I managed to haul my carcass out the door again this morning for the second time in a row. I’ve got a number of good results but will have to process them at a later date. So much to see and do here – no time to process photos. A good problem to have!
Kathy and I took a whale watch cruise this afternoon out of Gloucester, Massachusetts. We love seeing the big whales in person and were not disappointed with this trip. I have a tough time taking good photos on cruises like this, because there are so many people jockeying for position whenever a whale is spotted. I much prefer the smaller, more intimate vessels, but they are tougher to come buy and usually much more expensive. We did see some whales, and I got a few photos. Although I did decide to spring the $20 to but the photos from our naturalist/photographer on board!
I set the alarm for an early exploration of Rockport. It seems that in order to walk around town in the morning here it is a requirement to have at least one dog. I guess that’s what you do in the winter if you don’t drink whiskey. 😉
Motif #1, located on Bradley Wharf in the harbor town of Rockport, Massachusetts, is a replica of a former fishing shack well known to students of art and art history as “the most often-painted building in America.” The original structure was built in 1840 and destroyed in the Blizzard of 1978, but an exact replica was constructed that same year.
In order to show that I did, in fact, get my self out of bed at a photographically productive hour, here are a few photos from around town this morning. Sunrise was 6:23 and I was out the door about 6:10, uncharacteristically early for me without a good reason. Fortunately I got some pretty decent results!
And yes, I did take a photograph of Mystic Pizza, although we haven’t eaten there. 😉
The title comes from an old Joni Mitchell tune, but it is also the title of my latest website gallery: Every Picture Has Its Shadows. I had a tough time with this one, as I know that 140 photos are too many, but I had so many I didn’t want to leave out! So here is my collection of shadow images.
We’re off this morning on our latest adventure – 4 weeks along the New England coast, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York. We’re hoping to meet up with some friends – Joe in Maine, Ken and Paul in New York, and with any luck we’ll run into Bob Krist along the way, assuming he gets back from the Azores in time. Postcards to follow!
(Although it was the Fourth of September, not the Fourth of July *)
Kathy & I met our son Scott and grandson Edison at nearby Tuckaseegee Park in Mount Holly, NC. They have a nice playground there plus several walking paths that run through the woods and along the Catawba River. Edison likes to take “nature walks” so we spent an hour or so there before returning to our house to a lunch of “Tube Steaks.”
Edison isn’t fond of my taking pictures of him but his complaints fall on (my selectively) deaf ears. 🙂
* For the kids out there, a reference to a 1972 song by the best music group of all time. Regardless what they say about bands named after bugs or rocks. 🙂
Over the years I have had several opportunities to think about grouping images into small, themed collections. A photography museum here in Charlotte used to have an “annuale” where photographers would submit a group of 7 photos, to be judged in the context of a theme. I made submissions over a number of years but was always frustrated by the winners, which I deemed to be too “weird,” especially compared to my boringly “normal” photos. Pictures of subjects like roadkill and out of focus body parts seemed to take priority over what I felt was my best effort!
More recently Lenswork magazine had a feature from which they published a number of books titled “Seeing In Sixes.” I never submitted to that one, although I probably should have. I’d have a better shot there than trying to compete in the “art photography” world here in Charlotte. Later editions of Lenswork have featured “Image Suites” which are groupings of similarly-themed photos but without a specific number.
While going through my images for updating my website I realized that I had also come up with a number of groupings, most of the smaller ones for decor purposes but also larger ones for books, such as the now defunct (I think) SoFoBoMo.
Even though I only have a few of them so far, I decided to add a new section to my website to show the groupings I have made. As I go through my images I’ll likely come up with a few more – we still have some empty wall space in the house, although not much!
So here is a link to my latest website gallery Groupings. Hopefully to be a work in process.
I’ve had some time to work on another new gallery for my website. This one I have decided to title “Faces In Places.”
I don’t consider myself to be a people photographer, and a lot of my photos have no people in them whatsoever. But on occasion we come across some irresistible or interesting subject that we just have to photograph.
Most of these are completely candid, although admittedly there are a few where a connection was made. They tend to be the best ones, in my opinion.
I might have just as easily titled this post “A Week of Excuses.” 🙂
Kathy & I have returned from our jaunt to the NC coast. I did a little bit of photography, but not nearly as much as I had intended. I came back with a few decent photographs, but since photography wasn’t really the main purpose of the trip, I’m not disappointed.
– It was HOT and HUMID! The kind of humidity that makes your glasses (and camera lenses) steam up when you go outside, even at 7:00 in the morning! The low temperatures at night were in the low 80s, stretching to the upper 80s/low 90s during the day. I’m not a fan of heat, so that made it tough.
– I’ve been battling a recurring sore leg, which was not helped by walking on sand. So we limited our beach walking a bit which limited my photographic opportunities.
– Mostly we were spending time with family and friends and generally relaxing, so it was overall a good trip.
Now we have a few weeks to rest up for our next adventure. Coming soon! 🙂
I’ve been procrastinating a bit, but this morning I finally put the finishing touches on my first new website gallery titled “Nautica.” I discussed it in an earlier post but had been fiddling around with the pictures and updating the processing on the photos that I thought would benefit.
A direct link to the gallery is here.
We’re off to the NC coast for a few days of R&R and visiting our Ohio relatives who insist on coming south during the hottest part of the summer. We love them anyway and look forward to a few days of sand and saltwater. I may take a few photos….
