This is Edgar, a Ravens pillow pet and the newest member of the MDP family.   He’s excited about Sunday’s big game.

 This is another picture of a butterfly from Brookside gardens.  Similar to this post

It’s a new year at MDP.  Sorry again for the sporadic posts.   We’re still here though.    In 2012 MDP has a new resolution not to purchase any new camera equiptment until MDP has eaked every last ounce of photograpic power out of what it has.   Or until I lose a sufficient amount of weight to reward myself with a frivelous camera accessory.   So today’s picture comes from the last frivelous camera accesory (a new lens with very shallow depth of field), that MDP will have for a long time.

Yes, in this picture you can’t see his foot, but I’m saving that for another picture.

I posted a similar picture to this one a while ago. I shot this bridge railing over loch raven a few different ways. The difference here is that this shot was taken with my film camera and has a totally different feel to it.

To the mdp family: happy holidays.

Another super wide shot of the trail.

It’s that time again.  You know where these came from

You didn’t think you’d get through all this time without a train photo, did you?

I frequently post pictures from Rock Creek Trail.  So finding a new way to look at the trail started to become important to me a few months ago.  I stuck a lens that was made for small sensor digital cameras onto my film camera and got a few of the cool looking, super wide shots.

The purple flamingo at home in its natural habitat; the front yard of a Baltimore County home.

MDP has to appologize for the unannounced hiatus of the last few weeks.  There was a lot of stuff going on at MDP photoquarters and the effort of posting a daily photo, as trivial as it sounds, was actually a bit much for a while.  That said, and now that you may think that the last full weeks were full of stress and work, today’s picture came from… well it came from a cruise ship.   Yes, we’re sorry to say that part of why MDP was not available was because of a vacation.

So here, is a shot from the ship during sunset, just south of the key bridge.

Sorry for MDP’s temporary hiatius over the last week.  Things got busy in the MDP photoquarters and we didn’t have a chance to update everything.    So, in honor of tomorrow’s ravens game, here’s a ravens picture. This is a bit old, but only by a year. That’s just a significantly out of date jersey.

MDP follower, Adam sends this pic from the Maryland House travel plaza, asking why MDP’s coverage of Frank Zappa has been so poor.  We have no answer, only shame.

Today we have the House of Delegates chambers to match the State Senate chambers yesterday.

From his trip to annapolis, Bryan today offers us a shot of the Maryland state senate chambers.

Todays inaporopriate road sign comes from bryan in towson who spied this one on rt 50 outside the bay bridge.

When  I went to Loch Raven last month I was drawn to one specific point.  This one right here.   That island used to be connected to the main land and it was a popular spot becasue it’s right next to the open area by the roadway with easy parking.   While the reservoir is full of cool things, most of them require at least a little hiking through the woods.   So this area becomes the visiting area of choice for those who wish to enjoy nature with as little walking as possible.  In other words, everyone goes here.    So the island is a pretty well known spot, and it certainly was a point of curiosity for me on this trip.

What I really enjoyed was walking back out of the area.  On my way to the car I was following four people, about the same age as me, who I did not know and did not try to engage.   We passed a couple walking towards us who asked, “how are things?”    The goup of four’s response, “you can’t get to the island any more.”

This has been your mdp photo that is artsy for the sake of being artsy. It comes to us from the bridge over loch raven reservoir.

From the New Jersey Monument at Monocacy.

I recently got a new camera lens with the ability to focus on a very small area.  with the weather all crazy, its been kept inside.  As i needed something relevant to mdp, i present this orioles t shirt

This ship just coincidentally happened to be docked in the Inner Harbor as I was walking by testing out a new – old camera I had bought on e-bay. As a test subject it worked well.  since I don’t work in Baltimore any more I don’t get to see the ships coming and going as watching them dock is always interesting.

Here’s another shot of Deep Creek from Bryan, this time without the fog.   Deep Creek Lake is Maryland’s largest lake, and it’s largest body of contained water.  As you know, Maryland has no natural lakes,  so this deep lake with 68 miles of shoreline is actually man-made.

Bryan sends us today’s shot of the Fog over Deep Creek Lake. 

104 years old, the Brunswick Marc station is another former B&O station on the lines from both DC and Baltimore to Harper’s Ferry.   Today with no western passenger service out of Baltimore, it serves DC commuters on the MARC line.

Just a monday morning shot of two trains .   The white sign reads,”close clearance”

I think the weather has officially turned to winter now.  This pool with it’s green water won’t be seeing anyone for a few months.

One more shot where you can see what’s required to reload the engine with coal for a one mile round trip.

Sorry to keep everyone in suspense for so long.    Those past two photos were from the B&O musuem steam fest two weekends ago.   Here we see the tank engine #4 (named St. Eslizabeth for the hospital in DC where it used to run.) lumbering into the station. 

Here’s another clue.

I’ll give you a few guesses where this came from

Despite the fact that over the last century people have been moving into developments and that the hampton house is closely surrounded on two sides by developments and on another side by the beltway, the views around the house have been skillfully maintained.  Here you can see the view to the North.

Just another shot from the reservoir.

Now this is a dam.   The newly (7 or so years)  refurbished Loch Raven Dam.

This is the dam at lake Elkhorn, in Columbia.   This is the ususal flow there.  It just sort of trickles though the center there.

After the hurricane this dam and the recent floods this lake was rushing over the entire width of the damn.   A feature which is certainly intended by design.   So just like any one who runs a respecable photo website, rather than showing you a picture of this really neat site, I am shoing you a picture of a normal day at the dam becasue I didn’t have my camera when it was flooding.   Just believe me.. it was quite a sight.

You know MDP loves a good cupola, here showing the one from the Hampton house.  When I was there the other day, I really focused on the outside of the building becasue I had been inside the house a few times before and felt as though I was pretty much up to date on that aspect of the site.  However, I am racking my brain for factoids to share here and now I’m drawing a blank. 

What an end to the season.  I mean, it’s just like last years pointless rally, but at least this year we hurt Boston and I think that makes us all feel warm inside.

Stink bugs are everywhere in the state of Maryland now.   However, they seem to be found in higher concentrations the farther north I go.   There were so many as I was walking through Loch Raven reservoir the other day that I realized I had never featured them on MDP and that my failure to do so was a failure to capture an unfortunate part of everyday life in Maryland.

Yesterday’s statue came from the Hampton Mansion, seen here next to an absolutely massive tree in it’s yard.  One of the things the home is known for is it’s terraced gardens.  I’m sure the tree here wasn’t this big back in the day, but at it’s present size it sits in such a way to completely block any view of the gardens from the home.

Can you name the historic Baltimore County home in the portico of which sits this statue?

Here’s a shot from the road along the banks of Loch Raven reservoir in Baltimore County.

In Thurmont, just north of the downtown area, MDP found a tank and couldn’t help but stop to take a picture.

I very much like the re-use of an old railroad section to create this barrier at the Point of Rocks station.

Happy Maryland Monday to all:  Here’s one last shot from the grand prix.

This shot came from Bryan in Loch Raven Village (where our last photo was taken) complete with a joke about Lando Calrissian.

I know one person who will enjoy this shot of Loch Raven Village, a community just north of Baltimore.    This is part one of a two part series of this community.