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We visited a friend’s cottage at Diamond Lake in Michigan yesterday. They have a great field of sunflowers right across the street.

Our friend Joe Padilla is showing some of his art at Pawn Works. I took some pictures at the opening:

Here are pictures from the 8th annual Beverly Hills Cycling Classic:

Here are the pictures from the 2010 Whiting, IN 4th of July Parade:

Today, we went to the Hammond Marina to see the Columbus Foundation‘s replicas of the Nina and the Pinta. The Nina is an exact replica, and the Pinta is 50% larger and has some modern amenities.

They were much smaller than I expected, and I certainly can’t imagine sailing them across the ocean! The public was limited to the above decks, unfortunately, but the crew was knowledgeable and happily answered questions. These replicas sail all over the western hemisphere as “floating museums”.

A few weeks ago, we visited Brookfield Zoo. It rained, so I didn’t shoot as many pictures as usual. We did get to see the dolphin show, which was fun.

The next gallery is full of shots I took while walking around Chicago on my lunch hour. Jim Vendiola joined me for some of these walks. Don’t forget about his upcoming film, DRIFT.

The final gallery was also taken during my lunch hour. Mr. Blotto played across the street from my building. They sounded really great!

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Thanks for looking!

These pictures were all experiments in using the new features of Adobe Lightroom 3, and Photoshop CS5. I worked with the content aware fill feature, automatic lens correction, noise reduction and grain features. This gallery is also the debut of the updated TTG shadowbox gallery styles.

Last week, I shot some pictures at the final games at Whiting Park. Shooting through a fence is HARD!

Here are some non-baseball pictures:

Today, I went to the member’s only preview of the new Great Bear Wilderness Exhibit at Brookfield Zoo. It was very crowded, but I still managed to take some nice photos. The new exhibit has large bear habitats as well as a huge wolf area, a bald eagle, and a large wetlands preserve. It was really great. The bear habitats were overcrowded (with people, not bears!) and difficult to shoot, so I tried to focus on the other areas.

Today, we went to the Round Barn Winery in Baroda, Michigan to bottle the red wine that we made in the fall. It came out GREAT! Even though it was a cloudy day, I tried to get some nice shots. After leaving the winery, we had lunch in New Buffalo, and went to the beach.

These shots were the first time I tried using my new ND grad filters. I was concerned that they would be difficult to use, but they were easy. They really helped to save some of these shots from being boring. Some of these pictures even have an HDR sort of feel, but it was all in camera!