Transit Tuesday - Day 84

Wet Tide - Day 72

Night Tide - Day 60

Civic Plaza - Day 19

High Tide - Day 16

Geared Up - Day 46 #CY365

Day 46 - Geared Up. This large bevel gear is most likely from a Voith gearbox or wheel set for a transit bus. It is about eight inches and diameter and weighs about 24 pounds with the attached bearing assembly. It makes an excellent door stop. Canon 7D, 1/125 sec @ f/8.0, ISO 800, 100mm macro lens.

Newtown @ Night

The Tide #407 arrives at the Newtown Station, the City's eastern most border. Hopefully we'll see Virginia Beach commit to an extension to the Oceanfront in 2014 giving the The Tide another 12 miles of running room. Canon G11, 1/6 sec @ f/8.0, ISO 200.

#bdad - Bus Driver Appreciation Day

Today is International Bus Driver Appreciation Day. I hope you took time to say thank you to a bus driver. For 6 years I worked at Hampton Roads Transit with a great group of bus operators (transit speak for drivers) and mechanics who get 50,000 riders to their destinations every day in Southeastern Virginia. They start each day early, at around 4:00am, and the last bus completes the final run of the day 22 hours later at 2:00am. They work long shifts, many work split shifts, weekends and even holidays. Bus service is a 365 deal.

Bus driver appreciation day is on March 18th because that is the anniversary of the very first bus service launched in Paris in 1662 using horse-drawn vehicles. According to an article on Wired it was the brainchild of French mathematician, inventor, physicist, philosopher, and author Blaise Pascal. Fellow geeks know Pascal as the inventor of an early calculating machine forerunner of modern computers and the programming language PASCAL named in his honor.

Canon G10, 1/200 sec @ f/8.0, ISO 200.

The Holiday Express

The Hampton Roads Transit Holiday Express zips by on Monticello Avenue in Norfolk Virginia tonight. This is one cool full train wrap!

Canon G15, 1/10 sec @ f/2.8, ISO 800 with the little help from the miracle of digital image stabilization.

Summer Sunrise

- The hot temperatures and still air resulted in a thick early morning haze but all of that atmosphere helped to produce a really awesome sunrise. Canon G1X, 1/2000 sec @ f/8.0, ISO 200.

The Tide Comes In

The Tide comes in to the Norfolk State Station. The Hampton Roads Transit light rail carried its one millionth passenger yesterday reaching that milestone five months ahead of projections. Canon G1X, 1/1250 sec @ f/6.3, ISO 200, converted to black and white using the Silver Efex Pro 2 plug-in in Lightroom 4.

Catch The Tide

- Not the sight you want to see from the third floor landing when you are trying to catch The Tide. So I missed my train. I have got to get that slow wall clock in my office adjusted. No worries, another showed up in exactly 10 minutes, right on schedule. iPhone 4, 1/238 sec @ f/2.8, ISO 80.

The Obvious

- You wouldn't think the plainly obvious would have to be said over and over again. But such is the case with safety messages. Canon 7D, 1/200 sec @ f/3.5, ISO 400.

Redundant

This seems to be just a wee bit redundant to me. Canon G11, 1/13 sec @ f/3.5, ISO 800.

1000 Posts

- Today marks my 1000 straight days of posting a photo on the CIOPhoto.com blog. I began a 365 project on January 1, 2009 taking and posting a new picture every day for a year. At the end of the 2009 I decided to try and continue for another year which I completed on December 31, 2010. After two years, I was so into the daily routine that I figured what the heck, let's try for 365 x 3. In year three I coasted a bit and some days posted pictures that I had taken earlier and never used on the blog. I still take a picture of some sorts every day but I had many good photos I wanted to share from the first two years so I have have used them. I figured its my blog, I can do what I want. Today's photo is a bare bulb florescent light fixture in the stairwell at work. I had my camera out and was looking at the light when one of my coworkers came through and said there's no picture in this place. I said don't be so sure of that. It's plain and simple, I hope you like it. There are 95 days left to complete 365 x 3, stay turned and I'll try to not disappoint. Canon G11, 1/2000 sec @ f/3.5, ISO 200, post processed using Lightroom preset "Color Creative - Color CP 1" with a few tweaks to white balance and the tone curve.

Charlie's Challenge

- My boss, Philip Shucet, dives into the Charlie's Challenge - eat a 12 egg omlete and 8 pankcakes in an hour. Charlie's Cafe is located a block from our office in Norfolk Virginia. Philip tweeted last week that if HRT's opening weekend ridership on the new Tide light rail exceeded 75,000, he would attempt the Charlie's Challenge. He made good on that pledge this morning. After a noble effort of eating all the eggs and 5 and half pancakes he was done, falling just short of finishing. Before this morning 47 others had tried and failed and only 2 had succeeded in completing the challenge. Today's winner was the Foodbank of Southeast Virginia who benefited from donoations. Canon 7D, 1/160 sec @ f/2.5, ISO 800.

Lights

- Photography is the art and science of capturing light. As such I can never resist taking a picture of a cool light fixture and many end up in black and white. If you like cool lights click on the "Cool Lights" label at the bottom of this post to see other posts from the past two and half years. Canon G11, 1/100 sec @ f/5.6, ISO 400, under exposed 1 -1/2 stops and converted to black and white.

East Bound Tracks

- The east bound tracks of the new Norfolk Virginia Light Rail near Curlew Drive and Military Highway. Canon G11, 1/640 sec @ f/8.0, ISO 200, converted to black and white.

Mechanical

- These are some of the mechanical systems in the overhead spaces at HRT's new Norfolk Bus Garage. The new facility will be completed soon and bus operations will move in by May. The new building is designed to be LEED Silver certified and we may even get a Gold rating, finger's are crossed. This building replaced a 100 year old facility that originally served trolley cars before being converted to a bus garage in the 1940's. Another 50+ years of public transit service will come from this new building. See some more photos from my walk through today here. Canon G11, 1/5 sec @ f/5.6, ISO 800.

Get to the Point

The classic wooden pencil and the old school house mechanical pencil sharpener get to point while carrying a modern day marketing message. I know, shameless self promotion of the company I work for; well somebody's got to do it. Canon 40D, 1/160 sec @ f/5.6, ISO 400, 100mm macro lens. This picture certainly shows the use of shallow depth of field.