The entire kitchen is Sandee’s playground, and that includes the chalkboard. I’m not sure what holiday she’ll decide to honor next.

She’s been busy elsewhere at home too.

seanbonner’s photo of Esther’s new tattoo makes me want one.

It’s called Gigapan, a robotic panorama-maker. David Bergman used one to take the picture above (though his view was much larger) (you can buy your own for about $300 if you get in on the beta). The point, however, is that if you zoom in real close, you can see W’s pursed lipped scowl.

Ilya Schurov thinks this is the time capsule from from Isaak Asimov’s The End Of Eternity. It’s really the elevator and stair (or ramp)-way in Prague’s Old Town Hall. A clock and great views of the square are at the top.

Thinking of interesting elevators to be found in Europe: The Paternoster.

Eu-Jin Ooi’s picture of rail trucks piled up after a derailment isn’t nearly as scary as this derailment found at Dee’s Inbox:

Can anybody name that incident? (The top one is BNSF, Barstow CA, April 2008. What’s the bottom one?)

enrguerrero’s photo of a Lincoln/Obama paste up mashup on the corner of Larkin and Myrtle streets in San Francisco.

Physically located in Katoomba; found in Seb Chan’s photo stream.

I practically begged Will and Karen to get on a carnival ride with me so I could get portraits with the lights streaking behind them. Will warned me that he doesn’t do well on rides; I argued that no ride with so many kids under four feet tall could be too dangerous for us.

We boarded, it started. From the ground it looked gentle, much like the teacups. That was misleading. I started second-guessing my decision that my seat belt wasn’t necessary — it was designed for somebody fully one third my size and couldn’t be buckled. The carny didn’t seem to care during the seat check, but then I’d neither pointed it out nor hid the seat belt’s shortcomings. Will, on the other hand, was able to buckle up and he had all his notions of personal security pinned on that belt.

Then it came loose.

Still, there were photos to be had, and Karen seemed to be okay. Pressing my feet against the center post, I wedged myself into the seat and started snapping. Will held on, and Karen flopped about. It’ll be a while before I can coax them both onto a ride again, but I do sometime hope to repeat this with more natural light. Something more like this, but not so much as this.

Extra: anybody want to buy an extra carnival ride?

Will McElroy, Karen Ladd, carnival, ride, scary, photo, photoblog, portrait, blur

I’m coming to learn that p0ps has a number of interesting things going on, but it was his panoramas stitched from pictures taken by iPhone that caught my attention first. Above is the J Train somewhere between Fulton and City Hall.

I’d thought the iPhone’s camera was pretty decent, p0ps’ work shows it off.

J Train, panorama, p0ps, photo, iPhone

It’s likely Phil Carrizzi could make a broken tire iron look good, but his series of the iPhone with the Newton Message Pad and eMate is geek-sweet eye candy.

iphone, newton, emate, apple, photo, gallery, pr0n, porn, photos, eye candy

The photo is from Jessamyn, who declared it Groan-worthy. I’m still grinning about it. Reminds me of the time Homer said “Yeah, right Lisa. A wonderful, magical animal.”

pork, sausage, hog, sign, funny, photo

This renewed talk of building nuclear weapons here in the US reminded me of an old report of photos of the sky glow from nuclear tests done in Nevada seen over Los Angeles. This one includes the following description:

Atomic explosion, the largest yet set off on the Nevada test range, was clearly visible in Los Angeles. Staff photographer Perry Folwer was ready with his camera on a tripod on the roof of the Herald-Express building when the blast occurred at 5:49 a.m. Reporter Jack Smith, points towards the great white flash that clearly silhouetted mountains to the east. The brilliant spectacle was seen by many early-rising residents of Los Angeles. Photo dated: February 2, 1951.

More: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

atomic, test, bomb, blast, sky glow, los angeles, photo

While northern-hemisphere inhabitants are enjoying their first day of winter, our cousins in the southern hemisphere are just beginning summer. And in South Africa’s Shark Bay, near Gansbaai, the great whites are departing for other waters.

The great whites make their way to Shark Bay annually between September and January, though they are not hunting, and, as Rob Mousley reports, they “ignore bait slicks (and bathers), swimming through them without any reaction–in contrast to their behaviour at other locations such as Dyer Island” [link added].

Thomas P. Peschak and Michael C. Scholl began using kayaks to join the sharks in shallow waters (sometimes as shallow as 2 meters) where their research vessel couldn’t go. Testing showed the sharks cared little — “the sharks would circle the kayak and look at it, but they never tested it with their teeth.”

Michael is quite happy now to paddle with the sharks especially as the sea kayaks seem a minimally invasive platform from which to do so. Individual sharks sometimes circle the kayak, and will occasionally lift their heads out of the water to take a better look, but subsequently ignore the kayak altogether allowing the researcher to follow closely behind.

When asked what a paddler should do if a shark is sighted, Michael said, “First and foremost, enjoy the moment!”

Andre Hartmann, commercial fisherman and de facto shark tour guide enjoys grabbing their fins. From Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Ocean Adventures:

Jean-Michel and Andre snorkel near the surface, a very vulnerable position because great whites tend to feed from the sea floor up. An enormous great white advances, and the divers are careful not to provoke it. There is a waiting game. Eventually, the shark allows the divers to touch it. Then, amazingly, unlike its terrifying man-eating reputation, the great white allows the divers, one at a time, to grip its dorsal fin and be taken for a ride through the clear blue waters.

Hat tip to Joe and Flickr for bringing all this to me.

great white shark, sharks, photo, shark bay, kayak

This photo from Tsunaminotes appeared in Ende’s photo stream and reminded me instantly of all the cool things I’d never done because I was born too late and cool stuff is what I saw in black and white photos from years past. Of course, Flickr says the photo was taken July 5th, and the photographers of the past would have burned the bright spot on his cheek during printing, but it still has a classic quality to it.

Anyway, the photo is titled “Two things a man should be able to do: be romantic and smoke his brains out,” and, as it turns out, the line comes from Romance & Cigarettes, a recent film by John Turturro. How’d I miss this? I don’t know, but it’s in my queue now.

romantic, smoke, John Turturro, ende, Tsunaminotes, Romance & Cigarettes, movie, photo

I heard birds chirping yesterday morning for the first time in a while, and from my office window I could see robins returned from the south. Spring, it seems, has arrived in New Hampshire, but nobody’s captured it better than Breezin with the photo above — obviously taken from a somewhat warmer place than this in late January.

spring, bird, birds, robin, robins, spring weather, photo, breezin, public bath

Here’s Zach hidden in plain sight on a couch at a friend’s house the other day. That’s skill.

couch, zach, hidden, photo, camouflage, funny, zach, zach tirrell

fishfin50 has an interesting collection of photos from the American plains. That old train car caught my eye and fishfin50 replied to my comment with more detail:

this old train car sits about 200 yards from the Soo Line Railroad in north eastern Montana, it’s in Comertown, an old abandoned town were they used to run whiskey from Canada to the US in the early 1900’s. [link added]

railroad, railroad car, train car, photo, black and white, montana, plains, prairie

Regarding nudity in photographs posted to Flickr, dancharvey says:

Honestly, I’m more concerned about all the cats and flowers. Cliche is more damaging than breasts. Your opinion may vary.

nudity, censorship, flickr, photo, photography, top-v, argument, cliche, reason

library, libraries, book, books, page, pages, book leaf, open book, flower, art, photo, library mistress, black and white, b and w

If I lived in Seattle, I’d look to Beatnickside’s photos for clues about where the fun is. Here’s his photo of the “Iron Composer” competition at The Crocodile Cafe.

seattle, washington, seattle wa, crocodile cafe, iron composer, microphone, scream, photo, big, oversize, surreal, big brother, fright, frightening

stock.xchng has nothing on Flickr for searching, finding, sharing photos, except that they’re uploaded with the express intention of offering them for re-use. Some are available free, others free for non-commercial use, others with their own license terms.

But stock photos aren’t really the bottom of the barrel. No, for that you have to look at pixellogo. It’s there that you’ll see the sorts of things you can do to put some pop in a limp design. Meaning, it would seem, is secondary.

But don’t let any of this criticism suggest I’m not above taking tips from stock houses.

tags: stock photo, design, logo, photo, pixellogo, stock, stock houses, stock logo, stock logos, stock photos, stockxchng

Memepool introduced me to camera tossing at Flickr, where there’s even a group for those who are willing to risk their camera for a chance at a shot of streaky lights. But not everybody tosses in the dark, it’s turned out to be a a new fad in self-portraiture.

Click through for credits and more info on the photos above.

tags: blur, blurry picture, blurry pictures, camera, camera killer, camera toss, camera tossing, cameratoss, cameratossing, dangerous (to your camera), fad, flickr, memepool, photo, photos

My friend Troy keeps a studio at Saltworks, a combined gallery and studio space in Atlanta where Prema Murthy just opened her deStructures show. I was in Atlanta to see Troy and family, so the opening was added sugar, and quite a pleasure.

The image above comes from Troy’s Above and Below series.

tags: above, above and below, art, art opening, atlanta, below, destructures, gallery, georgia, photography, photo, prema murthy, saltworks, studio, troy, troy bennett

Browsing Flickr the other day I found la_femme’s poison. Other good photos in her photostream.

tags: danger, evonimina, flickr, la femme, orange, photo, poison, red, veneno, yellow

Via Pya.

elderly, grandma, photo, rollerblade, rollerblades, rollerblading, woman