Back it Up

Every month or so I back up my most recent photos to DVDs. Almost all pro and semi-pro photographers back up their images in some way. I bet most amatuer photographers simply capturing friends and family never do this. Today I was looking through some old family photos(such as this one of my dad, brother and me) and I got to thinking what a loss it would be to lose all your photos to something like a hard drive crash. With how cheap DVDs and hard drives have become there is really no excuse.
So back it up!

Y-Fence?

I took this picture of the Y-Bridge at sunset a few years ago. A photo like this may not be possible in the future because 7.5 million dollars of Akron's share of federal stimulus money will go toward improvements to the Y-Bridge(All-American Bridge) - and about 1.5 million dollars of that will be spent fencing the bridge - to keep people from committing suicide there. I think its a waste of money. If someone is going to take their life they are going to take their life - fence on the Y-Bridge or not. Its definitely not the only high, unfenced place in Akron.
...but one thing I can be pretty sure about is that this probably won't be the biggest waste of stimulus dollars we will hear about in the coming months....

Blood on the Tracks

The other day I was walking down the stretch of train tracks that runs between West Market Street and Hawkins Avenue. I usually then loop down Shatto to Pershing and back to my house. I've lived in three different places on this loop and probably walked it a hundred times. This day as I was walking over the drive that connects Acme #1 to the self-storage place when a police officer called out to me, "Get off the tracks, you're trespassing!"
"What?" I asked(even though I clearly heard him).
"This is private property - the train company doesn't want the liability of you getting hit!"
"Oh, I'm sorry....I didn't know...I've lived here for six years"
"Just stay off the tracks"
Okay - I understand that technically he is probably right, but a thirty year old man with a camera getting hit by a train in broad daylight? Come on. If the officer really is that worried about train safety he should stake it out around 3:00 PM when school kids daily shortcut down these tracks.
In all my time in West Akron I've never heard of anyone getting hurt around this area of rails.....so I still take my walk(as evidenced by this photo).

O'Neal Woods

On Sunday I went for a hike with some friends at O'Neil Woods Metro Park in Bath Township. Even though I can't wait for everything to be green again now is a great time to hike at O'Neil and take in the views -before the leaves obscure them.
O'Neil Woods was originally a horse and cattle farm owned by the founder of General Tire, William O'Neil. The barn still stands and we took a little time to explore it and snap some photos. Many of the Metro Parks used to be farms - I always try to imagine what they must have looked like before they returned to forest....

Happy St. Pat's

It was very hard to get the little clovers in focus with a self-timer and auto-focus, but I tried my best and then threw some sharpening on them. Anyways - have a safe day.

Signs of Life

Spring is coming. I took these around my yard with my 50mm f/1.8.
I'd really like to get a nice Macro lens at some point for this kind of thing.

Blue Truck

Yesterday I was driving out to the self-serve car wash to clean up some of the winter grime. As I was driving by Croghan Park I saw this blue truck. Even though it turned out to be a Ford, it reminded me of some old school Soviet style contraption. The truck was a giant auger - it looks like they are redoing all the light poles at the park.

It caught my eye so much that on the way back I had to stop and snap a few photos. It was one of those annoying times to shoot where the sun kept dodging in and out of the clouds - messing with my exposure. I finally did get a couple I was happy with.

Unfortunately for my car the change machine at the wash wouldn't take any of my bills...so I went and got lunch at Wendy's. I hadn't been to one in a while and I swear they shrunk the Junior Bacon Cheeseburger....has anyone else notice this? Don't mess with a man's JBC!