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October 30, 2015

AUTUMN'S ENDING

... what a fabulous week ...

... a present for a friend's birthday, i know she'll enjoy sharing ...

... it rained, our first real post-autumn storm ...

... as the sky to the south was darkening i made a little wanderabout downtown ...

... for a moment too brief the sun peeked beneath the towering clouds ...

... clouds that erased the twilight and brought quickly the night ...

... john and i went for a short drive, picture taking our unnecessary excuse for taking an hour to enjoy the unseasonally warm afternoon ...

... i discovered a most sublime geometry ...

... the ten-mile stream was high from the rain ...

... hmmm, i'm thinking john's new camera overexposes hair ...

... a little fungi party, celebrating the end of summer ...

... john surveyed the scene from atop some ancient celtic ruins ...

all returns to the sea,
all returns to the sea,
in time,
all returns to the sea.
A.BRADY




October 25, 2015

BACKYARD WONDER



... in new hampshire at sarah and gordy's, watching the dogs while on the other side of america they enjoy their own little wanderabout along the rim of the grand canyon ... rain last night, as it cleared late this morning i decided to take a little stroll around the backyard ...

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; 

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees, 

Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?


Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies. 

John Keats
1795–1821

October 24, 2015

ROGER'S CLASS REUNION

... many months ago roger asked me to take pictures at the reunion he was planning for his eighth-grade class ... today i took a break from my new hampshire dog sitting duties to drive down to lebanon elementary school for the event ...

... a rare occurance, roger granted me a little pose ...

... it seemed to me that everyone had a wonderful time, and i considered it a great honor to have been included in the activities ... for all who attended, the photographs may be found at:

LEBANON ELEMENTARY REUNION PICTURES

October 20, 2015

PAINTER IN PARKING LOT

... i put my motorcycle up for the winter yesterday, this afternoon roger stopped by to chat about next year's wanderabout ... !!! ... while we were talking i noticed a man in the parking lot setting up what at first i thought was a laptop computer on a tripod ... no binoculars, but then i remembered that on the shelf was a "new" thirty-year old tamron 300mm sp lens ... from an image shot hand-held, this 30% crop isn't all that bad ...

... i grabbed my camera and went down to meet bruce, an artist ...

... my fuji x-t1 had the tamron 90mm sp macro affixed ... for those of you who aren't photographers, this translates out that for picture taking in a crowded parking lot i probably should've picked a lens with a wider view ... i didn't worry it much, one of my mottos being, "if the u.f.o. hovers in front of you, don't run back to the house to get the proper lens for u.f.o. photography—make do with what's on the camera" ...

... fascinating ...

... past six o'clock, now it's time to do some art in the kitchen ...

October 18, 2015

WANDERING AUTUMN

... my brother, michael ...

... on another wanderabout in beth's garden ...

... i always enjoy these little flowers ...

... of course, i greatly enjoy beth's tomatoes, too ...

... today i joined john for a drive to gorham so he could do some planetarium presentations ... while he was in the dome talking to the very tiny little children, i took a walk around the town ...

... in a chill autumn breeze these little fellows were making a gallant attempt to hold on a bit longer to summer ...

... soft ...

... in the "olden" days my favorite nikon f3 film camera had 14 buttons, dials, controls and movable parts which were used in the picture taking process ... today while john was working i took some time to become more familiar with my x-t1's 34 buttons, dials, controls and movable parts, as well as its 200+ menu commands (there are almost 40 major headings, each of which has 4-8 sub-headings) ... after a few minutes i'd a serious brain cramp, so i looked up and just snapped an interesting picture of the gym floor ...

... so low it seemed we could almost touch their wheels, liz and adrien were jumping up and down waving at the giant airplanes taking off from anchorage's international airport ... while i was laughing at their antics i noticed this little girl as she stopped to become part of the sunset ...

... tomorrow i'll probably put up my motorcycle for the winter ... i get asked, "doesn't that make you sad" ...

... my daughters took me to alaska, i have a motorcyle and a car, i get to take a long, hot shower every morning ... 

... sad, nah, indeed, life is good ...




October 15, 2015

WANDERING R.I.

... monday on the first leg of my trip to visit mike and beth, the hundred yards from my front door to where i park my car and motorcycle, i decided that although it was a beautiful day not being quite sure what the weather would be for my return home would be the determinant in my "impala vs. b.m.w" decision ... (and, yes, i admit, this is perhaps an admission that i am, indeed, getting a tiny bit older) ... filled up with gas in waterville, then headed out ... my goal was to make it to rhode island with a 38 mpg average ... six cylinders, regular gas, cruise control set to 66 mph ... i was at 38.1 mpg when i hit the first of the columbus day car parks, the ten miles at the southern end of i95 ... i might've managed after that, but the second giant car park was twenty miles of stop-and-go driving on route 128 ... even with that, i made it to i295 with 37.9 mpg showing, but the long upgrades on that highway did me in ... nevertheless, a new maine to rhode island gas mileage record ... !!! ...


... the next day while mike collected his mail my tamron sp 90mm macro and i did a bit of wandering along the edges of the post office parking lot ...

... hand-held, wide-open aperture, i pushed to the edge of the lens's performance envelope ... 

... across the street from the house of mike's friend, craig, i continued my exploration ...

... mike took us to "ichigo ichie" in east providence, my first ever visit to a hibachi restaurant where the food is cooked right at the table ...

... while waiting for the grill to heat my lens and i continued our fun ... 

... a snapped one picture of the cooking process, then put my camera to rest so i could fully enjoy the show ...

... can you figure out what this is ... ??? ...

... in little compton we visited the grave of the "first white woman born in new england" ... 

... craig was intrigued by some of the tombstones ...

... mid-october, in beth's garden is clear evidence the difference between the climates of maine and rhode island ...

... again, hand-holding a macro-focused lens at 1/40th second is a most difficult task ...

... "cherry tomatoes," very pretty and, after beth's done making them into stuff, great fun to eat ...

... mike took me on a little wander up behind the big river reservoir ... this is just a little pond, the big river, after millions of dollars investment, will never be anything but a state forest ... seems that from the get-go someone forgot to take into account that the sandy terrain of central rhode island can't hold water ... simply, the state leaks ...

... i still chuckle when i hear photographers comment, "well, that's hdr photography," their tone being derisive and judgmental ... my response is simple, "what's your point" ...

... in the evening the bees were so cold it was easy to take pictures of them ...

... this is perhaps a tiny bit beyond the edge of "photo realism," enough manipulation that it's more a "stylistic" offering ... as i finished working on it i was going to dial down the effect, but the more i looked at it the more i liked it ... you, of course, can make up your own mind ... 

... today i drove over to oakland beach to give my "new" thirty-year old tamron 300mm sp telephoto a workout ... hazy, contrasty, bright noon-day sun light, a lot of glare off the water, most photography tutorials would advise against picture taking in conditions such as these ... (long ago i quit reading such foolishness) ... long-lens, hand-held, manual focus, even i was a bit surprised ...

... i used to bring ma to oakland beach ... she'd tell me stories of the olden days, how in 1954 we lived their for awhile after hurricane carol because one of pa's friends had a house with a kerosene stove and heat ... we would share a bag of iggy's clam cakes ... i'd feed the big flying rats, ma would sit and enjoy the cool breeze coming off the bay ... how strange to say this, but at oakland beach this afternoon it was good to miss her ...

... corvus brachyrhnchos ... current discussion of "encephalization quotients" and relative size of individual brain cells, along with the evidence that crows make and use tools and that they communicate using a complex language, all lead many, including myself, to believe that these creatures possess a higher-order intelligence equivalent, if not actually surpassing, that of mammals such as cats or dogs ...

... this, by the way, is a crop that is only 25% the original image ... another point for the tamron lens ...

... i'm enjoying a nice wanderabout ...