturized. From my readings, it seemed that quite a few folks out there look down on it, and would prefer photographer wannabes use the real tilt-shift lenses. To me it seemed intriguing and a bit of fun, and after I read these instructions about creating such images from regular photos using GIMP, I took a stab at making some of mine with some older shots. It's probably something I won't mess with again, but I do like how it makes a regular photo and turns it into something that looks like a model.

Here are some examples of what I came up with, all my shots taken over the last couple of years.

Miniature Jerusalem:

















Miniature Trains in Melbourne, Australia:

















Miniature Riverfront at Melbourne, Australia:


















Miniature Coastal Scene, Phillip Island, Australia:










Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Jerusalem, Israel

Pictures from Jerusalem, Israel...

Tel Aviv, Israel

Highlight photos from Tel Aviv, Israel...

Jaffa, Israel

I have posted my best Jaffa photos into my Flickr account. Granted these are a little old, but worth putting here anyway.