And so, into 2011.

Not much to report, really... after a grueling couple of months writing grants (oh, and I think the Christmas holidays were in there too), I'm back to having a bit more spare time. Time, among other things, to dig through some old shots from last July's Honda Indy Toronto race weekend, and edit a few of them.


High-contrast, black and white treatment. Why not?

I've written a couple of guest posts over at the Occam's Typewriter Irregulars blog. I'll be concentrating on science-y things there, since OT was founded, and is largely populated by, scientists (although the writing is fairly diverse). Good writers there - well worth a visit.

My other blogging gig, over at Life Science Tools of the Trade, should pick up a bit this year - I've committed to at least one post per month, which doesn't seem like much, but believe me, would be a big increase over my past efforts. That will be all science - techy stuff, as compared with the OT Irregulars, where I'll be largely posting things for a lay audience. I'll probably keep cross-posting those ones from here.

Otherwise, I think this place will stay much as it has been, which means, of course, more about cameras and cars, mainly. On that front, a few months ago I finally bought a DSLR: a Nikon D5000, kitted out with a couple of lenses including a 55-300 mm zoom, which should be fun for my motorsports pursuits. That means that I can stop borrowing Mrs. Ricardipus's lovely Sony DSC-R1, although it will still get used for various things (like that photo of the Christmas tree from a few posts ago, for example). It also means that the old film SLR is now long gone.


The dear, departed Pentax MZ-50 and 100-300 mm lens - now traded in.

So far, the D5000 has been fabulous, although I'm still learning it - both where all the controls are, and how it responds to different lighting conditions. But I'm very happy with it, and it's proven adept at a variety of things, from close-ups of expensive cars under dodgy lighting, to long-range snaps of zoo animals,



a bit of landscape shooting,



and even, with a rented lens suitable for low light, some concert photography.



So - among more important things, 2011 should bring, in no particular order, a lot more writing about science and other things, and many more photographs, at least some of which will be of things with wheels. Good times, I trust.