Marc Benton dot Com

Ninjas vs Pirates Invades DC

This past weekend Sherri and I attended an epic battle between…well…evil and evil.  The nation’s capital was the battleground chosen by the silent but deadly Ninja clans and the equally deadly but sometimes vulgar and always rum-drunk Pirate crews.  Ninja vs Pirates was on!

Sherri and I chose our sides, she joined the crew, me the clan.  She even dressed for the occasion which I enjoyed very much as she makes quite the vision in lace and knee high boots.

The evil forces faced off in feats of skill to show off their killing proficiency by participating in games such as Simon Says, Tug-of-War and Capture the Flag.  In the end it was a draw.  As the sides gathered their wounded and retreated to safer ground they both vowed to meet next year and continue the blood feud.

I can’t wait.

Lets get the pirate photos out of the way first…

Ok, enough of that…now on to the elusive Ninjas (btw, I risked life and limb to obtain these extremely rare photos of real live Ninjas).

Tags: cosplay, epic battle, ninja, pirate, washington dc

Animation domination

West side of the Wheeling Suspension Bridge.  I noticed this effect in Lightroom when traversing the photos from this night’s shoot and thought it would make a good animated gif.  Hope you like it.

Thanks to @matthewdlyons for the Elements tip to create this.

Tags: animated gif, green, red, stoplight, suspension bridge, west virginia, wheeling

ITS COLD

…up to the elbow you say Dianne?  Oh, we’re back…and now to Ollie Williams for our Blaccueather report.  Ollie is on the road in Columbus, OH. How’s the weather out there Ollie?
ITS COLD!!!
Thank you for that riveting report Ollie.  Lets move on to Asian reporter Trisha Takanawa’s photos of Columbus and Dublin (insert racial sterotype here):

Stay warm everyone and most importantly…be safe!

Tags: cold, Columbus, Digital Photography, Humor, Ohio, Photos, snow, weather

Moonlight over the Potomac

Sherri and I went to see Avatar in 3-d at an IMAX theater in Alexandria only to find that it was sold out until Monday.  We ended up in Old Town playing dominos at Starbucks.  Before we left we braved the frigid temps to take a peek at the waterfront.  This moonlight was coming from this year’s Blue Moon.

This was taken hand held with a 50mm 1.4 lens.  Processed on my new ASUS Eee netbook in Lightroom.  I do not have all my plugins and add-ons loaded yet so there was no noise reduction ran against this image.

Tags: Alexandria, blue moon, boats, moonlight, night, Potomac River, Virginia, water

Oh Deer!

A family of deer we spotted near Long Branch Farm.

Tags: buck, deer, fawn