Which image is your favorite?

It was the quietest, most serene day I have ever experienced at the gardens. We rarely saw other human visitors, and those we saw were generally silent. Birds chirped. There was occasional rustling in the brush; I pretended it was all squirrel noise (even though I know for sure there was at least one harmless black racer snake).

We walked slowly through the gardens, taking it all in. Twice, we were serenaded by the carillon in the Singing Tower.

For us, it was a peaceful, fitting way to spend 9-11-2011.

Here are a dozen of the photos I took with my Fujifilm Finepix S1800.

If you’d asked me, I would have said I had taken a hundred or more photos yesterday. But as I was downloading them into Picasa this morning, I realized I took fewer than 50. I must have been strolling, thinking and praying more than taking photos. And that’s just what I needed yesterday.

I miss you, Mom.

Here’s a look back at the 10 floral photos I took in 2010 that I liked the best:

In 2011, I intend to do even more floral photography. Since I carry my Samsung Epic 4g with me everywhere I go, it’s easy for me to snap a picture of a perfect (or not-so-perfect bloom) and share it with my friends.

Which flower is your favorite?

However, I had an oops. I’ve blogged before about how I love the camera in my Samsung Epic 4g. And I absolutely do. But somehow — and I still can’t quite figure out how — the resolution on my camera switched from the highest resolution to the lowest sometime last week. I didn’t notice until I downloaded the photos from the auto show. They looked fantastic on my Epic’s screen, but when I tried viewing them as a full-size slideshow on my computer, I realized something was amiss.

It’s always smart to double-check your resolution before taking any photos that you really care about keeping. I prefer to keep mine at 5M (five megapixels), the highest resolution. You can see what resolution you are using by looking at the upper-left corner of the camera screen. In the image below (from MobilePhotoVideo blog), you can see it’s currently set to 5M. To change the resolution, press the Settings icon (the gear), and then choose the Camera icon. Resolution is on the second page of the five pages of Settings options.

Photo Credit: Camera Review: Sprint Epic 4G aka Samsung Galaxy S with Photo/Video Samples

Again, many, many thanks to the MobilePhotoVideo blog for sharing a thorough tutorial on using the many settings of the Samsung Epic.

Taken with Samsung Epic 4g

I have something to admit. I have a crush. A big one.

I’m completely smitten with the camera that’s built into my Samsung Epic 4g “cell phone.” “Cell phone” is in quotation marks because to me, what I have is a camera that also happens to function as a cell phone and run Android apps.

If you’re a regular reader of my blog or Food for Thought (my Posterous account), you’ll know that I enjoy taking photos of things I run across as I experience my days. I especially like taking extreme closeups of flowers.

Today was a day for experimentation. I chose to venture out on a floral photo safari with only my “cell phone” camera; my Canon PowerShot stayed at home. I wanted to see how far I could push the macro setting on my Samsung Epic. Could it take the same kind of floral photos I usually take?

So I decided to go visit Hollis Garden in my community of Lakeland, FL. It was supposed to open at 10 a.m., but no one showed up to open the gates. I gave up and left at 10:30, but I spent a few minutes with the roses outside the locked gates before I went into my office at Southeastern University. Actually, I probably spent longer with the roses than I normally would have. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise?

After a few hours in my office, I returned to Hollis Garden and was able to go in to explore. I wandered around for an hour and took about 85 photos. In the slideshow below, you can see 30 of my favorite photos taken today. Which ones do you like best?

Bottom Line: The Samsung Epic 5-megapixel camera is stellar for my floral photography. With the macro setting, I can take closeups at least as crisp and clear as on my Canon PowerShot. My one wish is that it would be a little quicker to take several photos in a row. But I can live with that, knowing that since I will always have my Samsung Epic in my pocket or purse, anytime a beautiful bloom beckons me, I’ll be able to capture it.

The Line Below the Bottom Line: Many, many thanks to the MobilePhotoVideo blog for sharing a thorough tutorial on using the many settings of the Samsung Epic. I never even realized that it had a macro setting until I read its review.

I wrote it not thinking I’d get much of a response other than maybe a “me, too” from another NASCAR fan. But was I ever surprised when Brandon Mudd, the Public Relations and Media Manager for Gateway Raceway, replied to me a few minutes later.

My first reaction was, “Yeah, right.” Then after a few Twitter, LinkedIn and e-mail interchanges, I realized that this was actually going to happen. All I had to do was get myself (and my hubby) to St. Louis the weekend of July 16 & 17.

Gateway Raceway provided my husband Kevin and me with Hot Pit / Garage / Media Center passes, along with passes to Victory Circle, and even Infield Parking. If you’re not a NASCAR fan this is what it means:

• Hot Pit Passes: We were able to stay in the pit area (where the car & truck teams are during the race) before and through the entire race, meeting as many drivers and teams as we wanted to. We just had to be sure to stay out of their way when they were working.
• Garage: We could see what the teams were doing to get the cars & trucks set up for the races.
• Media Center: We had a place to cool off and relax a bit. The temps were into the 100s, and it was 135 for a while on pit road.
• Victory Circle: Before and after the races, we stood in the Victory Circle area. I was able to get a lot of great pictures of drivers chatting with each other before the driver intros, and I was right there as Kevin Harvick drove up his winning truck for the CampingWorld.com 200 race. We even got to see the infamous Hat Dance.
• Infield Parking: This made it easy for us to go back to our car as needed to cool off and get refreshments. For a while, we even turned the car around so it was facing the track, and watched parts both races from the air-conditioned comfort of our cars.

On Friday afternoon, we arrived at the track and milled around in the pits and garage area for a few hours before the scheduled start of the CampingWorld.com 200 NASCAR Truck race. As it came time for the pre-race festivities to start, I noticed some pulled-aside conversations going on in Victory Circle. The power had just gone out (momentarily, we thought). It was still daylight, and the loudspeakers worked via generator, so most of the pre-race could happen planned, while we waited for the power to kick back on.

They did the driver intros, which was fun to watch from behind the scenes as the drivers chatted with and teased each other as they waited their turn to be introduced in qualifying order.

Then it was time for the National Anthem. Lincoln Brewster, lead singer and guitarist for a Christian band, prepared to play the song. But there was no power for his electric guitar. He was urged to just sing it a capella, like it’s usually done . . . but he admitted he didn’t know all the words! Yikes. So then it was time to watch Brandon and his team scramble around to find someone who — with no notice or practice — could and would sing the National Anthem before a NASCAR race, on national television. (I would have volunteered, but I think my hubby of almost 25 years would have walked out on me if I did. And if you heard my singing voice, you’d have turned the channel quickly, too!)

All of a sudden, NASCAR’s Jimmy Small volunteered to sing it. Whew! Crisis avoided. Jimmy approached the stage . . . then the power came back on enough for Lincoln Brewster to go ahead with his Jimi Hendrix-inspired rendition of the National Anthem.

And the power stayed off. As it turns out, there was a major power problem offsite. Brandon wrote and distributed a news release from the Media Center with the details. I just happened to peek through the window as he was writing.

The truck race was delayed until Saturday at 12:30 . . . which meant that the nice, coolish evening race we had planned for was now going to be a part of a LONG double-header day of racing on Saturday.

We went back to the hotel to cool down, then headed back to the track on Saturday morning after a fantastic breakfast of the best corned beef hash I’ve ever had at Crepes, Etc. We made a quick stop for supplies, including some Baskin and Robins hard candy for Tati Papis, who had recently lamented on Twitter that the ice cream lady at the track was nowhere to be found.

Our first stop when we got back to the track was at Max Papis‘ hauler. I think I surprised Max when I introduced myself to him (trying not to sound like a fangirl!), but then asked for him to see if his wife Tati would come out. I gave the ice cream candies to a laughing Tati. Then Tati, Max and his crew chief Bootie Barker posed for a photo with me. Nice folks, all of them!

From Our NASCAR Weekend at Gateway Raceway

Here’s some video I took with my Flip camera of the CampingWorld.com 200 race (before, during and after), including the Hat Dance by race winner Kevin Harvick and his team. This short video includes the command “Drivers start your engines,” trucks rolling off pit road, racing to green, a few pit stops, then the post-race in Victory Circle.

For the next few hours, we milled around in the pits, the garage and the media center. I took about 250 pictures that day. You can see the best of them in my Picasa web album.

Finally it was time for what I (thought I) had come to the track for: my ride in a pace car during a race, the Missouri-Illinois Dodge Dealers 250 to be exact. The National Anthem was sung without a hitch, then Brandon walked me down pit road for my ride in the car. I took video with my Flip camera (from the back seat) throughout the two laps I had on the track.

The Bottom Line: I was able to cross one item off my Bucket List. The ride was fun, and I came away with even more. Throughout the weekend at Gateway Raceway, I was constantly amazed by how approachable the drivers are and how much access the fans have to them. What other sport lets you up so close, not just before a game, but during?

Many, many thanks to Brandon Mudd for responding to my tweet that I thought would go unanswered.

From Our NASCAR Weekend at Gateway Raceway

(PS: A Confession :: We didn’t stay until the end of the Nationwide race to see Carl Edwards win. We were exhausted and drained from the 100+ temps, even though we’re Floridians now and drank more than a gallon water each during the day. We listened to the race on MRN radio in the car on the way back to our hotel, then watched the final 50 or so laps from our air-conditioned room with our feet up — and lots of great memories of the day.)

Here are a few of the 200+ pictures I took before and during the Camping World Truck Series and Nationwide Races. I’ll post the video of my pace car ride (as the field went to green in the Nationwide race) later today.