Clouds, Boats and Fireworks!


River and city vistas

I took this apartment because of the spectacular urban scenery. Up here on the 27th floor I look out over downtown Windsor, the Detroit River and the city of Detroit. It's a fascinating sight, from the weather to the buildings to the traffic on the roads and the water. And at the beginning of every summer I have the best location for watching the "Freedom Festival" fireworks, one of the largest and loudest displays in the world.

You can see what I mean by clicking on the link view from my balcony. That url is also listed near the top of the navigation bar over on the right of this page.

Until yesterday the online album contained some of the first pictures I took with my Nikon Coolpix 4300, the digital camera I bought for myself upon retirement. Today I finally got around to updating the portfolio.

Although my skills are still just mediocre these are better pictures. The improvements are due to three factors.

First I bought a tripod. I'm so left handed I can't hold the camera steady and click the shutter at the same time. I wish they made cameras with the shutter button on the left side.

Next I got a larger memory card and turned the file size setting up to high. This made a big difference, especially in the night time shots. On the downside it takes longer to save the files to the card.

Finally, I've adjusted most of these images with iPhoto's auto enhance function. Someday I hope to become competent in Photoshop but for now I'll let Apple's more basic software do the tweaking for me.

There are 48 pictures. Take a look.

Update: My left-handedness is more complex than I indicated. I always use a computer mouse with my right hand. As a kid when I played baseball I was a switch hitter and felt equally comfortable (and frustrated) batting from either side of the plate. But in most other activities I've a strong left side bent. No doubt the camera tripod would be a great stabilizer even if I were right handed.






Posted: Mon - July 18, 2005 at 06:26 PM          

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