The Cormorant, the Dragonfly, and the Bee: gravestones

Showing posts with label gravestones. Show all posts

Saturday, September 12, 2020

Daily Constitutional

In an effort to keep healthy, and to maintain my general spirit and sense of well-being, I go for walks. Lately, I've been walking almost every day.

In these days of Covid-19, it is sometimes challenging, but necessary, to attempt to vary one's habit at least a bit. I keep trying to find new walks from home, or variations on the same walk, and today was no different.

In this case I literally took "the high road" on part of a walk that I usually take the "low road" on. I rather liked the high road perspective, and it is likely I'll keep the new route for a while.

I had my phone with me and thought I'd blog a few cell photos. These are hardly breathtaking spectacular photos; they're a few quick snapshots of everyday scenery.

This is one end of the local high school football (and track) field. I did see a few runners getting in their laps; none when this picture was taken.

One Thru Six

Standing Tall

In the past, I've walked the just visible "low road" along the dirt diagonal path seen in the lower left-ish portion of this photo.

"Five Man" Football Sled

I was pleasantly surprised to come across this creation adjacent to a tombstone in the graveyard.

Gravestone Accessory

I don't know how many times I've walked here without ever noticing this sign! From all appearances, it is a genuine sign and likely to remain in place for many years. It is in the town-owned cemetery, and so, evidently, they can take some liberties with signage, as it's not on a public road.

Extremely Clear Signage

Graveyard Sky

All aboard the magic bus! I'm not sure if this vehicle can still travel; it looks like it's been sitting awhile. The destination reads "Il Futuro Nasce!" ... Italian for "The Future is Born!" It has "camper" license plates and is as large as a full size bus. Great color!

Magic Bus

Monday, May 25, 2020

Cemetery Visit

One my favorite walks takes me to the local cemetery. Not only is it a peaceful place to visit, but as I meander along the paths beside the gravestones, I appreciate the many plantings atop the gravesites placed by loved ones, along with the trees and landscaping of the graveyard itself.

On this Memorial Day blog post, I've put together some photos from a few recent graveyard visits.

Grapes of Different Colors

Daffodil Edge

ZigZag

New Life in the Graveyard

Sunscreened

Matchbox Lineup

International Truck Rest Stop

Gifts For The Soul

Artist Appreciating Gravestone Art

Arc of Gravestones

Sunday, November 1, 2015

Nexus 5X Camera Takes Great Pictures

The battery in my non-smart flip mobile phone is the original one, and since that means it's *many* years old, it can't keep a charge for very long. After a "full recharge", talk time is about 30 seconds before the battery dies! Not good!

Alas, it was time for me to join the modern generation and get a new mobile phone. I thought I'd try the new Nexus 5X direct from Google (made by LG). So far, I'm very pleased with that decision. The phone sports an excellent camera, one of the best in any cell phone to date. Dxomark rates it very highly (it's the same camera as in the Nexus 6P) only bested by a few phones that cost twice as much: see the dxomark website. Notably, it is rated higher than the current best iPhone models.

Google/LG put a new Sony sensor in the camera that has larger 1.55μm pixels, giving the phone excellent photo capturing performance in terms of signal-to-noise and lower light photography. It is easy to doubt such claims, but from what I can tell, this phone indeed takes very nice pictures. See for yourself below.

Hmmm, I wonder what I should take pictures of with my new phone?... How about more foliage pictures? One can never get enough of these, right?

Reflections Across the Road

Shadows on Needles

I (currently) resize all photos to a maximum of 1000 pixels in the longest dimension for this photo blog. Since the originals for these photos are 4032x3024px, considerable detail is lost as you view my photos in your browser. For example, the pine needles in the above photo don't appear particularly sharp. Here is a 100% crop of a portion of the same photo:

Pine Needles

And here is another 100% crop of a different portion of the scene:

100% Crop

While these samples are hardly "super sharp", they fair pretty well as 100% crops go, where one pixel is one pixel in your browser. All I'm trying to say is that the 4032px version looks a lot better than the 1000px version, so don't use my blog as a definitive reference for the underlying photo quality.

Enough tech talk. Back to some photos:

Orange You Glad You Saw This

End of the Res

It is interesting to compare the above photo, taken with the Nexus 5X, with another similar photo taken with my Olympus gear, two weeks earlier:

End of the Res Olympus

You can see how the trees have lost most of their color, but despite that, and despite the first photo being from a "lowly" cell phone, the Nexus 5X image could easily be considered the better image.

Res Blue on Blue

Autumn Clouds

Sunset Over Gravestones

Birch Protector

Red Lock