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One of the things I’m enjoying about Lightroom (the photo editing software I started using earlier this year) is its ability to stitch together multiple photos in a single panorama shot. The AI it uses to do this is pretty sophisticated, and I’ve had some very pleasing results thus far. This is one, from this past weekend when I went down to the Outer Harbor again (yes, I was down there two weekends in a row). This is a grain elevator in the southern end of the Outer Harbor’s general recreation area. I love how this turned out. Bigger versionDown the rabbit hole….

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Serendipity is great! And it’s great when your skill level improves to the point that you start being able to recognize serendipity as it’s unfolding, and you’re ready for it! But also nice is knowing that the shot is coming, and all you have to do is wait for it. At one point on Buffalo’s Outer Harbor area is a small network of nature trails, and over one of these towers a metal sculpture by eccentric local artist Larry Griffis. The sculpture is of a vaguely human figure with arms upstretched as if to shout, “Hooray!” I came upon aDown the rabbit hole….

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We were at Canalside in downtown Buffalo the other day for a greyhound meet-up. It was a lovely time and I took a lot of photos, but I wasn’t super happy with my output, because the light was really bright and garish and made compositions difficult, and because I screwed up and didn’t check my focus settings first. So I ended up taking every photo with the camera set for Continuous Autofocus, which is what you want to use when you’re photographing something that’s moving, not something that is either stationary or moving slowly. So, few of my photos hadDown the rabbit hole….

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In: Life, On Buffalo and The 716, On Food and Cooking, On Travels and Adventures
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Last night we went to see Phil Rosenthal at Buffalo State University. If you’re unfamiliar with Phil Rosenthal, you need to watch Somebody Feed Phil on Netflix, and you need to do so now. Right now. Go watch, I’ll wait for you. [waiting music here] OK, now that you’ve watched…well, if you went on without watching, Somebody Feed Phil is a travel and food show starring Phil Rosenthal, a comedy writer and television producer who is best known for creating the classic show Everybody Loves Raymond. In the show, Rosenthal travels to a city and, well, eats. He visits beautiful places, eats wonderful food,Down the rabbit hole….

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Last week my Brother-in-Law visited us, and one of the things we did was go to the Botanical Gardens, which is always a terrific time, as well as a great place to practice photography! I organized my edited shots from that day into this Flickr album, but here are my favorites from that day:   I have a lot more photos from last weekend that I haven’t even edited yet! If you’re looking for a hobby that will eat some time, photography’s the one, folks. Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….

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The answer: “This type of widescreen photograph can be created in Lightroom by stitching together multiple photographs from a single vantage point.” “What is a panorama?” Last Sunday I was at Chestnut Ridge park on a wonderfully clear day, and thus I was able to take a series of shots of the entire Buffalo-Niagara region, with visibility all the way to Niagara Falls, ON and beyond, and I was further able to experiment with creating a panorama in Lightroom. And here it is: I know, that’s…tiny, as presented here. For the full-size enlargeable version, go here. I’m very happy with how thisDown the rabbit hole….

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In Buffalo, the eclipse was simultaneously an astonishingly powerful and deeply disappointing experience. Clouds were in the forecast all along, but for the last several days, local meteorologists were constantly offering up reasons for optimism…which turned to “Sorry, we’re not clearing out until after totality, bummer, but it’ll still get dark and stuff.” I know these folks don’t control the weather, but for all the technology and scientific expertise they have, it sometimes seems that their ability to offer up any kind of reliable forecast has been whittled down to timeframes measured in hours, or even minutes. I know someDown the rabbit hole….

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I’ve had this post in my head for years, and heck, it’s time to get it outta my head and into here. (Why haven’t I written it? No real reason.) Anyway, a few miles from Casa Jaquandor is a big shopping plaza called Quaker Crossing. Here it is, via Google Earth: Looks like any other big suburban plaza, right? And sure, because let’s be honest, suburban shopping plazas are always terrible. But this one is somehow especially terrible. Usually these plazas are terrible because they are relentlessly optimized for cars and are almost anti-pedestrian to the point they feel almost punitive ifDown the rabbit hole….

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Photos from a short walk at the Orchard Park Railroad Depot yesterday. The Depot, you may remember, has been lovingly restored after years of neglect after the trains stopped running, and the tracks are now a rail trail. These weren’t the only photos I took! I actually took a bunch, but of those only these were the real keepers; some others were actually practice photos I really don’t intend to do much with. I was using a new ND filter that stops a ton of light, and I used it to practice a bit of shutter-speed work as well as aDown the rabbit hole….

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Last weekend was a good time to be out and about in Buffalo. We visited the new Buffalo AKG Art Museum, which is the renamed, updated, and expanded Albright-Knox Art Gallery. The Albright-Knox was always a favorite place of ours, and the museum got some good news back in the 2010’s at some point: a wealthy benefactor named Jeffrey Gundlach gave the museum a big pile of money, which led to the museum’s expansion. A whole new building was erected, new art was collected (the museum’s primary mission is modern art), and last year the newly re-done Buffalo AKG Art MuseumDown the rabbit hole….