Peace. Love. Joy.

Well, here in the U.S., we’re in the middle of the Christmas rush – those that haven’t shopped are watching the clock tick, and those that are selling are trying to influence those who still have to shop.  And so it goes…

Around the world, millions are already traveling or preparing to travel.

There are a lot of things going on – and somewhere in the middle of it all, peace. love and joy are out there.

So why am I writing this in such broad terms?

Easy.

Demographic reports tell me that Laughing Frog Images is currently followed beyond the U.S. in thirteen (13) countries around the world, plus one (1) U.S. Territory.  That’s just those who follow Laughing Frog Images’ Facebook page.  I can’t tell where those of you who follow Laughing Frog Images on Google+ or via our Blog are from, nor can I tell where every visitor to each medium is located.  Let’s just say that I’m amazed and humbled by it all, and encouraged to see that the following keeps growing.

Those demographics also tell me that there’s much more to this holiday season beyond wishing every one of you a simple “Merry Christmas”.

Among you who follow the Frog, there are a lot of people in a lot of places around the world celebrating their own religious, ethnic and cultural traditions, seasons and events.

I’m not even going to pretend that I know what all of them are, nor am I going to try and fake it by trying to wish everyone a happy this and merry that.  Odds are that I’d likely make a mistake or two (or more), and perhaps make a fool out myself in the process.

So, the Frog is simply going to wish everyone out there reading this three simple and universal things:

That there may be peace for your, your families, and friends.

That you take time to love yourself (not selfishly, but to take care of yourself), your family, your friends, your pets, and even those who aren’t your favorite folks.

That you take the time to find the joy in this season.

The Frog has been quiet lately – between the day job and family and friends, the Frog has been very, very busy.  He’s tired and looking forward to a little downtime.  You probably won’t see a new post until early in the New Year.  He’s also realized that churning out an informative, interesting, and entertaining blog and an interesting website and product selection is easier than it sounds when one already has a full-time job!

 

Don’t be this guy!

Look at this poor little thing.

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Worn out from holiday shopping – he just gave out on the wall.

Holiday shopping can do that to you!

We have a solution!

There’s one day left to take advantage of Laughing Frog Images’ 2015 holiday sale.

25% off everything on except our books (yeah, there’s always a catch!).

There’s still time to get what you want your way by Christmas if you find yourself in that situation….

Or, because you feel like this little guy, get yourself something!

Even if you don’t… safe and happy holidays to you and yours from Laughing Frog Images.

Reflections on the USS Arizona

I have been to Pearl Harbor once.

Coincidentally, it was ten years ago today – December 7, 2005.

That day, by virtue of being on the last boat out to the Arizona Memorial, I experienced something that most people don’t – the internment of a Pearl Harbor survivor’s ashes on the USS Arizona.

I saw the gathering of family, Honor Guard, and current military personnel for the ceremony.

While I wasn’t a part of the ceremony, I was certainly moved by it.

There were few words being spoken as people took their places at the Memorial as we were leaving (it was a private ceremony).

There didn’t need to be any words.

You felt the significance of what happened there in 1941, and was happening there that day.

The feelings were more than any words could say.

It still moves me today as I write this.

The Arizona was seeping fuel oil that day, and, to my knowledge, she still does.

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Perhaps it is her way of weeping for all who gave their lives that day.

Maybe she weeps as a symbol for all who have given their lives at war.

I don’t claim to have any answers about what happened at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 or why.

Nor can I really grasp man’s inhumanity to man throughout history.

Or today.

All I can do is sit here and be moved by a ten year old image and wonder “why?”

It’s a very broad “why” that’s not limited to Pearl Harbor.  Pearl Harbor is just one part of that “why?”

I wonder why about a lot of events that have cost mothers their sons and daughters, and children their mothers and fathers.

I wonder how people can kill other people because they (fill in the blank).

I wonder, and I just don’t understand.

I probably never will understand.

Maybe it’s because I’m a photographer that I see and feel things in pictures, and believe that a picture can carry and convey a meaning – no words necessary.

I think that the USS Arizona weeps for us all.

New images coming!

Well, it was a beautiful weekend.  If you weren’t sick, that is.  So, in order to maximize your shopping potential, I spent the weekend working on scanned slides so that I can post new images that will either interest you, hook you, speak to you, or give you an escape for a while.  This weekend’s focus was steam passenger excursion trains and other passenger and excursion trains of the 1980s.

A while back, you might remember that I said that scanning was the easy part and cleaning/adjusting/optimizing the images was the hard part.  It’s still true.

Prior to scanning, you use a very soft (and expensive) brush to do a rough cleaning of the slide, and then you blow the dust off with air.  You hope.  And then, you scan the slide at 5000 dpi (dots per inch).

And all that dust and all those specks and nasty ugly things you couldn’t see with the naked eye are jumping up and down saying “nya-nya you missed me!” when you pull the slide up on the monitor!  So, you clean the specks off one by one.  You remove the uglies carefully and patiently.

You adjust the colors to compensate for 30+ years of storage – but fortunately, not much shift, as for the most part you shot Kodachrome, which is one of the most stable films there ever was.

You wonder why it seemed that when you managed to get a day off to go photograph, the sun took the day off as well – and you stare at that gray sky…  And you wonder why you shot Kodachrome…  Seriously, it seems like special trains and steam engines were magnets for gray days in the 1980s.  I’ve been away for a while, so I wonder if it’s still like that, or if the decline of som many industries from Chicago on east has made any difference.

So, when you can’t get the colors quite right – or you can, but the sky starts to do strange things, you think “hey – that might make a great image in black and white…”  So, you take a trip to Perfect Photo Suite and pull up the profile that mimics Kodak’s Panatomic X black and white film, and you find that not only did you salvage the image, but that it looks pretty darned good in black and white.

And then, there was harsh lighting.  From the front.  From the side.  From the top.  From the back.  As if the gray skies weren’t bad enough, it also seemed like the trains ran contrary to good light quite often.  So, that bred many a trip to the black and white work space as well.

After all of this work, there are so far two galleries of new images on Laughing Frog Images, and I’ve added another main gallery.

More to follow…

Here’s a sneak peak at some of what’s coming:

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Heceta Head Lighthouse

On a long weekend on the Oregon coast, Mrs. Frog and I crossed one off the bucket list – we stayed in a Bed & Breakfast at the former Lightkeeper’s Quarters at Heceta Head Lighthouse.

(You don’t have to stay there to tour the Lightkeeper’s Quarters or see the lighthouse.)

You can learn more about the lighthouse itself by clicking here.

I don’t know what to say about it other than it’s one of those places that has a sense of place, and you should have it on your list, whether you stay in Florence or at the B&B.

The waves in Oregon are different from what I’m used to – and perhaps for you as well.  They’re constant – you can see that in some of the images in the gallery.

Swimming in many places along the Oregon coast can be hazardous to your health.

Don’t like the weather?  Wait five minutes – it may change!  Like the weather?  It could change in five minutes!

The wind only seems to blow about a quarter of the time.  From each of the four directions, that is.

If any of that sounds like a complaint – you’re absolutely wrong!

It’s beautiful.  It’s rugged.  It’s rainy.  It’s sunny.  It’s foggy.  It’s windy.  It’s breathtaking.

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Heceta Head Lighthouse is in the far left-center, the Lightkeeper’s Quarters are in the center, Devil’s Elbow is the rock formation in front of the Lightkeeper’s Quarters, and the waves. 

Just look at the waves.  This image was made just before the sun disappeared below the horizon, hence the “sweet” light.

Heceta Head Lighthouse is a delight for photographers of all levels and persuasions.

What I found wildly interesting was that over 90% of the people I saw photographing Heceta Head Lighthouse from along the Oregon Coast Highway were using their smartphone or their tablet.  From a snooty photographer’s perspective I was thinking to myself “why are they doing that?” and “where are their “real” cameras?”  And then, I took a breath, and realized that (1) it’s 2015, and (2) maybe they think I’m the crazy one.  Ultimately, images speak to each of us differently, and who I am to question what one sees and treasures in their images.

I made over 300 images of Heceta Head Lighthouse.  In the fog.  In the mist.  At dusk.  At night.  In the few minutes of sunshine that I had.  And then I previewed.  Then, I processed.  And I cropped.  All in, 95% of the images didn’t make the cut for one reason or another.  Mist or fog droplets on the lens.  Mist or fog that made the picture “bleah” as Snoopy would say.  Fuzzy due to the mist or fog.

Seventeen images made the cut, and they are presented for you in the Heceta Head Lighthouse gallery on Laughing Frog Images.

Perhaps the most amazing thing to me was that you could stand at the base of the lighthouse and see eight beams of light emerging from the Fresnel lens.  Yes, eight!  I didn’t know that was possible.  I know that when I was south of the lighthouse, I could only see one light every ten seconds – the pattern for Heceta Head Lighthouse.  I know that I could see two main beams at night from the Lightkeeper’s Quarters.  And I saw eight when standing at the base of the lighthouse.  I don’t understand it.  I can’t explain it.  I don’t know if that happens at all lighthouses.  I haven’t researched it.

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I included an image of this in the gallery and noted in the caption to order this at your own risk.  Due to the fog and mist that night, I don’t expect it to reproduce well.

I simply know one thing about the eight beams of light I saw: it’s absolutely fascinating, no, mesmerizing, no, spectacular.  Yes, spectacular.

And that make me want to go back.

And that makes me tell you that Heceta Head Lighthouse is one for your Bucket List.

I hope you enjoy this gallery as much as we did in making it!

Fall foliage is coming

Fall foliage is coming.  To some of us anyway.

For me, this fall means I get to watch my leaf turn!  Well, it’s not quite that.  There’s more than one leaf!

But it’s not like Pennsylvania where I’m from, or fall in New England.

One of my favorite places to visit in the fall is New Hampshire.  If you haven’t had the pleasure, put it on your bucket list.

Great food, real maple syrup, and color.  Lots of color.

Glen Junction Restaurant just posted on Facebook that their pumpkin pancakes start this Saturday.  With maple cream…

That’s really what got me going about fall foliage…

Colors can be different from valley to valley, and from the bottom of the valley to the top of the mountains.  It’s a good thing digital film is cheap!

There’s a gallery on Laughing Frog Images devoted to fall foliage in New Hampshire.  Coincidentally, it’s called fall foliage in New Hampshire.  There’s more to be added to that gallery, and maybe this will get me going on that.

The image below is of Silver Cascade in Crawford Notch along Route 302 in New Hampshire.

I’d love to tell you how hard I worked to hike in for this shot, and what it took to haul my camera bag and tripod in.  But, I’d be lying.  You can park along Route 302 and take this shot from the safe side of the guardrail.

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This image was made with a Fuji S9000, 1/80s @ f7.1, ISO 80, in Fuji’s raw file format.  Yes, I used my tripod and a cable release!

Processing was done in Perfect Photo Suite 9.5, and it was cropped to a 1:2 format to remove the gray sky and rocks in the foreground.  It’s amazing what a simple crop can do!

There’s another image of Silver Cascade taken at about the same location in the gallery, but I left that in its’ original format so you can crop it yourself.

If all of this makes you think about a last minute trip to New England to check out the foliage, here are two posts from 2014 to check out:

A Week in New Hampshire

A Weekend in New Hampshire

And, if you can’t make it, do the next best thing and shop Laughing Frog Images.

PH&D RR – Two Books and HoboFest

Well, for those of you seeing this basic message for what amounts to be the third time, I do so very humbly apologize. 

If it seems that I have not quite figured out how to do an advertisement and/or boost a post on Facebook – you are absolutely correct! 

Nor can I figure out how to do a Facebook update with hyperlinks – so I apparently have to do another blog post so that it shows up on Facebook as a post, and from there, I can boost the post. 

Dishwasher issue?  Hang a door?  Need to hang cabinets?  Fix a roof?  No problem. 

Facebook?  Apparently, that’s a problem.

I have simply been trying to get the news of the books and HoboFest out there to the world to help out the Port Huron and Detroit Railroad Historical Society, and I have come to the conclusion that it simply won’t work if I try to include the cover of the book in the post.  Even though I did the exact same thing.  In the recent past.  With the cover of the first book.  Go figure….

So, for those of you who are seeing this for the first time – there’s an important (at least to me!) message below. 

For those of you seeing it for the second or third time, I again apologize and fully accept that I am not yet understanding and literate in the ways of Facebook.

Rest assured that there won’t be a fourth try at this. 

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The Port Huron and Detroit Railroad Historical Society will have the both of the Frog’s books – “Port Huron and Detroit Railroad and Connections in Color, 1982-1984” and the “Port Huron and Detroit Railroad in Black and White, 1984” – available at their 2015 HoboFest, September 11-12 2015.

All proceeds from the books available at HoboFest go to the Society for their maintenance, restoration and preservation activities.

HoboFest event details can be found by clicking here.  The Society also has a webpage and Facebook page.

These books are the first two creations in the “Through My Lens” series, and show the PH&D as I saw it from my first visit in 1982 until the last run on December 13, 1984.

To the best of my knowledge, these are the only two books ever published that focus on the PH&D.

The color book includes images of the PH&D from Tappan Tower to St. Clair, as well as the GTW, CN, and Chessie System (C&O/PM) in Port Huron.

The black and white book also covers the line from Tappan Tower to Sr. Clair and features photographs from the cab of PH&D Alco S-2 #60 and caboose #62 on a St. Clair run.  Also included are topographic maps of the PH&D with photo locations, PH&D forms and a look at train orders from the Grand Trunk Western.  Way back when, paper, not computers and smartphones ran the railroads, and it’s not often you can see how things used to be.

Can’t make HoboFest, but you still want the books (as only a complete set will do)?

Information on the books and the books themselves are available at Laughing Frog Images (click the “Get Our Books!” link at the top of the page), which takes you to the CreateSpace estore.  For each book purchased through Laughing Frog Images, we will make a $5.00 donation per book to the PH&DRRHS.

The book is also available on Amazon, but due to the associated costs of selling through Amazon, there is no donation made to the Society.

Stickers your way!

And now, for something new and different!

Laughing Frog Images is pleased to announce the availability of four different styles of stickers from the Mpix Pro Lab!

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You can be selfish and keep them all to yourself, or if you know someone worthy, they make great gifts since they come in a silver tin box.

One caution with these products:  These stickers come from the Mpix Pro Lab.  There is no color or exposure adjustment made in the production process.  In these modern times, we look at web pages and galleries such as Laughing Frog Images on a multitude of devices – monitors, laptop screens, smartphones and tablets.  Unfortunately, there isn’t any consistency between screen resolution, brightness, or color accuracy between these devices.

While we can control how an image looks when we upload it into the galleries, and we can predict how it will look on the products we offer, we can’t control how it looks to you nor can we control how the final product might look versus what you expected it to look like.

As we can’t offer refunds on these products since they’re made just for you, our advice would be to look at these on a calibrated computer monitor if at all possible before you place your order.  If you can’t make that happen, choose a well-exposed image that has detail you can discern in the shadows.  That’s the best advice we can give you on selecting an image for your stickers.

If you’re now able to sleep at night because you’ve found THE stickers that you’ve been waiting for, stickers are located in the “Specialty” products group on the products page.

The Laughing Frog’s still here!

Yes, we know it’s been a little quiet on the pages lately.

The day job has been quite busy, tailing into the “off” hours on many occasions.  It can do that, as it pays the bills.

And, the Frog and family took a vacation.  Which, in a way, turned into work, because there are a lot of pictures to be sorted, processed and posted.  Funny how that turned out…

Laughing Frog Images hopes that you and yours are enjoying the summer, and that Mother Nature is being kind to y’all in the process.