Christmas Eve

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Photo taken Christmas Eve. I used my company's Nikon D70 and mounted it on my tripod. The light source was a combination of the tree lights, fireplace and candles. No flash was used and the exposure was 0.4 seconds.

First snow

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We had our first snowfall of the season early Friday morning. We eventually received about 11 inches. This photo was taken very early Saturday morning and then manipulated using a Photoshop plug-in.

Halloween in the 'burbs

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My wife gets the credit for decorating our house for Halloween. Every year the display grows. We're almost at the point of needing a separate storage area just for our Halloween and Christmas decorations!

Wings over MB

My department ordered some Nikon cameras and I took one and snapped this shot outside of my building. My office complex is in Rosemont, Illinois -- right near O'Hare Field -- so we see a lot of planes overhead as they make their final landing approach.

Chicago Botanic Garden

I'm taking a few days off and my wife and I decided to visit the Chicago Botanic Garden. I wanted to experiment with the macro setting on my Kodak Z760 and I took a number of photos like this one. The rest of the photos can be found here.

Wrigley Field marquee

Photo of the famous Wrigley Field marquee taken in the summer of 2001. I then manipulated the image in Photoshop to create spot color only on the marquee.

Click here to see how I used another Photoshop filter to reverse the red and replace it with blue. I call it "House of Blues."

Technorati tags: Wrigley Field, Chicago Cubs

Summer flowers

Fun photo of some flowers in our garden originally taken in the summer of 2000. Image later manipulated using a Flickr Toy.

As I post this, it's Friday evening in mid-February and the outdoor temperature is hovering near zero! This photo reminds me that it does actually get warm up here.

Sears Tower

Here's a photo I took a couple of summers ago when my son and I were in downtown Chicago. He loves to go to the top of the Sears Tower. Before we went up, I shot some photos looking up from the street. Later I manipulated the photo using a Flickr Toy.

Yahoo! Photos updated

I'm a big fan of Flickr -- the photo-sharing site that's one of the most popular community sites on the web. I joined a year ago and recently upgraded my membership. Yes, I actually paid money! In 2004, Yahoo! bought Flickr and both companies have benefited from the partnership. Flickr got needed investment and an expanded network; Yahoo! got access to the new "Web 2.0" technology. Now comes word that Yahoo's photo site -- Yahoo! Photos -- is undergoing a Flickr-like transition and will be upgraded sometime this spring. As this article mentions, Flickr gets the press and about 2 million monthly visitors while Yahoo! Photos quietly gets 30 million monthly visitors! Yahoo! Photos and Flickr will continue to share access to Target stores for photo printing, something I've used in the past and heartily recommend.

Too cold to smoke

On Saturday evenings during the summer, I like to sit out on the patio and drink a glass of wine (or three) and smoke a cigar. Our house backs up to a forest preserve and it's fun to watch the birds, especially the golden finches and cardinals, fly between the trees. Occasionally, I'll see a hawk in the taller trees. Anyway, Friday evening we received 12 inches of snow. My summer hideaway doesn't look too inviting right now! This photo was taken around 7:00 AM Saturday.