Wow - it's the end of April!

Oh, dear. I dilly-dallied in London and now it's the end of the month and I still have three themes to go. How about a three-fer? It was a delicate balance, trying to capture both the faucet and the beverage in the same shot. My kitchen is on the west side of the house, so in the early morning, there isn't much natural light coming in. My dark counters increase the challenge. After several attempts, I selected this image, and used a little Topaz Adjust to speckle it up.

Neglected?

In case you have neglected to note the dangers of smoking, these tobacco distributors have clearly marked their packaging.

(Taken in the Dusseldorf, Germany airport duty-free shop. After snapping this photo, I was asked to put away my camera. Hmmm....)

Lots of action at Sunday's baseball game

The Chicago Cubs were having a grand time, racking up 12 runs against the Milwaukee Brewers. We were 22 rows back, just beyond first base. Even though Miller Park was fairly bright, I still needed to crank up my ISO to 1600. These were shot at 1/250, f/6.3, focal length of 270mm. Fun to play around with action shots!

Emotions ran high at the Sausage race

Taking a break from London photos to dash up to Miller Park in Milwaukee, to watch the Chicago Cubs take on the Milwaukee Brewers. (Go Cubbies...they won 12-2!)

A tradition at Brewer's games is the 7th-inning Sausage Race, which brought forth many emotions - the grit and determination in the sausages themselves (did I really just write that??) and the joy and amusement on the faces of the crowd.

(I believe the Polish Sausage - number 2 - won this race.) Can you identify the other contestants?

Tic toc....redux

A different view of Big Ben and the Parliament buildings...on the way up in the London Eye.

I was shooting directly into the sun, so when I exposed for the buildings, I lost the sky. Replaced it (and added a little reflection in the river) to try to make it look more as it actually was that day.

Another London Icon

The Tower Bridge sprawls across the busy River Thames. This was taken through a bus window (a HUGE reason I don't like bus tours...but of all our view of this bridge, my window seat on the happily-correct side of the bus gave us the best peek...) while moving...I was pretty happy to fire off several shots and get a fairly usable one. Processing done in Topaz Adjust.

The Liberty Building is in full bloom!

This fun building is on Carnaby Street. It used to have a different coat of flowers, but I like the violet hues and purple (window) shades of this image.