Photo-taking with the Mighty Nikon (D100)

 

 

I brought the Mighty Nikon with me to OBX (Outer Banks of North Carolina). We spent a week there for Thanksgiving - 21^st to the 27^th of November, 2005.

"Nice Choice" - A lot of the rental homes in Corolla (pronounced "caw-RAH-la"), NC have names. We rented this one with four other families. The room my wife chose was in the back, by the hammock, a nod to the fact that I am deeply into what I call the Hammock Lifestyle. I liked the observation deck at the top. At night you could see a ton of stars and even the Milky Way.

Currituck Lighthouse - You could also see the Currituck Lighthouse from the observation deck as it was only a mile or two away, to the north. Of all the lighthouses I've visited, this was the neatest. Nice grounds, nice view from the top, nice gift shop. It also boasts a first-order Fresnel lens. I drove by at night to see how much light was being thrown around on the ground - not much. Mister Fresnel really knew how to focus beams of light...

Dunes - The kind of photo you see taken for photo classes. (Especially when rendered in high contrast black and white.) An interesting feature of the Corolla beach was that you can drive on it. I bet that gets real old during the peak of the season, when every yahoo from Northern Virginia gets the urge to finally use the four wheel drive capability on his SUV...

Sand ripples - Another photo class image.

OBX sticker - My son just had to buy one of these for his Ford Explorer. (And yes, we did drive it onto the beach.) I like the variation with a hurricane symbol as the "O."

Kitty Hawk Flightline - When I was in fourth grade I used to enjoy reading about the Wright Brothers, so we had to visit nearby Kill Devil Hill. That marker at the end shows the fourth and longest flight, which lasted nearly a minute.

Wilbur at the helm - I guess there was a dress code for flying back then.

Monument - There's a big, WPA-era monument to the First Flight atop Kill Devil Hill. There you learn that Wilbur was the bald one. Orville is the one with the mustache.

Fort Raleigh - The first settlement of Englishmen in the New World, and a very tentative one at that. This is where "Croatoan" was found carved upon a pole, the only clue to the famous "Lost Colony." The Park Service ranger told us that Croatoan Island was visited in 1710, and there were Indians there with blue eyes, who told of ancestors who could read books. So I guess we know where the Lost Colony got to.

Elizabeth I - We did a quick stop at the gift shop of the "Elizabethan Gardens," which interested me because it housed this 1594 portrait of Elizabeth I.

North Carolina Sunset - At a stop for gas I saw some other tourists snapping a photo of this, so who am I to be any different?

Photos from Richmond, Virginia - October 2005

President John Tyler's obelisk - Hollywood Cemetery.

President Monroe's tomb - Hollywood Cemetery. Nice wrought iron work - it really stands out!

Another angel - Lots of these about.

JEB Stuart - Monument Avenue. I think they positioned him so he's staring out in the direction of the Battle of Yellow Tavern on the outskirts of Richmond, where he was killed in 1864. The soldiers on Monument Avenue face North (Stuart & Jackson) if they died in service of their rebellion and South if he (Lee) survived the war. I note that Jeff Davis also faces South.

Jefferson Davis' grave site - Note the reb flag flying overhead. Hollywood Cemetery.

Gay reb shirt - Displayed in the Museum of the Confederacy. Looks like a boy's reb pajamas. If somebody were to show up in one of these at a Civil War reenactment we'd give him all sorts of grief. But seeing is believing; evidently they wore such things!

Yours Truly - At Gaines' Mill Battlefield, outside Richmond - one of the "Seven Days" battles between Lee and McClellan. Has the classic Civil War battlefield details: cannon, worm-rail fence and Virginia pines. All that's missing is a fat reenactor. (But perhaps that's me.) Whenever I take somebody visiting from another state to a battlefield I always take a shot of them from a setting like this; it's a deal I have with the Virginia Tourism Board.

Robert E. Lee - The equestrian statue on Monument Avenue, the finest such I have ever seen.

Reb forage cap - On display in the Museum of the Confederacy. Those brass numbers and letters look very 1960's to me - must be the font.

Angel - The angel guarding Jefferson Davis' daughter's grave at Hollywood Cemetery. I found the expression striking; I think the softening of the stone over the years has made it more attractive.

Jefferson Davis - Again, a statue on Monument Avenue. I like taking photos of statuary - they hold still for the camera and always wear noble expressions. It puts me in mind of something Cato once said: "I would much rather have men ask why I have no statue, than why I have one."

Photos from various day trips with Mike McDaniel, October 2005.

Arguably the most beautiful woman in the world – Shot with my 450mm zoom lens from the Observation Deck.

Me in the Statue of Liberty Souvenir Shop – Fun gifts for everyone!

The bracing superstructure in the statue.

From the 86th floor of the Empire State Building, facing south. Lady Liberty is in the center – Odd optical illusion at play. From the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building looks rather small. But from the ESB, it’s the statue that looks tiny.

Midtown Manhattan as seen from the 86th floor of the Empire State Building at dusk – This was such an awesome sight…

Marine faces (Semper Fi!) and hands at the Iwo Jima statue.

Me and a Maryland Crab at the Inner Harbor, Baltimore.

George Washington in front of Independence Hall, Philadelphia – Statues always hold their expressions well!

Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, Philadelphia.

Me, at the intersection of the Brock and Orange Plank Roads, Wilderness Battlefield, Virginia.

In the men's room at the Fredericksburg Visitor's Center, Virginia – I like doing these mirror shots from time to time.