A Bird Taking a Bath... and some gemstones

We were playing with the fast shutter release while this bird was taking a bath.  I think some of these are pretty awesome action shots.

I think that is how humans should go about taking a bath.  It would be much more fun.

These are some of the rocks laying around in the Gemstone section of the museum.  Good practice with some closeups.

In honor of hubby, this is one of the forms of Asbestos.  It was found in the Pennsylvania section of the gemstones.

Lumpy gold and white rock looked kinda cool too.

Here's the whole thing looking super long.

Artistic Flowers, Artistic Deserts, Artistic Art and Dino's (Dinosaurs don't need to be artistic)

We've been running out of places to go in Pittsburgh, so we decided to be more creative with what we can find around town.  This first picture is one of those photos that hubby doesn't "get"

He "gets" this photo and thinks it's pretty cool.

And this photo too.

Since we were feeling so artistic, we decided to check out some art somewhere less stuffy than the Warhol.  This is "Man with Pipe"  I think he qualifies as fun cubism.

This painting was begging for someone to stand in front of it.  Even if that guy isn't proud of the fact that I'm out of focus, it made for a fun silly photo.

We found this little guy climbing up a tree in our yard.  Thought he was cute.  Kinda boney looking though.

Finally, we couldn't visit the Carnegie Museum without a photo of a dino.  This guy is still in his rock.

The Warhol is too stuffy for photos

I wanted a photo of the silver balloon room in Pittsburgh's most boring museum.  Unfortunately taking a photo of Mr. Warhol's art would probably result in something equally as "art" as the original, so they won't allow it.  I couldn't even photograph the awesome non-Warhol elephant sculpture.  Anyway, we ended up visitng other places for photos instead.

I'll begin with the photos that I'm not sure hubby "gets"  This one above shows the trio of rivers along with the lack of evidence of the fourth.

This is the former Westinghouse building from the river.

This one is hubby's favorite.  These buildings definately add some class to the city.

This parrot would look the same in black and white.

This couple came out a little dark, but they're really pretty and obviously in love.

Where's the bird?

This is from the Mr. Rodger's statue.  The statue turned out looking weird and lumpy like it is, but the boat looks great!

Trails are always screaming to be photographed, but they never look quite as cool once you take the photo.  This is true of trees as well.

There has been a noticable lack of flora in my photo taking.  This is an effort to remedy that problem.

This is the building that we ordinary people are no longer permitted to enter.

To further the grand tradition that began on our honeymoon, here's me as Mazeroski.

Finally,  what's a blog entry without a photo that never was.  Hubby was making a concerted effort to capture these flamingos with their wings spread.  Here's the almost.

This shot may not have beena  winner, but he is clearly responsible for the one of me infront of the statue.  He also took the shot of the trail and the bridge. 

A Fun Game! (in more ways than one)

On the second half of Saturday we took Collins to the first weekend of baseball.  Here's another view of that city of ours from a patio I never noticed before at the river side of the ballpark.

Prior to Collins' joining the family, I had a game with my prior unnamed camera.  I always wanted a photo of the ball smearing through the frame.  Each of the below photos shows the ball.  The game is trying to find it. (Helpful hint:  You may want to click on the photos so they're larger than these tiny ones it auto-adjusts to)

To start, this is a simple, easy to see ball being thrown by Jeff Karstens to open the game.

I could post a ton of these pitching photos, but I think the batters are really more fun. Here is a still ball that looks like it took a bounce post-pitch. 

This is a good photo of how to bat a solid strike.

McCutchen is one of my favorite players, so I took a lot of photos of him batting and running.  Here is McCutchen batting early in the game. 

The ball isn't easy to see in this one, but it's hard to catch Hanrahan mid-throw.  The guy moves a lot faster than the other pitcher.

This last photo is my favorite of the night.  McCutchen stole second base late in the game.  This shows that the call at the base was definately a good one.

I'm very impressed with Collins' first trip to the ballpark.  It was much better than the zoo.  Maybe we won't throw Collins in the trash quite yet.

Easter Eve with Collins

We took Collins out to celebrate Easter a little early.  Collins had a good day but, unfortunately, my picture taking skills did not.  I'm back to feeling entirely outmatched by Collins' vast capabilities.  In spite of that, the tigers were snuggling at the zoo yesterday morning.

Here's all three hanging out together.

This little guy decided to come out of hiding in the aquarium.  He wanted to show that he's good for more than just an expensive dinner.

Although it's not photographic genius, I was acually not even looking through the viewfinder for this next photo.  The deer in the petting zoo decided that my coat looked like a tasty treat.  While he was saying high, I generally aimed the camera at from waist level and this is the result.  I also had to dodge his tongue from going after my lens. 

Clearly this next photo was not taken by me.  I decided to avoid the problem that I experienced in the deer yard by handing my camera to that guy who drives me around.  This was taken just after entering the kangaroo exhibit. 









There wasn't much opportunity for photographic genius when the kangaroo was nibbling on my shoe, but it's solid proof that it was up close and personal.  Here's one that more accurately demonstrates that guy's photography skills.

Finally, this is the perfect definition of an awesome photo that never was.  These silly creatures were playing non-stop.  We think the game was something similar to "king of the hill" for goats.  Anyway, that guy was still taking photos and he just barely missed the top half of the goat.  I think the photo is pretty cool anyway.

That was the first half of Collins' Saturday.  More to come...

The second day of adventure

Since we had such a boring day on our first day with Collins, I decided we would try to spice things up a little on day two.  That stupid bald eagle came to visit us again so I took a photo of it in the morning.  It's pretty cool how the morning sun almost makes its head look pink.  I really like the drop of water on it's beak.






We got a little bored with the same old photo so we took a trip to the local stables and found this little pony hanging out. 

This is an example of graffiti Pittsburgh-style.  We took this photo from a mountain far far away.

This is that city of ours.  People here have strange ways of transporting themselves.





I had to take the classic shot too.  Unfortunately, the fountain is under major ugly construction, so this is as good as it gets for now.

Well one week with Collins and we're running out of places to visit.  Any suggestions are welcome!