Turn-by-Turn Directions on Steroids

As you probably know, Google recently sent out a small army of camera-equipped minivans to photograph 360-degree views every few feet or so, on every road in many regions of the U.S. and Canada. You have no doubt seen those photos in Google Maps, where you can get a map view, a satellite view, and (wow!) a street-level view.

When this service was first introduced, I wondered what other uses there might be for all those terabytes of data. Today I stumbled on a new "wow" from Google -- another integration of those photographs.

If you ask Google Maps to give you directions, and the roads are covered by the photographic database, you can bring up a window that shows what it looks like every step of the way. For example, click on this thumbnail to see a screenshot showing an upcoming freeway exit in these directions I asked for today:



The integration is so well done that you can click on the white "go here" arrow in the photograph and take a virtual drive of the entire route.

I wonder what cars are on the drawing board now, that will integrate Google's photographs with the cars' on-board GPS Nav systems? (You heard about it here first!)

Splendid Seattle

Over Memorial Day weekend, Kathy and I were able to get away by ourselves to the Seattle area. It was a splendid time of togetherness and decompression. Although, there were times that I'm sure Kathy felt like a "Photography Widow," when I saw this or that image which begged to be captured.

For example, during our several walks on the waterfront, we saw huge ships in Puget Sound. For the life of me, I can't figure out how their sailors get any work done, with the Olympic Mountains so picturesquely close and beautiful.

Our hotel was near the well-known Space Needle. I tried to ignore the ordinary photo ops for the Space Needle, but did capture a few unusual views. These start with a four-shot composite showing Kathy at the bottom, then trees and cirrus clouds at the top of the photo. On one of our walks, the Space Needle loomed behind buildings reminiscent of the Martian invaders in the recent remake of "War of the Worlds" (complete with a bird showing that the force field was gone.) In another shot, the Space Needle's disk shape joined four other disks in a symphony celebrating roundness. Lastly, the Sculpture Park provided a stylistic creature for a John Christopher-inspired Tripod to preside over. (You must read "The Tripods" book series for that to make any sense.)

The next few shots are from the top deck of our double-decker bus -- starting with a self-portrait reflected in an office building's window.

It had been a long time since Kathy and I had actually ascended to the top of the Space Needle, so the next series of photos are from there. The first vista to greet us upon arrival at the observation level were clouds illuminated from underneath by a gorgeous sunset. Then, as night fell on the city, I found that the same ships shown in the first series of photos made a nice foreground for the Olympic mountains illuminated by the dying sunlight. Speaking of ships, a ferry crossing seemed more majestic when seen as a many-windowed boat gliding over dark water.

The next day, we had lunch at La Conner, Washington. There I found an interesting contrast between a neatly-painted church in the background of a dilapidated boat scene. Also, I couldn't resist photographing a king-of-the-post seagull.

Back in Seattle, we took another waterfront walk -- this time encountering some flowers and a bee. When you see this bee approaching a flower with its nectar tube extended for business, notice that there are two other insects waiting to greet it.

After the bee shot, there are a few photos of a cute couple -- well, at least the young lady is cute!

The final two shots were from our last day in Seattle -- the weather was very drab and gray, but some flowers on a bush decided it would be appropriate to splash color on the scene.

So for what it's worth, click here for a full-window slideshow. This is a preview:

Glorious Views

Many of you have seen photos from my recent Egypt trip:

But most of you have not seen any of the shots from the air, captured during the journey there and back. I won't bore you with the ordinary ones -- at least not yet. :-)

But here are some views that you don't see every day.

The slideshow starts with a contrail -- we're about to fly through it -- you can see the contrail and its shadow below, both in the same shot.

Then, we move to the title shot for this blog entry: the Glory, which is the rainbow effect around an airplane's shadow. (You can read more about it here.)

Lastly, there are two views of Chicago from the air. The first one is ordinary, but the second one is a hyperstereophotograph -- a 3D picture taken with an image separation much larger than the normal 2.5 inches between our eyes. Of course, you'll need your red-cyan glasses to see the 3D picture. What, you don't have any? You can get them here. (Let me know if you do get some, and I'll post more 3D shots from the air. Mountains, in particular, are interesting.)

Anyway, here is a slideshow of the photos:



If you would like to see larger versions, here is a full-window view.

Common View of Mt. Hood, Made Uncommon

This is one of my favorite shots of Mount Hood, partly because it's different than the bazillion other shots I've taken of that familiar Oregon landmark:



Another reason I like it: Tualatin residents see it frequently as they approach the freeway from the west. But, with the busy-ness of getting from "here" to "there," it usually gets lost among the overload of other visual stimuli. It takes a strategically-aimed telephoto to eliminate distractions and reveal the mountain's beauty behind the chaos of late-afternoon hurried drivers.

Who is Amanda?

Several of the blog entries below mention, "Marybeth and Amanda." Many of you readers know who Amanda is, but I'll bet there are a few of you who are thinking, "Who is Amanda??" The answer: she is/was Marybeth's college roommate:



Amanda's family lives in North Carolina, but she wants to reside on the West Coast now that she has graduated. While Amanda and Marybeth look for their respective jobs and a place to live, we offered our home as a staging area for both of them.

It has been delightful getting to know Amanda better, and it's nice to know that Marybeth has "sane" friends to keep her out of trouble. ;-)

Carnival Rides

Every year on the weekend nearest May 5th -- Cinco de Mayo -- Portland hosts a carnival on the waterfront. Coincidentally, Kathy and I (with Marybeth and Amanda) visited Saturday Market, which was adjacent to the carnival.

Although the rides looked stable and well-constructed, I thought it would be interesting to post an impressionistic view of the Portland Cinco de Mayo carnival's Merry-Go-Round, reflected in the windows of the Portland Fire Bureau:



Click on the picture to bring up the larger size, then ask yourself if those supporting struts are sturdy enough, or not. :-)

It was warm as Kathy and I strolled along the waterfront, making it tempting to join these children in the Fountain:



But we resisted, and stayed dry. :-)

Rainbow on the ground

Here is something you don't see every day: a rainbow on the ground:



Last Sunday Kathy and I dragged Marybeth and Amanda on a Mother's Day trip to the Columbia Gorge. At the time we happened to be at the Crown Point Vista House, a rainstorm blew in from the north, inspiring the rainbow to make an appearance. You can see that bigger context here:



By the way, this was the same vantage point where we could see snow on the low-lying hills -- in May!

The Starving Artist's Blog

I finally figured out what to use this blog for. I can pretend to be a Starving Artist who makes a meager living by taking photos that other people might want to put on a wall somewhere. Or, maybe people will just view the photos once or twice and feel that their lives have been enriched by a few molecules of visual enjoyment.

In any case, these postings will contain photos that struck my fancy, yet aren't ones that I would broadcast to friends and family members via an emailed Flickr link -- which I often do for weddings or other events.

The previous blog posting has photos from the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm. For this blog entry, I will show a set of recent photos of the mountains outside Langley. When we helped Marybeth move after graduation from Trinity Western University, the nice weather provided some spectacular blue-sky mountain vistas:



If you would like to see larger versions of the photos, here is a full-window view.

By the way, I'm not planning to post these "artistic shots" in full-resolution. Let me know if you would like me to email you the full-res version of something.

I'll add more artistic photo albums as time permits, assuming anyone cares among my very small fan base. :-)