Week 10 Theme 45 Spooky

Driving down a major street I surprisingly came across this ghoulish village. It did not appear to be connected to any house as there were not any houses close by. So I took my chances to photograph the scene without asking permission. Fortunately I didn’t end up as one of the cemetery occupants. Working fast, since the sun had already set, I put my camera on my tripod and went about taking images. As the light continued to diminish my exposures ramped up to four seconds. I was very pleased with my camera’s  EVF (electronic view finder) which is like night vision in color. Did tell you I’m really liking this new camera?

Keywords: Sarasota farmers Market;Birds eye view

Week 9 Theme 9 On the River

Took these images after having an enjoyable family dinner at the Marker Four restaurant in Venice Florida. Food was great and the view from our table, which was three feet from the water was even better.The top image is looking West out toward the bay. The second looks down river with the restaurant (yellow) in the background.

Week 8 Theme 2 A Woman’s View

A woman’s view is they can do anything! And this woman proves it. She was charged with the task of producing grilled cheese sandwiches in the small space of a trade show booth. Not having the room for more conventional equipment she used what was more readily avaliable. That would not have worked with equipment at my house . . . we use the clothes dryer to do our ironing.

Week 7 Theme 7 Circle a Square

I found this poster nailed to the side of an art gallery house in the Sarasota arts district. I was intrigued by its clever design to get its message across. How better to get the message about behaving while in your boat in wake restricted areas, than by drawing attention to the dull message using the ever popular mythological mermaid. And need I add ancient . . . mermaids have been around forever. Some of the historical sightings by sailors of old may have been misunderstood encounters with these aquatic mammals. Christopher Columbus reported seeing mermaids while exploring the Caribbean, and supposed sightings have been reported in the 20th and 21st centuries in Canada, Israel, and Zimbabwe. New York even has a yearly Mermaid parade but if you go don’t take the kids, it’s “X” rated. After my visit I had to create two separate age sensitive slide shows.

Week 6 Theme 8 Cliche

OK so they aren’t exactly in a row, no matter how I tried to bribe them with bird seed or even hot dogs, this is the best I could get!

Week 5 Theme 18 “Hidden from View”

Geode, from the Greek for “Earthlike”. Just like from that movie a few years back. The geode I think it’s a good example of the “hidden from view” theme, since it hides the beauty of its crystal within a nondescript rock formation and must be sliced open to expose its beautiful crystalline structure.

I must say I’m finding the 52 week challenge very interesting in that it stimulates me to look at things photographic differently when searching for a theme. In finding the object for this theme it also brought back a memory of a coworker from some time ago. At the time I was living and working in Connecticut and this coworker and I, from time to time we would travel to customer sites. During these travels we would often pass through the rolling hills of northern Connecticut and pass through places where the road was literally carved out of a hillside exposing the geological structure of the hill. On one occasion my coworker who was driving stopped quite suddenly pulling to the side of the road at one of these rock formations. He rummaged around briefly in the car trunk and came up with a tool that looked like a small pickax and ran to the exposed rock wall and begin to pick at it. After about 20 minutes of work he came back to the car with a rock that was about the size of a navel orange and had a beautiful green color. He said that the specimen was Malachite and really quite valuable. From that day on I had a new respect for his amateur geological endeavors.

Week 4 Theme 6 Celebration

This week I’m celebrating the purchase of a new car. A task that I did not look forward to since the last time I purchased a vehicle was about 12 years ago. I didn’t even know where to start. After much research and looking I finally decided upon the vehicle I wanted and made the purchase.

I was the butt of jokes for years about the things that were wrong with my old car. Although it continued to run well and was very comfortable its many years of service had taken their toll. Things that I considered a minor inconvenience seemed to irritate others who traveled with me. So the gas gauge stopped working. I used the odometer, I knew that a tank of gas got me 300 miles, so when I would get near that point on the odometer I would fill up. Yes the back seat windows didn’t work; who opens windows in Florida. The AC continued to work and as long as the driver’s window worked I could always get the take out from Dunkin Donuts. There were more issues but I won’t bother you with all the details.

So to introduce my new car to family and friends I enlisted my grandchildren to help me show off my new car. It was a lot of fun making signs and taking pictures. Photoshop helped too with some small changes. The announcement included a guessing game to see how many could come up with the car’s make and model. You are welcome to play along.

Week 3 The Eye

Week 3 Theme 47 The Eye. While sitting in my eye doc’s exam room this week I of course saw this poster . . . I mean there is one in every exam room.

Then it dawned on me, the eye is just another camera. OK maybe this was not the first time I had this comparison enter my noggin. But think about it; light enters the eye’s lens and is projected on the retina (sensor) and is converted into an electrical signal sent to the brain. All right so it’s analog and not digital. And yes it’s more video like but you can take still images with it. More on that in a moment. So then the brain processes the data sent to it and you see the image. See, there is a lot we take for granted.

Ok on to taking still images with the eye as camera . . .  well sort of. In a dark room with yours eyes open set off your flash to illuminate the scene away from you. It won’t last long but there imprinted in your brain is the image. Our second example is a little more fun. The one thing the eye lacks is a shutter, so let’s give it one. Lay on your back in bed and look at your ceiling fan and blink rapidly. Presto, your eye as a stop action camera. Don’t be concerned about the dust on the fan blades, it won’t show.

Full disclosure I did not take this image with my new camera but my phone; which is also new so I think that qualifies.

See All Yeh-All next week

 

Week 2 Theme #19 Homemade

This was the result of a well meaning relative gifting my wife and me with a pepper plant. I never knew that one plant could produce so much fruit.  So my wife turned them into peck of pickled peppers. (Sorry I couldn’t resist). I . . . turned them into a light-painted still life. Did I tell you I’m loving my new camera? It was a dark and stormy night; what else is new here in Florida. I set up the still life in a darkened room and painted it with light from a small led flash light. Here is where the new camera really worked well; Using the multiple exposure feature I was able to layer four exposures down on the one image. Doing it this way I was able to get a three second glimpse of where the light illuminated the scene between exposures. Yes my old Nikon would have done the same thing but the live view would not have worked the same. For those of you not familiar with multiple exposure, it’s like back in the film days when you could expose the film more than once without advancing the film frame.

This second image is of my wife’s choosing. Once the sun came out she insisted that we had to take another image including the pepper plant. Oh well that’s the price I pay for good home cooked food!

Yours truly, Peter Piper . . . HaHa

Starting from the bottom Theme #51 Upside Down

Could not resist this using this image I took on 8/5 for my first post. How does your banana grow? Upside down. Being new to Florida I was fascinated when I first saw this take place about a year ago. It’s just so different from other flowers. The tree has only one flower that starts pointed straight up. then bends over. As the flower growsit opens up two petals at a time from its base to expose the parts of the flower that become the bananas. A much more detailed description is available online.