Weekend Pics

The (Canadian) Thanksgiving weekend just past was spent at the cottage. We worked Saturday fixing the furnace and converting the 4500 board feet pile of tongue and groove pine in the driveway into a pile in the living room. Saturday evening we went to the nearby cottage of some friends of ours and had a nice visit and a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat.

Saturday night there was a full moon, so I went out to try some new (freeware) HDRI (High Dynamic Range Imaging) software I downloaded. The idea is to take multiple exposures of the exact same scene but with different exposure settings on the camera and then combine these images into one image having a wider contrast range. I have some ways to go with this technique, but here is one (combined) shot of the moon.



Sunday we finished the wood moving, went for a motor around the lake, and did some relaxing.

Here's a picture of the wood pile in the living room. The big platform in the middle of the room will be used as a surface on which we will construct the triangular panels that will form the interior of the dome.



We had to do some chopping of wood in the living room and the sawdust settled on the cobwebs around the "chandelier" (actually a candle holder hung from the ceiling). The afternoon light through the skylight really highlighted the dusty scene.



Monday Deb went home early to visit her niece and nephew and their newborn daughter while I stayed at the dome. I went for a final sail and did a little cooking in preparation for a new work week. While out, I stalked a group of ducks with the camera. Here is a picture of a young male with his small harem.



I really like this picture because of the reflections of the dying leaves on the water. There weren't any leaves or anything else in the water with them - the ducks were paddling through clear water.

I followed them around a while, moving closer and closer in the hopes of getting them to take off, thereby giving me the chance to get an "in-flight" picture. The buggers waited until I was occupied keeping the sailboat off the rocks before bursting airborn in a flurry of spray and quacking. This is the best I could get by the time I got the camera in hand. I kind of like it. It makes a statement. I'm just not sure what statement.