Daily Facts and Opinions

How 'bout that rain? Had enough, yet? Too bad. We're gonna have showers and thundershowers for a day or two more. In Jacksonville (NC), the weather guys reported 7-inches of rain Monday. Let's see...if that was snow, and I can remember the relationship, we'd have more than three FEET of the white stuff on the ground by now. I hope this is NOT a sign of a wet and cold winter. Last season's snow was enough to last me for a long time.

                                             copyright Raeford Brown 2010

Pretty, for a while. But, it certainly creates some traffic problems.  And, this was only a few inches to deal with.

The rain and ponding didn't seem to slow drivers down, not one bit.

Ok, you got me. I did slow the shutter down a little, just to illustrate my point. At a "normal" shuttter speed of, say, 1/250th of a second, I can even stop the blades on those Ospreys flying around. Looks like they're hanging in mid-air.

There...today's photo lesson. If you want to show some "motion", get a tripod and set your camera at a slower shutter speed. For the extreme motion of the car, I was shooting at 1/10th of a second. Next time you're near a brook or a waterfall, you might try shooting at a slower shutter speed. The water appears to be much smoother. 1/8th to 1/15 of a second is a good place to start. The longer shutter speeds will result in a much smaller aperature. This works best under lower light levels, i.e a shaded brook, later afternoon/early evenings. And, you may need to change your ISO sensitivity to the lowest number on your camera.

                 copyright Raeford Brown 2006

                                 copyright Raeford Brown 2006

A tripod will keep the camera steady during the exposure. While you want the moving objects to appear to be moving, you want the stationary rocks, trees...what have you...to be sharp in the image.

On the news front. No doubt, there's a lot to talk about. But, I spent most of Monday painting. I caught some snippets of late news, and a tad of this morning's news, and it's obvious that the big story is the weather. Having spent a long time inside a newsroom, having been party to several focus groups, having analyzed...to death, at times...local and national research on "what people want" from local news, I will tell you that Breaking News and Weather are at the top of that list. "Win the weather", consultants tell news directors, "and you will be more likely to win the ratings". That, folks, is why every "new and improved" tool, aka gimmick, offered by the marketing folks at every weather software company in the country is picked up by station after station after station. Want to invest in something? Pick a top notch company that provides software for local weather platforms and you'll have a winner. Just be sure to check their track records. A lot of companies have one-hit-wonder material. Here today, gone in a year.

Back to the weather. Seems that we'll have more rain, off and on, for a couple more days. And, then there's that mess in the Caribbean off Central America. I believe it's the stuff that's forming from former Tropical Storm Michael. Michael, you may recall, moved westward in Central America and Mexico. It looks like the system is reforming, and the National Hurricane Center (the group that doesn't hype the H-word) gives it about an 80% chance of becoming a tropical system. Florida can expect some heavy rain and gusty winds as the system merges with a frontal system by mid-week. It's likely to create some issues for Jamaica and Grand Cayman, as well. Let's face it, folks. Planning vacations this time of year in much of the Caribbean is a crap shoot. Three islands that are, generally, safe bets are the Dutch islands of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao. They seem to be below the hurricane belt. (Bonaire and Curacao, by the way, are GREAT SCUBA destinations...I've dove both, many times).

                                copyright Raeford Brown 1996

Politics. Oh, yes. It's heating up. Enough said, at least for today.

I'm thinking of taking all the leftover yard sale signs I find on the utility pole on the corner where I live and either 1) dropping them off at the location noted on the signs, or 2) taking a picture of each sign every Sunday and running it on here.
Folks, I love yard sales, flea markets, E-Bay, Craigs List, Lejeune Yard Sales, as much...if not more...than you. My wife and I even have an occasional yard sale. But, please, once your sale has ended, take the same amount of time you took when you erected those signs, and gather them up. By Sunday and Monday, they're in pretty bad shape. If they're still hanging on the utility pole (that's illegal, by the way), they are pretty ugly. In most cases, residents living, as we do, on the "yard sale route" spend some quality time picking up the debris from our yards.
You are forewarned: I'll either deliver them to you, or I'll post pictures of them right here. And, maybe on Facebook, as well.

Enough for today.  Well, enough for right now. I may think of someting else before the day's over (as I take "painting breaks").