previous / next

This is the third and final in this series here.

Check out my other Photoblog:
"Parallel Universe"

ABOUT ME

LINKS

CONTACT

HOME

previous / next

This is another from a series of similar photos with the daylily leaf and water droplets. This droplet stayed there almost until it evaporated after several hours. I had to leave the studio set up to go run errands and pick up Russell from school, get supper etc. and it was still sitting there.

See a color version of this one here.

Check out my other Photoblog:
"Parallel Universe"

ABOUT ME

LINKS

CONTACT

HOME

previous / next

A single droplet of water falling from a daylily leaf into the darkness.

To see what happened first, look here.

Check out my other Photoblog:
"Parallel Universe"

ABOUT ME

LINKS

CONTACT

HOME

previous / next

This is a detail shot of some very small leaves that were in a bouquet of flowers.

Check out my other Photoblog:
"Parallel Universe"

ABOUT ME

LINKS

CONTACT

HOME

previous / next

Finally we had a real snowstorm! I am not a big fan of winter but I figure if it has to be cold and dreary at least let there be some snow. I got my wish Friday and so did the kids since school was canceled because of the snow.

This was shot in my own backyard on Friday while the snow was still lightly falling. I managed to get out Saturday and take a ride in the country for some more winter scenes. The snow was indeed beautiful but I was hoping for the sun to make a late day appearance to shine some golden light on everything. That never happened as it remained very gray all Saturday. I still managed to get some halfway decent shots from my travels. I will be sharing them over the coming days on both of my photoblogs.

I am hoping that this afternoon I will have a chance to get out and get some photos of the snow in some late day sunlight. It looks promising right now. I just hope the skies co-operate later.

Check out my other Photoblog:
"Parallel Universe"

ABOUT ME

LINKS

CONTACT

HOME

previous / next

This is just something that caught my eye somewhere in Hunterdon County. I liked the combination of the colors and the stark whites in the stone. I was at te bottom of a small hill near a river looking up and the little vignette caught my eye so I took a quick snap.

I have been really, really busy lately. I was working on a few things to do with the Youth Orchestra and a Music Camp that the director runs in addition to the usual craziness that goes along with having busy teenagers.

Jon has some exciting news...Last Saturday he auditioned on Viola for the Central Jersey Regional Orchestra and made it! His audition was pretty solid too. He scored in the top 7 out of 34 in sight reading, which he thought he was not very good at. His overall score was 191 out of a possible 300. The high -low score range for the kids who made it was 242-134. He made the Symphony Orchestra 14th chair out of 16. They have a string only orchestra that took an additional 12 kids. So out of 28 kids he was 14th overall.

Auditions were open to all music students 6th-9th grade (depending on the instrument) in Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth, Somerset and Union Counties in Central Jersey. There were about 700 students trying out for one of 3 ensembles; Symphony Orchestra, String Orchestra, and Band.

Rehearsals start this Saturday, and the concert is in March, so he's going to be a pretty busy kid for the next few weeks. (Sorry for the brag.) Unfortunately I will not be able to take photos since they hire a photographer.

Check out my other Photoblog:
"Parallel Universe"

ABOUT ME

LINKS

CONTACT

HOME

previous / next

This is another one from the archives. I took it last January in the thickest part of the woods in my little Mohawk Park. It's a very small park, so by thickest, well let's just say it isn't all that thick especially in the winter.

The light that day in the woods was very interesting, unlike what I've been dealing with this winter. I had posted several photos from that January day last winter, but somehow I overlooked this one. I think I felt it was just too dark and maybe it is, but now that I look at it I find the subtle, and interesting play of light here very appealing.

This winter has been cold, flat, gray, and boring and generally uninspiring here in my corner of suburbia. I haven't had the opportunity to get out shooting when the light has been good, which hasn't been too often anyway. The window of opportunity has been small and infrequent for me this winter. It's been very cold and there's been no snow to speak of which really annoys me. I am not a big winter person to begin with but if I have to suffer through the cold, gray, overcast, then at least let there be some snow to make it interesting! Every week they call for snow, even this weekend there were supposed to be 2 storms that were supposed to offer us an inch or 2, maybe 3 but Noooooo! Just cold, gray, overcast, and irritating weather!

I have to drive quite ways out of suburbia to find things that I find interesting to shoot but I just haven't had the time or opportunity to do it. When I find the time, I've encountered the most annoying light conditions...Grrrr! So I resorted to looking for stuff inside my house using my lightbox and snoots etc., but there are only so many things around the house that I find interesting. Not to mention that when I am home, I usually find other pressing projects that need attending to and get distracted by those.

Perhaps this afternoon will yield a little better light. It looked promising earlier this morning, but now it looks as though the gray, flat, overcast is returning to spoil my plans...I just checked the weather and it doesn't look good. Oh well! Tomorrow is another day!

Check out my other Photoblog:
"Parallel Universe"

ABOUT ME

LINKS

CONTACT

HOME

previous / next

This was shot some time ago. I was going through my archives and doing some housekeeping when I came across this one. It had a very green background in the original and I liked it but the green was a bit bright. I decided to convert it to black and white which looked really nice, but then I though maybe apply a green filter over that and see what happens. I liked the result so while I usually don't do things like this except on rare occasions I found this image to work rather well. It seems that when I do play with filters and post processing, I tend to do it on older archived images...I wonder why that is?

I just realized that this is my 400th post here on Capture This. Wow...almost 2 years has passed since I started this.

Check out my other Photoblog:
"Parallel Universe"

ABOUT ME

LINKS

CONTACT

HOME

previous / next

I've been so busy I haven't been able to catch up like I wanted to. Lots going on and some of it is very exciting, some of it is tedious, and some of it is stressful, or a combination of all of the above...but more on that later.

This is yet another one from the ice storm. The ice storm is a distant memory due to the 50-60 degree temps we've had the last couple of days. I've been trapped in the house though unable to get out and enjoy it or take photos. Well maybe tomorrow. In the meantime I was perusing some of the archives and I found a few that I've overlooked in the past and may post in the future...we'll see.

Check out my other Photoblog:
"Parallel Universe"

ABOUT ME

LINKS

CONTACT

HOME

previous / next

Sometimes the most ordinary things can be extraordinary if we just take the time to notice. This afternoon I went for a walk in the woods near my home, something I used to do daily but haven't done in many months. I'd gotten bored with the woods. Nothing ever changes there, it is always just the same. The same now as it was yesterday, last week, last month, last year...boring.

Or maybe I'm the one who has become boring? That's it! It's me. I know it! I've lost my inspiration, my vision. Yet, while I was walking, and thinking, and looking, I did notice a few things in ways I hadn't really cared to notice before. Like the strength and grace of a single blade of tall grass. To have withstood the weather and even just to be able to stand under it's own weight is pretty extraordinary when you think about it. True resilience. It holds the promise of new life in it's seeds waiting for nature to plant them and carry on the next generation. Seems so simple and yet astounding and complex at the same time.

Ok, that's my sappy post for the year. Enjoy it now since I may not have another one in me for a very long time, which some will probably think is a very good thing!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month so I just wanted to remind everyone of the importance of regular self exams, mammography, and anual checks by your doctor. For more information here are several links:

http://www.nbcam.com

1(800) IM AWARE

http://www.komenpeoria.com

http://www.cancer.org

Please pass on this information to your family, friends, and co-workers. It's very important and could save the life of someone you love.

Check out my other Photoblog:
"Parallel Universe"

ABOUT ME

LINKS

HOME

Saturday night was supposed to be the second performance of "Carousel" in Manasquan at the Algonquin Arts Theater. Friday night's show was wonderful and went well but tonight was a different story.

We had to take the hour ride to get Russell there for the show. He was to be in the pit by 7:30 for the 8:00 show. The ride was fine we got there in plenty of time. What we didn't realize when we first arrived was that there was a major power failure in the area. Apparently a sub-station that was a block away got struck by lighting when a huge nasty storm came through the area a few hours earlier.

The cast, crew and orchestra were all outside the theater waiting to get news as to whether the show would go on or not. The orchestra people were reading, the cast was putting on make-up and warming up outside where it was cooler. We talked to the utility people and they told us that the power would not be restored until about 9pm. The company manager made the announcement that the show would not go on at about 7:30.

So that was that, no show tonight. The cast was so broken up by the news that they broke out into a beautiful chorus of the Handel's Messiah Hallelujah Chorus. It was impressive and inspiring!!! and rather amusing.

This shot was taken in the parking lot while we were waiting for the formal announcement that the show was in fact going to be canceled. I noticed the sun shining in the raindrops in some shrubs that were in the parking lot and since I had nothing better to do while waiting I shot them.

Check out my other Photoblog:
"Parallel Universe"

ABOUT ME

LINKS

HOME

This photo has nothing to do with this post other than it was the one I had scheduled to post today. I'm too busy to look for a different one. This is a photo of a Queen Ann's Lace that has gone to seed.

My son Rob is a UAV pilot in Iraq with the 3 ID. He flies unmanned aircraft used for tactical surveillance and support. He's been telling me on several occasions about successful missions where he and his crew have been instrumental and had been featured in news reports. He's not had time to look for and send me the links. Much to my frustration I have had so much trouble finding these stories in the news media. It just sickens me to no end to see these stories reported in foreign news outlets and FOX news only and even then I have to really hunt them down.

I wanted to share one such story that broke this weekend where footage from my son's crew is featured. I am so proud of these guys and the work they do. In short they found Iranian rockets in Iraq that were aimed right at the base Hammer that would have been used to attack the soldiers there. This video footage was instrumental in finding and destroying these missile batteries.

Here is a link to a artice from an Australian news source about the mission:

Article

Here is the link to the video clip (may only work with Mac):

Video

If this link doesn't work follow this link (PC or Mac):

Link

The Video starts with an ad and then stops before it goes to the actual report, so please be patient.

Check out my other Photoblog:
"Parallel Universe"

ABOUT ME

LINKS

HOME

This is a shot from along the riverbank at the park near my house. These grow wild there and they are quite pretty.

Check out my other Photoblog:
"Parallel Universe"

ABOUT ME

LINKS

HOME

Another one from my yard. I have Daylilies that line the stone path on the side of my house leading all the way to my backyard. They are so beautiful when they bloom and I just adore them.

This weekend was spent doing pretty much nothing but yard work. Now that we are putting the leaky oil tank fiasco behind us, it's time to bring back the beauty to the house and yard. The nearly 2 year nightmare of the environmental clean-up from the leaking tank has really soured me on homeownership and caused me to allow my gardens in the back to fall fallow because I just didn't care anymore. It was just too depressing to even go out there and look at them. But now I feel a little better about things and I'm starting to get excited about bringing it all back. (I still want to move into a condo when it's time to retire though at this point!)

We had just replaced our front door, painted the house, replaced shutters, and redone the landscaping in the front a month or so before we found out about the leaking oil tank so you can just imagine how it felt to see it all get completely torn up when they dug the 30x30x14 foot deep hole in our yard to remove the contaminated soil. We lost the entire driveway, and most of the front yard and sidewalks. We managed to save just my weeping cherry tree that we planted when we moved in and the flowering pear at the street which was also planted when we moved in, everything else was either torn out or severely damage by the huge equipment they used to dig.

A few weeks ago we replaced the front steps which were collapsing from being undermined when the contaminated soil was removed so close to them. In a couple of weeks we will have a new driveway, and sidewalks and in the Fall the landscaping will hopefully get done.

We just got word today that our final report is nearly ready to be sent off to the State which will then be reviewed by the Department of Environmental Protection, who will then, hopefully, please God, declare the clean-up satisfactory and release us from any further action, thus ending this nightmare. We had 2 very clean water and soil samples come back in a row which was a huge relief, and somewhat unexpected considering the amount of contamination we had, so we are pretty confident that we are good to go after 2 years and nearly $100,000. (Insurance covered most everything, thank God.) We had the sad distinction of being one of the worst residential clean-ups they; our oil company, the environmental services company, insurance companies (both homeowner's and separate oil tank insurance) and the insurance companies' consultants had seen in the State, lucky us!!!

I think a neighbor on the next block is just starting to go through the same ordeal themselves. They have a very familiar scene playing out on their front yard and driveway as I type this. I am tempted to knock on their door and offer my sympathy and support for their plight. It is so stressful since there was actually one point at which we were prepared for the possibility that we might lose the house if the contamination had gone under the foundation. As it is, when this whole ordeal starts, your house is more of a liability than an asset. You cannot sell it, you could try I suppose, but no one would likely buy it, and it is virtually worthless until the State says it's "clean" which can take another 2 years, possibly longer. Worst case scenario would be they require further monitoring of soil and water and the extremely remote possibility of more remediation.

My brother and sister in law are also about to pull their oil tank which is about the same age and size as ours was (1948 and 1000 gallons). They are really worried about it because they don't have the oil tank insurance we had since we bought this house back in 1993. They don't want to put it off any longer though since the tank is a ticking timebomb if it hasn't leaked yet it will someday soon considering it's age. The stat we were quoted was about 1 in 9 of these old tanks are leaking. I think they will be ok statistically since we were 1 and our neighbor is 2. I pray that they have no leaks and no contamination to deal with.

Check out my other Photoblog:
"Parallel Universe"

ABOUT ME

LINKS

HOME

Thanks for all the wonderful feedback on the last post. I'm happy you all liked it. There is just something so wonderful about lighthouses for me and that one with it's remote location just touches a chord with me and I cannot help but want to share it with all of you. Thank you for indulging me.

This is a shot from my own front yard, rather what's left of it. I was on the side of my house crawling around on the ground looking for interesting things to shoot when I saw the way the light danced on the grass and clover through the weeping cherry tree in the front yard so I just lay down and started shooting. I didn't really think anything good would come of the shot but I was really pleasantly surprised at the result. I hope you like this simple image as well.

Check out my other Photoblog:
"Parallel Universe"

ABOUT ME

LINKS

HOME

Thanks for all the well wishes for Russell. He made it through the concert, but just barely. It definitely affected his performance and he was not happy about it. I told him he was a trooper for showing up and that he had no control over what happened. The conductor was very understanding since he's been in those shoes himself.

His fever was back and it was off to the doctor after school today. It's just a nasty virus, not anything we can do but treat the symptoms and let it run it's course.

I shot this yesterday in Mohawk Park close to my home. The way the sunlight glistened off of the silky hairs on the seeds reminded me a little of fireworks.

Someone mentioned that the previous image almost looked like a filter was applied. There was no filter applied to that image. There was just basic curves, black and white conversion using the gradient map, and I think I might have cloned out a very small black spec that was on one of the larger petals.

Check out my other Photoblog:
"Parallel Universe"

ABOUT ME

LINKS

HOME

I should apologize to everyone for teasing you with the food photo. My son Rob was mad at me for torturing him with it. He wouldn't talk to me for a while, just ignored me on AIM and told me I was mean for posting it. He did forgive me eventually. I will be sending him some goodies to make up for it.

This is another one of my black and white flowers. I have been really enjoying doing flowers in black and white. It's very interesting to see how they turn out.

I shot this in my living room using light coming in through the window plus a 60W table lamp from above.

This was very pretty in color too, but when I looked at the individual channels, I found it most striking in black and white, and somewhat high key.

Check out my other Photoblog:
"Parallel Universe"

ABOUT ME

LINKS

HOME

This is another macro from my neighbor's flower arrangement. I just love flower macros. The softness that surrounds this one just feels soothing to me.

I have talked to Rob again, which is a blessing since everyday I talk to him is one day less to worry. But so far he's comfortable, he's even decorated his "home" which actually resembles a POD only with a door and a window, air conditioning and electric. He told me he got a couple of small rugs for it. I offered to send him a spring wreath for his door. He just laughed. I think I may just send one anyway.

Now I do have a vent I want to share with you all about an issue involving my son and his wireless carrier. I don't normally use my photoblog as a platform for such things but this really steamed me so here goes.

His wireless company is Verizon, and they offer a 6 month suspension of contracts/service as a courtesy for military personnel who are deployed. He set it all up and was told that all he had to do was give me permission to look into his account and call when the six month mark came so that they could extend it another six months.

I called Verizon today just to make sure that the phone was indeed suspended and that there was no outstanding balance. Everything was ok with that. I asked what I needed to do when the six months was up in order to keep his # and extend the suspension. The answer I got was quite shocking. I was informed that despite what they told Rob, their policy was that after the six months was up it couldn't be extended, it would just be disconnected and his # reassigned. Well at that I had to laugh, because the policy is ridiculous, understanding that a deployment like his was going to be a minimum of 12 months so the "courtesy they extend to the military" is totally pointless.

I argued this to no avail for some time until I finally was put through to a supervisor who had brought a manager in on it. I explained to them how utterly worthless their policy was since deployments are at 12-18 months. I did manage to get an exception for Rob, but I am now going to fight for them to change this ridiculous policy. I let them know of my intention to get the word out and try to rally for a change in this policy for all deployed military.

I know it's seems a small thing, but this # has been my son's # since High School, even before he switched to Verizon. He likes his #, all his friends know it, his buddies from Basic training and AIT training, and friends from college know it. The thing is these young men and women are sacrificing so much, is it too much to ask that a huge company like Verizon be fair about their policy for suspending their service for the duration of their deployments up to 2 years? It's a small thing to ask for someone who is sacrificing so much. At any rate, I just wanted to put that out there.

If anyone out there uses Verizon wireless and agrees that this is an absurd policy, please let Verizon know. If enough people speak up, maybe, just maybe they will change it.

Check out my other Photoblog:
"Parallel Universe"

ABOUT ME

LINKS

HOME

Just off my back deck I have a large all white variety of hibiscus. It is a beautiful plant with a profusion of large pure white flowers that start to bloom right around the beginning of July and keep on blooming until late in the fall when the frost comes and touches it ending it's season until the next summer. It is my favorite flowering plant because it's season is so long and the flowers are so stunning and pure white.

It was a day of heavy, soaking rains last August. Later in the afternoon the skies started to clear and the sun came out. The air smelled so fresh and clean, and everything was heavy with rain water. I stepped out onto the deck and noticed the way the light was touching the Hibiscus and reflecting in the drops of rainwater that weighed down the delicate, now translucent, petals of those wonderful flowers. It seemed sad and yet so beautiful at the same time.

This Hibiscus was the very first thing we planted when we first moved into this house in April of 1993. This house is actually the house I grew up in. My parents sold it in 1987, and we bought it back from the same people my parents sold it to in 1993 shortly after Jon was born.

This is probably my favorite shot to date. I don't really know why I hung onto it so long except perhaps because I have so many photos of this Hibiscus and it was somewhat lost among them all.

Check out my other Photoblog:
"Parallel Universe"

ABOUT ME

LINKS

HOME

If this posts on March 6, that means I once again managed to get to the internet while I was away.

This was shot in the woods near my house a few weeks ago while I was trudging through the brambles to find some treasures to photograph. It's not exactly treasure, but I found it interesting all the same.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I am home. Arrived home about 2:30 AM and I'm exhausted. It is one heck of a drive from Georgia to New Jersey to make in one shot. I don't have much to say at the moment other than it was wonderful and heartbreaking at the same time. I will fill you all in later.

Thanks for the visits and comments over the past few days. I will catch up with you all later, right now I have to go unpack and do laundry...yuck!!!

Check out my other Photoblog:
"Parallel Universe"

ABOUT ME

LINKS

HOME

This is the same yellow rose from this shot. I was experimenting with lighting...again. I like the way this one turned out. The rose was dried which accounts for the interesting textures and shading. I know it's dark but it was the mood that seemed to fit best. This rose is quite tiny and could easily fit on a quarter with room to spare.

*It was quite late when I posted this and I wanted to do a little description of the technique I used to make the deep shadows and light areas in this photo. It was really quite simple. I used a light stand, my SB-800 speedlight in remote mode, a white umbrella, tripod and my sons music stand for a table so I could get in close with everything. What I did was to fire the flash through the umbrella rather than reflecting it into and out of the umbrella. The flash was placed close and to the right almost at a right angle to the camera so the light came from the right and slightly above and fired across the frame. I shot it at different settings in terms of the flash, everything from TTL to AA, including different power levels on manual. I believe this was one shot at 1/4 power on manual at 24mm zoom (on the flash). I deliberately underexposed the shot to get the dramatic effect I wanted and then re-adjusted exposure in Camera RAW.

In post processing I adjusted curves, in layers, changing opacity here and there to get the look I liked. I then converted it to black and white using gradient map in layers, then I tweaked the levels in layers. I dodged and burned where needed. This is probably the most post processing I've ever done on any photo.

Check out my other Photoblog:
"Parallel Universe"

ABOUT ME

LINKS

HOME

I have Loved you with an everlasting Love,
I have drawn you with Loving kindness.

Jeremiah 31:3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I received this tiny yellow rose tonight with the bible verse attached from a friend of mine, Isabelle, who is in the orchestra that I work with, and the boys rehearse with on Thursday nights. I am not a particularly religious person in that I can't quote Bible verse, or even go to church all that often. Although I have read and do study my Bible on occasion and I do have faith in God.

Right now I am relying on that faith to get me through some tough times that lie ahead for all of us in this family. We got the dreaded news. The date for my son's deployment to Iraq. He will leave for a 12-18 month tour in Iraq on March 10. We are not alone and it is comforting to know that there are people out there that share this burden along with us, but I am not going to lie...it's not going to be easy and I hate that my first baby is going off to war.

I am very proud of him for being the kind of person that puts others first and willing to put themselves in harms way to protect the rest of us. He did not have to join the military and put his college and his life on hold to enlist for a 4 years active duty, 4 years reserve duty, this was his choice one made out of his deep sense of duty and honor.

We will be going to see him for a few days before he leaves which is really good. We will have to go to Georgia since he only has a few days and cannot travel very far. So his brothers will miss a few days of school and take this road trip with us. We are driving because we are going to bring his stuff home here so he doesn't have to pay for storage while he is deployed. He is staying in a dorm on the base so he does not have his own place where he can leave his things.

I respectfully ask that this post not be turned into a political debate on the merits of this war. I will ask that if you are a person of Faith, please pray for all the brave men and women and their families who share this burden with us.

This was taken right after rehearsal using my halogen under-cabinet counter lights in my kitchen for light and shot with my macro lens. I threw it together fast and last minute, but it was one of those things I felt I just had to do and post right away. I only knew I wanted it to be lit from above.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

!!!Thanks to Azhar for fixing my archives!!!

Check out my other Photoblog:
"Parallel Universe"

ABOUT ME

LINKS

HOME

This is a shot from a couple of weeks ago. It was the only appreciable snow we've had so far this winter. It was only a coating and it melted very fast. I took a quick walk around the park near my house and by the time I got round the pond there, it was nearly all gone.

These are actually teeny tiny delicate little branches with teeny tiny delicate little dried leaves. It was tough to get this shot since it was a little breezy and the macro lens is a bit finicky about focusing in those conditions.

I've been pretty busy lately and haven't been able to get out and shoot for the blogs as I'd like to, but I hope to get out in the next few days.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Since some people have asked, I decided I probably should tell you what Noise Reduction Software I used in the last post. It's called "Noiseware Pro" by Imagenomic http://www.imagenomic.com/.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Check out my other Photoblog:
"Parallel Universe"

ABOUT ME

LINKS

HOME

It's been so incredibly warm that I am sitting here in my office at almost 9PM on a January evening with my windows open wide. We went out to supper and had on very light jackets and even they were a bit much. Tomorrow promises to be in the 70's. WOW!

Now that the Holidays have passed and things are settling back into the normal routine, the house has become quite quiet again and somewhat depressing...I miss Robert being home. He left On Tuesday afternoon and we won't see him again probably until summertime...sigh. Thank God for cell phones and internet, although next week he goes away for a month of additional training and he will be likely be out of touch with us for the entire exercise.

Blogger has been having issues with archives so I do apologize to anyone who has tried to look at them. I do link each post to the one prior so if you want to look at previous posts just click on the current photo and it will link to the previous one unless otherwise noted on the posts.

This is a macro of purple coneflower seeds (echinacea) from my backyard. I thought the seeds looked interesting in this state. Although dried out and dead they hold the promise of the next generation of flowers in my garden.

Check out my other Photoblog:

"Parallel Universe"

ABOUT ME

HOME