A Bloy and his Blog

It’s been pretty cold here in Madison for the past week, and this morning our first big winter storm of the season began.

Today I’ve officially gone into Winter mode. I put a batch of chili in the crock pot, and dug my humidifier out of the closet. While those shocks from static electricity are fun at first, it gets a little old after a few times. I also took my first pictures of snow for the season, from the warm side of my patio door of course.

Yes, winter has arrived.

My family had a couple of get-togethers over the past few weeks.

From left: my brother Steven, my sisters Barbra and Christine, and myself.

read the rest of: Family photos

I recently added some excellent photography websites to my links page, and I thought it would be worth mentioning them here as well. Most of the following sites have tips & techniques, and a few just show great pictures.

• Digital Photography School
• iDigital Photo
• Epic Edits Weblog
• Photojojo
• Andre Gunther Photography
• PhotoCritic
• Photodoto
• Visual~Voice
• JMG Galleries

Even after the oak tree looses its colorful autumn leaves, it’s a beautiful thing.

read the rest of: Autumn lake

Many years ago, I had a film single lens reflex camera. SLRs are great for their flexibility, allowing you to change lenses, add filters, and manually adjust settings. For a while now, I’ve been wishing for some of that flexibility in a digital camera, and have been thinking about buying a digital SLR. Early last month, a local camera store was having a sale on the Nikon D40 — a deal I couldn’t pass up.

read the rest of: The Nikon D40

Yesterday I visited Parfrey’s Glen, a State Natural Area close to Devil’s Lake State Park.

read the rest of: Parfrey’s Glen