view from the archipelago: May 2012

quote of the moment

"Foods considered more or less deadly under the low-fat dogma turn out to be comparatively benign if you actually look at their fat content. More than two-thirds of the fat in a porterhouse steak, for instance, will definitively improve your cholesterol profile (at least in comparison with the baked potato next to it); it's true that the remainder will raise your L.D.L., the bad stuff, but it will also boost your H.D.L. The same is true for lard. If you work out the numbers, you come to the surreal conclusion that you can eat lard straight from the can and conceivably reduce your risk of heart disease."

-- gary taubes

3/20 annular eclipse VII

this is the same pillar at the zenith.

3/20 annular eclipse VI

the shadow pix were both shot with my crappy samsung cell phone camera ... what you're looking at is the shadow pattern of a thin leafed tree on a standing concrete pillar.

just looking at the shadows made me a tad vertiginous (and only after the eclipse did i think that i should have shot them too with my lumix).

i'd never really heard anything about the shadows cast during an eclipse, but in many ways, i thought it was the most spectacular point of the day.

this picture is from the partial (impending) eclipse.

3/20 annular eclipse V

3/20 annular eclipse IV

the three zenith shots are done with the absolute minimal amount of light bracketing between them.

3/20 annular eclipse III

3/20 annular eclipse II

3/20 annular eclipse I

{i tried sending all the pix in a single email to this blog, but G doesn't seem to like that ... sooo, i'm forced to fire them out in a serial sequence of posts.}

the sun shots were all done with my panasonic subcompact lumix on a normal semi-automatic setting (resting on a tiny gorilla pod) ... using digital zoom to get a larger picture.

i did nothing more than hold "look at the sun directly with your naked eyes" filter up to the lens (which looks like just thick mylar sheetto me). worked surprisingly well.

all these were shot in st. george, UT. not a single cloud anywhere in the sky. no haze. super nice day. perfect conditions.

fallen cottonwood

wheat ridge, CO

floor tile

LAS

poster with graffito

san francisco, CA

reester bunny

death valley, CA

(you may think that just because you like peanut butter cups, you might LOVE a reester bunny ... especially at post-easter discount ... that would be wrong.)