Sure, I may be in Dover for a “glitter gig” planning meeting, but that doesn’t mean I can’t take a little time to enjoy a bit of nature while I’m here, right? I always love seeing how the natural surroundings change when you travel. Just a short airplane ride and everything can change!

Okay, so I can find a little “pretty” outside my hotel window too… here’s the view of the Dover Downs Speedway. It’s used for both horse harness racing & auto NASCAR racing. The outer loop is for cars, the inner loop is for horses! And in about a month, we’ll be working around the speedway grounds to set up the Firefly Music Festival. For more information, click here.

You know I loves me a good sunrise… and a beautiful sunset ain’t too shabby either.
So I was kind of excited when I saw these “manipulated” photographs online today.
Apparently, there’s some sort of time-lapse, exposure, layering & stacking going on?!

As seen on Colossal.com…
Living on the shore of Lake Ontario, just east of Toronto, photographer Matt Molloy has daily encounters with brilliant sunsets and cloudscapes that he’s been photographing for over three years. One day he began experimenting with time-lapse sequences by taking hundreds of images as the sun set and the clouds moved through the sky. Molloy then digitally stacked the numerous photos to reveal shifts in color and shape reminiscent of painterly brush strokes that smeared the sky. You can learn more about his “timestack” technique over at Digital Photo Magazine.

As quoted from Matt Molloy himself: “Made from 500 photos, this is the first sunset time-lapse I tried the stacking method with. I was surprised with the outcome, but even more so with the feedback. It wasn’t long before it went viral. I was getting lots of emails, some asking questions about the technique and others hoping to share it on their website or blog. Milky Way Scientists shared it on their Facebook page, and it got 12,000 likes and 4,000 shares on the first day it was up. I was blown away!”

Click here for more images by Matt Molloy.
Click here for a “tutorial” on the process from Digital Photo Magazine.

As seen on Colossal.com…
Exploded Flowers is a series of photos by artist Fong Qi Wei that shows a variety of flowers dissected into individual components. Reminiscent of exploding fireworks, it’s fascinating to see the radial footprints each flower makes relative to the size of its actual bloom. The series placed second in the 2012 International Photography Awards. You can see more from the series on Wei’s website.

Spring has finally “sprung” in Chicago… even if it’s just inside the Chicago Flower
& Garden Show at Navy Pier. It was such a great “retreat” from the cold with beautiful
colors, smells, patterns & textures! A sign that Spring may actually be on it’s way!

Not only were there tons of beautiful flowers… but there were also piles of tulips!!!
A full color palette of petals. Who knew there were so many different kinds of tulips?!

But one of my favorite things were the vertical wall gardens. Especially because there was
a lot of colors & textures all in one place… each vying for a special place in the sun!

When I stopped to take sunrise photos, there were thin sheets of ice “floating” delicately
on blades of grass. The lakefront path was glistening this morning as the sun came up…
with small crackling sounds as I walked through.

After I posted yesterday’s photos of the “frozen fissures” in Lake Michigan,
I received a link to this incredible YouTube video. Apparently, the oldest son
of “My Talented Friend” jeweler Amy Taylor lives in Antarctica and filmed this great
time-lapse video. Kinda makes my “frozen fissures” photos a bit anti-climactic?!
Here’s one of my photos…

And here’s the link to the time-lapse video, and some screen captures as a little teaser.
Some frozen fissures on a much grander scale.  Antarctica versus Lake Michigan?!
Click here to see the video… “Ice and Clouds”