The Last from Sedona

Ok, so here are the last photos I'm going to post from my trip.  Hopefully I can offer a little diversity from here on out.  Thanks for any feedback.

"The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination"

If you have not had a chance to hear or see J.K. Rowling's Harvard commencement speech, you should. It's great.

You can youtube it or read (or watch) it here or listen to it here.

It's 20 minutes long, but it's worth every second.

Follow up

Here is a follow up to something I had posted previously about Richard Prince. It still blows me away.

d.e.l.i.c.i.o.u.s

This was my first experience with chateaubriand at El Chorro in Paradise Valley, AZ on our first night of vacation. It was quite tasty.

Mas Grand Canyon Fotos

More Grand Canyon photos. With the exception of the one of my brother, these were all taken from the trail on the way down to the bottom. Sorry that there are some that are quite similar, but I'd really like to hear from you guys which one(s) you think are the strongest images. Thanks.

More Sedona

Here are some more photos from Sedona. I took all of these within just a couple minutes walk of our hotel at sunset-ish. The first and the third ones are my favorites. I like the third one even though silhouettes are a little cheap, so maybe it's the extra layer created by the sun spreading out on the far left of the frame. Who knows? Anyway, like before, any and all feedback is appreciated. I still have more to come. Thanks for looking.

Grand Canyon

Here are some photos from my day spent at the Grand Canyon with the family. Overall, I'm not that satisfied. I didn't have very long to explore or try to find a good spot, so I got stuck on the trail on the way down to the canyon while the sun was setting. So I was really limited on the shots I could get. C'est la vie. These a few of my favorites. Let me know what you guys think, especially of the third one. I'm not sure how I feel about it. For the third one, I set up a long shutter speed and changed the focal length (on the 16-35mm) during the exposure.




More from Sedona soon to come...

The Kissing Stone

Here's a preview of some photos from Sedona, AZ.


I took this with a 16-35 L f/2.8 II with a Circular Polarizer filter that I rented for the week. I've been pretty happy with the lens so far. I shot in RAW for the trip, so I'll put them up as I edit them.

I think Blogger is sucking some of the color out of my photos. Ugh. Oh well. I think they look a little better on my Flickr site if you care enough.

Arizona

damn umbrellas and reflection...

...almost.

my dog

he's ferocious...

Water

Just passing some time earlier tonight.

An Afternoon in the City of Brotherly Love

Lauren and I spent last Sunday in Philadelphia because I had to fly out of Philadelphia early Monday morning to head back to Dallas. We drove from Reading to Philadelphia. We missed a couple of exits but eventually made it there. After finding our hotel, we dropped off our stuff and explored the city a little bit. Thanks to Red's employee discount, we were able to stay at a super nice Hyatt right on the Delaware River only a few blocks from the Historic District.

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Here's a grab of our hotel in some good lighting on our way back in after exploring.

As we set out to explore some of the city, we noticed there were many ships outside our hotel. One of them looked like this:

We passed some interesting things on our way to the Historic district.

Once we got to the Historic district, we stopped in to check out the Liberty Bell.

I actually own the same shirt.

Who's at the Liberty Bell and has two thumbs? This girl...

After the Liberty Bell, we crossed the street to check out Independence Hall. The line was long, so we figured since we had only an afternoon in Philly we didn't want to spend a good bit of it waiting in line. But we did get some shots from outside Independence Hall to mark our proximity to it.

This is a shot from the other side that I got a little bit later.

After Independence Hall, we walked across the street to Washington Square (one of the original parks designed by William Penn). It was a beautiful day, so people were out in mass.

It was now about 5 PM, so we set out to find an early dinner - namely a Philly Cheesesteak. We walked back towards Independence Hall where we had seen a street vendor. As we get there, he tells us that he only has drinks left. When we ask him, where we could find a cheesesteak, he tells us that everywhere is closed. Lauren and I don't believe him. We walked around quite a while, and apparently most of Philadelphia shuts down at 5. It was so weird (or at least we thought so). These are a couple of shots just from walking around looking for a place to eat.

Finally, we found a pub. They had cheesesteaks on the menu. They were good, but somehow I think they lacked the authenticity of the street vendor. But we had some tasty beer to make up for it.

After our delicious meal, we headed back to the hotel. It was a little early, but I had to be at the airport at 7, and Lauren had to make the hour and a half drive back to Reading before work the next morning.

Once we got back to the hotel, we went down to the fancy dancy restaurant and had some delicious cheesecake. After we got back up to the room, we had some fun with the night skyline.

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And there it is, the extensive recap of our afternoon in Philly.

I'll put some more photos up on Flickr, but I figured this was wayyy too much for a single post already.