Wet Plate

I continue my "Norfolk at Night" month with a picture I took this morning before sunrise and in the rain. At the intersection of West Olney Road and Stockley Gardens in Norfolk Virginia, sits Christ and St. Luke's Church. The long narrow building of rough-faced random ashlar in the English Perpendicular Gothic Revival style was completed in 1910. It is a spectacular building with a congregation that traces its roots in Norfolk back to 1637.

It wasn't raining as I drove to the Ghent neighborhood to take the picture. Just about the time I got the tripod setup, down came the rain. I kept wiping the lens off and trying to shield it from the rain but when I got home tonight and downloaded the images, I found the one with the water spots to be the most interesting. I developed the photo in Lightroom 5 using the Analog Efex Pro plug-in from Google and chose a wet plate camera type to give it an old photo look. A few tweaks with the sliders and you get the image I wanted to share with you. I hope you like it. Canon G15, 4 second exposure @ f/8.0, ISO 80.

Winter Carnival

The Winter Carnival at Norfolk Virginia's MacArthur Center shopping mall. Canon G15, 1/8 sec @ f/8, ISO 1600.

Holiday Light Tower

The top of the Wells Fargo Center in Norfolk Virginia with it's holiday lights on. The Wells Fargo Center is a 22 story office, commercial and residential complex completed in 2010. Canon G15, 1 sec @ f/8.0, ISO 100.

Night Train

The new Norfolk Virginia Amtrak Train Station scheduled to open tomorrow gleams at night. Last December passenger passenger rail service to Norfolk resumed with daily trips to Washington D.C., New York and Boston. Ridership has been strong and now we have the most modern train station in Virginia. Canon G15, 1 to 1.5 sec, F/5.6, ISO 100 mounted on a trip tripod, HDR compilation of three images spanning 2 f stops.

Lunar Eclipse

Tonight's lunar eclipse. It's very subtle, but you should be able to see some of the Earth's shadow coming across the bottom right or southeast side of the moon. Canon 7D, 1/400 sec @ f/16, ISO 800, zoom at 400mm with 1.4x tele-convertor, effective focal length 560mm. Converted to black and white using Lightroom 4 with Silver Efex Pro 2.

Harvest Moon

Tonight's harvest moon at Sandbridge Beach, Virginia. Canon 7D, 1/40 sec @ f/11.0, ISO 800 converted to black and white in Lightroom 4 using Silver Efex Pro.

Explorer at Large Josh Bernstein

Had the pleasure of meeting Josh Bernstein explorer, author, survival expert, anthropologist, and TV host of the History Channel's hit show Digging for the Truth at the Commonwealth of Virginia's Information Technology Symposium today. Josh was the keynote speaker and did a great job of inspiring government I.T. workers with the amazing leadership exhibited by Sir Ernest Shackleton's during his 1916-17 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition.

Leadership Lessons:
- Recuit/Hire the best
- Set audacious goals
- Champion morale
- Lead decisively
- Adapt constantly
- Never give up

Canon G15, 1/80 sec @ f/2.8, ISO 1600.