Why PNW People are Wimps!

My truck was cold :)

We are just wrapping up "Snow-pocolyspe" here in the great Pacific Northwest, and it left me believing I that I have finally been assimilated into the PNW way of thinking about things. As background, we are one of a very few career Navy families that has lived in the fantastic state of Idaho for six consecutive years while on active duty. Don't ask me to explain because it is a source of a small amount of shame on my part. Snow? Yeah, I've seen snow. And I've driven in snow in a crappy front wheel drive car, too. This is the first storm that I have stood looking out the front windows of our house and found myself hoping for it to end. "It is far too dangerous to drive out there", and "I hope we have enough food in this joint" were thought in the privacy of my head. News coverage? You bet, non-stop and predicting catastrophe. To be fair, we in the PNW are used to inclement weather, but are much better suited to the wet form, perhaps with some wind accompanying the rain drops. Another indication of my assimilation is the number of rain coats I have. And no one who calls themselves a PNWer carries an umbrella. I mean, seriously, an umbrella is useless up here because rain almost never comes without wind.

I have come to terms with my whimpiness on this topic now. It may have been the result of my repeated efforts to keep my driveway clear even armed with the knowledge that all this snow will melt in a couple of days and the rain will return. On a related note, I have uncovered the secret to making it snow in Silverdale - walk outside with my snow shovel!

In other news - I could definitely get used to a two-day work week. I plan to pursue that schedule when I retire!

Here's a few other pictures I snapped over the past few days.

Looking at Silverdale from a local park.

Silverdale Waterfront Park

Melissa's car - snow, ice, then snow again.
Should be ready to drive in June.

Photography Hobby

I enjoy photography, although I would not venture that I am good at it, yet. I have some tools, some books and like to get out and about to places that typically tend to be photogenic. One of the interesting techniques I have recently admired is called HDR, or High Dynamic Range, photography. In its most basic form, HDR photography offers the ability to demonstrate a wider range of detail than most digital cameras can capture (simply due to sensor characteristics). The human eye is capable of seeing more than a camera can capture.

The basic approach is to take multiple pictures with the exposure bracketed so that you take under-exposed, over-exposed and normally exposed images. I use software to "compile" the images into one HDR image. You can apply additional treatments to the image with a good photo editing program, if desired.

I have a couple examples of my work that I am happy with. I recently bought a book and have read up on the technique, and I know that my earlier attempts were misguided and would not produce the desired results because my settings were wrong. Makes me excited for the results I might get with correct settings. Below is my "before" and "after" images of a nice fall setting down the street from my house. I took three photos (although at the time I was just changing exposures to try to get one decent photo). One thing to note is the additional detail in the previously shaded areas.

Any thoughts you have are appreciated.

This is the original, normal exposure I took.

This is the HDR image that was produced from three different exposures of the image.