Bean Horizon

Wish I'd shifted the sun out of direct center. Eh, maybe I can crop
it to my liking some day.

Energy

Sun, corn, power lines - energy!

Green, red, blue

Corn is starting to tassel on July 4.

Hooks

Pea vines send out these tiny hooks. It's amazing to
watch them seek out places to anchor. And they cling tight
once they find a point to wrap.

Pea flower

Following days of rain, the sun is out and things are drying.
There has been so much rain that plants just
grew and grew and grew and we didn't see much else. A
day or two of sun has really brought out the development
phases so we can hope for some fruit.

Pansy portrait

Flower photos aren't my usual thing. In this case the light
was hitting the flowers making it interesting
to try something.

peculiar

That day at House on the Rocks I took almost 200 pictures.
The place is just so weird. This shot was in an area loaded
with circus things: tiny model circuses by the thousdands,
wagon wheels, posters...and this.

Infinity room

The Infinity Room at House on the Rocks. Or something. The "house" itself is
rather cool. The rest of the place is just odd. Lots of it is junk. Some of it
is priceless. Maybe. All a head shaker.

Stormy dinner

This is from a set called "feeding the string." A storm had just passed
and the horses and people came out of their shelters to finish evening
chores.

Over the shoulder

The outcome of the picture seems to imply being blocked
off from going toward the other horse. But not so much.
Just me trying to take a different horse picture.

Running for the barn

A storm blew in as I was out in the pasture taking pictures.
The horses made it back to the barn ahead of me!

Ms. Jersey

Ms. Jersey, originally uploaded by NetAgra.

Curious history. Snapped this shot while visiting an agricultural
experiment station. Ms. Jersey is a research animal. She is not a pet,
or for that matter a member of a commercial dairy herd. But she is,
along with her herd-mates, one of the best cared for animals in the
world. It's a portrait of a working dairy animal. One of my photofans has
commented that, in a set of related photos, the cows don't look so good.
I've asked in a reply why the commenter feels that way. Right now, I'm
guessing that most people see animals as pets and a picture of a working
dairy cow in a work setting is foreign. Ms. Jersey was eating vigorously
before she looked up at me and the camera.

Spooky

Spooky, originally uploaded by NetAgra.

Deer head in a window. I took a few shots thinking it's cool just
on the oddity scale. Later, I was messing around with it in Picasa and
enjoyed the soft focus around the edges. And the more I look at the
image the less spooky it gets and the more intellectual it feels.

Yes!

Aus trees

Aus trees, originally uploaded by NetAgra.

These trees were hybrid crosses between willow and poplar. They grew 60 ft. tall
in less than 15 years creating a hazard in my yard. They did have their moments, however.

At the end of the boom

Up, looking down

Nothing like a 60-ft cherry picker rental to give you a new perspective.

Cut from the herd

Not exactly the open range but a recent cutting horse competition
provided a small taste of cattle handling skills.

Saga of the white wheel

This wheel makes me a little nuts. It hangs on a tobacco strip house.
There's something appealing about the graphics of this but I'm not sure
I've captured it. Yet. As the seasons change I may hit it one day with
just the right light.

red_barn

red_barn, originally uploaded by NetAgra.

There's something about the white and red and green here that compels me. I can take this picture again and again and I never seem to end up with exactly what I want.

tall at sunset

tall at sunset, originally uploaded by NetAgra.

Headed home from the barn the other day and just had to stop and take a shot. Sunsets aren't my usual thing but what the heck?

Shelby & Dale

Shelby & Dale, originally uploaded by NetAgra.

Evening chores. A flake of hay and a dash of horse kibble.

Mail droppings

never a carrior pigeon when you need one, originally uploaded by NetAgra.

Okay, here's the story. Saturday, reading a magazine as spouse leaves, phone rings, "there's a dove sitting on our railing.Kinda cute." So, I peek out the window. Maybe I should take a picture? As I sneak the camera lens between the blinds, the mail truck goes by. Carrier pigeon anyone?

Maggie

Maggie, you silly pup. What do you see?

morning lift

morning lift, originally uploaded by NetAgra.

Bright spring morning light and people hard at work. Nice to see work.

free run

free run, originally uploaded by NetAgra.

The first run after a long rehabilitation and it looks like it felt good!

One morning in the old hometown

One morning in the old hometown, originally uploaded by NetAgra.

There's a love/hate thing going on with me and the old hometown. Sigh, the place has its moments

friends and neighbors

friends and neighbors, originally uploaded by NetAgra.

A day such as this in March brings people out.

Morning coffee

Greeted by Jack at the Koffee Kup

More Picasa/Flickr news

Google can throw its weight around. Today they announced the acquisition of "Picnik," the online photo editing program. Flickr users are familiar with Picnik as the online editor integrated on that photo site. No word yet on if this affects Flickr or not. Probably not but time will tell.

Not having an online editor was one of the distinctions between Google's Picasa and Flickr. If you've ever fooled around with the Picasa desktop photo editor, you'd probably noticed some of its quirks. One was making edits and then uploading to see the original untouched photo. You could work around that quirk easily enough but you had to work around it. I really like the Picasa photo editor so I plan to keep it. But it will be nice to have the online editor, too - assuming they continue to support a client-based photo editor.

Stella's

Stella's, originally uploaded by Derek Brabender.

Local photographer, Derek Brabender, catches the mood, and my brother at a local nightclub.

Morning workout

Morning workout, originally uploaded by NetAgra.

Always like this shot as a tourist momento

Mentor and student uncle and nephew

Mentor and student uncle and nephew, originally uploaded by NetAgra.

Some intergen sharing

Tearing it down

Rip. Snap. Crash. And down it goes.

Another chop

Event photos

The assignment was to cover the annual UW-Madison Collegiate FFA "Hockey Extravaganza." The goals are to document the event, get pictures of CFFA members in leadership roles, and capture the spirit of a pep rally with pizza, a marching band and Bucky Badger, the UW school mascot.

A moment in the crowd:

Picasa v Flickr

Since both Picasa and Flickr are free in their standard versions, you don't have to choose. I use both. The two are different enough that I find the strengths and weaknesses complement each other. A long time ago I opened a Flickr account and let it languish unused. Google's Picasa came along and based on the Google brand, I signed up and started using Picasa as my main photo management tool.

With the Picasa tool, you download the software and install it to your computer. After a few journeys into Picasa I quickly learned to appreciate its ability to help me keep track of photos. There have been several upgrades since I first jumped in and each upgrade has added incremental improvements. Face recognitions is cool. But being able to quickly find a photo on the hard drive is a wonderful feature for me.

Picasa's photo editor is also a time-saver and offers a full set of commonly needed photo editing tools such as crops, highlights, sharpen and even the cute "I'm feeling lucky" exposure adjustment works in a surprising number of instances. For the heavy lifting or to indulge in deep image manipulations there's still Photoshop.

The online "Picasa web albums" feature is a great way to back up your photos and to share them with other people. From a business perspective, I use Picasa online to deliver photos to my freelance clients. There's an upload option that allows you to choose if you want to upload full resolution images or other less bandwidth intensive versions. You can choose to make the albums public, private or hidden. For only a few dollars a year you can upgrade your account and get something on the order of 80 GB of storage.

Flickr and Picasa part ways the most online. In Flickr, the photo editor is online. The Flickr editor works well but is a touch slower to use since it's online not on your computer. The edits you do are applied to the photo online so if you want a copy of your edited image you need to then download the file. All good, but I prefer the Picasa software for editing.

Flickr is better at showing photos online and far better in terms of "community." Flickr is a social networking program built around photos. In that regard Flickr is a lot more sensible than Facebook. But I digress. If you like to participate in the wide world of photography, Flickr is hands down better than Picasa. That's not a criticism of Picasa because there are some social networking features available and they do work. It's just that Flickr beat Picasa to the punch and offers a greater sense of community and participation.

When it comes to sharing photos, the two programs are both excellent with only subtle differences. You blog photos from Flickr online and you blog photos from Picasa with the desktop software. In both it's a simple push-button process with similar options for sizing the photo. Both work well for photo hosting images for use on web sites. I do think I like the Flickr photo to blog options slightly better. The photo is hosted in Flickr and it shows up on your blog with a thin, black border. It's attractive. Picasa uploads the image to the blog for hosting. Not surprising, I guess, Picasa works most seamlessly with Blogger, another Google product.

A Flickr Pro account is $25/year and that gives you unlimited uploads and storage and a handful of features to help with marketing and having fun. For the storage upgrade in Picasa you pay $20 for 80 GB of storage and it's good for a couple of years. Google has continued to offer more and more storage space over time. My volume is pretty low compared to many people so by the time I get to 80 GB, Picasa will probably have unlimited storage, too.

You may use one or the other if you choose. Me? I think I'll keep using both.