small sandy stonehenge…part 2
Ok, ok…I know: its about time I posted Part 2 of Small Sandy Stonehenge! So, here it is. Taken at Presque Isle State Park in Erie, PA. Gorgeous beach. Lovely daytrip with my mom. Enjoy the photo. Short & sweet.
Taken with the Canon G7. Contrast fixed in Photoshop CS3.
happy holidays…
–Click images for larger versions–
Well, it may be a bit after the holidays, but I completely forgot to post this in a more timely manner!!
A few weeks ago, I got an email from my PI at my old lab that I worked at in undergrad saying that one of the images I took on the scanning electron microscope (SEM) was being used for one of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s (UPMC) holiday cards! Obviously, I was floored! So, here it is: the holiday card featuring my SEM image of “Dog Vomit Mold.” No joke. That’s the name of it. Scientific name: Fuligo septica. I scraped it off the mulch in front of my brother’s house years ago, processed it for SEM, and took pictures! Mmmmm….nothing says happy holidays quite like dog vomit mold. At least the image is colored blue so they sort of look like snowflakes!
Hope everyone is starting 2011 on the right foot! Happy New Year!
P.S. Stay tuned for a few more relics from my undergrad research days…and more photography!
through the drinking glass…again…
So, once again, I was a thirsty med student trying to diligently study…but succeeding at getting distracted. If it wasn’t the cats trying to play with me (Izzie always brings me toys so she can play fetch!), then it was my favorite blue-and-clear glass full of water. I know, I know, you’re wondering why the heck I was spending so much time staring at my water glass. Well, try studying gastrointestinal pathology and drugs for constipation and diarrhea and then let me know what percentage of your time was spent trying to picture anything but the inside of someone’s colon. 
So, I whipped out the Canon G7 and shot away. It was quite fun playing with the coloration of the glass and the water level. And here we have it! Contrast enhanced in Photoshop CS3.
Oh, and don’t worry. I finished my studying.
a rose by any other name…
This pretty little bud made its debut in my mom’s garden this past summer. It just looked so lovely after a sunshower that I simply couldn’t resist taking a few snapshots! Aren’t rainy roses just wonderful?
Sorry for the few and far between posts! Med school is a bit demanding right now, especially with my boards just a few months away, so keep checking back for a new post!
As usual, taken with the Canon Powershot G7. Post-processed for contrast in Photoshop CS3. Enjoy!
For Grammy, 11/10/1918 – 2/12/2010. You are loved and missed.
busy as a bee…
I’ve been as busy as this little bee lately…hence the severe lack of new posts in the past couple of weeks!! I’m in between my first and second years of medical school (read: last summer EVER) and I have the most amazing job honing my clinical skills in the Temple ER! That said, I’m pulling insane hours at the hospital/preparing my body for the sleep-deprived years to come and simply haven’t had the time to really sit down with my photos and put together a decent post. So, for all of you anxiously awaiting a post, I apologize for the delay and present you with…A BEE!
I snapped this little bugger on my brother’s porch over the Memorial Day weekend. A wee bit of cropping was done, as it is pretty darn hard to properly compose a shot when your subject is a centimeter long and constantly moving. A little bit of contrast fixing was also done, as yellow flowers + yellow bee stripes + super sunny day = totally washed out color/contrast levels.
Oh, yeah, I almost forgot…this was taken with the fabulous Canon G7!!
through the drinking glass…
Allow me to fill you in on the birth of this photograph. I was studying for my Block 6 Pharmacology/Pathology/Immunology final (fun, right?). At the same time, I was enjoying a nice cold glass of grape juice. Drinking the grape juice was infinitely better than studying, so I sat there and finished it in one shot. Placing the glass down on my desk and looking inside of it to waste yet more time, I noticed that, “Heck, this could be a cool photo.” Translation: anything, including photographing grape juice residue, is better than studying for this darn final. Grabbed the trusty Canon G7 and had a small photo shoot with my glass. Then I popped the picture into Photoshop for some contrast adjustment and bleaching effects…and there you go! Amazing timewaster…I mean, piece of photographic art!
Oh, and for those of you who are wondering, yes, I did pass that final and successfully completed my first year of medical school. Yay!
divine dahlia: part one…
Ok. I’m in love with this flower. It is one of the gorgeous dahlia plants that my mother has at home…and it was so beautifully colored and flawless that I simply couldn’t resist making it the star of its very own photo shoot. This photo is number one of a 3 photograph mini-series.
As usual, the amazing Canon Powershot G7 was used. I think it was definitely more fortuitous than planned that the detail in this bloom showed up so well…who knew dahlias have tiny hair-like things on their petals (look at the center petals up close). And, I’m happy to announce that the sunlight was so perfect that absolutely nothing was “fixed” on this photo…straight from the memory card! Yay!
verdant fern…
This shot is of a rather interesting fern that happened to catch my eye during a stroll through Pittsburgh’s Phipp’s Conservatory. It was taken with an Olympus Stylus 820 digital camera and colorized in Adobe CS3 to make the leaves really pop! Enjoy!!
sakura!!!
It is that wonderful cherry blossom (sakura in Japanese) time of year! This little gem was growing, of all places, on a lovely little tree in East Falls underneath the Roosevelt Expressway! I used my shutterbug syndrome enabler, the G7, to snap the flower. Post-processing was done to transform the photo into HDR-style and to bring out the details in the petals!
just add flower and water…
So I went out to my car this morning to start the daily commute to good ol’ med school and it just so happened to be pretty much the one day that I had my camera with me, as I wanted to take some pics of our acapella group (shout out to the Transplantations!!). And, as luck would have it, my windshield presented me with the perfect subject to shoot in the morning light! So, I quickly chose to get on the road a bit late in favor of a bit o’ photography. Thus came this shot. The flower is actually the underside of some flower that had fallen off of a tree and drifted onto my car. The water was courtesy of the veritable 10 minute monsoon that we had the night before. So, here’s the recipe for a photograph:
Add flower to water. Marinate overnight. Capture in the morning light.
green with envy…
This little bugger was snapped with my new lover…er…Canon G7. I just can’t get enough of that little gem! The tiny tree sprouting on a wall by the Schyulkill River (in Philadelphia) looked ever so lonely, stuck between essentially a rock and a hard place. I used the color selection capability on the camera, coupled it with the macro setting and just went to town. I also post-processed the image into an HDR photograph.
A little something green to tide everyone over until spring!
Pretty in Pink #3
This lovely pink zinnia was grown by the green thumb of my brother. I have to say that I love the contrast between the pink flower and the blue glass behind it The picture was taken with an Olympus Stylus 820 digital camera. Enjoy the third image in my “Pretty in Pink” series!
Pretty in Pink #2
These beautiful magnolias were captured on a lovely spring day using and Olympus Stylus 820 digital camera. Believe it or not, the white background for the flowers is indeed the sky…just the right combination of sunlight and angling the camera up at the magnolia tree, while using the sky as a background! One of those serendipitous right-place-right-time deals. The image was then processed using HDR software. Keep checking back for a small “Pretty in Pink” series that I am currently posting!
Pretty in Pink #1
This image was taken of a lovely pink flower in a bouquet that I bought to help chase the gray winter days away. A Canon Powershot G7 (new camera! yay!) on the macro setting. I would just like to comment on this camera: AMAZING!! Its nearly a full-fledged dSLR, but in a wonderfully compact size and with the ability to attach extra lenses. Its newer cousin, the G9 is currently available (this shoots in the RAW format), but I’m currently enjoying my little affair the G7 and don’t have eyes for any other camera 
It’s an alien, it’s a microbe, it’s….CHICORY!
This image is a scanning electron microscope (SEM) image. The chicory pollen was mounted on an aluminum stub, sputter coated with gold, and imaged at 2000x magnification at the Center for Biologic Imaging (CBI). As SEM images are naturally black and white, the blue hue was added in using Adobe Photoshop.
Orchid
Some of you are probably wondering what the heck the image under my blog title is. Well, for those inquisitive souls, here you go. This is a close-up of an orchid. Taken with an Olympus Zoom D595Z digital camera and posted for your viewing pleasure.
Iris
This is a macro shot of an iris in my backyard spring garden. Taken with an Olympus Zoom D595Z digital camera.
