WaterGirl

UncleEbeneezer

One day in late 2015, I was between jobs and went to a crappy job interview in Silverlake. As I was heading back to my car, realizing this job wasn’t for me, I got a frantic call from my wife. “You’re never going to believe this. We just WON a trip to Vietnam.”

There was a travel company called Wanderable (RIP) that a friend of hers had helped start up. They did a Facebook promotional contest for an all-expense paid trip to Vietnam. On a lark, she entered it. She never even told me until that day. I had never really fancied visiting SE Asia. Just never really thought about it. But even though we were pretty strapped for $ with me being unemployed, this was too good of an opportunity to pass up. What follows will be a few posts of pix from the Saigon River, sights of HCMC, Siem Reap, Angkor Wat (we added a detour to Cambodia since my wife had always dreamed of visiting AW) and Hoi An, VN.

I have been obsessed and dreaming of going back ever since and we had been tentatively planning/saving to go back in 2020, but Covid amongst other things has put that off. We will definitely return at some point though. Enjoy.

On The Road – UncleEbeneezer – Southeast Asia Valentines (Part 1): An Lam, Saigon RiverPost + Comments (42)

An Lam ResortFebruary 15, 2021

We flew out on Valentine’s Day and arrived in HCMC after a brutal 17 hours of flying. After a REALLY long wait in line at Customs we finally caught our shuttle to An Lam resort along the Saigon river. Our heads spun at the sight of the BONKERS traffic and motorbikes but the shuttle provided warm towels in lemongrass water that were the most refreshing way to deal with jet lag. When we finally got to An Lam, starving, the kitchen was about to close but they stayed open to give us a meal. This was the night view of the river from the restaurant.

🐾BillinGlendaleCA

Two months ago on these pages, I introduced you to Aerochrome and it’s unique take on infrared photography and it’s history. As I noted then, the effect can be achieved via processing or a filter placed over the camera lens. After trying to achieve the effect via processing, I finally purchased the IRChrome filter from Kolari Vision that creates the effect in camera. Using a filter to achieve the effect streamlines both shooting and processing the photos and the effect is consistent from photo to photo. I headed to the Chinese Garden at The Huntington to give the filter a good real world test.

On The Road – 🐾BillinGlendaleCA – Welcoming the Year of the Ox at the Huntington (IRChrom)Post + Comments (11)

The Huntington, San Marino, CAFebruary 10, 2021

Heading down to the entrance of the Chinese Garden I noticed some red lanterns in the trees. I thought Chinese New Year had already happened.

Gin & Tonic

Some pics from our visit to Stockholm in the spring a couple of years ago. This was the first few days of 2+ weeks in Sweden and Norway, so I’ll probably add more.

On The Road – Gin & Tonic – Stockholm #1Post + Comments (16)

Stockholm

Shot all sorts of spires and ornamental architecture – this was on the old City Hall; I like the Viking ship.

On the Road: Week of Feb 15  (5 am)
Albatrossity – Winter in Flyover Country #5
Gin & Tonic – Stockholm #1
🐾BillinGlendaleCA – Year of the Ox (Huntington)
UncleEbeneezer – Southeast Asia Valentines (Part 1): An Lam, Saigon River
TheOtherHank – Raptors

🌺  And now, back to Albatrossity!

Albatrossity

Looks like I have at least one more post in this series of winter birds in flyover country, since it is still winter, and then some! As I write this, the forecast for the next week looks distinctly unpleasant, as a fickle finger of frostbite has penetrated the polar vortex, and is poking into the Great Plains right now. Apparently it plans to stay here for a while. So I doubt I will get out much for photography in the next week: highs in the teens, lows below zero, and windchills that remind you how nice it is to be indoors.

On The Road – Albatrossity – Winter in Flyover Country 5Post + Comments (24)

Near Manhattan KSFebruary 1, 2021

A while back we had an interesting morning of hoarfrost on the upland prairies here. Hoarfrost is basically the frozen equivalent of dew. Water vapor in the air is deposited on surfaces that are cooled below freezing, skipping the water droplet stage and going directly to ice. Depending on the relative humidity and the speed of cooling, it can be quite spectacular. It seems that our upland prairies were in the clouds that morning, since there was no hoarfrost down in the river and creek bottoms. This is one of the vistas that greeted me as I drove up and out of the Kansas River valley town where I live.