Night Time Related

These two shots... the first was taken in my basement after bringing in the solar lights that line the walkways around the shore and patio all summer. They were thrown randomly into a box and then put in the dark basement. The light came from within.

The second shot is from my kayak last night as I got home before dark (hard to do now) and decided that a "paddle" was in order, so I made my way around the bay and got a few shots before the night had closed. It was beautiful and this picture just gives a sense of how amazing it was on the water!

School Activities...

So Liz had some "ladies" laying ceramic tile this week, and were doing a super job of it when I took the first shot. What fun and it really makes the wall look cool!

Also, we did a "Tie Dye Tuesday" after school workshop, and got several teachers and a bunch of students preparing clothing for the weekly "tie_dye Friday" that the Art Department does at MDI. George and I even did dress shirts in tie dye.

And, finally, we've been doing tessellations in Fiber Arts and I shot one of a student on my iPad. Yes, it does tessellate!

Tall Chairs

These two photos were taken at USM and I thought the tall chairs sculpture was an amazing piece. Just got around to posting these photos. It's about the shadows after all, n'est ce pas?

Fall Is Definitely Here...

The Hostas (used a slow shutter speed and the zoom lens on that one) are folding up and turning brown as is about everything... those colors that exist between the bright reds and yellows we so often associate with fall and the November browns that presage winter are beautiful in all their subtleties! Here are three shots from this weekend.

It's a "Wild Thing"!

For the last two days the weather has been "blustery", as the meteorologists are so fond of saying, but it looks to me like it's just windy, very windy! The westerly wind has been blowing right at the front of the house, so it has been more obvious than usual with all the whistling and rattling. Usually we don't hear the wind as the house is pretty tight, but when it's "wild" out, we do! Here's a photo of the "Wild Thing" in all the wave action...

Grasshopper

Is a grasshopper in the grass redundant?

Apples, Mushrooms & Weathered Wood

I did a "photo walk", picked a half bushel of apples, and tasted a little piece of mushroom this afternoon before finishing the cutting of the grass. I also got a cool picture of a little grasshopper hanging onto a blade of grass but that's for another post. Here are the photos without much comment, sorry!

Ok, so I liked the "old" look of the apples and the boarding on the playhouse, the roughness of texture and visual quality... with the mushroom it was just about the camera angle and "getting under" the cap.

Surreal Banana

We were having a discussion wrapped around surrealism and humor in my Digital Media class this morning, and one of the students found a site where bananas were used in numerous and humorous ways. What a chance for a "teaching moment" and discussing the juxtaposition of reality and what one might call illogical fantasy! Where are the concepts of the Surrealistic movement connected to this sort of "setup" of imagery? Dali's "paranormal critical" method of observation took the "shape" of finding the "real" within negative space of objects, but this seems much more direct. Here's my banana.

Right Out Straight

... and as my colleague Leah Olson put it, "Lovin' it!" There has been so much to do at the beginning of this school year that at times I feel overwhelmed, but just keep busy (time passes quickly) and somehow get to the important things. Teaching kids to prioritize requires being able to do that myself! Here's me this morning!

The Right Light

So the apples were a good "shot selection" as we used to say in the basketball world, but often times it is really the light that makes a photo. The apples were just something I came upon after shooting a few shots of a sunset on the bay. I had a telephoto lens on the camera, and often it seems that the wrong lens is sort of stifling. I had looked at the clouds over Cadillac, but the telephoto was too "big", so I turned toward the apple tree and got several shots of the apples, lit by the sunset, and I think that subtle light with the dark background is what made the apple shot work. The sunset is here below.