Best Of
Mini Challenge #374 -- Bridges
Well, I think I chose a topic that we haven't seen before (or at least in a long time). I love seeing beautiful and interesting Bridges, but I don't ever go photograph them. To be honest, I'm not sure I have a lot of Bridges to share, but I'd love to see yours! These can be fancy bridges for automobiles over water or canyons, simple bridges in a local park, homemade bridges in the backyard, or foot bridges, rail bridges, or natural bridges like arches or stones in a creek. I'm not picky!
Let's get back to a two-week mini and end this one on Sunday, September 22, 2024 at 6:00 pm Central Daylight Time. You know the rules, so post your 3 favorite bridge photos. If you need a refresher on the rules, they are pinned here: https://dgrin.com/discussion/248032/mini-challenge-un-official-rules#latest.
I found a few less-than-stellar examples to give you an idea.
Log over a creek (natural bridge)
Bridge in Sedona, AZ
Walking the Brooklyn Bridge
1789 Selectman's Building near Acadia National Park, Maine
Scenic Bridge in Acadia National Park, Maine
Land Bridge at low tide
Senior Portrait on a VERY Rickety Suspension Bridge over a creek
I know these examples don't include the "traditional" bridge shot, but if you have some please show them off to me! I'd love to see some cool bridges or even scary ones.
Have fun!
Sherry P.
Re: Mini Challenge #373: The Color "BLUE": It isn't as common as you think
Blue from nature is already quite well represented so I decided to go for three "unnatural" representations.
1) Night lighting of the art museum in Carcassonne, France
2) Garden ornaments at the ceramics fair in Diessen, Germany
3) Detail from an aging window shutter in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France
Ocean City Air Show - August 2024
We went to the Ocean City Air Show this past weekend. My first time there, and really the only reason we went was to see the Frecce Tricolori, the Italian Air Force demonstration team. They were making their first US visit in over 30 years, and I had never seen them before. We booked a beachfront hotel next to show center, with a balcony facing the ocean, so we didn't have to deal with crowds, sand, or sun! We stayed the weekend and watched both days' performances. It was a great time!
The Navy sent a couple of EA-18G Growlers to make some noise...
And a WWII Corsair came along for a Legacy Flight flyover.
Not to be outdone, the Air Force sent an F-22 Raptor for a demo. I always say Raptors aren't really airplanes - airplanes can't do what they do!
A P-51 Mustang joined him for a Heritage Flight flyover.
We had some A-10s doing A-10 things...
And a little quiet time!
Finally, the main event!
On Monday, as we were heading back to the house, we stopped by Salisbury Regional Airport, where the team had flown out of, looking to see if they had hit the road yet. They were just packing up, so we hung around and watched them depart.
moose135
Re: Mini Challenge #372: Climb (or photograph) Every Mountain
So many mountains, so little time.
1) Half Dome imitating a dolphin posing for portrait (Yosemite NP)
2) June Lake loop - East side of the Sierra Nevada range, California
3) Canmore BC 
Cavalier
Re: Water, Water Everywhere... Post your Water Pictures here :)
pegelli
Solar Eclipse - April 8, 2024
I didn't see a thread here, so let me be the first! We went up to Fishers, Indiana, just northeast of Indianapolis, for the eclipse. That's an 8-hour drive from home, drove up Sunday - I'm not an astrophysicist, but we did stay at a Holiday Inn Express! We watched from the hotel parking lot with a couple dozen other folks. We had some high, thin cirrus clouds that really didn't affect our shots. This is the second eclipse that I've experienced totality - I was out for the 2017 show as well - and it is an absolutely amazing sight to see!
Please feel free to add your photos to this thread; I look forward to seeing what everyone was able to capture!
moose135
Mini Challenge #366 -- Life After Dark
I really had to wrack my brain for a topic for this mini! I've always envied those photographers who manage to get awesome photos at night--whether it's fireworks, milky way or star shots, downtown skylines, or just whatever is of interest after dark. I have made some attempts over the years to figure this out, but I always fall short of anything stellar. What I would LOVE to see in this mini is your awesome after dark photos (and maybe a short how-to for the rest of us to learn from). I don't care what the subject or scenery is--fireworks, milky way, cityscapes, bridges, or any after-dark events you photographed. Extra points for a little instruction or tips that you pass along.
I am going to have this mini go for slightly over 3 weeks to end on Sunday, March 17th at 6 pm Central Daylight Time (since I think the time changes in early March). I hope that gives everyone some time. Please make this hard for me to judge!
If you need a reminder, the rules are at this link: https://dgrin.com/discussion/248032/mini-challenge-un-official-rules
Here are some of my examples. I've already said I'm still trying to figure this out, so none of these are of the caliber I would like to share, but I hope it gives you some inspiration. 
Milky Way at Zion National Park -- this was shot with my Canon 5D MKIII and my Canon 24-70 lens, f2.8, 25 second exposure, ISO 6400.
Paul McCartney at the ACL Festival in 2018. I actually shot this with my cell phone, so no real skill involved.
Marching Band's Halftime Performance -- For the last 14-15 years, I have been photographing a local high school's marching band during football season. I have so many examples from band kids at night, but will just post a couple. The biggest key to these is using as fast a shutter speed as you can because these kids are moving (usually fairly quickly!) For this one, I used my Canon 5D MKIII with my Canon 70-200 mm lens at 200mm, f4, 1/200 shutter speed, and ISO 2500.
Another night-time marching band shot. This one same settings as above, but f5 and ISO 3200.
- The Moon -- I shot this at a football game. I had my Canon 5D MKIII and a Canon 100-400mm lens. This was zoomed to 400 mm, f8, 1/200, and ISO 200. Also handheld!
Alas, I have no fireworks images that aren't blurry and I can't find my city skylines. I'll add them later if I find them.
I hope to see lots of entries for this one!
Sherry Pollett
SmugMug WordPress Plugin
I see so many SmugMug subscribers with WordPress websites who design their SmugMug page and WordPress in a similar way to create a consistent brand for themselves. I assume many of us wouldn't even need a SmugMug website separate from our WordPress website if we could just embed our SmugMug gallery directly into our WordPress website.
WordPress is the biggest CMS on the internet, so I was surprised to learn that SmugMug didn't have an official plugin for it. My website's visitor's experience would be so much better if they didn't have to jump between my separated blog and photo gallery, its confusing for them because it's impossible for me to make both websites look exactly the same. My print sales would go up if the customers had an easier time navigating (along with SmugMug's profit from their 15% commission)
WordPress is open source, and building a plugin would make SmugMug look good as a company because they are supporting the open-source community. An official SmugMug plugin would help the company gain more customers by driving traffic to SmugMug's website from the wordpress.org plugin repository that millions of people use on a daily basis. More people would subscribe to SmugMug service if they noticed a WordPress compatibility feature on SmugMug's landing page.
With all of these different benefits to having a SmugMug WordPress plugin, why hasn't one been created yet?
aybaw337