Eastern Shore Three

I had some commentary with the above photos which was inane and distracting rather than helpful or interesting, so I did you a favor and deleted it all. Now you can enjoy these in peace.

Eastern Shore Two

Hmm... What have I been doing the last week? How are we already a week into December? What is this 2010 thing I hear is coming up soon? The end of which decade? Did we ever figure out what we were going to call this decade? The Zeros? The Two Thousands? The aughts? What a confusing time - I've had a notion of time standing still and moving at a horribly rapid pace for quite some time now. Or perhaps it has been less time than quite some, I'm just not sure.

I am sure that these photos of the inn we stayed at in Easton speak to these ideas, but only time will tell what they say:

Eastern Shore One

This past weekend, Jay and I took a drive across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and visited the Eastern Shore of Maryland. This is my favorite picture from the weekend so far:

There will be more pictures from the trip, so check back in the coming days.

I ain't been droppin' no leaves, sir, honest!

Here's one more Autumnal picture:

And that's the last from that shoot. Wonder what's next?

Autumn Inside

I felt a bit strange a couple of weeks ago while I was walking around my neighborhood, picking up dead leaves, twigs and acorns and stuffing them into my tote bag. Especially when I got the branch full of dead leaves (seen in picture two) that was too large to safely hide away in my bag making it seem all too obvious that my furtive snatches at bits of organic detritus were not from an impulsive appreciation of autumnal beauty, but more likely the compulsive obsession of a crazy woman. So, it is at the expense of my reputation in the neighborhood that I bring you the following photographs:

All you need is a pretty girl... (aka Sex Sells)

Sometime this summer, Jay and I took a respite near the window of Slainte in Fell's Point, cooling off with some tasty brew and probably watching soccer. I was playing with my camera and took a few shots of Jay's bottle of beer with a serendipitous background.



I think that would sell a few beers, don't you? Here, take another look:

I think I like the second better than the first. In the first, I like that she is clearer and her beer is visible, though it would be better if she were drinking Yuengling as well. But the second seems to show a connection which brings anticipation and excitement. (In reality she was sitting down at that moment, not getting up, and there was no connection to speak of, but that's my little secret.) I guess in the end which picture to use would depend on the copy for the ad.

Yes, Flowers

I try to stay away from photographing flowers because, well, everyone takes pictures of flowers and I don't like doing what everyone else is doing. I'm a loner like that. However, even I will be tempted by a pretty petal from time to time, especially if it is my mom's flowers because I know she likes that. When I was up at my parents' house in Michigan most recently, in May, I took some photos of my mother's gorgeous peony bush. This half-opened blossom was the best of that bunch:

Out in the natural garden that is their side yard, I found this perfect specimen of a dandelion gone to seed:

And up close:

Pretty, yes?

Mooving Along

Five days on, four days off... I'll get better.

This is one a lot of you have already seen on my Facebook page, but I'm putting it up anyway. I'm working on something else to put up, but my computer is getting awfully hot so I'm afraid it's going to start crapping out on me soon. Plus, I promised to call my parents tonight, I'm about to eat dinner, I have a load of laundry in the dryer and another to fold and I need to be to bed early for an early day at work tomorrow.

Excuses, right? I know. Here's how I feel about that:

That's right. Slightly scary faceless cow. (Secret: it's a creamer. Not so scary now, right?)

Carnival to Festival

As a transition piece, and because I ran out of time to work on much tonight, I'm delivering a series of unedited consecutive photos of Jay attacking a funnel cake at the Charles Village Festival a couple of weeks ago. Accompanied by narrative:

"Are you as ready for this as I am?" Jay asks. "As long as I have my PBR!"

"Hmmm... so fried and powdery and appetizing...""Well, here goes!" "Ah, the doughy crunch...""Oh no! Powder everywhere! Why must you curse me so, funnel cake!""Mmmm...delicious and worth it all."And... HULA HOOP!

Carnivale 4: Mardi Gras!

This is the last of the carnival pics and we're going out on a color explosion!

The fun house had a Mardi Gras theme and this is half of the mural that was painted on it:


That blonde is loving life. (Any of my digital image savvy friends: please don't look too closely at the above photo. I just didn't have the patience or the battery life to do it the right way.) Here let me distract you with a closer look at our buxom Mardi Gras queen:



Of course there was a carousel, and I took a traditional picture of the horse's head that's very nice and stuff, but I find this one more interesting.




I took several pictures of the quiet bumper cars, but because of the drastic difference in the shadowy bumper car haven and the blazing, sunny sky, they will need a lot of work to make them presentable. Work that I don't feel like doing right now. This, however, is the back of the bumper car truck. Everything folds up behind this to drive off to the next town. I wonder who engineers these things.



So that was the Havre-du-Grace carnival. I'm not sure yet what I'll have for you tomorrow. There may be some very appetizing peppers, or perhaps a dead fish on the beach. Or something completely different. I'll let you know tomorrow.

P.S. I did most of this post in a rather dim bar, so I hope the pictures turn out okay. I'll check on them and adjust tomorrow if I need to.

Carnivale 3: Other Stuff

I little less focused today, here are a few photos of other things at the carnival. First is the Tilt-A-Whirl, my favorite when I was young. I liked the merry-go-round at the playground, too. I wonder why I liked spinning so much. I also have a distinct memory of Ally hitting her funny bone just as we were getting on the Tilt-A-Whirl once. The ride hadn't started yet, but they wouldn't let her get off. She spent the three (or so) spinny minutes cradling her arm in one corner and I spent it feeling bad for her. Poor Ally. Fortunately, we spent plenty of other time having fun on rides in our childhood.


This is one of those quarter games that I don't remember how to play and never took much interest in. I was more interested in the water-gun racing games. Now, though, I find the array of prizes fascinating, especially the mixture of Christian and soccer paraphernalia. There's a lot to look at in this picture and the reflection in the glass makes it even more necessary to look closely. The little praying girl kneeling before a shot glass is a little disturbing, though.


This is a car from the Bear Affair ride. Apparently it's fun to pretend you're in the belly of a bear while you ride around in circles. Poor children. This isn't a great picture, but I promised yesterday I'd include the strange bears, I only took two, and the other, though better composed, was all blown out, so here he is in all his purple overall glory:


I'm getting through the better of my carnival pictures, so I'll be moving on soon. I think I can get one more post out of them and then it'll be on to something else. Wouldn't want you all to get bored.

Carnivale 2: Ferris Wheel

I couldn't decide which of these Ferris Wheel pictures I liked the best, so I'm posting five. Which one(s) do you like best?





I loved the colors of the baskets and tried to get as many as I could in each shot. I'm not sure why I didn't think to go around and take some from the other side, as well. I guess I was too caught up in this angle. And there was more to be taken. Tomorrow, Tilt-a-Whirl, strange bears, and some other carnival fun!

Carnivale

On July 3rd I had a day off and with Jay visiting family up in Traverse City I had a three day weekend to fill by myself. I decided to go on a mini-road trip for the day and without really knowing where I was going when I left, I ended up in Havre-du-Grace, MD. It's not too far north of B-more, really, but it was a different enough setting to be stimulating.

It's a small town and on that Friday afternoon before a big holiday things were quiet, but with a distinct promise of activity to come. After a glass of wine, lunch, and a chapter of East of Eden at McGregor's, I set about with my camera. I visited the oldest lighthouse in continuous use in the U.S. and snapped a few shots of the bay and some ducks. Pleasant, but not too interesting.

At the end of the bayside Promanade, however, I found a carnival in wait. The rides sat still and the games hid behind vinyl covers. The food stands had yet to have sizzling vats of fried this and that.

Now, photos of carnivals at night are way fun to take. With all the lights, long exposures can create gorgeous effects. But, it being 5pm in July, and having already explored much of the city in the 85 degree heat with a heavy bag, I wasn't really in the mood to hang around four hours until sufficient night fell. Instead, I went about capturing the carnival in its unnatural stillness.

My first set of photos were of The Samurai:

From there I moved on to the ferris wheel, bumper cars, and more. In tomorrow's post...

Reboot

Alright, here we go again.

Pantry - Apples

I'm afraid I over-processed these in photoshop, but it may be I've been staring at them for much too long. I'll have to take a fresh look tomorrow and re-evaluate.

Pantry- Cinnamon Vodka

Another from the Pantry. Our friends, Jess and Steve, gave us a basket of goodies for the holidays, part of which was this homemade, cinnamon infused vodka. I don't like the yellow background now. I thought the skull and crossbones shot glass was funny, but maybe I should have just stuck with the flame shot glass to match with the "keep warm" idea. What do you think?

Also, this is yummy stuff, but we're not big straight liquor drinkers and we're having trouble figuring out what to mix this with. Any ideas?

Inspiration, shame - call it what you will.

I found this guy's blog today and became ashamed of myself. He runs a photo studio and still manages to post up a great photo every day. "Occasionally," my ass (sorry Mom). So here's a picture of my favorite subjects, hard at work.

(Sorry to those of you who have seen this elsewhere, but hey, it's my photo, anyway.)

Products

I know it's not real glamorous, but after a lot of consideration, I think I'd ideally like to be doing product photography as a profession. I'll always be able to pursue personal projects, but for the bill-paying, I think this is the most enjoyable and appropriate path for me. I'm not a people person. I like people and I get along with most, but I'm not very good at trying to direct people or work with people in a leadership role, which makes most people photography very difficult. I imagine I'll eventually become more confident in my abilities and be able to do other subjects, but right now, I just want to work with things. With that in mind, I've begun seeing what I can do with things around the house, starting with the pantry. I'm still experimenting and learning my flash, and all these were taken with it as the main light source.

I'm pleased with what I came out with. I plan on working more on my Photoshop skills, as well, so I can get work retouching photos. Again, not glamorous, but I'm just not a glam kind of gal.

Gallery of Zoe F.

My niece, Zoe is adorable (She is Jeff and you know it). She is also fond of getting her picture taken. I got a few pics while I was home over the holidays that I can't help sharing.

Deceptively Sweet...

Can you spot the mischievous twinkle in that eye?

She is also a goofball.