This song sparrow (Melospiza melodia) was seen in Mount Tabor City Park in Portland, Oregon.

Camera: Canon 1D MkIV
Exposure: 1/400
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 300mm
ISO: 800

Camera: Canon 1D MkIV
Exposure: 1/250
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 300mm
ISO: 800

We were co-authors on a recent paper by Jason W. Ross, Juan P. Fernandez de Castro, Jianguo Zhao, Melissa Samuel, Eric Walters, Cecilia Rios, Patricia Bray-Ward, myself, Robert E. Marc, Wei Wang, Liang Zhou, Jennifer M. Noel, Maureen A. McCall, Paul J. DeMarco, Randall S. Prather and Henry J. Kaplan.  This paper describes the creation of a new model of retinal degenerative disease, specifically autosomal dominant retinitis pigmentosa in a miniature pig model, serving as an additional tool to study these diseases and therapeutic interventions.

Robert and I did the histology of this study, employing traditional techniques as well as some CMP approaches that we are saving for the next paper…  The image above is a 5 channel dataset of porcine retina labeled with antibodies to GABA, CRALBP and glutamate assigned to the red, green and blue color channels respectively.  The yellow and red dots at the top are alpha channels for rhodopsin and cone opsin respectively.

At the behest of two friends, Greg Jones and Chris Johnson at the Scientific Computing Institute, I entered this image in the journal Science and the National Science Foundation‘s Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge for 2011 (video with interviews here) and IT WON first place in photography!

The media were notified of the results on January 29th and since then, there have been a number of interviews for a variety of traditional printed media as well as online media sources. The image will show up in The Smithsonian Magazine in March, its been on NPRs Science Friday, the National Geographic website, Wired, Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, Science (with a podcast interview here) and the Washington Post as well as MSNBC, io9, Mother Nature Network, The Guardian UK, CNET, the Huffington Post and of course our own UofU news site, The Daily Utah Chronicle and others.

This image is the retina of a mus musculus, probed with antibodies to three small molecular labels from Signature Immunologics. Anti-taurine, anti-glutamine and anti-glutamate assigned to red, green and blue color channels respectively were used for this image from a 7 channel dataset. This image shows two fundamentally important things about metabolomics: 1) Diversity of metabolomic signatures across cell classes is extensive and in this case, it shows how complex the retina is. 2) Within cell classes, metabolomic envelopes are very narrowly constrained in healthy tissue.

We have used the technique to describe pathological changes in retina and are actively looking at a number of new areas for metabolomics including oncology, gastroenterology, cardiology, botany and more.  Look for more images in the near future from a variety of tissues and systems that we are investigating.

NOTE:  You can get your very own print of The Metabolomic Eye on Snappola here.

This bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) was seen in the trees on the South side of Liberty Park, an urban park in the center of Salt Lake City.  I can’t tell you how happy this made me as I can remember back in the 70′s when I was a kid, the bald eagle population was trying to recover from habitat destruction and DDT contamination that reduced their numbers from around 50,000 nesting pairs in the late 1700′s to a shockingly low 417 nesting pairs in the lower 48 states by 1963.  By 1995, the US Government was able to down list bald eagles from endangered to threatened in most of the United States, one of the great conservation success stories in recent history.  Current estimates are around 4,450 nesting pairs in the lower 48 United States.

Growing up in Texas there were not many opportunities to see a bald eagle, so the first time I ever had a chance to see one in the wild up in Montana, it was a thrilling experience.  This experience was just as exciting as the first time I ever saw a bald eagle.

Camera: Canon 1D MkIV
Exposure: 0/1
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 300mm
ISO: 400

Another bald eagle seen on the same day, though this particular eagle is a bird housed at the Tracy Aviary, also in Liberty Park.  This eagle was grievously injured, losing a wing and now has a permanent home at the aviary, but provides an opportunity for many to see a bald eagle up close.

Camera: Canon 1D MkIV
Exposure: 1/1000
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 300mm
ISO: 640

Last Saturday Photowalking Utah had our January photowalk at The Leonardo, a contemporary science/technology/art museum in downtown Salt Lake City.  Given the climate of Northern Utah in winter, we like to find indoor venues for the colder months and this was no exception.  We had close to 100 people show up for this event, perhaps boosted 20-30% by the article in the Salt Lake Tribune a couple weeks prior.  And thanks to the work of Ann Torrence in setting this up with the staff of the Leonardo (Thanks Karmay Gorley and Michael Aguilar) prior, we had permission to bring in tripods which enabled some mighty fine photography from the attendees.  Check out their shots on the Flickr group here.

An abstract image of an art installation by Amy Caron called Holotype being installed.  Unfortunately, I have prior commitments and will be unable to see the opening night.  Sorry Amy, I’ll make it up to you.  Lunch at Mazza again?

An exhibit showing a close up camera attached to a microscope allowing chip inspection for integrated circuits.

Unfortunately, I failed to get the name of this exhibit, but I stood there talking with a new photographer to the area, Meredith Kulwicki, and could not stop looking over her shoulder at it.

This was my favorite exhibit this go around as it spoke to the neuroscientist in me.  This exhibit was a combination of ink and wire with LEDs that would blink on and off in seemingly random patterns.  It looked very much like a Golgi preparation and made me want one for my office or home wall…

See you all at the next photowalk.  Details to be announced soon.

This series of images are from a developing zebrafish (Danio rerio) at 24, 48 and 72 hours (right to left) visualized with Computational Molecular Phenotyping (CMP).  There are three antibody probes in these images, taurine, L-glutamine and L-glutamate assigned to the red, green and blue color channels respectively.  You can see the brain in the middle with the developing eyes on either side as well as lots of other things if you know what you are looking for…

Drew Ferrell was awarded a Fight For Sight (FFS) grant when he was an undergraduate for which I made his portrait image.  It looks like FFS has used that portrait on the grants portion of their website.

This was the original shot, with the portrait naturally illuminated with a large window behind the camera providing for a large, diffuse softbox appearance.  The day was rather overcast and slightly dark outside, but I wanted the large softbox effect.  So, the overhead fluorescent lights were shut off, I boosted the ISO to a setting that in the not too distant past would have meant unacceptable noise (ISO 2000) which was likely overkill given the reasonably quick shutter speed, but it worked.  Granted, bumping up the ISO is no excuse for not using a flash, but the large soft light source (big window) behind us resolved that problem.  I could have used a little fill light on the left of Drew’s face, but so many of these lab shots are overly processed so as not to appear real.  For anyone that has spent much time in a bioscience lab, the sparkly white lab coat is already a dead giveaway that this is a posed shot.

At any rate, back to technical details.  This image was shot with one of my favorite portrait lenses, the very much unappreciated for portrait work, Canon 100mm f/2.8L macro.  The lens is both wicked sharp, but has a nice standoff working distance and very little inherent distortion and when shot wide open, it nicely isolates the subject from the background with a very pleasing bokeh.

Camera: Canon 1D MkIV
Exposure: 1/250
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 100mm
ISO: 2000

The title of this post was adapted from the Hemingway novel, The Sun Also Rises.  Don’t know why that book popped into my head after this photo was made, but that is the way of things.  This sun, our sun, is setting over the Oquirrh Mountains, West of Salt Lake City, Utah.  Farnsworth Peak is being silhouetted along with the broadcast towers for radio and television transmissions received all over the intermountain West.

My friend Duncan flew into town a few days ago to have Trent and I test out the new hotness from Luma Labs that will be shipping out to consumers in the very near future.  I am writing a complete review and write up of the new Cinch, so look for it in the next week or so after I wring it out on an assignment this weekend.

The goal was to climb out of the valley and the oppressive inversion (Seen from 15,000 feet here) and get some product photographs and video that Duncan edited into this movie.

It was a great time with good friends, and I can say that the time I’ve spent with the new Cinch so far leaves me optimistic for the real workout the Cinch is going to get this upcoming assignment.

The past year has been a busy one…  I’ve never before talked about site statistics as Jonesblog is a low traffic site with only about 250,000 unique visitors/year with posts that generate occasional spikes of insane levels of traffic, but the visitors are steady from almost all parts of the globe brought primarily through Google.  Notable exceptions being Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Somalia, and some sub-Saharan African countries not known for the Internet connectivity.

The major cities with people visiting Jonesblog came from Salt Lake city, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, Chicago, Seattle, Houston, Sydney and Portland.  Platforms represent the following: Windows 71%, Macintosh 19%, iPhone 3%, iPad 2%, then Linux, Android, iPod, BlackBerry and PlayStation.  I’ve been keeping track of statistics since the beginning of Jonesblog back in 1996 and ts been really interesting watching the market share of the Macintosh go from less than 5% 10 years ago to almost 20%.  Firefox 33%, Internet Explorer 23%, Chrome 23%, Safari 15% is the browser market breakdown and I have to say that Internet Explorer at 23% really surprises me.  I would have thought that percentage would have been much lower.

In terms of mobile space, cell phones, tablets and the like devices have exploded in the last couple of years, going from essentially nothing to a substantial percentage of visitors to Jonesblog.  The breakdown sans percentages (Apple products are essentially 90% with everything else splitting up the remaining 10%) are Apple iPhone, Apple iPad and iPod Touch, Motorola DroidX, HTC EVO 4G, HTC Incredible, Sony Ericsson LT15i Arc, Verison Droid and a T-Mobile myTouch4G.  We’ll see what the next year will bring.  I expect that continued growth in the mobile space will supplant more traditional desktop/laptop platforms.

As a side note:  Jonesblog is my personal site that also serves as a repository for my photography as well as keeping in touch with family and friends.  I’ve tried keeping up with most of what goes on in my life here on Jonesblog, though there are some things I have to keep quiet about from time to time including current science prior to publication and news from both science and some of my photography that cannot be released to the public.  However, in the coming year, there are some announcements coming from both the science and the photographic perspectives.  One of the items I’ll tease you with is pretty cool, but its been embargoed until February 2nd.  I hope to talk about this project and more as the year progresses…  Stay tuned.

2011 was an odd year… Photographically it seemed there was steady improvement and an increase in a couple higher paying gigs, but it seemed that I was not *pushing* myself as hard as in the past.  This, will have to be rectified as the next post will cover my favorite photographs from other photographers over the past year I’ve been following who have brought their game.

I am not going to rank these images, but rather will talk about them in chronological order and explain why each one of them has made it into my years top images.  Also, every year like this one, Jim Goldstein has a Best of Photography call where our photo peeps submit their best work and Jim compiles it in a single post.  Its a great opportunity to catch up on the photography of a wide variety of people, particularly with an interest in landscape photography, so you have until January 7th to get your work in.

Onto the photographs…

The year started with a repeat photo gig down in Las Vegas that I’ve been going to in January for the past couple of years.  That gig has so far not produced any images I am particularly fond of, but they have been keeping me in camera gear and end up generating lots of traffic for Jonesblog.  At any rate, I figured that I’d try and piggyback a personal project to photograph some pilots and their aircraft right before being shipped off to patrol the skies over Afghanistan.  Everything was going swimmingly well and I showed up on base with clearances and appropriate passes only to find out that the Air Force had changed their schedule and my shoot would not happen.  I consoled myself with a little spot where the pilots were making low passes that were close enough that the shockwave of air moving over the planes shook me at the same time as you could feel the heat from the exhaust mixing with the cooling desert night.  This was one of the photographs that emerged.  I liked the action and drama from this shot.

This image of a cortical neuron was made while trying out a new approach for meso-scale connectomics.  There is nothing really inherently new about the algorithm or how the data was processed, but the simple technique application could help out groups that are looking to track neuronal connections over larger distances.  At any rate, the approach generated these beautiful images that really reminded me of charcoal and paper drawings, though this is optical microscopy data that has been processed to some degree to render the image.

This image was made while working on a manuscript that ended up being published on the cover of the Journal of Comparative Neurology.  Again, this is not strictly a single photograph, but a photographic composite of  a number of separate images that are computationally combined to create a composite image that reflects the concentration of small molecules in cells or tissues.  The color of this image as well as the amorphous forms deliberately blurred, lend a sort of dreamy quality to the image.

One of the photographic themes I like to play with is macro photography.  I’ve yet to make any money from *any* of my macro photography, but this one was the best macro shots of the year.  This image is a focus stacked shot composed of 3 separate exposures stacked to reveal more depth of field.  If I can make a few more of these, there may be a sale in one of the macro shots yet…  I liked the even illumination (ring flash), the detail in the leaf and body of the fly.

This shot is here because it represents a sea change in photography.  This shot illustrated to me that photography was getting ready to go through another revolution.  I’ve had a few significant photographic changes in my life starting with a Kodak Brownie Box camera, followed by my first SLR then my first digital camera, an Apple Quicktake (deserves its own Jonesblog post sometime), followed by the first digital SLR of mine that produced images I was really proud of, a Canon 20d followed by my first “pro” digital SLR.  Though what makes this image remarkable to me is that its a very good image produced by a small sensor in an iPhone and not a dedicated camera.  I had started to integrate imagery from this blog made with the iPhone a little while ago, but recent revisions of the iPhone have made the imagery rather impressive for the sensor size.  On top of that, while this image is literally straight out of the iPhone camera with no post-processing, the options for controlling that sensor with software signal to me, where photography is going in the future.  Even more compelling from a photojournalism perspective, this image was taken and uploaded immediately to Jonesblog within minutes of it being made.  The combination of good quality imaging sensors with communications devices mean instant communication of imagery from anywhere on the planet a cell tower data link can be achieved.  I liked the atmosphere in this image, a combination of verdant green signifying hope, prosperity and bounty combined with the foreboding sky and dilapidated farm house giving a sense of post apocalyptic abandon….

This shot was my favorite portrait of the year.  I’ve shot a few portraits, most of which have not appeared here, but a couple shots of colleagues have made it.  That said, its my favorite of the year, not only because it features my favorite person on the planet, but also because of the casual informality of it.  Technically, I was really, really happy with the shot, but not because every detail was planned out as I was shooting something completely different and for this shot, casually picked up the camera and made the shot, not really expecting anything to come of it.

Technically, this shot leaves much to be desired, but the challenges of getting the shot were considerable.  It was the first Space Shuttle landing that I’d ever attended and that inexperience combined with some misinformation that the Shuttle would be landing after sunrise, the speed that it landed, the pre-dawn light (or lack thereof) and absolutely lousy press viewing area made for a very small window where images could have been captured.  The action, appeals to me here though the blur on the parachute and high ISO noise is not quite what I had in mind…  That said, its a historical image as it was the absolute last Space Shuttle landing ever and it somehow works for me.

This morning shot of the Bonneville Salt Flats was made during Speed Week, a time with lots of race cars out on the salt.  But this image shows the desolate, yet fragile nature of the environment out there.  There is something about the desert that has always appealed to me.  The desolation, the stark beauty and *silence*…  Though during Speed Week, there is not much that is silent out on the salt as the race cars engines echo across the barren salt flats during their high speed runs down remarkably flat surfaces.  This particular image had remarkable color contrast (no polarizer on this particular shot.  The sun was just in the right place) with the sky against the salt floor of the basin.

This grey heron (Ardea cinerea) seen in Baden Baden, Germany on the Lichtentaler Allee  was one of the better quality bird shots I’ve been able to manage with the relatively short lenses in my bag.  As this bird *slowly* walked up through the stream, he stopped in a beam of light that illuminated this grey heron against a very dark background, making the shot.

This shot of the Strasbourg Cathedral was made the evening of  a very quick, stop in Strasbourg, France a few months ago.  The skies had just cleared, going from grey to blue as the evening sun was starting to throw its light against the cathedral.  I had hoped for a decent shot of the Cathedral with evening light, but had almost given up hope just 30 minutes before.

This shot from the Lockheed C-130J production line was made  during a recent visit to the Lockheed Martin plant in Georgia.  The aircraft are made from a variety of materials that have different color anti-corrosion paints and epoxies as well as coatings and materials that it makes for a vibrant palate that is forever hidden at the next step in the assembly line, paint.  After painting, these aircraft are made to blend in to their surrounding environments with all grey or green color schemes.

These shots of the last lunar eclipse of 2011 were made from the Moran Eye Center in Salt Lake City as the moon set against a hazy morning sky.  This was my first attempt at capturing imagery from an eclipse and hope the next one will be in a warmer season.

Update: Here is Jim Goldstein’s list:

From Jim Goldstein:

“This year we had an amazing turn out for the Best Photos of 2011 blog project with 289 entries, topping the results for best photos of 2010,  best photos of 2009, best photos of 2008 and best photos of 2007! Participants spanned a spectrum of skill levels from hobbyists to professionals and covered a wide variety of genres including landscape, macro, nature, photojournalism, portraiture, event, wildlife, fine art photography and more. There are likely many names you’ll recognize below and many others you won’t. I highly recommend visiting each entry as I have. Even after 5 years of running this blog project I’m blown away by the talent of those that take part. It is truly inspirational to see so much creativity and beauty. If your curious to see photos I personally enjoyed look out for the entries with *** next to them.”

1. JMG-Galleries Best Photos of 2011 – Jim M. Goldstein
2. Dalal al-Dhubaib’s flickr – Dalal al-dhobaib
3. www.mawpix.com – Matthias Wassermann
4. 2011 Retrospective – Alex Wise
5. Jon McCormack Photography – Jon McCormack ***
6. Top 10 of 2011 a Exploring Light Photography – Chris Moore
7. The year in review: My favorite 2011 Photos – Ed Rosack
8. Dave Wilson Photography – Dave Wilson
9. Top 10 from Behind The Clicks – Mohammad Noman
10. Art in Nature Photography: Best of 2011 – Floris van Breugel ***
11. Alaska Photography – Mike Criss
12. My best photos from 2011 – Lasse Sørnes
13. http://www.500px.com/photo/3230405 – Keivan Zavari
14. My Five Best Images of 2011 – Peter Cox ***
15. My Top 10 images of 2011 – Charlie Widdis Photography
16. MY TOP PHOTOS FROM 2011 – Chaz Curry ***
17. Best of 2011 – Juan Guevara
18. Stories From Home – David Patterson
19. My Best Of 2011 – The Photographs – Sven Seebeck
20. The Uprooted Photographer – Zach Frailey
21. Top ten wildlife photos of 2011 – Burrard-Lucas Wildlife Photography ***
22. Eleven From Twenty Eleven – Jacob F. Lucas ***
23. My ten favorite photos of 2011 – Stefan Bäurle
24. Changing Perspectives – Jenni Brehm
25. 2011 Top 10 Photos – Andrei Olariu
26. Best Photos of 2011 – Ahmed Almuhairi
27. Favorite Photos of 2011 – Pat Ulrich ***
28. Top 11 of 2011 – Younes Bounhar
29. Natural California – John Wall ***
30. 2011 – A Review – Jim Denham
31. yeeehah.com – William R. Bullock
32. 2011Top11 – Kate Church
33. Top Ten Photos of 2011 – Steve Cole
34. Top 10 of 2011 – Brian Rueb ***
35. http://www.davidjohnstonart.com/index.html – David Johnston
36. 7 Images of Denver in 2011 – Neil Corman
37. My Top 10 for 2011 – Lon Overacker
38. Craig Ferguson Images | The Year That Was – Craig Ferguson
39. My Best Images of 2011 – Clark Crenshaw
40. “Sort of the best of 2011: ants – Jeroen Mentens
41. Best Photos Of 2011 – Dawnstar Australis – Daniel McNamara
42. Skolai Images – Carl Donohue ***
43. Favorite 10 of 2011 – Alan Dahl ***
44. Tony’s Blog – Tony Unwin
45. Best of 2011_Laurie Rubin – Laurie Rubin ***
46. FlixelPix Best Photos of 2011 – David Cleland
47. Ilja Melnikov – Ilja Melnikov
48. Best of 2011 – Rob Tilley ***
49. Free Roaming Photography 12 Best Photos from 2011 – Mike Cavaroc ***
50. Adventures Through the Lens: 2011 in Review – Rebecca R Jackrel ***
51. Top Photos of 2011 by Gary Crabbe / Enlightened Images – Gary Crabbe ***
52. My 10 Best Photos of 2011 – Michael Russell
53. Digitized Chaos’ 2011 faves – Rian Castillo
54. Top 10 Photos of 2011 – Mike Chowla
55. John Fujimagari’s Best of 2011 – John Fujimagari
56. 10 Best Landscape Photos of 2011 – Cody Duncan ***
57. Best photos from 2011 – Janis Janums
58. Best Photos Of 2011 – David Leland Hyde ***
59. PhotogAbby’s Photoviews – Abigail Gossage
60. Do Not Get On or Off While in Motion – G. Kaltenbrun
61. Tony Wu’s Underwater Photography Blog – Tony Wu ***
62. 12 Months – 12 Favourite Images – Petr Hlavacek | NZICESCAPES IMAGES ***
63. Alpenglow Images | Greg Russell Best of 2011 – Greg Russell ***
64. An End of Year Retrospective for 2011 – The Top 11 Images of ’11 – Derrald Farnsworth-Livingston
65. 11 from ‘11 – Dru Stefan Stone
66. William Neill’s Top Forty Images for 2011 – William Neill ***
67. Dave’s Best Of 2011 – Dave Reichert
68. 10 Best Photos of 2011 by Scott Thompson – Scott Thompson – Scott Shots Photography
69. My best 10 images of 2011? – Duffy Knox
70. My 5 Top Photos from 2011 and Photography Year in Review – Tommy Holt
71. Russ Bishop Photography – Russ Bishop ***
72. My Top 10 Favourite Images of 2011 – John Dunne Photography
73. Asif Patel Photography – TopPhotos2011 – Asif Patel
74. The Best of 2011 – Neil McShane (aka Mononeil) ***
75. Top Nature Photographs of 2011 by Mark Graf – Mark Graf ***
76. Year 2011 in 10 photos. – Filip Lucin
77. Views Infinitum: Best of 2011 – Scott Thomas
78. Dobson Central Photography – Top 10 Photos of 2011 – Ken Dobson
79. “The Best of Myrmecos – Alex Wild ***
80. Your Favorite Shots from 2011 – Fred S. Brundick
81. Patrick Gensel – The Best Of 2011 – Patrick Gensel
82. 100 Favorite pictures from 2011 – Patrick J Endres
83. My Ten Favorite Photos of 2011 – Randy Langstraat
84. KennethVerburg.nl – Kenneth Verburg ***
85. Naturography: My Top 5 for 2011 – Mike Spinak ***
86. Edith Levy Photography – 2011 A Year in Review – Edith Levy
87. G Dan Mitchell Photography – G Dan Mitchell ***
88. Jonesblog – Bryan William Jones
89. Timages’ 2011 Top Ten – Tim Mulcahy
90. naturalvision-photo.com – Derek Griggs
91. Favorites of the Year: 2011 – Ken Trout
92. Beetles in the Bush – Ted C. MacRae
93. Chuqui 3.0 – Chuq Von Rospach
94. Peter Carroll Photography – Peter Carroll
95. My photos of 2011 – Frederico Quintao
96. http://raptorgallery.wordpress.com – Glenn Nevill
97. Best of 2011 – Brad Barton Photography – Brad Barton Photography ***
98. Rocky Mountain National Park 2011 / Non-Rocky Best of 2011 – Erik Stensland
99. My Favorite/Best Photographs of 2011 – Inge Fernau
100. Best Photos of 2011 – Ryan Golias
101. Best of 2011 – Larry Rosenstein
102. Best of 2011 – Mellimage
103. The Quiet Picture – Year 2011 In Pictures – Minna Kinnunen
104. My personal Top 10 images from 2011 – Alexander S. Kunz / Daylight Colors
105. 11 Best of 2011 – Olivier Du Tré ***
106. Best Photos of 2011 – Jim Coda ***
107. Living Wilderness: Best Images of 2011 – Kevin Ebi ***
108. Oxherder Arts – Best of 2011 – Don Schulte
109. my best images of 2011 – Rhoda Maurer ***
110. http://www.stamates.com – Jim Stamates
111. Organic Light Pan – Youssef Ismail ***
112. Rick Diffley Photography – Rick Diffley Photography
113. Best Images of 2011 – Robin Black ***
114. PhotoWalkPro – Jeff Revell
115. Highlights from 2011 – Roman W. Schatz
116. Uncommon Depth – Roberta Murray ***
117. TKM Journal – Highlights of 2011 – Kent Mearig
118. Amanda Herbert’s best of 2011 – Amanda Herbert Photography
119. Google+ – Umes Shrestha
120. Anne McKinnell’s Top 10 Images of 2011 – Anne McKinnell
121. Best Photos of 2011 – Jim Maher
122. www.fredmertzphotography.com – Fred Mertz
123. Top 10 Photos of 2011 – Ireena Worthy
124. 11 in 2011 – My Favorite Photos – Debra Feinman
125. 2011 Top Ten Plant Photos By John Manuwal Photography – John Manuwal
126. www.azaelmeza.com – Azael Meza
127. David Sharp – The Best of 2012 – David Sharp ***
128. Looking back at 2011 – Ivan Makarov ***
129. Best Photos of 2011 – Pete Miller – USKestrel Adventography
130. My favorite 10 of 2011 – John Christopher
131. Neil Creek – Photographer – Neil Creek ***
132. JohnLPhoto Best of 2011 – John Lemen
133. Momentary Awe – Catalin ***
134. 2011 Top Ten – Andrew S Gibson
135. “Crest, Cliff and Canyon – A. Jackson Frishman
136. 2011 – A Good Year – Margaret Summers
137. Favorite Photos from 2011 – Richard Wong *** – Richard Wong
138. latoga photography – Favorite Photos of 2011 – Greg A. Lato
139. Looking Back – 2011 – Derek Fogg
140. My Photo Blog – Ron Niebrugge’s favorite photos from 2011 – Ron Niebrugge ***
141. My 10 Favorite Photos of 2011 – Dan Bailey ***
142. My 11 favorites from 2011 – Kurt M. Lawson Photography ***
143. Happy New Year – Lori Ann Cole
144. My Top 10 Mixture – Ashley Cottle
145. Google+ Beach Photography – Jennifer Brinkman
146. Top 10 images of 2011 – Denise Goldberg
147. www.azaelmeza.com – Azael Meza
148. Erwin Kessing Photography – Erwin Kessing
149. The Closing of the Year – Eustace James
150. Mark Feenstra Photography: 10 Favourites from 2011 – Mark Feenstra
151. Best Photos of 2011 – Ingo Meckmann ***
152. Dynamics of Light and Shade – Richard Murphy
153. My 20 Best from 2011 – David Maurer
154. Top11 2011 – Patrick Ottoy
155. Best of 2011 – David Edenfield
156. Little Time Machine – This was 2011 – Pete Carr
157. The Owl and the Wildcat – Jen Joynt
158. Best of 2011 – Alison Wells
159. My 2011 Best Nature and Landscape Photographs – Steve Sieren ***
160. Best photos of 2011 on Flickr – Jono Hey
161. Best Photos of 2011 – Ken Snyder
162. Best Photos of 2011 by Ilya Genkin – Ilya Genkin ***
163. My best of 2011 – Terri Jacobson
164. Piya Trepetch Photography – Top Ten Images from 2011 – Piya Trepetch
165. My Best 10 Pictures for 2011 – Barbara Newson
166. Woo’s 2011 in Pictures – Gary Woo
167. My (Possibly) Ten Best Photos from 2011 – Jim McCoy
168. Favorites – 2011 – Daniel Leu ***
169. Closescapes Favourites From 2011. – Marshall Black
170. Nature and Landscape – Small Choice 2011 – Ben Schreck
171. http://wernerpriller.wordpress.com/ – Werner Priller ***
172. Peter de Rooij’s Top 10 for 2011 – Peter de Rooij
173. Best photos of 2011 by ISIK MATER – ISIK MATER
174. Best Photos of 2011 – ysvry
175. Focused Planet Photography – Justin Scicluna
176. Best of 2011 by Carl-Johan Rådström – Carl-Johan Rådström
177. Western Skies Top 11 From 2011 – Björn Göhringer
178. My Best People Shots – Matt Goode
179. Darin Rogers Photography: Best Of… – Darin Rogers
180. http://www.juzno.com/ – Rob Castro
181. Remembering 2011 in Photos – Aaron Hockley ***
182. Favorites From 2011 – Brad Mangas ***
183. Robb Hirsch Best of 2011 – Robb Hirsch ***
184. Best Photos of 2011 – Sathish Jothikumar ***
185. My best underwater photos 2011 – Suzy Walker ***
186. Year 2011 in review and favorite images – QT Luong ***
187. “10 From Michael Toye – Michael Toye
188. Photoimagery.net – Peter McCabe
189. 2011 – Our Favorite Images of the Year – Isabel & Steffen Synnatschke ***
190. ylitalot.net – Juha Ylitalo
191. Top Ten Photos of 2011 – by Brian Grzelewski – Brian Grzelewski
192. Jim Nickelson Favorites of 2011 – Jim Nickelson
193. 2011: My Top Ten Images – Michael Frye ***
194. My Top Images of 2011 – Andrew Kee
195. Favorites of 2011 – Simon Ponder
196. 2011’s Top 10 Picks – Vidya Narasimhan
197. My Top Ten Favourites from 2011 – Adriana Glackin
198. Top Ten of 2011 – Fedor G Pikus
199. Best Photos of 2011 – Hady Moslehi
200. Mara @ Fantasia – Photo Round up of 2011 – Mara Acoma
201. My Journey through 2011 – Kevin Thornhill
202. My 10 personal favorites of 2011 – Marleen Hallaert
203. Favorite Photographs From 2011 – Seung Kye Lee ***
204. Best Photos of 2011 – Michael Gerken
205. Simple Photography – Jay Shah
206. My Top Ten Photos of 2011 – Mike Isaak ***
207. http://lensmankc.com/?p=811 – Amit Jung K.C
208. baliultimatephoto.blogspot.com – Hendra Wiguna
209. My Favourite photos from 2011 – Alan Owens
210. John Dusseault’s top 10 of 2011 – John Dusseault
211. Favorites of 2011 – Plastic[Picture]
212. Farsighted – Ron Artigues
213. Google Plus – Darren Harmon
214. Bill Hornbostel Photography – Bill Hornbostel
215. Korwel Photograpy blog – Iza Korwel
216. Favorite Photos of 2011 – Elizabeth Brown Photography PhotoBlog – Elizabeth Brown
217. 2011 Highlights – Alan Grinberg
218. TJTPhotography.com – Ted Truex
219. Thamer Al-Hassan Photographer – Thamer Al-Hassan
220. Top 11 of ‘11 – Brian Arnold
221. Looking Back – 2011 Top Ten – Jessica Sweeney
222. Light Coming Back – Favorite Images of 2011 – Jennifer Durham
223. My Favorite Landscape Photos of 2011 – Joshua Cripps
224. Favorites Photographs from 2011 – Sudheendra Kadri
225. João Almeida Photography – João Almeida
226. Le meilleur de 2011 – The Best of 2011 – Francis Gagnon
227. Five Pictures for 2011 – David Lloyd ***
228. Ian Ference – Google+ Top Photos 2011 – Ian Ference ***
229. Marcin P?kalski – Google+ – Marcin P?kalski
230. www.thephotographerblog.com – Mandy Jones
231. My Top 10 of 2011 – Clement Biger
232. russell.tomlin at Flickr – Russell S Tomlin
233. Yosemite – Sheldon Neill
234. My Top 10 shots for 2011 – Greg Berdan
235. Best of 2011 – Dan Baumbach ***
236. Top Photos 2011 by Mark Dodge Medlin – Mark Dodge Medlin
237. The Carey Adventures – Peter West Carey ***
238. http://www.wildernessadventureimages.com/ – Michael Burkhardt
239. “Looking at the West – Andrew McAllister ***
240. Photos and Ramblings by Steve Mattheis – Steve Mattheis
241. My Favorite Photos of 2011 – Brandon Doran ***
242. Shanti Gilbert – Best Of 2011 – Shanti Gilbert
243. “10 of 2011 – David S. Ottavio
244. Best photos from 2011 – Mark J P
245. Heather’s Flickr – 2011 Top 10 – Heather Wallace
246. Ben Chase Photography – Benjamin Chase
247. Hypo-theses – Ian Stimpson
248. “Best photos of 2011 – Robert Kusztos
249. “Best of 2011 – Anton Huo
250. Best of 2011: JMG Gallery – Stephen Zacharias
251. Flickr Best of 2011 – Esther Reyes
252. My Top 10 of 2011 – The Siggins Photography – Richard Siggins
253. Andrew Benson | Best of 2011 – Andrew Benson
254. http://www.johnpaulcaponigro.com/blog/ – John Paul Caponigro ***
255. Google+ – Jim Davis
256. Beckmann Images – Best of 2011 Images – 500px – Matt Beckmann
257. Google + – Paul Conrad
258. Avelino’s Best of 2011 – Avelino Maestas
259. JMK Photography’s Best of 2011 – J. Krasner
260. Rob Dweck’s Top 10 From 2011 – Rob Dweck ***
261. www.myFedoraPhoto.com – Neal Fedora
262. Best of 2011 on Google+ – Robert Mann ***
263. My Top 10 Best Photos from 2011 by Matt Suess – Matt Suess ***
264. My Favorites from 2011 – Michele Wassell
265. My Top 10 Images of 2011 – Tom Bushey
266. A Selection of Favorites from 2011 by Christine Hauber – Christine Hauber ***
267. Favorite Images from 2011 – James B Martin
268. Kauai 2011 – Sharon Willson
269. “Best of 2011: Top 10 – Mark Hespenheide ***
270. shirley lo photos – shirley lo
271. Google+ – Christina Lawrie – Christina Lawrie ***
272. My Ten 2011 Faves – Rich Greene
273. Sunset at Vizhinjam – Agnisoonu K
274. Gary Randall Photography – 2011 – Year in Review – Gary Randall ***
275. 2011 faves – Anthony Chiong
276. NewmanImages: 2011 in Retrospect – Jay and Sue Newman
277. My 11 favorite pictures of 2011 – Marc Perkins
278. My Best Images of 2011 – Vaibhav Tripathi
279. My Best Shots 2011 – Annika Ruohonen
280. Top 11 Photos of 2011 – Shane Srogi ***
281. Wolfcats Top 10 images – Wolfcat
282. Alexander Filatov Photography – Alexander Filatov ***
283. Wendy Baker Photography Best of 2011 – Wendy Baker
284. My 6 best of 2011 – Patrick Smith
285. randomfire: The best of 2011 – Ramin Miraftabi
286. Closing California Parks – Eliya Selhub ***
287. MY BEST OF 2011 – Stan Rapada
288. 2011 Top 10 – Kyle Jones
289. 2011 Studies | Best of 2011 – Oskar Bruening ***
     Special Thanks To Oskar for his technical contribution to this list!

Continuing the tradition of posting our Christmas card up here on Jonesblog, I wish you all a very merry Christmas.  Its not quite the end of the year and perhaps there will be a post or two in-between now and then, but the important thing is that I let you all know how important you are.  Thank you for your love, your life, your hard work and your friendship over the past year.

This post is a little late due to a weird series of hard drive failures, a looming manuscript deadline and more.  Regardless, better late than never so I give to you a series of images from the last lunar eclipse of 2011 as seen from the Moran Eye Center on the morning of December 10th.  I shot on a timer until the moon started moving down through the haze and fog and the sun started rising behind me.

The image just above was one grabbed with my iPhone held up to a spotting scope.  Not as much pixel depth, but still a higher magnification image than I could get with the SLR cameras.

Lockheed Martin invited me down to Marietta, Georgia to have a look at the production line of the C-130J Super Hercules transport aircraft a little while ago.  Having flown on and crawled through the bones of older C-130s as well as seen the repair and refurbishment of C-130s up at Hill AFB, I eagerly accepted the offer wanting to see what had changed on an aircraft that almost did not get made were it not for Lockheed privately investing over $1 Billion on their own without a government contract.

The basic C-130 design goes back to 1951 with the first flight in 1953, a schedule that I suspect could simply not be matched these days.  The fact that the design is still in production makes it the only military aircraft in the world to be continuously produced by the same company for over 50 years.  Though, saying that the C-130J is like the original C-130 is like comparing a 2012 Porsche 911 with a 1953 Porsche 356.  The basic layout is the same, but everything else is completely different.  The C-130 was originally conceived as a troop and cargo transport aircraft, but has seen service as a search and rescue platform, aerial refueling, special operations derivatives designed for communication access, interference and delivery, other special operations derivatives designed to serve as aerial artillery platforms,   Other versions still are used for weather reconnaissance, atmospheric research, aerial mapping (I’ve hung out of the back of one C-130 making photos of the Earth below), remote sensing and firefighting.  There is even a direct action modification used by the Marine Corps called Harvest Hawk.

The aircraft is in service with over 60 nations worldwide symbolized by the line of flags of customer nations on the production floor of the building.  C-130Js are now flown by  the United States Air Force and Air National Guard, the United State Marine Corps, and United States Coast Guard; and by the governments and military of Australia, Britain, Canada, Denmark, India, Israel, Italy, Iraq, Norway, Oman, Qatar, South Korea and Tunisia.

 I have to also say something about the building where the C-130J is finally assembled…  The building itself at Dobbins Air Reserve Base, is *HUGE*.  Its one of the biggest buildings I’ve ever been in and has a long history, notably being used to produce Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers in WWII.  Given its size, one might assume that the entire plane was built here, but a large number of components for the aircraft are actually fabricated and sourced from all over the United States and even the world.  Some components are fabricated in Pinellas Park, Florida while much of the fuselage is fabricated in Meridian, Mississippi along with the cargo floor.  Many of the sheet metal components are supplied from Johnstown, Pennsylvania with other subassemblies like the rear cargo ramp are sourced from Clarksburg, West Virginia while the tail assembly seen above is made in Nashville, Tennessee.

Forward fuselage components and the cockpits are constructed here at Marietta on jigs designed to speed assembly while maintaining precision.  The new C-130J is designed to reduce manning and be operated by two pilots and a loadmaster rather than the two pilots, flight engineer and loadmaster previously required.  The flight deck is all new with digital avionics and mission dedicated computers that allow instrument only cargo drops with AN/APN-241 radar providing high resolution imagery and ground mapping capability.  There is a sophisticated, enhanced cargo handling system as well designed to speed cargo loading and unloading, though a new lower cost model, the C-130XJ does without the cargo handling system for a substantial reduction in unit cost.  All other features and performance for this model remains the same.

The landing gears are made in Canada and are designed to facilitate rough field or unimproved landing conditions.  Though I’ve only flown on C-130s that have made landings on pavement, I’ve seen footage of some rough field landings of the C-130 and its impressive that these landing gears can take that kind of abuse, particularly when loaded with cargo.

Final assembly really is a beautiful thing as these planes get their wings and engines.  The engines are Rolls Royce AE2100D3 turboprops generating 4,700 horsepower each and made in the UK.  They are fitted with 6-blade Dowty all composite propellers also made in the U.K.  The engines and propellers are largely responsible for the increase in performance of the J model (29% more thrust with 15% more efficiency), but also important are many structural weight saving uses of composites.  In these assembly pictures, anything on the skin or control surfaces you see in black is a carbon fiber composite made in Australia.

The new C-130, despite being a far more capable aircraft than its predecessor is designed to be more affordable for its customers with a total cost of ownership that is substantially reduced in the C-130J, reducing by increasing fuel efficiency, reducing manning and cutting by more than half the number of maintenance hours per flight hour.  On top of that, Lockheed is secretly hoping that the newer lower cost model, the C-130XJ will help preserve some market share against the potential competition from other manufacturers.

The length of time this design has been around truly is amazing, but one still gets the feeling that this plane is absolutely modern.  The new cockpit, quieter engines and substantially increased performance help out, so I’ll have to find an opportunity to go along for a ride on a new C-130J and see what has changed from the passengers perspective since the older C-130H that I last had the pleasure to travel in.

A simple neuron from a slice of the visual cortex.  There is something I kind of like about the way these images are created, making them look like charcoal on paper illustrations, but these are optical sections of microscopy imagery.