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Here and There…Now and Then |
Rain Jewels
Not a lot going on this evening and I didn’t take many pictures today. When I walked out to my car after work the windscreen was glowing a sparkling gold. I was parked under a lamp and the light was reflecting off the hundreds of tiny drops of rain that had accumulated there. They were big enough to cover the glass completely but not big enough that they started combining into larger droplets and rolling down, leaving streaks down the glass.
Santa’s Early Visit
T.K. With Light Wands
In our neighborhood, Santa doesn’t want to take any chances of not knowing where all the kids are so he makes an early run, just checking things out. He doesn’t bother with looking at chimneys or roof tops and the reindeer are still resting up for the big night that is just over a week away. For this trip he uses a bit more modern transportation and he brings some elves with him to help distribute a few goodies to boys and girls who have been suitably good.
One nice thing about this trip is he’s not so silent as he is on Christmas night. In fact, if you are quiet, the music can be heard for many blocks — to say nothing of his “ho, ho, ho!”
This was the first time our new neighbors, Jimmy and Katie and their three kids have seen Santa making his early rounds. Apparently where they used to live he either didn’t feel it was necessary or it was a much quieter affair. In any case, they were excited to go out to see him. Of course T.K. and Piper were here, visiting their grandmother across the street from us. They’ve seen this pretty much every year, so they know how excited they should be. As you can see from the second of these pictures, T.K. has been especially good and got not one but two light-up wands.
Is he excited? Yes, he is!
The Cabin and Pond
Dorothy Cutting A Tree
Dot Looking at Jewelry
We drove up to Pennsylvania with mom to get Christmas trees today and as usual we stopped by the farm. As we got out of the car we startled two squirrels, who ran up the side of the cabin and into holes up at the ridge line. It seems they have been doing a little chewing inside, destroying one chair, but not as much damage as they could have done. There’s not a huge amount we can do about it. If we had time and a long ladder we could put hardware cloth over their openings but that might not do more than slow them down a bit. Still, probably worth doing in the spring.
It wasn’t as cold as some years and there was only the smallest amount of ice on the pond, just at the edges. It was actually a beautiful day with enough clouds to make the sky interesting while still being basically clear. We walked around the pond and I took a bunch of pictures. We haven’t planted Christmas trees in way too long so there are none there worth considering for our houses. We didn’t even go look this year because even the smallest trees will be way too big.
From the farm we drove to Seven Springs Tree Farm to get three trees, one for mom, one for Ralph and Tsai-Hong, and one for us. We got smallish trees this year. Because of that and because there were only four of us in the van we were able to fold the back seat down and put them in the back of the van. That’s even easier than tying them on the roof. In this picture the tree Dorothy is cutting down is in the process of falling. Got to get those action shots.
We went into the shop for hot chocolate and to listen to the little band that was playing folk music inside. The third picture here is of mom looking at jewelry in the shop. She knew I was taking it but didn’t realize that more than her arm was in the picture. Sneaky, eh?
We went to lunch after getting our trees. This is the third year in a row we’ve gone to the Ott House Pub in Emmitsburg. It’s a friendly place with pretty good food. The onion rings were excellent.
Going to get our trees is one of those traditions that I don’t really want to give up. It’s definitely not the cheapest or easiest way to get a tree but it’s worth the extra time and expense. It’s a shame that Dorothy’s friend Kendra wasn’t able to come with us this year, but it was still fun.
Frosty Morning
The temperature has been up and down quite a bit the last few weeks. We’ve had wonderfully warm days in the 60s and a few cold days that made if feel like winter was here to stay. This morning it was cold again and there was a touch of frost everywhere. The grass was a whitish-green and was crunchy under foot. The azalea leaves had tiny ice crystals all over them. This picture is of oak leaves in the pachysandra. I love the way the leaves are outlined in white.
Heinz Potato & Leek Soup
Dorothy has been working for a while on this screen print in her art class at school. It’s printed on the back of a faded blue shirt and I think it turned out very well.
The assignment was to take an every day object and make it ironic in some way and to do it in the style of Andy Warhol. Clearly this makes you think of his Campbell’s Soup cans but with the twist that they are Heinz and the soup is thick potato and leek instead of tomato.
It was actually a pretty ambitious design because of all the colors used, taking 20 screenings in all.
Now I’m a bit hungry. I think I’ll go have a bowl of soup.
Magenta Sunset
We usually think of sunsets as being red or orange. This evening as I left work it was definitely magenta. I took a few pictures through the woods bordering my office building’s parking lot because I didn’t know how long the color would last or if I’d get another shot. After pulling out on the road, however, I was fortunate enough to be stopped by the traffic light on the corner (and how often do we consider that a blessing?). This was the view directly to my left. The first two shots I took turned out nicely. Then a truck drove between me and the sky while I was taking the third. I got one more a few minutes later in the reflection of my rear-view mirror, but that’s not worth bothering with.
Fall Bramble Colors
What beautiful colors the brambles turn in the fall. I’m not sure why I think of them as stained glass colors, except they seem to come alive in the sun. I took some pictures of a great blue heron today, as well, but it was too far away for them to be any good. With the warm weather we’ve been having, there was also a dandelion in bloom. Spunky little plant, the dandelion. But these colors are what attracted me the most.
Tree Silhouettes
As I left work today I took this picture of the deep blue of the evening sky with black silhouettes of trees against it. It isn’t perfectly sharp because I didn’t have a tripod for the 1 second exposure but it’s at least passably sharp.
Henry
I don’t know a lot of other people named Henry. At times it has been a popular name but there don’t seem to be a lot of people my age with the name. I don’t know if this is enough of a sample to say the name is coming back into fashion, but I photographed two little boys named Henry in as many days. Yesterday there was a couple with two children and the younger of the two was a Henry. Then there is this Henry, who has been coming to our church for a little while (with his parents, of course). This isn’t the best picture I’ve ever taken of him but it’s the best I got today. He’s a wonderfully cute little boy. It helps to win the genetic lottery and have attractive parents.
???, Elizabeth, and Elsie
Elizabeth
After the dreary morning yesterday, I was a little afraid that today would be a washout. Instead I woke to a beautiful day and it only got better as the day went on. I spent much of the day at a craft sale at Rocklands Farm, offering my cards and prints to whoever was interested. I’m sure the gorgeous weather played a part in making it a pretty successful day. Not only that but I got to see friends whom I see far too infrequently. Finally, there were a host of cute kids there and for the most part they were happy to pose for pictures.
In the first picture, I’m not sure of the name of the girl on the left but the other two are Elizabeth and Elsie. I’m fortunate enough to know their parents and I’ve photographed both of them before. The three girls were using some of Janis’ wreath making supplies to make themselves a bit more more festive.
The second picture is another of Elizabeth, modelling a hat. I was impressed with the pot holders that Elizabeth had made for the craft sale. She stood with her wares and happily pocketed the money earned. What an adorable girl she is.
Katie and Ilene
We had our group holiday lunch/party/thing this afternoon and I took a few pictures. It’s a little weird. Some places I go, people are not used to seeing me without my camera. Other places, they are not surprised when they see me taking pictures, although I don’t always have it in front of my face. Work, however, is the other way ’round. I do go outside at lunchtime some days to take pictures and a few people are used to seeing that. On occasion friends and co-workers will have their children at work and I often get to take pictures of them (the children). But it’s pretty rare for me to be snapping pictures of my co-workers themselves. This is the second year the small group I work in has gone to the party with this larger group at work and I only really know a small fraction of them, which adds to the weirdness, I suppose.
That’s a long-winded way of saying, this is a picture of two of my co-workers, taken at our holiday party/lunch/thing — Katie on the left, Ilene on the right.
Lake Needwood
I’ve stopped a Lake Needwood a few times this fall to take pictures. Once the trees were all in their festive fall clothes. Once it was foggy and mysterious. Today, it was bright and sunny and the blue of the water was enhanced by the reflection of the blue sky. It was a chilly morning but very pretty out so I stopped for a few pictures.
I took some with the longer lens and got some nice pictures with geese on the water. Then I switched to the wide angle and took a few more. This is one of the wide angle shots and it emphasizes the blue of the water, contrasted with the dull brown of the trees on the shore.
I would be pretty awesome to take a picture looking in this direction at the same time every day for a year and turn that into an animation. Not that I’m going to do that, mind you. Just that it would be pretty awesome.
Hannah
It would have been better if we had a bit more room but this evening Dorothy’s good friend Hannah was doing one-hand cartwheels and I took a few pictures. I think this is the best of them because it looks as though she is standing still on one hand. She’s actually moving from right to left in this picture.
Night Sky
After picking Dorothy up at Julia’s house this evening, I set my camera on the roof of the car, told Dorothy to sit still, and fired off a 30 second exposure. The clouds were moving fairly quickly so they have ended up blurred and covering more of the sky than was apparent when I took the picture. Also, the spinning of the earth turned each pin point star into a little line segment. I think it’s really cool that here at a latitude of 39° we’re moving at over 800 miles per hour as we spin around the earth’s axis. For course that doesn’t count the 66 thousand miles per hour we’re hurtling through space as we orbit the sun. Anyway, during a 30 second exposure the earth turns one eighth of a degree. Hopefully that doesn’t make you dizzy. If you prefer, you can think of this as a pretty picture of the night sky. That works for me.
Christmas Lights
I stopped in front of a house with lots of Christmas lights on the way home this evening and took a bunch of pictures. Some of them were taken with fairly long exposures and I moved the camera around a bit to see what patterns I’d get. In this one, there are two lights that stand out from the rest and you can see the pattern that was made by my movement. What do you see? I showed it to Dorothy and asked her what she saw and she said the same thing that I saw.
Note: This post was originally titled What Do You See? It was quickly pointed out by my brother that, given the season and the reason for the lights maybe the title should be, Do You See What I See? He is right, of course, and I changed the title. I only wish I had been so clever from the start.
Stop Light
I was waiting at this traffic light on the way home from work and realized that I really liked the rich colors of both the light and the sky. In the picture the light has washed out just a bit and turned slightly orange, but it still works well with the deep blue evening sky.
Then the light changed to green and I moved on.
Foggy Morning
It was a foggy drive to church this morning but I headed into the mist without fear. Alright, perhaps that is a bit dramatic. Still, visibility was significantly reduced, particularly in low lying areas, like here as I headed down toward the creek. I like fog, actually, and wish we had it more often, although it does not do wonders to traffic around here. I remember leaving for school in the fog in Cambridge years ago. I honestly don’t remember if that was a happy memory or not, but it is now. So there.
Hannah On Ice
Some Of Hannah’s Fans
Dorothy’s friend, Hannah, has been skating since she was seven years old. Dorothy has seen her skate before but I hadn’t, so when she announced that she’d be performing today, I thought it would be good to come. Dorothy wanted to be there, as well, and we heard that a bunch of other friends from school were planning to be there. The first picture for today is one of quite a few that I took of her on the ice. I don’t have a lot of experience with photographing skating. Also, it’s not all that bright in the indoor rink (and it was dark outside in any case). In order to get a fast enough shutter speed I needed to set my camera’s ISO to 6,400. That let me shoot at f/3.5, so I had a little depth of field and 1/800 second. I got a few pictures that I’m happy with and a bunch that are not very good. Sorry it is so grainy, but that’s life. Hannah, on the other hand, was lovely throughout and all her fans were happy to cheer for her when she was finished.
The second photo is some of those fans. This is actually probably about half the people who came specifically to see her. They are, from left to right, back: Jessie, Libby, Dorothy, Cat, Louie, Hannah, Abagail, Brandon. Front: Tyler, Alex, Kyle, Connor, and Garrett.
Window Reflections
Negative Space
Marsh Reflections
Three pictures today, all featuring reflections. The first is a picture of the sun and clouds reflected in an office building. I had to walk over here to pick something up today and, as I sometimes do, I brought my camera with me. The sun was reflecting brightly in the windows and along with the clouds, I thought it looked nice. I had to be careful to have the sun not quite in one of the windows or it was way to bright. Actually, it’s a bit blown out in parts as it is. Still, and interesting photo.
After that I walked down into the woods between my building and the one with the reflections. The stream that runs between the two buildings has a fairly strong flow here and I was looking for patterns on the surface. This one is a little interesting because where the tree is reflected on the water the reflections are absent and you can see down to the rocky bottom, where I focused. It’s almost hard to tell that the shiny surface is water, because it is ever so slightly out of focus.
The last picture is from a little pool of water that lies just above the stream and yet somehow separated from it. In the summer it is a place of dragonflies and skimmers but it has a very different feel now that the cool weather has come and the insect life is not apparent. I’ve come down to this pool a few times when it is very busy at work and I need a few minutes of quiet solitude. It’s a good place to sit and think.
St. Mary’s Church
The old St. Mary’s Church, shown here on the left, was built in 1817. It is the first brick Catholic church in the county and the oldest church still in use in Rockville. The new church building, on the right was built in the 1960, but fortunately the old church was saved from demolition. Cathy and I were in Rockville for some business this morning and this is the view from the office we were in.