Night shooting can be a lot of fun – not just in getting wacky results like the image above, but it’s a lot of fun to just improvise who’s in the shot and what you want to do and if you have nontraditional light sources (like the car lights running down the street and the barely registering glow stick on a string in my daughter’s hand).

Just screwing around with a long shutter speed and a flash can yield some really cool stuff. Hence the photo above (6 seconds, f11 and ISO 400). A lot can happen in six seconds – after the flash froze us we moved out of those poses, the car came past the house with only its lights captured, and the tree leaves and houses across the street were captured nicely.

It’s common for us to think that cameras capture “reality” – actually, they capture a reality our human eyes never see. It’s pretty cool stuff whose possibilities are as endless as your willingness to discover. Gotta love it!

– TMulloy

With Cleveland’s Browns and Cavs both playing as cold as the outside temperature, at least the city’s Indians play the bulk of their games in the warm rays of the summer sun. So I hope this image of a fiberglass Slider warms the cockles of your sporting heart.

No, Slider’s not waiting for the season to start, but the photo is just a reminder that pitchers and catchers for most MLB teams report to camp two months from tomorrow.

Oh, and somebody in the American League scheduling office evidently has a sense of humor. Cleveland opens its 2011 season at home vs. the Chicago White Sox on … April Fool’s Day – Friday, April 1, 2011.

Play (snow)Ball!

(Photo taken Oct. 4, 2007, during opening game of Cleveland Indians vs. New York Yankees AL Division Series)

If you’re east of the Mississippi and north of the Mason-Dixon, you either can see this out your window now or you will soon.

This March 2008 shot looks like a rural scene, but it’s actually a street in the West Park neighborhood inside Cleveland’s city limits. I took it while walking home from the RTA Rapid Transit station near my home.

This is one of the images – Autograms, I call them – that hung with the November exhibit at the Flying Monkey Pub in Tremont. The exhibit consisted of 20 images of city streets at dusk or after dark shot with long exposure times and intentionally blurred through movement of the camera with the shutter open.

I shot them about two years ago on various nights while driving my car – hence the term “Autogram.” You can make out the interstate signs, stop lights and other miscellaneous signs in some of them.

A  little like painting with light, but certainly not as sophisticated. Just different – and filled with surprises.

View the gallery here Autograms: Flying Monkey Exhibit, November 2010

Not sure what the hell these guys are – or if they’re even guys – but they caught my eye at a sale stand at Stan Hywet Hall in Akron a few months ago when I was there with my daughter for Kite Day.

Is it me, or does it seem like the one in back is up to something?

Taken during a break in the action on a slow night back in late September 2009. Gerard Lavelle was working the bar and had walked away for a minute to ad some turf to the fire. Despite the small crowd, the craic was mighty (it’s only “ninety” in the Isle of Man – Paddy Reilly can explain).