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One of my favorite views in town is from the Ashland Middle School. I took this picture from inside the school looking out to the north. If I was a student I would not be able to do anything but stare out the windows–especially this time of year when things have gone green. We only get a few months of rich green before summer turns much of this view a duller, brownish color.
I previously mentioned how Ashland was the inspiration for the setting of the recent movie, Coraline. While on a recent bike ride the view in the above photograph reminded me of that movie, at least the foreground. If you’ve seen the movie you’ll remember the environment surrounding the well. Where I took this picture from, the terrain, trees, and general atmosphere is very similar.
There are many other things in Ashland that were drawn on and appeared in the movie. The most obvious, of course, is the letter that says “Ashland, OR” right on it. But there are others that I’ll share with you in the future.
Last weekend we had perfect weather for soccer (and just about anything else). Temperatures were in the low 70s, the brownish-green winter grass turned a bright green, and the cherry blossoms were in full bloom.
This game was Ashland vs. Medford in Medford, 10-year old girls in a competitive league. The outcome? 0 – 0. Don’t you just love those high scoring soccer matches that can end without a victor? 😉
I took this photograph from N Phoenix Road in Phoenix, just north of Ashland. Although the “mountain” on the right seems higher, it is actually only at an altitude of about 7,150 feet. The name is Wagner Butte and it makes for a beautiful hike in late spring.
To the left, and still covered in snow, is Mt. Ashland. The elevation of Mt. Ashland is over 7,500 feet. It appears lower from this angle simply because it is further away.
A good way to start the morning…
The cherry blossoms have begun to make their appearance. This tree is in the Ashland YMCA parking lot. Grizzly Peak is in the background.
View out the kitchen window on a day when the weather couldn’t quite make up its mind…
I headed into Lithia Park to try my first pictures shooting in RAW. The above isn’t one of them. I took the same picture in RAW and could not get it to look anywhere near as good as this. I took a bunch of others in both JPEG and RAW mode too. Same result. All look far better in non-RAW mode. The processing of the RAW images is a huge hassle too. Just to load one takes a few minutes and then the manipulation can take pretty much as long as you want to spend on it.
Some people don’t shoot in RAW because it takes a few seconds to save it to the memory card (as the RAW files are huge). That isn’t a problem with the LX3. In fact, I think you can take something like four or five pictures a second even in RAW mode. But my initial experiment in RAW will not likely have me using it again anytime soon.
This photo is of Ashland Creek in Lithia Park. The little kid’s playground is just off to the left.
Grizzly Peak panorama
This image isn’t done justice in a blog window. Hopefully you have a decent monitor (18+ inches) and can click on this to expand it to its full width.
If you look closely you can see not only cows but also some trucks on I-5.
While lying in bed the other morning I noticed my bedroom door glowing red. I decided to get up to investigate. One look out the window and I had to make a mad dash downstairs to get the LX3Â before anything changed.
I was curious to see what Photoshop could do with this image. I loaded it into Photoshop and hit “Auto Levels.” Absolutely nothing happened. I think that is first time Photoshop did not tweak anything at all. Photoshop deemed this to be the perfect picture. 😉 I love my new LX3. When Photoshop can’t improve what it produces you can’t complain.