2/10/13 - Vintage Airstream; our RV park is hosting an Airstream rally and this is one of the trailers at the rally. I had a hard time deciding between the color and b/w version. The color version is here: http://fotoeffects.smugmug.com/Other/Odds-and-Ends/7032233_dn3zKD#!i=2358443840&k=7kf6Lkv. Which do you prefer? Thanks so much for your supportive comments on my shot inside the Titan Missile Museum. I'll have a few more postings from there before I'm done with it. - FotoEffects Photography

These are images that I shoot on a daily basis and submit to the dailies forum on Dgrin.

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2/17/13 - Lace-edged parasol, photographed at Old Tucson Studios.

Thanks for your comments on my shot taken in Cherry Creek. Very much appreciated!

2/15/13 - My hubby and his iPad. This shot was lit almost completely by the light from the iPad. I used a slower shutter speed and bumped the EV up to +5, I think. The shot was handheld.

Thanks for your comments on my Valentines shot. Some of you wondered if I got any of the candy and, sadly, I did not. Have a good day!

2/14/13 - Happy Valentine's Day everyone! Captured at AJ's supermarket.

Thanks for all your comments on my shot of the stairs! Much appreciated!

2/13/13 - As I was climbing down a series of stairs into the bowels of the Titan Missile Museum, I pointed my camera above me to capture those coming after me. The light was extremely low and I really could not see what I was capturing. I used Topaz Adjust and Nike EFEX Color to pull out the detail in the image. Then, I used Silver EFEX to do the b/w conversion. After entering the silo, you climb down what I think were five or six flights of stairs to reach the control center. The guide demonstrated the security procedure a crew would go through to be admitted to the control center. It is interesting how much more technically sophisticated our security procedures are now with things like fingerprint, iris or voice recognition. Nonetheless, the security seems to have been adequate for that time. On the floor above the control center was a recreation and rest area for the crew. They had a kitchen but, according to our guide, very few meals were actually prepared there because they had to clean up after themselves. The crews worked 24 hour shifts and then were entitled to three days off. However, they could be called in if needed during their off time. The rest area was one of the few areas that was NOT a NO LONE ZONE AREA, meaning that in those areas a person could never be alone There always had to be at least one other person with them. In the control center there were racks of computer equipment, much like you would expect to see in facilities today. A number of years after the complex was built, they redid the computer and fueling operations. All of the racks were left in place, but all of the electronics were contained in a single rack at that time. The other racks were just empty racks. They used punched tape to feed the computer operations. In my first computer programming course, we used punch cards. I remember taking the punch cards to the IBM computer center and handing the cards to technicians. Then, I'd be instructed to return hours or a day later to find out if my program ran successfully. If it did not, I might get my cards back with some sort of indicator of the problem, but, often, the machine would eat my cards and I'd have no idea why the program failed. Seeing the punch tape reminded me of those early days when the computers were huge machines. Now, we carry more powerful computers around in our pockets and in our cameras.

Thanks for your comments on the shot of the Titan Missile thruster.

2/12/13 - Looking into a Titan Missile thruster.

Thanks for all your comments on my shot of the Titan missile. Very much appreciated!

2/11/13 - Titan long range ballistic missile at the Titan Missile Museum in its silo. Per the terms of the Cold War, we had to do various things that would make it impossible for the missile launch sites to be viable in the future. One of these was to cut holes in the inside walls of the silo. The museum decided to make these holes into viewing windows so that visitors could actually see the missile. The first iteration of the missile used a fuel mixture that took, I think, about thirty minutes to prepare it for firing. Later, a new fuel mixture was instituted that could allow a missile to be launched in 30 seconds. The folks operating the launch site would not have received any feedback on whether their missile successfully reached and destroyed its target, since the assumption was that these missiles would never be launched unless Russia had already launched missiles at the U.S. and it was expected in this case for destruction of both countries to be virtually complete. The missile site had big radio antennas for communications that could be completely retracted into the ground. There were three of them, so that if one was destroyed, another could be raised up out of the ground to replace it. Each day the folks manning the site would go through a series of tests of every system involved in the missile and the site. In spite of this, there were many hours when they had virtually nothing to do and boredom was their greatest trial.

Thanks so much for your warm reception to my shot of the vintage Airstream. I do appreciate every one of them!

2/9/13 - Inside the Titan Missile Site Musuem. The tour of this facility, which is located just south of Tucson, is quite interesting. I especially found fascinating the information about how they supported the missile on giant springs to keep it from being damaged if there were a nearby atomic bomb strike, as well as the way springs insulated other parts of the structure, as well. One of the doors is eight feet thick with immense amounts of rebar for reinforcement. The missile launch procedure was also very interesting, particularly in terms of the safeguards that were put in place to prevent a single person to launch the missile. I suspect a lot of visitors to the Tucson area miss this museum, which is well worth a visit. Tucson had a wing of the Strategic Air Command and numerous missile silos...one of three major clusters in the country. Interestingly, with the end of the Cold War, Russia decided NOT to have a similar museum, so this one is the only one in the world. Visitors are encouraged to take photos inside and outside the silo, since nothing is classified any longer. One fascinating fact I learned was that no one at the site ever knew what the targets were in the Soviet Union and that information has never been released. The missile we saw had three possible targets and the launch sequence would determine which of the three would actually be the target, 1,2, or 3. Once a missile were fired, the people working in the silo would have approximately sixty days of air, food and water. After that time they would have to decide if they wanted to die underground or go outside to face what was expected to be total nuclear destruction.

Thanks for your comments on my closeup of the great horned owl. I always appreciate your comments, as I know how much time it takes to do so. Have a great day!

2/10/13 - Vintage Airstream; our RV park is hosting an Airstream rally and this is one of the trailers at the rally. I had a hard time deciding between the color and b/w version. The color version is here: http://fotoeffects.smugmug.com/Other/Odds-and-Ends/7032233_dn3zKD#!i=2358443840&k=7kf6Lkv. Which do you prefer?

Thanks so much for your supportive comments on my shot inside the Titan Missile Museum. I'll have a few more postings from there before I'm done with it.