... 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 ...