So, while dabbling around I pulled a picture I took from last Winter… cleaned it, balanced the lighting, passed it through a black & white filter, and then gently applied an indigo gradient. The results were pleasing… so here it is for anyone to enjoy if they wish (1600×1200).

We stopped at Rock City Park while we were there. Here’s some details from their website:

Rock City Park, located in the Enchanted Mountains of Cattaraugus County, south of Olean, New York on Route 16, is sometimes called one of the Eighth Wonders of the World. This prehistoric ocean floor is the World’s largest exposure of quartz conglomerate (also called ocean spar or puddingstone) and attracts thousands of visitors yearly.

Visitors are astounded by gigantic boulders several stories high with huge crevices sometimes referred to as “streets.” Rock City Park is believed to have been a fortress for the Seneca Indians at one time. “Three Sisters”, “Balancing Rock (a 1000 ton boulder), and “Indian Face” rock are just some of the natural rock formations found along Rock City’s scenic trails. From “Signal Rock,” once used as a signaling point by Indians, visitors enjoy the 1,000 square mile panoramic view of the Enchanted Mountains.

Rock City Park features a three quarter mile natural trail consisting of various steps and paths necessitating comfortable clothing and good walking shoes. During spring and summer you will see a variety of wildflowers, ferns, moss, Mountain Laurel (which blooms late in June) and of course enjoy the quiet serenity of the forest nestled among this geological wonder. Leaf peepers enjoy Rock City Park’s spectacular fall foliage.

On the trek back to Albany we spent a few relaxing days in the Finger Lakes… including Watkins Glen and Taughannock Falls.

As always you can view all my recent pics on my online photo gallery.

• Allows you to fetch all of your Flickr photosets as albums inside your gallery
• Allows you to fetch any Flickr user’s public photosets, recent photos, “favorites”, and/or “most interesting” photos (according to Flickr) and load them as albums inside your gallery
• Allows you to fetch an album of photos from a Flickr group
• Allows you to fetch an album of photos filtered by specific tags
• Allows you to fetch photos at any resolution that Flickr supports
• Allows you to fetch both public AND private Flickr photos that you have READ access
• Allows you to fetch photo descriptions from Flickr to use as photo captions inside your gallery
• Allows manual and programmatic refreshing of your XML images file, or your entire cache of Flickr API calls

The final result is a Flickr photo gallery wrapped in a premiere Flash-based slideshow interface that is delightful to your web visitors.

Visit the official Fetchr4SSP homepage!

Background

This project started for me just trying to finagle my own way of getting all my Flickr photos organized into album photosets and all available in an easy-to-use interface on one of my WordPress-driven websites. A tall order… but I knew it was doable. After fumbling with some WordPress plugins and such, nothing really worked smoothly enough. A Flash solution was needed, so purchased a license for SlideShowPro (SSP) and I couldn’t be happier!

The next task was putting together a PHP script that would build the complex XML needed to properly load all my Flickr photos organized into photosets into SSP. I tried an existing one with some success, but it lacked a few vital functions I needed… and it wouldn’t handle certain SSP abilities. Soooo, I coded my own. And after some polishing decided to put together a sharp website to peddle my fine creation to the masses.

As always you can view all my recent Cape Cod pics on my online photo gallery.

Thanks to Siberian Grinder for the heads up on this camera.

Do you see the two photographs above? They are both of a pinkish rose, one a light pink and the other a deep pink. There’s also some profound differences in the photos stemming from the fact that one was taken with a flash and one was not.

The one on the left was with a flash. The foreground of the light pink rose is well lit… it accentuates the glistening water droplets loitering on its petals. The background is very dark, and the setting appears to be sometime at night, well after sunset. The greenery is very dark and muted behind the bright flower, making for an uneasy contrast in depth and brightness.

The one on the right was taken without a flash (requiring a steady hand). This rose is a full, rich rouge-salmon of a pink… very deep in color compared to the unsaturated color on the other rose. The greenery here is a confidant hue and stands out quite clearly in the muted sunlight of what appears to be a cloudy morning with lingering due… say around 10:00 AM.

If you haven’t already guessed, this is the same rose. The pictures were taken from the same perspective. What you might not have guessed was the profound effect the flash would have on this photo… because, you see, they were not taken hours from each other.

Indeed, these two photographs were only taken 20 seconds apart!