Downtown at night

Downtown HDR, originally uploaded by bamaphan79.

This was my first attempt at a process called HDR, which stands for High Dynamic Range. It's essentially a composite of the same photo take five times at five different exposures, which Photoshop puts together to try and form an image that is as detailed as possible. I think it came out pretty cool. To see the difference, click on the photo and look at the one that I posted before it, which was straight out of the camera. I like this HDR, and I'm hoping to do some more soon.

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Now available: Prints

As of today, I'm now set up to sell prints of all my photos at this Web site, which will soon be incorporated into www.danmurphyphotos.com (still under construction, but feel free to swing by, bookmark it and check out the homepage slideshow). 

Right now, I only have a couple of photos up in the Fine Art Prints Gallery, and I plan to upload more soon. If you see any photos on my flickr page or posted in the blog that you'd like to hang on your wall but they're not available, contact me via e-mail and I'll get the photos up in a gallery.

Photos purchased at the site are printed on high quality paper and shipped directly to you.

Limited edition prints are available by special order and are printed in conjunction with West Coast Imaging, a leading digital fine arts printer. Only 5 Limited Edition prints of each image will be made, and all come signed and numbered. Framing options are available. Contact me for pricing.

Looking for fleas at the market

Dawg..., originally uploaded by bamaphan79.

Spend your Saturday amid the splendor of stupendous sales on knick-knacks, knives, nerf balls and knickers, Dancing Apes and Amazing Airbrushed Artwork of Amphibians and Airplanes. Need some Nun Chucks of a Ninja Sword? How about Spiderman comics or collectible sports cards? You can find it all and more at the Mobile Flea Market, where we ventured Saturday.

Below is a selection of photos, but there are many more in the slideshow. Enjoy!

The Main Event

Julius Attacks, originally uploaded by bamaphan79.

As I was getting ready for work this morning, I noticed that Julius had decided he really wanted this stuffed gorilla dead. I mean, he was repeatedly going for the jugular, pouncing over and over again on the defenseless stuffed animal. Granted, I may have been egging him on just a bit, but at one point he decided to take his prey off to a secluded location where he could do God knows what; I half expect to see detached eyes on the floor when I get home.

Bonus: Make up a caption for the photo -- the winner will get a prize! Leave your thoughts in comments below.

Attack of the Shonny Monster

Attack of the Shonny Monster, originally uploaded by bamaphan79.

Amy, Sean and I took a weekend away from our daily lives and spent a few days enjoying the beach life along Hwy. 30-A in Florida. When we arrived Friday night, we met up with our cousin David at his place and quickly made our way down to the beach to enjoy the light show that Mother Nature was performing out on the Gulf of Mexico. I set up the camera and tripod (after deciding that the lightning was far enough away) and start shooting away. At one point, Sean decided to go out and destroy some sand forts that had been built during the day, and this shot happened to come at the same time as a lightning strike, making the photo seem almost as if Godzilla is crushing a small Martian village during the end times. Fun stuff. Anyway, below is a selection of photos from the weekend, and click here for even more.

On the Map

Ever see a photo on here and wonder exactly where it was taken? Now you can see, on most of my photos at least. Just go here to explore a map of all my geotagged photos (those are the ones I've already placed on the map). While you're there, be sure to sign up for a free Flickr account and add me as a Friend or Family. That will give you access to family photos that I may not want to be seen among my public stream (i.e., photos that weren't taken by me but that I'm sharing with Flickr). If you have any questions about Flickr or how to sign up and make me family, feel free to email me.

Sunset behind the RSA Tower

Sunset behind the RSA Tower, originally uploaded by bamaphan79.

Taken from my favorite photo spot along the Causeway. It provides fantastic views of downtown and the Battle Ship.

Fishing by the Battleship

Fishing, originally uploaded by bamaphan79.

Taken at dusk Wednesday night along the Causeway (Battleship Parkway) in Mobile. This is one I'd like to return to. People are always fishing off the Causeway.

Getting Exposure

Hey everyone. For those who don't know, I recently got a brand-new digital slr and have been having a whole lot of fun re-discovering my love of photography. It's nice to put that degree to work! Anyway, in addition to a small side business in the works, I've been trying to just get my name back out there in the photography world, and in concert photography in particular. A blogger in Oxford, Miss., recently saw the photos I took from the North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic and posted an item about them on his blog. Swing by and check it out.

Family Reunion Photos

While I couldn't make the 3,500-mile roadtrip up to Brantingham Lake this year, I was lucky enough to get this handful of photos from my dad and thought I'd share them here. It sure brings back some fun memories from last year, and it really looks like the good times rolled despite my absence.

Strange Daze in Abita Springs

Gator Mama in a Red Dress, originally uploaded by bamaphan79.

Welcome to the UCM Museum, pronounced "You-See-'Em Museum," located in picturesque (even when it's raining) town of Abita Springs, Louisiana. Although not our original destination — in fact, it wasn't even our second choice — it was by far the best time I could imagine having on a gloomy Saturday in South Louisiana. Amy and I drove over from Mobile and met up with her sister, Ashley, at the Abita Brew Pub. 

Plan A: Our intentions were to take a trip to the Abita brewery, spend some time in the tasting room, take a tour of the place and then head back for a late lunch/early dinner at the pub. But, upon getting there, we soon learned that the brewery was inexplicably closed, and tours weren't being offered. 

Plan B: Figure out a plan B.  We had all been to Abita before, and I remembered seeing a pamphlet for a museum of oddities, a spot that Ashley learned about from a travel television show. We couldn't remember the name, but Abita's small enough that a simple stop at the fruit stand yielded directions that took us pretty much about 2 blocks, where we discovered the UCM Museum. A one-time service station along La. Highway 36, the collection of oddities and artwork has been in Abita since "around 2000," according to the self-titled curator of the place, John Preble. We were fortunate enough to arrive at this unique roadside attraction on a day when Mr. Preble (rhymes with "pebble") was manning the front desk, something we'd later learn doesn't happen all too often.

We were greeted with a welcoming sign on a mid-July afternoon in the swamps, and one look through the door at which the flashing sign pointed made us realize that we were in for a real unexpected treat. Just to the left of the door, you can see the same alligator in the first photo, clad in a red dress and Mardi Gras beads.

This sign on the front door was clearly instructions for me as I strolled through the entrance with my still-so-new Nikon D80 strung over my shoulder. I'd brought my camera for this very reason, and I wasn't about to let the day go by without some hard-core documentation.

 

Just inside the front door is the gift shop, half of which was once the service station, as was clear by a circa 1993 photo of the "museum" hanging on the wall. A giant crawfish dangles from the ceiling, and gag gifts, postcards and generally strange items fill the shelves. 

Everywhere you look in the gift shop, intriguing things reside. From the bottle caps that cover the walls to these floating soda cans hovering above a motherboard-clad ceiling, there's eye candy everywhere. We wandered through the shop for a few minutes and soon decided the museum was calling, so we paid the ever-so-reasonable entrance fee of $3 each and opened the door to the day's alternate reality.

After following the signs, we found ourselves in a long, narrow room lined with numerous mini-town dioramas adorned with vintage interactive buttons that, when pressed, would set figures into motion — dancing at Ruby's, reading in the "library" or many other mechanical reactions to delight the child in us.

Amy and Ashley took no time finding the classic arcade games, and the duo were soon hunting martians together — Ash says she won the competition. 

While the sisters fired away at alien spacecraft, I took on the pinball machine across the room. I didn't do so well, but it brought back a lot of memories from childhood vacations to places like Lake George, N.Y.

About halfway through the museum, Amy pointed out one of the smallest items on display that probably provided the most lasting impression on the two of us. It could have easily been overlooked, but the message it gave made us feel lucky not to have missed it. 

I figure if you can take that advice to heart, every vacation has the opportunity to really rock, even if that "vacation" is a day-trip to a strange museum in the swamp.

Of the many signs in the gift shop, one stuck out at me: See our newest exhibit: the 32 foot alligator! Thirty-two feet, I thought. That's pretty damn big, but this is Louisiana, and if there's anything I've learned about the state, it's that anything is possible here. I'd forgotten about that sign when we came to the exhibit. Look inside and this is what you'll see:

Yep, it's a 32-foot alligator, or, more precisely, an alligator with 32 feet. Is it alive? Nope, but YOU are; hence, you can see it alive. Just another great item among the collections at the Abita Mystery House.

Just when we thought the 32-footer was strange enough, we came across Buford the amazing Bassigator. Is it a fish? Is it a reptile? Scientific Marvel! 1 of a Kind! With the snout of a gator and the tail of a fish, the bassigator is one strange creature.

And from the side, where you can see the tail a little more clearly:

Next stop, an actual UFO crash site, where one unsuspecting family, while spending an average day in their Airstream trailer, was suddenly visited by some pretty strange neighbors. 

Ash was the first to check it out, and once we realized it was safe, Amy and I decided it was alright to pose in front of the scene as well.

After a stop at the House of Shards, where I took a self-portrait on the patio of compassion (so relaxing!) we made our way back to the gift shop.

We talked with Mr. Preble some more and discovered that he's not only in the business of folk art, he's also in the music business. He told us about Bobby Lounge, a local piano player who, as Mr. Preble puts it, is a mix between Little Richard and Randy Newman. He's only played in public 13 times, an "idiot savant" of sorts, and he's recorded a couple albums at a studio on museum property. It sounded interesting to us, and our new friend must have been able to tell. The next thing I knew I had a Bobby Lounge CD in-hand and anxiously awaited hearing my gift on Amy's car stereo. We spent quite a bit more time in the gift shop, playing with various toys and flipping through some great books about roadside attractions much like the one in which we were standing. It made us want to see more, to take a trip somewhere just to see something else that's this unique, this much fun. That'll be the next trip, perhaps. For now, we had had our odd adventure. 

We started out expecting to see how beer was made, but we left knowing that there are plenty of animal bodies on which you can attach an alligator head. We also realized that a museum doesn't really have to make sense. Sometimes, a museum for the sake of being a museum is as much fun as any "meaningful" trip could be, although some may argue how meaningful a tour of a brewery is. We'll no doubt return to the UCM Museum — A November birthday party is already in the works — so come on down and check it out. Oh, and when you're done, swing on over to the Abita Brew Pub, where we finished our evening celebrating my birthday with a fantastic meal of steak (me), salad (Ash) and pan-seared red fish (Amy). As we left, full and happy, I got one last shot, of the spot where our adventure began and ended — the bread of a truly unique sandwich of a day.

For a slideshow of all the day's photos, click here.