Waiting for the Storm.

Hurricane Sandy is on her way up the east coast. Interesting how this real weather threat is playing out vs. the typical slow news day storm.  The combination of full moon and tidal swells, make Sandy potentially very dangerous. I spent the day preparing, securing items in my yard and waiting for the storm. My phone rang off the hook with friends and relatives on the other end, wondering about the conditions. Several friends even offered me a place to stay in case of evacuation or loss of power.

I finally got the Escape back from Ford yesterday after five months of repair (Actually just waiting for a part.). It is really good to have my car back. It only took several calls to Ford and one call to the consumer protection agency.

I digress.

While waiting for the storm, I laughed to myself.  It took five months to get my car back and now one day later, a hurricane comes to potentially wipe it out with a tree limb or float it down the highway to another locale.

Looking around at the neighbors' yards under the dark clouds and intermittent drizzle, I thought of the everyday storms we face in life.  Some people wait with anxiety;  others overly prepare; the wise ones are ready but not anxious.

I stepped from the porch into the cold mist and let it envelop me. I closed my eyes in a moment of out of body meditation.  The storm disappeared until I opened my eyes again.  I no longer feared the storm. I embraced the adventure it would bring. Good or bad, I could not change it and therefore, would not hesitate to let play out.

Lizzy's New Kitten.

The ex promised Lizzy a cat. A lot of times I can fault her on delivery of promises to the kids, but this time, she delivered. It was an awesome thing that she did. Lizzy has wanted a pet since we lost Connie and it has been an all consuming want, that only a child can have.

The kitten is adorable. Lizzy named him Cody. He is a small package of cute, piss and vinegar. He loves to play and get into trouble. Luckily, he's a people cat. For Lizzy, unfortunately he is a tough lesson. He is Lizzy's cat and yet seems to like Emily better. Lizzy gets upset when the cat will stop playing with her and run over to Emily. Emily already has claimed ownership on him and he on Emily.

Lizzy is learning, that no matter how much you give, want or try, animals sometimes will like somebody else better. There is no rhyme or reason, just the realization that attractions happen and you can't control both sides of the equation.

Lizzy still loves Cody and still plays with him. You can tell, though, that she was expecting the undying attention and instead has to settle for the leftover affection.

Creative Thursday - And Sometimes, We Fall.

The kids and I went on two photo safaris this past weekend. The weather was warm and the leaves finally changed to their autumn coat. There is something about walking in nature that sets the mind at ease and the imagination soaring. Lately I've been trying so hard to get my perspective on photography back, that I haven't been spending enough time helping the kids with their equipment. Next trip, I'll have to start getting back into teaching mode with the girls.

Saturday we went to Wampum Brook. The brooks location makes for difficult shooting with trees and colors cut short by houses and fences. This time of the year, the woods trail is all but obscured by the full summer growth, waiting for winter to be carved out again. We walked around the park setting of the outer brook instead. We were wrapped in color and light. Fighting the afternoon sun to steal a few shots while it poked at the front of our camera lenses.

I had promised to show a fellow photographer the Chromatic Aberrations that my long zoom produced, in extreme conditions. With no hood, a 2x converter and the sun head on, I succeeded. Unfortunately, I also didn't get many usable pictures from that trip. I assume the girls got plenty but now they download their own shots, so I don't know.

Sunday was a much different shoot. We went to the south side of the preserve. The kids really like it there. It is a neat environment. There are lots of strange plants and settings. The leaves and needles on the ground seem to be older than the season. Lizzy likes that low growing plants and mushrooms covering the landscape, that give her easy access to fun subjects. As harsh as the afternoon light was at the brook the evening before, it was soft and gently peeking over our shoulders at the preserve.

Walking ahead of the girls and trying to get a position on a steep decline, I quickly warned them away. It was a good thing I did because the ancient pine needles laughed to each other as they began pulling traction from my hikers. I slid for an additional five feet before silencing the laughter and regaining my footing. I struggled back up to the trail. The fall would have been severe, the steep hill had about 60 more feet before it met with the water.

The girls barely noticed and were already farther up the trail, setting up for their next shots. The sun grew lower against the hill so we headed back to the loaner car, taking our last few shots along the way. We reached the overlook to the lowlands that we had been shooting at earlier, when once again I decided to take a few steps down the hill. It was not as steep, but as Lizzy followed behind me, she slid and fell. Instinctively she protected her photography gear. She quickly brought herself back to the top of the hill and continued on the trail as if nothing happened.

I missed my golden opportunity for a life lesson and didn't realize it until we were already on our way home. I'm sure Lizzy will fall again on the trails and this time I'll be ready.

We take on hills; challenges and sometimes, we fall.  We work harder at it; want it more and sometimes, we fall.  We get back on the trail; continue on and sometimes, we fall.  Looking back on the journey though, those falls are small parts of bigger lessons that prepare us for the times that we don't.

That's My Girls

Lizzy and I were on our way back from getting dinner when we saw a sign on a van, next to a building. The sign stated, “Party In Here.”. Lizzy put on a sheepish grin and said, “It must be a very small party, in the back of a van.”. After seeing me laugh, Lizzy continued, “There's not much room to dance but the sound system is kicking.”. She then laughed and said, “It must be tough to dance, because the dj can't mix radio stations.”. We laughed the whole, short distance home.

It is amazing seeing your children's personality's blossom through the years, It's touching when you realize how much you have helped shape it. I've often said that Lizzy was much more like me growing up.  At ten, she is still shy around people until she, 'get's to know them'. It's nice to see her develop a sense of humor around the same time I did and I hope it will serve her, as well as it has me. I think my odd sense of humor helped break the shell of shyness that I blamed on my deafness, well into my teen years.

Emily has always been more of the social butterfly. If Lizzy is like younger me, Emily is me at a much older age. If she ever was shy, it was short lived. She developed the odd family sense of humor early and also her daddy's silver tongue.

Most people reading this blog didn't know me when I was younger. Some don't know me well now but the ones that do, find it hard to believe that I was ever shy. Here's hoping Lizzy breaks out earlier than I did and that both girls continue their journeys with a wonderful, odd sense of humor.

Creative Thursday - Could It Be Satan Perhaps?

I never understood how goats could be considered satanic.  They do have funky eyes but does that difference make them pure evil?  The goats are one of the kids and my favorite animals to see at the Popcorn zoo.  They may be hogs(pardon the pun) but We've always found them to be friendly gentle creatures.   

Playing with Light's Depth Of Field (DOF).

I've been trying to get back to basic photographic techniques, for myself and to teach the kids. So a few weeks ago, while I was at the preserve, I decided to play with the DOF of light. A lot of photographers use the lens DOF, but ignore light DOF. I've read of various techniques for exploiting it. The way I learned (by accident of course) in the old film SLR days was to use the flash and adjust the cameras aperture to be extremely narrow (usually f18-f22 range). The subject should be relatively close. The background, to be darkened or blacked out, should be at least slightly darker than the subject and should have at least some separation.  The shorter the distance to the background, the darker(relatively) it needs to be. The on camera flash works fine, you just need to make sure the flash is aimed at the subject you are focusing on.

By experimenting with the aperture and flash intensity, the DOF of light can create some great mood shots, virtual 3d shots and blackened out backgrounds.

All of the shots, in this post, were taken this past weekend, in the afternoon, while it was light out. If you downloaded some of the black background shots and juiced the colors, you would actually see the background objects (or remnants of them) appear.

This is a very fun and easy technique for beginners to make cool looking photos. I was going to get more detailed on the explanation, but figured I was already making an easy process sound more confusing than it needed to.  If anyone wants more information, they can email me.

I actually took two more pictures today.  The shots aren't very good but were taken in succession one at f5 no flash and one at f22 with flash.  They were taken at noon and it was slightly overcast.  The above shots were taken in slightly less light.  I think the below shots show the above point quite well.