Photoshop is an amazing tool and one without which digital photography is sorely lacking. I’m not very skilled at Photoshop but the following “before and after” of an old picture that I messed with the other day illustrates how you can make your pictures better without being over-the-top or altering reality too much.
The third picture is just a shot of Mainstreet, Bozeman I took a couple days ago. Before Photoshop it was a picture of an old shoe.
I thought this was an interesting peek into life at Montana State. In the middle of the school day yesterday you go outside and see a giant man-made mound of scaffolding, hay bales, and snow setup directly in front of the library.
This went on for about an hour around lunch time, with giant speakers and a DJ playing music as baggy-pants clad bro-bras put on a show for the crowd.
Allow me to share one of the best things I’ve found on ye olde interweb in a long time. The following Garfield comic strips without Garfield are shamelessly stolen from This website
Described as
Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolor disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life?
Just when everyone in Bozeman was about to put on their snorkels and flip flops old man winter arrived with a little bit of the white stuff. It is a win-win situation though because I’m happy when it snows and I’ll be happy when I can wear shorts.
On a totally unrelated note here are some pictures from two nights ago. Our friend Elizabeth had Kez and I over for dinner and it was awesome. She was nice enough to give me the recipe but I doubt it’ll be half as good when I make it. That is Kelly on the baritone. They are going to get married later this year.
As a special bonus, you can ponder as to whether the self-portrait of me looks more like a sailor, a statistician, or a hobo.
Due to overwhelming demand I bring more captures from last weekend. Awesome sweetness. (Robin I owe you one)
These pictures were all taken in and around Gardiner. That little town really grew on me. Usually we just pass right through it and it was fun to be able to hang out for a little while. It doesn’t hurt to be with such a swell group of folks too.
Luke, Kez, Hilary, her friend Stephanie and myself went down to Yellowstone by way of the northwest entrance in Gardiner, Montana. Here are some pictures of Gardiner. It is a nice little town, especially in the winter when it isn’t overrun with tourists.
When we rode up into town that elk was just hanging out in someone’s yard. They said that they will tag elk only if they are troublemakers. So I thought keeping my distance was a smart idea.
Yesterday, to kick off the 3 day weekend, Kez, myself and our friends Elizabeth and Kelly drove to Dillon Montana, a bustling little city about 60 miles south. It is a really nice drive and these pictures do it absolutely no justice. It was a nice sunny day which I feel like have been in short supply recently.
I just found out Microsoft Live has a nice map of the area here. If you hit the magnifying glass in the upper left to zoom in about 4 times the map looks really awesome. There are a lot of farms in that area.
The other night it was about midnight and I was going to bed when I could hear the wind really howling. I looked outside and it was just dumping giant flakes of wet snow, which were blowing sideways in the orange glow of the streetlights. Usually the snow we get is fairly light but these flakes were ginourmous because it was relatively warm. I decided to delay bedtime and go outside for a few minutes. .
It was really dynamic weather, which is always interesting. But I think it lasted all of about 15 minutes because about as soon as I went inside it had stopped.
The daylight pictures are from yesterday evening when I braved the slop of melting snow to go for a bike ride in the more rural area to the west of town.
Here are a few pictures taken over the last week or so. I’d like to dedicate the captions to Dr. Joseph Sulock.
One of the things I like most about photography is it makes you more observant to the world around you. Until we meet again Seattle…
In 1889 33 blocks of Seattle burned down and when they rebuilt it they….wait for it…….put the streets at the 2nd floor! So you can go underground now and see what was the ground level in ye olden times. Also, if you get lucky Norm Macdonald will be your tour guide.
The Seattle Underground is a network of underground passageways and basements in downtown Seattle, Washington, United States that was ground level at the city’s origin in the mid-1800s.
In 1907 the city condemned the Underground for fear of bubonic plague. The basements were left to deteriorate or were used as storage. In some cases, they became illegal flophouses for the homeless, gambling halls, speakeasies, and opium dens.
It was a much better drive back to Bozeman than it was going out. It is amazing how much of the landscape you can see when the moon is full and everything is snow covered. Also, Luke was nice enough to stop in Butte and let me run around in the -15 degree weather trying to get a decent night shot.
The entire trip to Seattle from Bozeman consists of driving 5 minutes to I-90, staying on that interstate for 10 hours or so, and then exiting in downtown Seattle. About 200 miles west of Bozeman lies the great city of Missoula where my friend Hilary just moved to.
My traveling companion Luke and I stopped for a little while and visited Hilary and Missoula’s fairly vibrant downtown. It was a good stop, unfortunately we had to carry on before the snow overtook us.
