I seem to be buried under a photographic avalanche of my own making. I thought that today I'd get started with the bonanza of interesting and/or pretty pictures that I hinted at yesterday, but instead, today I took two more shots that I want to share.
While waiting for the fall colors to come into full swing, there are the occasional early flashes of color that entertain. My office window affords a nice view of the neighbor's front garden, with one such “early flash of color” tree. It was overcast and rainy today, with occasional short bursts of sun sprinkled throughout, and during one such sprinkle I finally gave in and snapped a picture.
Nikon D200 + TC17II + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 340mm — 1/180 sec, f/6.3, ISO 500 — full exif
View from my Office
It's still got a fair amount of green, so I presume that it'll only get
more brilliant over the next week or so. If it does and the weather
cooperates, I'll try the shot again with a wider depth of field, as the
thinness in the shot above is a bit distracting, I think. (Still, it's a nice enough shot to be worth desktop-sized versions 
)
This evening I had a chance to meet with a friend I hadn't seen in a couple of years, Kousuke Fukui. He retired last spring, and has since taken on quite the dapper look that suits him very well. I'm thrilled with how this picture turned out, that I snapped handheld with available light while sitting across from him in a restaurant.