The Loaner Camera - part 1 (complete)

I've just updated the Loaner Camera 1 set with the rest of the keepers from that first day. The resolution of the camera let me do some nice crops - they feel very Georgia O'Keefe.

Thanks

It's a good thing that Thanksgiving follows my birthday. It helps me get out of my irritating, annual hyperintrospection. It’s like the calendar says what my loved ones start saying behind their eyes, “Jesus, you whiny pain-in-the-ass. Isn’t there anything about your life that doesn’t suck?”

Why, yes – yes, there are several things, actually.
Here are a few things that I am thankful for, both large and small:

• My Dear Husband. I truly mean “Dear Husband” without a smirk or snicker. I used to think it was goofy and corny when people thanked their spouses during acceptance speeches. WTF did they have to do with it, I thought. Now that we’ve spent approximately 40% of our lifetimes together, I can’t imagine where I would be without him. He has stood fast when others have taken off running – and that alone earns him my eternal gratitude. The love I get is a gift-with-purchase.
  
  
• My Mom. She has been doing great over the last two years taking care of her health for herself, and I’m very proud of her for that.
  
  
• My Dad and Stepmom. My relationship with them has grown tremendously over the years, and I consider myself lucky to have three parents.
  
  
• My brothers and sisters. I started with one, then got three more, then another one in my messily, wonderfully, blended family. Whether by blood or marriage, whether we grew up together or not, they’re mine. I'm particularly glad my baby brother (which he will be even when he joins AARP) is home and safe.
  
  
• My nieces and nephews. It has been amazing to watch them grow into the people they are, and it all happens so fast. I like giving them a respite from their parents – and vice versa.
  
  
• The rest of my family and friends. I have the good fortune to say they are too numerous to mention, and I am grateful for every one of them. They keep me sane (no small feat, as many of you know) and give me perspective when I need it (which tends to be often). Life is a long road trip, and it's good to have people to share the ride with.
  
  
• My Job. Let’s be honest – it’s still a job. If it weren’t, I would call it my Fun and probably wouldn’t be getting paid for it. However,
  1. I have a job, and lots of other folks don’t,
  2. It pays for the things that make life manageable, and
  3. When I don’t have to deal with the other Random Assorted Bullshit (RAB), I like teaching. When I haven’t taught a class in a while, I get cranky until I can get in front of a group again. It’s good to help people have a better 40 hours a week.
  
  
• Our house. It has the right amount of room for us, and has lots of room for company. It has made me a political activist (who would have thought?) because sometimes you have to fight for what’s right, even if it’s your own recycling bin.
  
  
• My photography. Look – nobody is going to be analyzing my work in an Art class. But I’m learning… and that process alone is something pretty good. A teacher needs to be a learner too, and the images help.
  
  Henri Cartier-Bresson said, “The creative act lasts but a brief moment, a lightning instant of give-and-take, just long enough for you to level the camera and to trap the fleeting prey in your little box.” To do that creative thing is something else that helps me stay (reasonably) sane.
  
  
• Legalized drugs. Caffeine, alcohol, and (rarely – sorry, dear) nicotine. All in moderation, each for their own purpose.
  
  
• The Internet. It sounds stupid to give thanks for the Internet, but I am. I’ve been able to find all sorts of folks that were lost to me through Blogger and Facebook. Facebook has been great for those feeling-kinda-crappy or squee-I’m-so-excited moments, and just staying connected despite time and distance. I can wish for things on Amazon, read a favorite writer on TelevisionWithoutPity, and download Foo Fighters onto my MP3 player. (Current fave: Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace)
  
  And the best thing I can do on the Internet - I can show my photos, write stuff down, and hope that these musings aren’t in vain.
  

Thanks for sticking around for 700ish words – and enjoy the holiday.
((HUG))

The Loaner Camera - update

Well, was fun while it lasted.

The Loaner Camera had to go back yesterday, and surprisingly, it wasn't as hard to let go of as I had expected it to be. I had a blast with it, but keeping it would have been incredibly selfish. Life can indeed be short, but it can be long as well, and you have to be able to live with the choices you make. Keeping that camera would have been a big betrayal to my Dear Husband. Given that he has put up with my astonishing amount of emotional crap over the past sixteen years, he deserves better from me. So - off it went. I'm looking forward now to earning one I can keep.

I wound up not going to NMAH, because DH wants to go with me. Hey, he's interested in going to a museum, so I can definitely wait until we can go together. Instead, I spent my last afternoon with the D60 at Brookside Gardens, shooting the winter that's creeping into the landscape. There were some roses in various stages of bloom that got freeze-dried at the recent first frost. There's an abstract beauty to them that I'm really looking forward to showing you. The ponds are starting to ice up, too.

Sorry I've taken so long in getting images posted. Since I didn't use the camera's software, I have to process everything through Photoshop Elements. This has proven more time consuming than I expected, but I should have some goodies soon.

If you want to find out when I've posted the lazy way (my favorite way) click the Subscribe To button on the right side.

Sometimes photobloggers need sleep

So today, I just didn't feel the leap out of bed that would have gotten me Downtown today. Fortunately, the weekend has two days, and I can visit the NMAH tomorrow.

Today, I shall update the blog - tomorrow I shall play.

The Loaner Camera - part 1

Some recent events have left me feeling a little more carpe diem than usual. My birthday combined with the sad passing of an acquaintance not much older than me reminded me of something important. Our time in this world is borrowed at best. I've been trying over the past year to purge the regret out of my life, particularly regret for the road not taken. And, as is typical when I have an emotional reaction to something, I took impulsive action.

On Halloween night, I got my hands on a Nikon D60 with two lenses. I can't keep it - it's a loaner camera. I won't get into the details, but with the economy what it is... let's just say it could be grounds for divorce. (To be clear - I do NOT consider that a desirable outcome.)

Using this camera over the last three weeks has been amazing. When I put everything together and held the D60 in my hand, it felt like it had always been there. It was so perfectly balanced, like Domingo Montoya built it himself.

I went out that weekend to my favorite haunts - the Aquatic Gardens, the Arboretum and Brookside Gardens. Here are a few snips of what I shot - there'll be more in the next couple of posts.

My time with it is ticking down, and I'll have to return it this weekend. I may jump on a Washington Photo Safari on Saturday after going to the American History Museum for the big reopening. I'm sure I'll head out to Brookside one last time Sunday morning, too.

I've learned so much in the time I've had with this camera, that even though I have to give it back - it's been entirely worth it. As Ferris Bueller said, "It's SO choice - I highly reccomend picking one up, if you have the means."

Narcing out the foreigners

So, just to make today a little more interesting, there was a fire drill this morning. The morning's training had already been fairly shot with my learners trying to get their timesheets done - this was just the nail in the coffin.

So everybody's huddled across the street, and there's a group of nicely dressed young people holding up cameras, taking pictures of the crowd, and speaking a language that was NOT English or Spanish. I had my back to them, and one of my learners pointed them out to me.

I pointed them out to uniformed Diplomatic Security who made them delete the pictures.

Let me be clear: I support the Photographer's Rights.

However, one of the few constants in my nature is that I am pragmatic.

Here's why this situation was different:

• This was an emergency event. A few people knew it was just a drill, but most did not. September 11 started as a fire drill.
• People were wearing their Government badges. Granted, they should have removed/covered them, but they had just exited the building.
• The photographers were people wearing Visitor badges. Their escort should have told them to knock it off. When you're a guest somewhere, don't act like you own the place.
• Visuals of an evacuation from a Federal building equal actionable intelligence. Maybe these people wouldn't have tried to blow up the building, but how do I know who looks at their MySpace or Facebook page?

Should you be able to take photos of Union Station? I say yes - too many people have seen it for it to be a secret. Should you be able to take photos of an evacuation of a Federal building? I say no - that's limited access information that could endanger people's lives.

I'm sure I did the right thing - I just wish this irritating twinge of guilt would go away.

Birthday roses

Birthday roses
Originally uploaded by Pam the PhotoBlogger

A quick tip from the School of the Seemingly Obvious:

If you are ever stuck trying to figure out a gift to get a female human - whether she's your mother, daughter, lover/girlfriend/wife, aunt, second cousin, whatever - you can not go wrong with roses. Even if she's not a rose freak like I am, you can get a guaranteed "awwww" if you walk in the door with a dozen of these.

If she says she doesn't want roses this year, consider the possibility she's lying because she doesn't want to admit she's a sucker for them. Check with her friends - they'll tell you the truth.

Any color, any reason - always works for me.
However, you get bonus points if you put some thought into the color. Multiple colors in an bouquet mean feeling more than one thing at once, and different colors in the bloom (stripes, yellow beccoming red) are a progression from one emotion to another.

If she's allergic - you have my sympathies, and a place to find photos of roses. :)

Sunrise at Ocean City Inlet

Favorite
Originally uploaded by Pam the PhotoBlogger

So, Dave (also known as Dear Husband or DH) and I are relaxing on vacation in Ocean City when he says to me, "We should go down to the Inlet tomorrow morning so you can take pictures of the sunrise."

This surprised me for a couple of reasons. First, Dave usually is bored when I am shooting pictures, and wonders how many pictures am I going to take of the same thing. (Answer - lots.) Second, (and more important) sunrise tends to come fairly early in the day. The thought that he was interested in coming with me, early in the morning no less, was indeed unexpected. However, I gave him a big hug and chirped, "OK!"

Sunrise was around 6:45 the next day. I got up at 5:30, and I got him up around 6:00. After a few protests of, "Why are you waking me when it's still dark out?" we got ourselves down to the Inlet.

It was definitely worth it. The first thing I did was ditch my Birkis to pad around in the sand. That made it much easier to climb around on the jetty.

Specific comments are on the individual shots - feel free to save for when you need to go to a "peaceful place."

DCist: Photo of the Day

This is such an awesome pic, I had to link straight to it.
She's SOOO cute!

Butterflies and Roses

I did manage to get to Brookside Gardens before the butterfly exhibit closed. I'm also trying Flickr to host this set of images, and to see if I like that better. (Tell me which you like better in the comments.)

Here are a couple of my favorites:

This post title is a hyperlink to a slideshow. The set is here, if you want to look at each shot separately, see the EXIF data, and or my commentary.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

And while that was their default text, this is me.
I think I like this better than Picasa Web already.

Contesting

Well, I may not have been able to spiff up the blog, but at least I have some new content! Call it Pam's Consolation Prize... which fits right in to this post's contest theme.

There are photo contests that go on all the time, but here are a couple that have caught my attention:

• Give Us Your Best Shot - for members of Costco
  
• Fotoweek DC - for residents of MD, DC, and VA.


• National Geographic - lots of contests throughout the year

I finally screwed up the courage to enter the Aquatic Gardens photo contest earlier in the spring with these two.





I didn't win any prizes, but got some good practice.
Getting past a fear of judgement is always good also. (chuckle)

Best laid plans...

Ye gods. Sorry that I've lapsed in my blog discipline. It has been a phenominally shitty week (ok - and a half. whatever) for me. My Condo Association duties have sucked up my attention and positive energy since last Thursday.

Jefferson was right - "I have no ambition to govern; it is a painful and thankless office. " He may not have been talking about parking rules, but he was still right.

Here's hoping for a better weekend.

Blog help

Hokey smokes, Bullwinkle - blogging is not exactly the WYSIWYG utopia I was hoping for. That's to be expected, I guess... as a Technical Trainer, I see the glassy-eyed looks people give "easy" software applications all day long.

One thing is bloody well sure - I am NOT going to torture myself trying to learn HTML. Girlfriend is not a code kiddie. However, there is some hope in the form of other bloggers who have figured things out. I'll be trying their tips and tricks later on this evening:

• Lifehacker - top 10 tools to get blogging done
• Blogger Templates
• Windows Live Writer

Check back to see the difference...

Brookside Gardens

This is a place that will come up a lot in my postings. This park is big and green, and not too far from where I grew up. There are so many interesting things to see here - the rose garden (which you've seen already), the pond, the trails - all kinds of things to explore.



These shots are taken from one of the teak benches that are out in the park. It's in one of the shady places under a big tree. It's easy to sink into the quiet shadows and just relax.











This garden makes me think of Lester's soliloquy in American Beauty - "it's hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world."












Hmmm - I think I'll have to shoot the Butterfly Exhibit next Sunday...
And if anyone can think of a less violent word than "shoot" to describe this activity, feel free to drop it into the Comments. Please and thank you.

Coffee Achiever

This is how my day needs to begin - with coffee of some sort. It doesn't have to be fancy, either.


If you don't know what a Coffee Achiever is, you are under 40 and can just hush about it. Go watch the commercial on YouTube and try to figure out how ELO, Cicely Tyson, Kurt Vonnegut, and David Bowie made sense to the casting director.

Anyway -

• A soy mocha with a little bit of whip isn't an everyday thing - that's for Payday Friday.


• The RedEye is for when the ideas won't shut up and let me sleep. I still have to be functional the Morning After, though.


• The everyday drink is good, old-fashioned drip coffee for which I pay D.C. prices (10% tax?) because it's better than the stuff in the breakroom.
  

U.S. Botanic Garden

This is a set I took last Sunday at the USBG. They're open from 10:00 AM - 7:00 PM until mid-October, so I would suggest taking advantage of the extended hours.

I was suckered by this mild August into thinking "it's not that hot, I don't need water." Wrong answer. Particularly if you are visiting (what is basically) a very fancy greenhouse. Also - beware of the sprinklers. Be ready to stuff any electronic devices under your clothes or in a bag pretty damn quick. It "rains" a good bit in there.

All the amazing flowers and more comments follow after the title link.

Bridge blur

So, my Dear Husband and I were driving back from the Eastern Shore and crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. I was dazzled by the display of color in the western sky, and I had to try and get some snaps.

I suppose I should be glad that the Man didn't come after us (they don't take kindly to folks snapshooting bridges), but it's hardly like I got anything useful. Although, this could work for an album cover. If they made albums anymore.

(sigh) You can see the complete set of misfires by clicking on the title link.

Other creations

Something else I do to try and stay out of trouble is beading. Here are a couple of recent projects:

These are a pair of peridot earrings I did for my Mother-in-Law's birthday.

This is a necklace I did combining freshwater pearls and Swarovski crystals. I'm partial to the opal colors since it's my birthstone.

Washington Photo Safari

Washington Photo Safari was (and is) invaluable to me in developing my photographic skills. Every time I go out on a Safari, I learn something new. I think I've been on four or five in the last couple of years. David Luria is a great instructor, and is immeasurably patient. You will definitely take better vacation photos!

The camera

Here is the camera I'm using to make my pictures:

From The little Kodak

It's a good little guy - its size is very handy for the everyday stuff. My Dear Husband got it for me for Christmas 2004, and it was a top of the line beastie then. It still works for a lot of things, not so good for others. I'll show compare/contast of each in my posts.

Fair Weather

I got the opportunity to volunteer at the American Red Cross (National Capital Area chapter) display at the Montgomery County Fair. I have been a Disaster Instructor since 2002? (somewhere around there), and have been known to help out with the occasional Public Affairs task.

The weather was surprisingly lovely, not the typical August sauna we have around these parts. It took me right back to my underspent youth, eating things that are incredibly bad for you, then riding probably safe carnival rides. Ah, those were the days.

From ARC at MoCo Fair

The view of the display was before we were evicted from the Fire Department's booth and exiled to the vendor area (the "Chilly Mall" - although it was cooler outside). I think it was fairly ridicuolus for the fire officials to get all shirty about us being there. We were told that we could come - we wouldn't have been there otherwise. But whatever, a lot of folks are getting preparedness information.

By the way - are YOU prepared for a disaster?

Cherry Parfait

One of the things you'll notice pretty quickly is that roses are my favorite flowers. A trait I shared with my dear Grandpa, who also gave me my occasional Southern drawl.

The snaps were taken at Brookside Gardens on 03 Aug 2008. It's one of the better gardens around, and one that I can afford to go to (yes, it's free).

These are of a Cherry Parfait rose display. I love roses like this - that start out one color, and end up something else.

On small problem is that I haven't figured out an easy way to get my EXIF data (the techmical stuff like shutter speed) from Picasa to Blogger yet. Something to work on...

Welcome!

I've got to admit, I've never been particularly good at introductions. I'm definitely not good at introducting myself... so I guess it's good that "a picture is worth a thousand words," isn't it? With that, I should have War and Peace in no time.

The pictures I'll be posting are little pieces of me, both the mundane and important parts of my life. I'll try and show how my images reflect me and how their creation affects me. Maybe they will affect other people too... we'll have to wait and see.

My hope is that with my practice and your feedback, I have a shot at getting better at this photography thing. And if I can become a better writer as well, that's an added bonus. I welcome comments, both kind and challenging. I'll do my best to respond, whether I agree with you or not. I don't welcome trolls, so if you don't have something useful to say, well... bugger off, then.

I'm currently using a Kodak DX7590 as my camera. It was a Christmas gift from my Dear Husband a few years ago, and I've been using it ever since. You'll see my "digital Brownie" in a later post...

With that - let's begin.