Film Processing and Scanning

I received my prints and CDs today from A&I Photo and I am pleased. The colors are nice in the prints and the scans have good resolution.


In the past I have used Photoworks and Kodak Gallery. Photoworks offers nice features but their prints lack snap. Kodak Gallery has gotten very slow and the colors aren't as good as when they were Ofoto. (I'm not even linking to Kodak Gallery because their customer service is so bad, I can't recommend them.)

This is my first print film order with A&I and I am happy that the results were so good. I used them before for slide processing when I was taking a photography class at Lord Fairfax Community College.

The pictures you see here were taken at Assateague Island, a barrier island on Virginia's Eastern Shore. It is near Chincoteague and it's a beautiful place to visit.

Relative's blog

Kate and Rusty have posted a blog at http://rustyandkatieashley.blogspot.com/.

I just posted a couple of changes to Chemsense.com.

Here's a picture of swans that I took in Glebe Harbor. Of course, I played with it in Photoshop, making it lighter.

We're back in Basye and I love it here, but I will miss the great water birds that we saw in the Northern Neck. In addition to the swans, we had regular visits from Great Blue Herons and some ospreys, and we occasionally saw a bald eagle.

I read in the Gloucester paper that many of southern Virginia's old oak trees are dieing off. Apparently a combination of drought and bad storms is too much for them. We're having a very dry spell here in Shenandoah County. Hope it doesn't hurt the trees.

More photos

I added a page of photos of Civil War sites at VirginiaPhoto.com. I've still got some work to do because they don't look as good on a big screen as they did on my laptop.

Meanwhile Frank has posted a blog at walcroft.blogspot.com.

Peggy goes to Germany

Peggy has published the story of her trip to Germany at pegsadventures.blogspot.com.

Meanwhile, I updated my Civil War Tours homepage, enlarged the thumbnail pictures of Belle Grove and added a new post to the Javins genealogy page.

Eastern Shore of Virginia

We just spent a couple of days on the Eastern Shore, that peninsula of Virginia below Ocean City. It has changed little since we last went there a couple of years ago, except that Cape Charles has had some new developments added.

The town of Accomac is still charming and undeveloped and Chincoteague is a fun place to visit. We saw both a sunrise and sunset from Assateague Island, a wildlife refuge on the ocean.

Miskel Farm

I have posted some more photos of Miskel Farm, where Mosby's Rangers narrowly escaped capture in 1863. It is located near Leesburg Park and Route 28 but is not open to the public. However, you can stand on the edge of the road (I think it's called Dairy Lane) and read the historical marker.

Great Blue Heron

We have been honored by visits from large birds here in the Northern Neck. I got some pictures of the Great Blue Heron. I saw his shadow as he flew over and heard him land in the creek beside our deck.

At first he was hard to see because he stayed in the shady little creek, standing still for long periods of time, watching for a tasty fish to come along. Finally he ventured out into the cove.

Some other birds flew into the cove, diving down to snatch up some fish. I think they were ospreys. Eventually the heron grew tired of their antics and rose into the air, honking at them. Another heron joined him in the air, probably his mate. She had been hiding in a nearby bush.

Hurricane!

Like many people, I've been watching the reports on Hurricane Katrina and getting depressed. What terrible suffering and loss!

There are a number of agencies helping people such as the American Red Cross. A small group is trying to help pets, such as the Humane Society. If you cannot afford to donate, you can at least click to generate a small donation at pets.care2.com and theAnimalRescueSite.com.

Modest Needs is raising funds to help individuals who have specific requests for temporary help and they accept Paypal.