Archive for the ‘photography’ Tag
Fall has officially arrived here in Maine and I can tell because it’s six in the morning, I’m sitting in the living room and I can see my breath. We normally wait until October to turn on the heat and this year will be no different. With the cost of heating oil being what it is we’re forced to suffer with some cold temperatures for a few more weeks. We actually covered what was left of our garden last night due to the anticipated frost that our expert weather people are calling for. For a change they were spot on.
I’ve always been adamant about not liking hot weather and that hasn’t changed much over the years. The worst part for me is the short periods of time between the seasons where I’m forced to adjust to the change. I’m sitting here this morning fresh from my bed where my ever so popular electric blanket continues to keep my better-half warm and toasty. I was finally forced to get it out one morning last week when I woke up at three AM with with my feet freezing and my teeth chattering. Transitions can be a large pain in the backside but what can you do?
In another week the garden will be finished and I’ll begin storing things away to prepare for the first snowfall. I’m looking forward to that as I usually do because believe it or not I enjoy the coziness of winter. It’s a quieter time that allows us to snuggle in and to enjoy each other’s company. It’s a time to take care of long delayed projects and for reflection on the past year and the beginning of expectations for the next.
With the tourists out of the picture we can start visiting many of our favorite places that we’ve avoided for the last few months. No more ridiculous parking fees and never ending beach traffic. We can now bundle up and return to walking the beach to enjoy Mother Nature without gangs of visitors clogging up the area.
Hopefully within the next hour or two the sun will come out and warm things up a little. We’re anticipating temperatures today nearing seventy which is nice but not long after sundown the temperature will drop suddenly into the high thirties and low forties. We’ll eventually make the adjustment and in no time be ready to sit back for a few months and enjoy the season.
I know it’s really Fall since my arm is stiff and sore from that damn flu shot I got yesterday. I guess I’m ready for just about anything. We’ll be taking lots of photographs in the coming month which is always enjoyable and the Fryeburg Fair is just weeks away. It will be the last big get together for the state of Maine this year and my better-half loves reconnecting with all those farm animals she hasn’t seen since last year. She’s what you might call a closet farmer with a passion for piggies and a secret wish that she’d been born a hundred years ago on a farm.
I’m almost completely awake now and after one more cup of hot coffee I’ll be ready to face the day.
Since today is Sunday and a day of rest for many of you, I thought a few miscellaneous items and a little humor might be the thing to do. It’s a late Summer’s day on a holiday weekend that begins to prepare us for what’s coming, SNOW.
My better-half and I are looking forward to the upcoming Fryeburg Fair which we attend every year. It’s a huge gathering of every farmer and their livestock from across the country. This year will be the first visit for her new grandson and she can’t wait to drag his little butt there to look at the pigs. As I’ve mentioned previously my better-half has something of a pig fetish. We’ll spend between eight and ten hours eating terribly unhealthy food, walking miles and miles through huge crowds, and attending the Pig Scramble and Woodsman contests. I know it sounds a little lame but it really isn’t. It’s one of the few things we both enjoy a great deal.
We’re also looking forward to taking hundreds of photographs of the Fall season whose beauty never ceases to amaze. Actually Fall has slowly over the years become my favorite time of the year. We’ll have the harvest season, Fall foliage, and many small local fairs to visit on most weekends. You can say what you want but small local fairs are the best. It will again be a great time for our family and friends.
My first item today is a joke I stumbled on recently. It is laugh-out-loud funny and I hope you enjoy it.
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In 1986, Mkele Mbembe was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from Northwestern University.
On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed, so Mbembe approached it very carefully.
He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant’s foot and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it. As carefully and as gently as he could, Mbembe worked the wood out with his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot.
The elephant turned to face the man, and with a rather curious look on its face, stared at him for several tense moments. Mbembe stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned, and walked away.
Mbembe never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.
Twenty years later, Mbembe was walking through the Chicago Zoo with his teenaged son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Mbembe and his son Tapu were standing.
The large bull elephant stared at Mbembe, lifted its front foot off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man. Remembering the encounter in 1986, Mbembe couldn’t help wondering if this was the same elephant.
Mbembe summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder. The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Mbembe’ s legs and slammed him against the railing, killing him instantly .
Probably wasn’t the same elephant.
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I would also like to take a few minutes to thank these new followers to this blog. I include their links as well and I hope you give their blogs a look-see and enjoy reading them as much as I do. Thanks to them all.
Eric Carlson, Karen Ellis, dmmd1983, L-Jay Health, What Happens to Us, mr688475, growupproper, mychangeviews, Nate Ollie, adoptingjames, Rein, jasminekeclipse, projectlighttolife, Gabriel Lucatero.
HAVE A GREAT LABOR DAY WEEKEND
Today turned into a real adventure quite by accident. The sun was shining and I had no plans of any kind for a change. My only chore was to deliver my better-half to work and to pick her up later in the afternoon. I suppose I could have just worked around the house or even cut the grass but I wanted something a little more interesting.
I purchased a new Nikon SLR two weeks ago and I really needed to spend a little time learning how to use it. I packed up my camera and the rest of my equipment and made my way to the marshland located along the coast. I arrived there in short order and made my preparations to enter the swamp. I was there primarily to photograph dragonflies but I had a small problem. If I doused myself in Off then the dragonflies were sure not to come near me but if I didn’t use the Off I was sure to be eaten alive by thousands of mosquitos. I used a moderate amount of the spray, picked up my camera and monopod and trekked into the swamps.
Photographing insects requires the use of a macro lens that then requires the use of a monopod to steady the camera to get that perfectly clear shot. I have to say it sounds much easier than it actually is. I sat crouched in that damn swamp for two hours because I’ve been told that patience is always necessary for any photographer. It was close to eighty-five degrees with no breeze of any kind. I began to sweat like I’d just run the Boston marathon. Unfortunately bugs just love sweaty humans to buzz around and bother and then to sting when they’re swatted away. It became quite difficult to sit quietly while surrounded by a few hundred of my newest friends. Photography Tip #1: Use as much bug spray as you can. Take a damn bath in it if you must.
I managed between bites to take a number of shots but even the dragonflies were being difficult. Due to my constant swatting of bugs I was apparently scaring them off as well. Everything was just freaking perfect. Oh yeah, did I mention there are also snakes in that swamp. As I squatted there I must have seen six or seven slithering in the waters around me. Photography Tip #2: Never wear sneakers when working in a swamp, it bothers the snakes.
I lasted as long as I could and actually was able to take a few dozen pictures and a few of them appear to be pretty good. I’m really happy with the new camera and I’m sure we’ll have a long and happy relationship together. It felt good to get out in the wild for a bit but it will probably take a few days for all of these bug bites to heal. I can’t wait to get these photo’s onto my computer later so I can really see if there as good as I think they are.
All in all it was a fun day and I look forward to many more just like it before the snow flies. The downside to any really good day is returning to reality which always kind of sucks. I’ll pick up my better-half in a few minutes and then head home for dinner and a quiet night.
Time for a journal entry and to play a little catch-up with what’s happening in my boring life. First things first; it’s freaking hot, second; it’s freaking humid, and thirdly; I’m freaking sweating my ass off. There, I don’t feel any cooler or any better but it just felt good to bitch at someone other than my better-half. She’s has that “I’m going to kill you if you whine about the heat just one more time”, look in her eyes. Truthfully she can be a little scary when provoked.
I decided to live in Maine for a number of reasons. I dislike hot weather and I thought by moving here I could escape the worst of it. Well that dream ended this year. I might as well be living in Florida, Arizona, or even freaking Death Valley. I think it’s time for the better-half and me to consider moving north a few hundred miles where it’s a bit cooler. The downside to that is we’d be living in Canada. That’s almost as bad as living where it’s too hot. In my humble opinion Canada sucks both politically and personally. That should piss a few people off but I don’t really care, it’s to hot to give a damn.
I started out a few days ago to get into the woods to try out my new 24.5 megapixel Nikon camera. I lasted about as long as it took me to drive to the area. I would have looked silly with my camera and other equipment pulling a little red wagon behind me filled with bottles of water. Just too effing hot.
The all knowing and all seeing weather forecasters are predicting a break in the heat sometime before I die. I try never to believe them because they seem to be more wrong than right. We had a short period last night of actual real wind. I went out on the deck to enjoy the breeze and found out something else entirely. Black flies apparently love a cool breeze too. Between them and the mosquitos I was screwed. I retreated back into the gigantic oven we call our home and turned on every ceiling fan I could find. It was like trying to watch TV while sitting on an airport runway.
So I’ve bitched and complained as much as I care to about the weather. It’s time to return to my life and the birthday party due to start in an hour. I’m doing all the cooking on a nice hot grill. I just can’t get a break.
Before I go I’d like to thank the new followers of this blog. I hope you others visit their sites and enjoy their blogs as much as I do. Thank you all:
Cooper1505, Joanna, Three Wise Guys Podcast, Jimmy Benton, All Most Relevant, Lampsonirvine, Marcela Cava Balsa, tedgaming, Political Connection,
urbanwallart, Pinkopolis, ikeiaconis, sexytoyworld, Chris Martin, Matthew Richards, Julian Sherman, dcardiff, Spinnos Manolis, gardenofyvonne, Frankie Leone, Mazhar, painting13, A Southern Butterbean in Maine, loveanddatingforsingles, Jack Media, Big Blogger of Knowledge, zma752,
James Curnow, and Your Daily Phil.
I’ve been having some fun with lists for the last week but I think it’s time to step back into journal mode to update a few personal things. With this continuing rain we’ve been having the garden has really taken off. Last year when I planted my first rhubarb plant after three months it was approximately one foot high and I was really concerned that it wouldn’t make it through the winter. As of yesterday that stupid plant is now over six feet high and going strong. It looks like I’ll harvest enough seeds from it to plant a few more places around the property. You just can’t have too much of that wonderful stuff around since this years current price is hovering around $3.80 a pound. That s just highway robbery in my view so the more I grow the better.
Last weekend I spent a portion of Saturday doing the ceiling fan shuffle. I installed a new sleeker model fan with a light kit in our bedroom and a matching fan without a light kit into the room I spent all winter remodeling. The remodeled room is almost ninety percent furnished with nothing left to do except put a organizer system into the closet. It looks freaking fabulous. I then took the old fan from our bedroom and installed conveniently into my man cave directly above my computer desk. That will make for a nice cool blogging summer.
Tonight we were invited to my better-half’s daughter’s home for shish kabobs on the grill. With the school year almost over she’s preparing for her first summer vacation with the new baby. After teaching everyone else’s kids all year, she can now spend some quality time with her son. I see a lot of beach time in his immediate future which he will probably love. We were able to catch up on things a little and enjoyed the meal and conversation immensely. We made an early night of it and returned home with full bellies and smiles on our faces. It was a very nice visit.
We’re do for what looks like two or three more days of rain which is always badly needed to keep the garden healthy. That should give me enough time to continue work on a project I started more than a year ago. I’ve been working off and on a somewhat strange abstract bust of my better-half and I’m finally making some real progress on it since the room remodel was completed. I recently finished the hair which was a tedious job and within a month I should have this project finally completed.
We’re having a really great start to the Spring and Summer and plans are already taking shape for a long weekend to the wilds of northern Maine to get into the woods and take as many pictures as necessary to fill every memory card we have.
We also have an obligatory two day trip to visit her family in Rhode Island which should be fun too. This could actually turn into a rather nice summer barring any unplanned catastrophes. We plan on enjoying it as much as we possibly can before the next long winter begins. I might even be talked into a night at the amusement park in Old Orchard Beach. You’re never too old to jump on a ride or two and have a little fun.
Enjoy your summer.
It’s raining here in Maine this morning and I’m hoping it’s Mother Nature’s last and final gasp of the winter. Listening to the weather forecasts for the last few days was too depressing for words. They were calling for sleet and a few inches of snow this morning but thankfully they were mistaken. A light coating of sleet that melted away almost immediately is something I can live with.
My better-half was up early to deliver her son to the bus station. He visited us for three days but now is on his way to somewhere in NY state for the wedding of one of his friends and then back to Los Angeles.
I was wondering to myself before his arrival just how he’d react to the new grand baby. It was fun watching the transformation from being my better-half’s son to the uncle of his younger sister’s baby boy. Babies have that special ability to take you out of yourself and your everyday worries and to really enjoy the moment you’re having with them. He was totally disarmed by the whole experience and found himself swept away by the baby and the new relationship they had begun to build. It showed a side of him I’d never seen before and I was glad to see it emerge. He was able to spend a lot of time with the baby and the bond between them was strongly made.
Things should quickly get back to what we call normal around here. Getting ready for Spring and the garden are at the top of our To Do List for the next few weeks. I’ll be off to Lowes to purchase paint and primer this week and hopefully the new room will done by midweek next week. If I time things just right I should be able to put the finishing touches to the room and then immediately move outside and get busy with the yard cleanup and garden prep.
We’ve already started talking about a few weekend photography trips to the northern part of the state. The Attagash region is a few hours north of here and is truly a beautiful place to visit. Hundreds of lakes, small and large, surrounded by thick and dense forests. Wildlife is plentiful with a million opportunities for excellent photographs. I love getting away from all the trouble with the economy, politics, TV, talking heads, cell phones, and any other BS you can think of. Peace, quiet, wilderness, and calm. It beats any kind of drug you can find anywhere.
I can hardly believe that it’s sixty-five degrees here in Maine today this early in April. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and I find myself doing yard cleanup and loving it. I didn’t put on a normal summer outfit like shorts and a t-shirt because I’m not a total idiot. All you have to do is walk into a shaded area and you’ll realize almost immediately just how cold it still is. I’m dressed in long sleeves, jeans, and a light coat. I’ve learned the hard way in past years when I dressed too lightly and ended up with a Spring cold that took forever to go away. My better-half has been complaining for the last couple of days about her cough, runny nose, and scratchy throat. I think she’s about to come down with something that I’m sure she’ll pass right along to me. Isn’t true love wonderful? Just one fantastic perk after another.
We both felt the immediate need to rush out to one of the big box home improvement stores yesterday to begin our Spring spending spree. It’s never too early or too cold to begin loading up with seeds, plants, yard tools, and the occasional yard gnome. We both realize it’s way too early in the season to start this nonsense but we can’ seem to stop ourselves. We apparently aren’t alone because the store was crowded with shoppers filling their carts with anything and everything imaginable. I managed to escape the madness with an expenditure of just a few dollars less than a hundred. Madness I tell you, just freaking madness.
After returning home my better-half immediately changed clothes, grabbed a rake, and began working furiously in the yard. It would have been useless for me to try and stop her so I didn’t even make the attempt. I found a really comfortable chair and placed it on the deck where I could watch. There’s nothing much better than loafing and watching someone else work. She’s got Spring Fever so bad she’s almost out of control and I won’t be the person who tries to slow her down. She can become dangerous when fooled with.
After raking for an hour she finally gave it up and returned to the deck where I’d been saving her a seat. She lasted about thirty minutes longer than I thought she would. We enjoyed the sunshine for another hour and I do believe we got a pretty good start on our summer tans. It eventfully became a little too chilly for comfort so we grabbed up the cat and returned to the house. It was a nice start to better weather but we’re still a long way from actual warmth and real sunshine.
I’ll be returning to the woods later this week with camera in hand to begin my search for a few of those illusive creatures that escaped my notice last fall. Patience usually pays off in these matters or so I’ve been told. I love being out with Mother Nature without two feet of snow slowing me down. Another week and the snow will be history and the fun summer can begin.
It must be March, it must be cold, I must be in Maine, and it must be really boring, because last night I was introduced to the Duck Dynasty. I was prepared to hate that stupid program but just out of curiosity decided to give it a look anyway and make my own decision.
It’s new season started last week and I’ve been hearing on advertisements ever since it was watched by more than 8 million viewers. I really had to check it out because if those numbers were factual there must be more to this show than I thought. I tuned into what appeared to be a mini marathon of every episode from last season and found myself thoroughly enjoying the interplay between the bearded characters and their not so bearded wives and children.
Before the night was over I’d watched six episodes as I was doing other things. The group as a whole seem genuinely likeable and seem to go about enjoying their lives just the way they want. It was real hoot and a pleasant surprise since in my opinion more than 90% or more of the reality shows on TV today are just awful. I’m not sure the Duck Dynasty is going to keep me as a permanent viewer but if things get too boring on TV I can always switch over and watch these crazy folks from Louisiana doing what they do best, making me laugh.
A good portion of my day was spent sitting before my computer screen continuing the sorting of photographs. I’m almost at the point of being overwhelmed due to the sheer number of pictures. It took me more than two weeks to just catalog, organize, and finally back up every photograph onto a removable hard drive. I can store that hard drive elsewhere and never again have that fear of losing any of my important photos. I’m finally ready to start the summer of 2013 with a new outlook and determination to continue my collection with photos I’ve been wanting to get for a long time.
This summer should be terrific since most of my projects around the house have been completed and my time will be my own to take as many photographs as I possibly can before next winter. I have a number of projects I’ve been wanting to do for quite some time and it looks like this may be the year for it.
Fortunately the state of Maine offers an endless supply of forests, rivers, lakes, and seashore that will keep me busy for many years to come. This summer will allow me to do three things I really love; gardening, picture taking, and loafing. My better-half and I have declared a moratorium on home remodeling projects for the summer and thank God for that.
With winter seeming to drag on endlessly I decided to spend time today working with my photographs. I currently have almost fifteen thousand photos taken over the last five years that need to be properly sorted, filed, and backed up. It’ a tedious and time consuming process but absolutely necessary when dealing with these large numbers of pictures.
It’s a chore that I really enjoy and it gives me an opportunity to again relive when I took them and in many cases why I took them. The last two summers I’ve been involved photographing a subject I just love, dragonflies. Dragonflies have become one of my all time passions due to their delicacy and beauty. I purchased a great lens about five years ago and it’s primarily used to take macro photo’s. These photo’s are so detailed you’re able to see the segmented wings and the gorgeous colors like never before.
In a local area nearby I found a small isolated pond that teems with dragonflies of all types and colors. I spent many hours sitting near the swampy end of that pond amongst the cattails observing the dragonflies and attempting to identify the many types I was seeing. They’re very curious and upon my arrival they normally swarmed around me to see what I was doing. Getting them to pose for photo’s was difficult at best because they almost never stop moving. It was frustrating to say the least and it required me to study up on the species in an attempt to solve that problem.
They live in a larva stage in the water of ponds often for years where they’re able to prey on small fish to survive. The winged stage is very short and is for mating, egg laying, mosquito eating, and then death. They’ve been around in one form or another for millions of years and have slowly evolved into these smaller versions of the originals. Fossils have been found with dragonflies more than two feet long.
I did discover that many of the smaller ones I photographed were not actually dragonflies but damselflies. Dragonflies have huge eyes that touch each other but the damselflies eyes are separated and they’re much smaller. They come in a number of vivid colors but the ones I see most often are an electric blue. Both species as I mentioned earlier are very curious and militantly territorial. They spend their entire lives looking for food and fighting to maintain those territories whether in the water or out. They’re what you might call scrappy.
I needed to find a way to get them to sit still for a few seconds. Taking their photographs in flight while OK wasn’t giving me the detail that I needed. I first took a small piece of gum and attached it to the end of a reed sticking up in the swamp. They did land occasionally on those reeds and it appeared they were resting or possibly sunning themselves. No luck with that strategy, they landed for a second and then were gone. I next tried a drop of sugar water on the reed and had some successes but still not what I was looking for. Eventually I found an ant, squished it, and then placed a piece of it on the end of the reed. Bingo, they landed and stayed for a few seconds longer than usual and I began to get some great pictures.
Over the next two months I took some truly amazing photographs. Once they determined I wasn’t a threat they forgot about me completely and came close with little or no fear. If you’d like to give it a try you’ll certainly need a great deal of patience and a supply of ants.
Well, back to the computer to finish up my sorting. I’m starting to get a small jolt of spring fever and excited for warm weather so I can get back to the swamp.
I feel so blessed today. In less than two weeks I survived the Storm of the Century and then almost immediately I survived that asteroid that just missed us. I’m a bit of a science nerd and will read anything remotely related to NASA or space travel. I was certainly intrigued when the announcement was made a few weeks ago that an object of this size would do the closest fly-by of the earth ever recorded.
I know just enough about our government and it’s propaganda arm to be a little concerned and skeptical when they say there was no chance of a collision. In my opinion if they were aware that a collision was imminent they wouldn’t tell us anyway. Anarchy and panic would certainly occur if that kind of an announcement were ever made.
So I sat patiently before my TV watching the asteroid live and in black and white as it zoomed on by almost directly over Indonesia. The NASA channel in it’s continuously boring fashion with absolutely no sound and with unrecognizable pictures did nothing to put my mind at ease. After the meteor strikes over Russia the previous day I wasn’t completely convinced we had nothing to worry about.
I suppose the day will arrive eventually when a huge one will hit us and I pray it’s thousands of years from now when technology will hopefully make it a non-problem. I’m not sure about many things but I’m reasonably confident that it will occur someday. I sure hope I’m not around to see it.
Enough about the damn asteroid. How about hearing some completely boring and useless information about my returning again to my remodeling project. I finally reframed the new opening that will eventually lead into my bedroom and I left the drywall intact to keep the dirt and dust from filling the rest of the house. One more bit of framing on the closet and I’ll be ready to begin hanging dry wall. I’ve been taking my time with this damn project but I’m still ahead of the schedule I set for myself. I just wish working with drywall wasn’t so messy. I spend more time cleaning up than actually constructing anything.
I also spent a couple of hours going through a few hundred photographs taken during the last snow storm. Some of them are very cool especially those showing my better-half on her maiden voyage with that big red snow thrower. I caught that look of sheer panic on her face as she began and later the big smile on her face as she conquered her fears and really started enjoying herself. Pretty damn cool if I do say so myself. I used the first photo as my new screensaver because it makes me smile every time I see it.
We’re having visitors tonight with one of them being the new grand child. Eat dinner, a few games of Hearts, and some quality time with the little guy. Not too bad at all.
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