It Must be the Bricks

I went back over some of the shots from yesterday, and had a number of others that interested me and were shot from the upper window down to the street. The pattern in the background of all of these was the brick texture of the sidewalks. Fascinating in the variety of brick pattern sizes afforded by utilizing a 75-300 mm zoom, the photos that included people were a study in the contrast between the solid immobility of those bricks and the nature and movement of flesh and blood. Here I'm posting a pair of photos that emphasize and compare that human movement and character.

Four From a Window

Here are four shots (doctored a bit) from the third floor at Maine College of Art. Really interesting to work from this point of view. I missed a few, but here are the ones that seemed to work for me.

Curtains and Cores

Doing situps in the hotel room this morning and I discovered the curtains from the bottom.
















Finished a workshop session and so felt the need to create an apple core sculpture. Here it is.

Ahh, Portland...

I had the chance to sleep on Torrey and Kate's "lumpy" futon last night, but made it well, managed to get up without too much distress and get to the conference, which went very well for the first day!

Here is a picture of the Portland Waterfront out our hotel window with thunderstorms and all approaching, we are looking right over Peasant Street.

And some shots of the "dancing gulls" on the flat lower roof of the parking garage.

OK, So Flowers Again...

  ...but with a new twist. I took a telephoto lens out this afternoon and screwed a couple of close up filters on it just to see what I would get. The photos below are the result. I thought a couple of things were very cool, such as the very narrow depth of field and the way that I actually had to move the camera toward and away from the subject to get things into focus. Some of the results are below. It's kind of exciting for me that I am still finding new things to do with my camera!

Seiners...

AT some point earlier this week, I think maybe it was Monday, some fishermen up the bay set twine at Spruce Point, just to the East of our house. I walked the beach at low tide, and sure enough it was some sort of seining operation. Now, I spent some time on sardine boats back in the 50's and early 60's, and this rigging was nothing like I'd ever seen, but it was inventive. They had one end of the square set out in mono-filament twine and it really looked as though it was capable of catching some fish. Mostly it is mackerel in the bay right now.

I don't know if they've gotten any fish as of yet, but they had a scow out and were straightening the net and getting it ready to put back into the water. With the scarcity of bait for lobster fishing and the resultant price when you can get it, it seems very inspired for this man and what looked like maybe two of his sons to be out trying to "purse seine" fish. The picture is from this afternoon.

More Flowers

There are so many flowers around the house, in the field, down by the shore and everywhere that when I go out around the house with my camera I never seem to have any problem finding something to shoot. I noticed this afternoon that the flowers are not only alive, but they have what I need to describe as very slow metabolisms and their movements are as life-like and meaningful in that time based context as any mammal.

The Brown Eyed Susans (notice I feel the need to capitalize the names) especially had it going on this afternoon as did the relationship between the bee and the Field Wildflower (? - I need to get a field guide and learn some of these plants). Here a four shots of more than 80 this afternoon.

Kayaking at Sunset

The wind died out last night and Jen and I grabbed the long kayak and went for a paddle up the bay. We went past the campground and to the town landing (bumped a rock among the seaweed) to watch the sun set. A gorgeous night and sunset with the sky all red was waiting for us when we returned to the house. I was singing "Summertime", and there were actually fish jumping (probably small mackerel) all around us. The pics I'm posting here were taken with an iPhone.

Flowers Today!

3 Boats on the Bay

I had the telephoto lens on my camera this morning, and caught Joe while he was hauling some of his traps. Tonight the sunset was superb and the light blasting into my studio made me realize (along with Jen's remarks) that I was missing some photo "ops". Rather than get something on my feet and go outside, I just stuck the lens out the living room window and got the two bottom shots, one of a visiting sailboat and the other of Vern and David putting the aux motor back on the "Teacher's Pet".