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Here and There…Now and Then |
Coca-Cola Cooler
I drove out to or friends’ farm today because I left my camera batter charger and extra battery in their barn the last time I was there. I took the opportunity to take a few photographs of ducks, geese, goats, and various other things before heading back to work for the rest of the day.
This is an old Coca-Cola cooler that they found in the woods and rescued.
Sprinkler System Pipes
I’ve often thought that the pipes for a building’s sprinkler system would be a good subject for a photograph but usually they disappoint when the time comes. I tried again today, as I was on my way back to my building after a meeting.
I think I like this picture as well as any I’ve taken of the bright red pipes, although that may not be saying much. At least there is a little variation in the color.
X-Men
I think perhaps I was following one of the X-Men home from work this evening. Either that or I need to wash my windshield. Not sure which.
Dorothy, Julia, and Maureen
Yesterday I completed my second year of taking a photo a day. This web site contains that second year. My first year was on Facebook and I’ve been meaning to add them here as well. As I start my third year of living photographically (not that I didn’t take pictures before that) I want to take a moment to thank all the friends (and a few strangers) who let me take their photograph. In particular, Dorothy has been very patient with her old dad and her friends have likewise been very good to me. Here we have two of our favorite friends, Julia and her mom, Maureen, with whom Dorothy spent the day.
12:59:59 12/31/2012
The clock in my camera was about a minute and a quarter off from the clock on the television (which was also off when compared to my phone, so it may have been wrong). In any case, as measured by whatever network we were watching, this it the last photo of 2012, taken at 11:59:59. It is, not too surprisingly, very similar to the final photograph I took last year, standing virtually in the same spot and with many of the same people. Thanks to all for making it a memorable year and for putting up with my camera in your face so many times. I’m looking forward to the year ahead.
I also passed a milestone this week, passing the 50,000 mark on my two year old camera. This picture is number 50,132 on my camera. That means I took 22,633 in 2012, down a bit from the 27,263 that I took in 2011.
Coke Machines
I only took a few pictures today so didn’t have a lot to choose from for my post. I did take a bunch of the octopus that I bought on Friday at the Main Street fish market but I posted octopus pictures recently enough that I didn’t want to repeat them quite so soon.
Instead you get this picture of the soda machines in Five Guys. It’s not exactly fine art, is it?
Winter Lights
I had a friend complain about the octopus picture that I used as a banner. She said she didn’t stalk me quite so much with that there. Since she’s a good friend and since I had this picture to replace it with, I made the switch.
As you can see from this original version, I’ve flipped it horizontally so that the brightest of the red lights are not covered up, either here or in Facebook, which I try to keep in sync.
Dinosaur and Dragon
We all know that the map makers of old used to write “Here Be Dragons” in the uncharted areas of their maps. Except of course we’re all wrong. The Lenox Globe (ca. 1510) is only one known instance of a map which actually has that phrase (in Latin — hic sunt dracones). Map makers did, sometimes, fill empty areas with drawings of beasts including dragons and sea serpents, but that’s
Anyway, here we have a picture of not just a dragon but a dinosaur and a dragon! They seem amazingly healthy for extinct or mythical creatures. I found them dancing in my living room and was able to photograph them a few times before they went back into hiding. It pays to carry a camera all the time, even when walking through your own house. You never know what you will come upon.
Post Office Pavilion Tower
Rail Yard, Union Station
Escalator
Cattle Chute
Dorothy, Karlee, and I went downtown today. We spent a good while in the Natural History Museum, mostly looking at sea creatures and the rocks and minerals collection. We particularly liked the fossils of crinoids and some brightly colored rocks, like rhodochrosite (MnCO3). I took some good pictures of stones but didn’t select any for today’s post.
From there we went to the American History Museum to look at their trains. Karlee is working on a photography assignment and we thought we might find some good pictures there. We took quite a few pictures and some that I like quite a bit but again, I didn’t put any of them in the post, either. You’ll just have to imagine.
On the walk back to the car I took the first of these pictures, the tower of the Post Office Pavilion on Pennsylvania Avenue. I asked if they wanted to go in and get something to eat but Dorothy wanted to eat at Union Station, which was our next stop in any case. We parked on the third level of the parking garage and took pictures of the tracks heading out to the north of the station. We tried to get some that showed motion by using a slower shutter speed so that the moving train would be blurred but Karlee’s camera didn’t give us a lot of control over shutter speed.
We went into the station and the next picture here is of the girls going down the escalator in the parking garage. If I had brought my tripod (which was in the other car) I could have blurred them a bit more as well as having the rest of the picture a bit sharper, but I like the color and the lines of this one, anyway.
We walked all through Union Station. I had been here a couple weeks ago (see White House and National Christmas Tree, December 18) so I knew my way around pretty well. There is a pretty huge food court in the bottom of Union Station and since Dorothy found out that there was a Bojangles she’s been talking about eating there. When we got there, however, she decided to have a gyro instead. I joined her in that and Karlee had a couple slices of pizza. We had a nice (late) lunch and enjoyed watching all the people.
As we were heading back to our car we looked down on a line of people moving through the cattle chutes they use to organize the chaos of boarding the trains. I love watching motion and was able to take a few photos including the last one here, showing the flow of people. Again, a tripod or bean bag would have helped but I’m pretty happy with the results. Having stood in these lines it brings back the feeling of being herded (and wanting to make mooing sounds).
We made one more stop at the Maine Street fish market, where I bought a dozen large clams and one huge octopus.
Karlee and Dorothy
I had a pretty quiet day today. Cathy went to work. Dorothy and her cousins took their grandma out to lunch and then went to see the new Les Miserables movie. In the evening I picked her up and we picked up Dorothy’s friend, Karlee and the four of us (Cathy was home from work) went to a little Thai hole in the wall that we really like.
I know this isn’t a great picture but it’s the best of the few I took.
Chrysaora fuscescens (Pacific Sea Nettle)
Dorothy and I went to the Baltimore Aquarium today with her friend, Julia. I took quite a few pictures including this one of a Pacific Sea Nettle (Chrysaora fuscescens). Many of them suffered from the thick acrylic I was shooting through or the low light levels but this one turned out pretty nicely. I got a few other good pictures but more importantly we had a good time. It was a nice unwinding sort of outing and except for the drive to and from in the snow and rain respectively, it was quite relaxing.
Christmas, 2012
We had our traditional three-fold Christmas today, starting with our simple Christmas at home with just the three of us. We moved up from that to our favorite breakfast of the year at Cathy’s mom’s house. Pancakes, eggs, bacon and sausage along with orange juice and freshly brewed hazelnut coffee. It doesn’t get much better than that.
We went from there to my mom’s where we had our traditional, if somewhat unorthodox enchilada dinner, with plenty of extras. We played our also traditional gift swap game and generally had a good time. We hadn’t taken a picture at Thanksgiving but we did today, which turned out nicely, I think.
Candle Light Service
Candle Light Service
One of my favorite times of the year is our annual Christmas Eve service. I enjoy the singing, although I try to sit far enough from other so they aren’t bothered by whatever key I happen to sing in. “They asked me to sing tenor… twelve miles away.”
My favorite part of this favorite evening is the candle light song at the end, with the lights down low and everyone holding a lit candle, as we sing (which I guess is what a “candle light song” implies). I took a few pictures, but don’t worry, I was still singing as I did it (although I wasn’t holding a lit candle).
These are my two favorite pictures from the evening. The first has Trish and Ben (although you can only see the top of his head) and some of their family. The second is of two sisters, Sasha and Stasia. Beautiful people, all.
Octopuses
As a gag, Dorothy brought some frozen octopuses as her contribution to the gift exchange at X-Factor on Friday night. Once the game was over, I traded some pop-tarts for them, so the poor guy who got them wouldn’t go home totally empty handed. I had them for lunch yesterday, boiled and then sautéd in butter and olive oil and served with yellow rice. They were delicious and I thought I’d use them for my banner for a little while.
Rainbow
Somewhere, under the rainbow, are the friends we went with to Brookside Gardens’ “Garden of Lights” this evening. We can never see enough of Mike and Krystal and it was wonderful to see Sue, Tom and their three children, Daniel, Matthew, and Alyssa again after so long. My how they have grown (the children, Tom and Sue are pretty much unchanged). We were also happy to get to know Mike’s mom a little bit. What a joyful person she is. Thank you so much for including us in the party.
I took a lot of pictures, as you would probably expect, most of which were intentionally blurry. In general I find pictures of Christmas lights to be rather boring, even when they are pretty in real life. This picture was a bit tricky because I wanted to balance the flash lighting the people with the lights making up the rainbow. It turned out just about right.
After we left the garden we want back to Mike and Krystal’s for pizza and a fun time of chatting, laughing, and basically having a good time.
Live Nativity
We had a great time this evening at our friends’ annual living nativity party. We gathered in their barn, which was chilly but at least out of the wind, had a pot luck dinner, and went through the Christmas story. As the various characters were mentioned in the story, anyone dressed for the part went to the front, adding to the pageantry. Christmas carols appropriate for each portion of the story were sung so everyone was involved, dressed for the part or simply watching. In this picture, there are four Marys, which isn’t strictly speaking accurate (that is, there was only one in the true story) but it was fun for the girls involved. There is also a pig and a monkey in the stable with them, which my not be completely accurate, either. No matter.
After the Nativity story was finished, we went into the warm house for cookies, a visit from Santa, and a chance to catch up with friends.
Preston
We had the X-Factor Christmas Party this evening and I took quite a few pictures. There are a lot of good pictures to choose from. Actually, I’ve been meaning to post another bunch of pictures of people onto Facebook but frankly, there are way too many to do that. I pulled out people pictures from August through November and realized I was going to have to throw out a lot of good pictures to cut down the pictures from nearly 1,900 pictures to few enough for a Facebook gallery.
Anyway, of the pictures I took tonight, we liked this picture of Preston the best. He’s always been quite photogenic and with good looking parents, he definitely won the genetics lottery. Now, he has gotten old enough that he actually sits still for long enough that I can get his picture. Here he is modeling the slippers he got in the Yankee Swap gift exchange game. They were subsequently taken from him but he got them back later, so he ended up with them, which made him happy.
D and Donna
Since I have a good picture of him, I thought it would be a good excuse (like I need one) to post a picture of his parents, D and Donna.
In this picture you don’t get the pleasure of seeing Donna’s beautiful smile but that’s life (“that’s what all the people say”). The picture makes me smile. Guys, we love you and are so glad we have you working with our youth.
Hannah and Dorothy
School is out for Christmas break but Cathy and I still had to go to work today. Dorothy was able to spend the day with her friend Hannah. By the evening when I went to pick Dorothy up, I still hadn’t taken any pictures. I asked if I could come in and take a few pictures of them. They were nice enough to let me. Most of the pictures are of them mugging in various ways but this one turned out very well. I’m not sure what Hannah’s hat is in aid of, although it was raining quite hard outside.
Christmas Caroling
Suzy, Fiona, Trish, and Cathy
A few folks from church had an idea for doing a little Christmas caroling this year, took the initiative to get it organized and seem to have started a tradition. Rather than simply walk through a neighborhood singing the plan was to rig up a trailer behind a pick-up truck. The back of the truck would have the drum set and room (just barely, as it turned out) for guitar and base players. At the front of the trailer was a keyboard. The rest of the trailer was set up for the singers, sitting back to back on bales of straw. The whole thing, pick-up truck and trailer, were lined with Christmas lights.
Taking flash pictures of Christmas lights is a bit tricky, particularly when they are moving. The flash is so much brighter than they are that they disappear. The first picture here does a decent job of showing you the lights, although it isn’t a great picture of the carolers. The second is a bit better, showing Suzy, Fiona, Trish, and Cathy. On the right you can see Dave holding a flashlight for Amanda on the keyboard.
Everyone had a fun time and it sounds like something we’ll want to do again next year. Put it on your calendar now and don’t miss it.
White House and National Christmas Tree
For her birthday we gave Dorothy four tickets to a Grouplove concert at the 9:30 Club on Tuesday, October 30, 2012. If you recall, however, Hurricane Sandy rolled through on Monday evening and much of Tuesday. The concert was postponed and rescheduled for tonight. With Dorothy’s exams yesterday, today, and tomorrow, this wasn’t the best night for us, but she’s doing well in her classes and we knew she’d have had all but the last two of her exams. One friend who had planned to come couldn’t but Dorothy was able to find someone else who could. So, I drove them down in the evening and then spent a few hours wandering around DC. I took pictures of the Capitol, Union Station, and the White House, including this one of the National Christmas Tree on the Ellipse. This is actually three images with different exposures combined into a single high dynamic range (HDR) image using Photoshop. It’s still not perfect but it’s better than any of the three individual images turned out.