Too close for comfort

Too close for comfort, originally uploaded by Bruce M Walker.

This is how I spent much of my Monday night. We were woken up at 11:45 PM by loud beeping that turned out to be the UPSes going off. I got up to investigate how extensive the power failure was. When I stepped out the front door, I discovered the entire north-west sky lit up by a huge orange fireball. There's a new "luxury executive" townhouse complex being built over in that direction, and sure enough it turned out that the entire complex was up in flames. This is the second time in five months that the same complex has been torched, the first took out 8 units. This one destroyed over 75% of the site, about 57 units by one count.

The image directly above is the view from the bottom of my driveway, looking north-west. A light breeze was carrying the smoke and burning embers north-east over a church and a big park.

Anemone pulsatilla

Anemone pulsatilla, originally uploaded by Bruce M Walker.

You can see incredible detail if you view this large on Flickr.

Specialty Alium 2

Specialty Alium 2, originally uploaded by Bruce M Walker.

I like the calm, cool simplicity of this.

Redbeard

Redbeard, originally uploaded by Bruce M Walker.

I've been shooting flowers again. First of a couple.

Dead Pirates, Wood, animated topless dancing chicks

Cool animated video for the Dead Pirates. Via BoingBoing.

Secret life of tulips

I picked-up a ring flash for doing macros and, hopefully, decent portraits. Here are some initial macro shots ...

Pixel-peepers can see these much larger on Flickr -- click on the pix!

Hey, I'm in a book!

Members of a mailing list that I'm on, The Pentax Discussion Mailing List, got together recently and edited a book of some of the member's images created during 2008-2009. Everyone was encouraged to contribute one or two shots to this collaboration, and my two submissions were accepted. Sales of the book will be donated to the National Childhood Cancer Foundation.

There are 110 photographs in the book, representing every imaginable style, from photographers in fifteen countries.

You can read more about PDML Photo Annual 2008-2009 book project, and even order one if you like the idea, here ...

Air - La Femme D'Argent

I simply cannot believe it's already been 10 years since Air released Moon Safari. I refuse to believe it, in fact. Hrmph.

Her Morning Elegance / Oren Lavie

There is more creativity crammed into this video than I've seen in the last years' worth of videos. Put a huge smile on my face -- and you prolly don't appreciate how hard that is to do. :-)

As seen at Ken Brown's blog

Winter announced itself