The other day on my way to work I slipped my camera into my pocket as I headed out the door. My wife asked, “What are you taking that for?” My response was, “Because I can.” I smiled as did she. You see, previous to my LX3 purchase I only took my old, large camera places on “special” occasions. It was simply too big and too much of a hassle to haul around. Not so anymore.

Later in the day, the clouds started going crazy so I had opportunities to take several pictures that would never have been captured in my old S3 days. The above is one of them. Omars is an Ashland landmark, but I’ve never had a reason to take a picture of Omars before. Nor have I ever had a camera on me when in the vicinity of Omars. But while waiting to cross the street, Omars looked rather marvelous with the sky doing its thing so I whipped out my LX3 for a quick picture.

Omars has been around for more than 60 years, something few restaurants/bars can say–especially on the west coast. The name is a fluke of sorts. The original owner’s name was Omer. But when he ordered this sign the company made a mistake and spelled his name Omar, and the rest is history. Have yourself a great steak, fine seafood, or just grab a beer at Omars the next time you are passing through Ashland.

Posted on March 9th, 2009 under only in ashland, places. Tags: buildings, clouds, food, lx3, skywatch. Comments: 2

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 LX3 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.

Posted on March 3rd, 2009 under nature. Tags: clouds, home, lx3, skywatch, sunrise. Comments: 8

I’m digging my new camera. My old S3 would not have been able to capture the entire rainbow.

Posted on March 2nd, 2009 under nature. Tags: clouds, home, lx3, mountains, rainbow, skywatch. Comments: 2

I have always thought that one of the best views in town is from the middle school looking towards Grizzly Peak. So, this past week, when I went to pick up my son and arrived a little early I pulled out the camera to take in the view.

The cow in the foreground immediately came wandering over to me as if it thought I was going to feed or milk it or something.

I’ll try to remember to take a similar picture in a month or two when things are much greener.

Posted on March 1st, 2009 under nature. Tags: clouds, grizzly peak, mountains, nature, skywatch, wildlife. Comments: 4

Posted on February 23rd, 2009 under nature, places. Tags: clouds, lake of the woods, mountains, skywatch, snow, trees, winter. Comments: 4

This is the view from my upstairs window. If you have looked at past blog entries you have seen a variation of today’s photo close to a dozen times now. My favorite thing about this view is its changing nature. Every day it is a bit different. Frequently it looks radically different on the same day. On the day last week when this was taken, not only was there a bit of snow on the mountains, but the clouds were causing some nice looking shadows on the Siskiyou Mountain Range.

Posted on February 20th, 2009 under nature. Tags: clouds, home, mountains, skywatch, snow, winter. Comments: 2

This picture has a bit of everything in it: fog, clouds, blue sky, snow. Take your pick.

Posted on February 13th, 2009 under nature. Tags: clouds, fog, home, skywatch, snow, winter. Comments: 4

Friday was one of those weird weather days photographers dream about. The wind was blowing so the air was clear, the clouds were going crazy but still leaving some blue sky and rays of sunlight, and rainbows even started springing up in places. I climbed out onto the roof to take advantage of the situation.

Posted on February 9th, 2009 under nature. Tags: clouds, mountains, rainbow, skywatch. Comments: 2

One of the reasons for showing you so many pictures of Seattle the past week or two is that there hasn’t been much to photograph in Ashland of late. December and January offer the least attractive glimpses of this town, with the exception of when it snows and the mountains are powdered but not concealed with clouds and/or fog. Otherwise it is too foggy/cloudy to see much or the hills look brownish and the skies look more gray than blue. Sunrises can still be pretty though. Here is one from last week. A half hour after taking this photograph our house was surrounded by fog and we couldn’t see a thing.

Posted on February 2nd, 2009 under nature, only in ashland. Tags: clouds, home, mountains, skywatch, sunrise, trees. Comments: 1