OK - beautiful shots. Can't wait to see the rest. Can I ask a question? How on earth can you afford to keep taking all these trips? And I don't just mean money - I mean time. Are you still freelancing? I just quit my job so I am curious (morbidly). Hope you're doing well!

gillian (Brew 4) ;-)

Paul those are some awesome pics. I see you took my advice on going to Sea World instead of The SD Zoo. Hope you had fun.

Cant wait for the rest.

I don't do enough freelance to consider it work. Here and there, now and then.

As long as it doesn't interfere with my softball, website, guitar, partying and photography schedules.

Have you played with those pictures or did you just slap them up?

Taken with the new camera, I'm assuming? Fab.

Glad you're home safe and sound!

pk the photojournalist! wow, nice shots, my friend!!! glad you're back!!!!

Damn, those are some solid pictures...I especially like the one of the Golden Gate Bridge. I look forward to seeing the rest.

Oh, and welcome back East.

Lucy, I guess if someone is good enough with painting on some layer masks, you can get any sort of color with a photo that's well-composed.

Typically, I auto the levels and contrast, bump up the hue and saturation a bit, then sharpen. That's how I got the balloon photo. A few quick keystrokes; I guess the color was already there in some fashion.

There are easy techniques to add a blue sky with fluffy clouds, but I guess that's cheating. Haven't tried that yet. I usually desaturate to B/W when the sky sucks, or shoot directly in B/W like the Golden Gate photo.

Welcome back Paul.

make sure you put the Bridge shot on Fotki. I'm buyin' it

Great pics as always!

So glad that you are back. My daily reads are just not the same without PK.com.

Nice pic's man! Can't wait till i hear you comment on scottsdale,AZ i used to live there.
welcome back and get your ass in gear for FOOTBALL Season. i`m talkin fantasy and madden 06.Plus the real thing too hehe

Can't wait to read (and see) about your adventure- the good, the bad & especially the ugly! Welcome Home!

Looks like some great pics, glad you had a blast. I hope there are some non blog(i.e risque) stories to tell over a beer or ten watching the Yanks. I know for a fact Phoenix has great strip clubs, nothing like Montreal tho..

And damn that Al Leiter, he can find his paycheck, but not home plate!

I didn't hit any strip clubs. I'll save that cash for the Montreal Beer Festival 2006.

Welcome back! While you were gone, Cass became the first stop on my morning blogroll. Good luck getting that spot back ;-)

Hey Paul

As I thought, awesome shots.

I hope you got my text with the email address for Shenee.

Looking forward to reading your take on our trip.

Bex

wb PK

Look forward to seeing all the pics from the trip. Sometimes I forget just how beautiful parts of this country are....I get the feeling your pics will be a nice reminder.

awesome pics. My question is (and I don't know the answer) isn't playing with the picture at all cheating a little bit? Or is what you do the same exact thing people used to do in darkrooms all the time?

I think that's a legit question and I don't think I'm good enough to play around too much. I would imagine most digital pics are at least sharpened. I do enhance the colors a bit, but not too much. I would expect people to do the same. Just highlighting the highlights, really.

Composition — the framing of the photo — is one thing you can't really mess with.

I'm in the process of uploading over 200 more from the trip. I tossed out some that could be considered some of the best I've ever posted — the Grand Canyon is that spectacular. Nothing I could have done to the photos could over-extend the beauty of the place. A must-see in anyone's lifetime, and I'll write more about that in the full trip report, scheduled to be up by bedtime Friday.

All the photos should be up by Thursday morning.