Jen & Jackson

What can I say to this? Two of the most beautiful people in my life!

It Really is Spring!

Charlotte, our next door neighbor, brought down some daffodils from her yard's flower beds yesterday, and they have stayed absolutely gorgeous! Spring is definitely here with flowers like this in bloom.

The shots were interesting, as I brought the whole vase up into the studio and dropped a black background behind it. I thought the vase and the way it held the flowers looked great, and so played around a bit with exposures and lighting, including the whole group. After a few of those, I got out the closeup lenses and tried a few more intimate images, in reference to Georgia O'Keeffe. The last was an unaltered shot.

The Shore After "Suppah"

Here are five of the fifty-five I took during a short walk after I got home tonight!

Brake Job Photograms

I've been working with my photography classes on producing pictures without using a camera, and photograms are a great way to teach and understand composition. In order to help them all extend their understanding of what can become a photogram, I brought in a "baggie" full of parts from the recent brake job I did on my Ford Ranger. Rear drum brakes have a bunch of springs and such, so there were plenty of shapes to choose from as I began to work. I used a transparency of the brake design diagram as a unifying background and I chose to divide the exposure in two parts. A couple of the resulting images are what I am posting. Double exposed "Brake Job Photograms".

Dad's Photo

I'm going to post just one photo of the many that I remember my Dad taking when we were young. Not so much after we got in the middle grades, or I know I would have gotten involved in the process, but I can remember him using our bathroom upstairs to print images at night after it got dark. There would always be new fresh pictures in the morning.
I'm posting one that I scanned this afternoon that Dad took of my Grandfather Mort (Pa) pulling a string of  loaded lobster crates near the Town Landing at Winter Harbor in the summer of 1946. The picture predates me, but there is something special to me about my father creating images before I was born.

Female Family History

Jen and Lynne were unpacking and storing materials from and for the library yesterday and came across a number of old ("boy! were we young then!") pictures and some even skipping a generation back in time. I am posting two scans of these, one being my grandmother Torrey and her two daughters, Rita -standing and the oldest by a few years, and my Mom, a newborn in 1920.

photo 1920

The other I am not certain of, but I suspect it might be my great-grandmother.

"Etta" Torrey

Sure Thing

Vern and I went to Winter Harbor today to check out the progress on Nephew Dave's boat. It looks pretty good, here are some pictures from today.

Bye Bye Birthday

So there's another year of my life done and gone. Someone asked me this past week what they had to look forward to in their 50's and 60's, and after a moment I responded "everything". The past decade has brought me joy and sorrow, uncertainty and knowledge, softening of some attitudes and hardening of others, but the most important thing that it has brought me is a closeness of family. It is looking like the next decade might move our family apart somewhat, but the important things will always be in place. Here's a shot of my family at last night's celebration, which includes Morgan's birthday on Wednesday, and a picture of the 48 candle cake that Lynne made for me. I'm not 48, that was the year I was born, so Jen thought it seemed an appropriate number, and she couldn't fit all 65 candles on the cake without endangering the house.

Here's the family in front of the bonfire last night.

...and here are a couple of shots of the fire, I couldn't help myself!

Birthday Bonfire

So I'm doing this post on my phone app as I sit in front of the bonfire, tummy full of lamb and birthday cake, watching it's slow demise into the night. Here are a few of the phone shots I got tonight, and I will post some of the cool fire photos i took with the DSLR Sony tomorrow.

Boys in the Boat

My brother just got to the house for the b-day celebratory dinner, we plan a big bonfire out behind the shop and a real nice supper with family. Torrey "FaceTimed" Jen and I with Jackson having his supper a while ago, so it has been a great birthday so far!

These shots are of the two Daves and my brother looking at the engine compartment in David's sailboat. He's done quite a job upgrading and it won't be long until it is in the water! That will be really exciting, as it is quite a vessel! I'll probably have some "fire" pictures after dinner!

Where Have I Been?

That's a great question when one hasn't been presenting any sort of presence for almost a month on this blog site. Excuses for not posting anything for so long? I've got a million of them! Actually March has been a very hectic month for the education side of my life, trying to balance and prioritize that which is always around me.

I picked a book out of our library by Stephen King that I had never read, called "Insomnia". This may sounds weird, but I had trouble sleeping while I was reading that book. I found myself only reading for a few minutes before I fell asleep each night, except for the times I got up a 2 a.m. and read it awhile to try and get back to sleep. I finished it a few days ago and have slept through the night ever since. Speaking of night, here's a shot I meant to post a week or more ago... just before daylight looking at Bar Harbor from the living room.

And here are three pictures I took after getting home tonight, one of the sun low in the sky, one of some residual winter driftwood, and one of the house looking up from the beach. I thought the clouds in the sky were especially beautiful this evening the way they reached out and upward from the horizon.