Category Archives: Crazy things i do to amuse myself

Crazy things i do to amuse myself, Snapshots, Wanderings

9/100

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It’s been forever since I posted a stranger photo, hasn’t it?

; )

Back at the beginning of March I stumbled across a Civil War re-enactment that was happening in north Florida.

That’s an interesting sub-culture, let me tell ya.

I wandered around for a pleasant couple of hours watching these men and women while they waited for the rain to stop so they could have their battle. I still can’t get straight which color uniform belongs to which side. But I know who won the war!

Such a Yankee…

This man had one of those faces that the camera loves; I only wish he weren’t so shy and would’ve looked at me…

This photo is #9 in my 100 strangers project. Find out more about the project and see pictures taken by other photographers at Flickr 100 Strangers or www.100Strangers.com

Birds, Crazy things i do to amuse myself, Wanderings

A caveat*

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Photographing terns on a nude beach requires careful cropping.

 ; )

So my dilemma was this: resist the opportunity to photograph the royal terns, laughing gulls, willets and black-bellied plovers loafing together in the sunshine at Playalinda Beach on the Cape Canaveral National Seashore or bare (tee hee!) with the discomfort of using a camera amid a bunch of naked people.

I chose the assumption that those folks wouldn’t mind the long-as-my-arm telephoto lens so long as I didn’t ever point it directly at them. I never figured on them to walk purposefully, almost, and repeatedly through my frame. Or to approach me, full-frontal(!), to talk camera gear.

What was I thinking!!!

Never again, never again.

Lesson learned.

*parts of this photo have been excessively blurred in deference to the comfort of readers.

Crazy things i do to amuse myself, iPhone snaps, Science experiments, Whatever

Tres leches

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Today’s science experiment

Something about baking, as opposed to cooking, makes it much less intimidating to me. And making cupcakes, well… they’re just plain fun!

While out and about yesterday (truthfully, I was lost at the time) I stumbled across a little bake shop that had tres leches (Spanish for three milk) cupcakes as their special of the day. I’d always wanted to try this Latin American specialty, so I forked over the $5.00 for two of them.

They were yummy enough (addictive, honestly) that I decided to try making them myself today. I followed the recipe I found here and… oh my goodness, these are so delicious! According to my taste tester, they’re even better than the ones I bought yesterday!

Tres leches is traditionally a cake, but it’s so super rich that I almost think it’s better suited to cupcake form… you know, just a couple bites. These aren’t your traditional cupcakes, either, because if they’re made right and drenched in milk, you’ll want a spoon for all the sweet goodness at the bottom.

: )

Crazy things i do to amuse myself, iPhone snaps, Jersey Girl in GA, Remembering

1/365

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New coffee pot, new camera, new life… why not a new photo project, too?!?

I’m trying out the 365 Days Project to take a photo a day for the next year. Sounds pretty easy for someone as camera addicted as me, right? I figure it’ll be a sweet way to chronicle this first year in a new place. I also have a new camera – the new iPhone 4S – and it combined with Hipstamatic is the perfect toy!

I’m not sure how often I’ll share pics from the project here, but considering the difficulty I’m having with writing regular posts to this blog, if nothing else, a photo a day will at least give me something to blog about. The truth is, I have plenty to blog about, but the difficulty lies in how much to share and what to keep close to my heart. I imagine I’ll work that out with time and practice. For now it still feels like too much, as if too many people are reading over my shoulder…

Anyway, about the new coffee pot…

; )

The cheapo Mr. Coffee died yesterday when I was just desperate for a cup…

Coffee this way reminds me of my dad and of camping. I love the smell of it cooking on the stove. It’s especially yummy this way, I think, but it takes forever to be ready. So today I snapped a pic while I waited.

Anyone else out there prefer perked coffee over drip-brewed? Any hints for getting the basket contraption out of the pot without burning my fingers or should I go to the garage for that camping tool?

: )

Crazy things i do to amuse myself, Snapshots, Travels with the flock, Wanderings

8/100

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Late in the week at New River, Beth G. and I had separated ourselves for an hour or so from the “serious birders” in order to photograph the Glade Creek Mill at Babcock State Park. It’s a very pretty setting and deserved some time of its own.

So Beth set up her tripod and we scrambled around on the rocks in the middle of the creek for a perfect view of the mill… of course I was distracted the whole time by the fishermen who station themselves along the way. I’m always on the prowl for interesting strangers to photograph, but more often than not, my shyness gets in the way of asking for a photo.

So this guy approached us, once we had given up on photography and decided to go back to birding, to ask us what we were doing there that day and where we were from, etc.

We told him we were there to look at birds and his response was, “The birds are all dead.”

Huh?

And he told us about, how, as a kid up at dawn, there used to be a deafening sound of song from birds. He doesn’t hear that anymore. Doesn’t hear birds singing, at all. So they’re all dead.

Huh?

Mind you, his accent was pretty thick, so maybe I misheard him.

; )

In my devilishly charming sort of way I suggested that maybe his hearing was just going… that birds were still singing, but his ears were just too old to hear them, maybe.

; )

This was the moment when I asked for his photo. It’s one of my favorites.

This photo is #8 in my 100 strangers project. Find out more about the project and see pictures taken by other photographers at Flickr 100 Strangers or www.100Strangers.com

Crazy things i do to amuse myself, Snapshots, Wanderings

A Picturesque view of Olana

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This photo is mostly about the clouds for me…

(god, I love a wide-angle lens!)

But there’s the whole Persian mansion thing at Olana and finding a more complete view of it was very difficult. Frederic Church designed it that way; he wanted the landscape to be experienced in *glimpses* or a particular, planned sequence of views…

The other photographers at Camp that weekend approached their work very seriously and with tripods, lining up to take (presumably) the same photo as the person before and behind.

(blech!)

I wandered around and in Gorilla-photographer mode ran down this hill with arms extended… briefly considered a child-like roll, even…

(but for the camera equipment and the embarrassment of being caught in the act!)

I turned around and found the mansion perched beside a maple tree afire…

: )

A Ming vase can be well-designed and well-made and is beautiful for that reason alone. I don’t think this can be true for photography. Unless there is something a little incomplete and a little strange, it will simply look like a copy of something pretty. ~John Loengard, “Pictures Under Discussion”

Crazy things i do to amuse myself, I like to make lists, Wanderings

25

5 Comments

I pick the prettiest part of the sky and I melt into the wing and then into the air, till I’m just soul on a sunbeam. ~Richard Bach

Yes, I’m still checking off items from last year’s list…

: )

Kite flying has always looked like such fun to me and a little boy at the beach on Labor Day weekend with a stunt kite inspired me to get my own. A stunt kite has two lines for control and is not anything one can put up into the sky and tie off to a beach chair to be forgotten while you sunbathe.

You have to manage this thing and boy, is it fun! A gentle (or not so much) tug on either the right-handed or left-handed line will set the kite diving in whichever direction… the wind plays its hand and the kite is making loop the loops in a dangerous spiral towards someone’s umbrella…

Crash!!

There was much giggling and some cheering, even… a brisk wind and the sun low on the beach at Cape May… the lighthouse behind us… the curiosity of an Amish family out for a seaside afternoon…

I hadn’t felt so lighthearted in a long while.

And next I want to learn how to do tricks!

: )

25 in last year’s 39 by 40.

Crazy things i do to amuse myself, Snapshots, Whatever

Blackberry

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It’s hard to appreciate in this photo, but when the sun hits it just right…

: )

So long as it gets me to work and back I’m happy, but a new car is kind of an occasion…

and this one makes me laugh when I see it…

IT’S PURPLE!!

and it reminds me not to take myself too seriously…

(important!)

I christened it properly this evening with a trip to the beach and a gallon of sand.

Crazy things i do to amuse myself, I like to make lists

4 (redo)

13 Comments
It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.
~Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

So earlier this evening I sat on my little patio wiggling my freshly-painted toes in a roasting pan filled with sand and seashells and water from the Pacific Ocean.

I smiled and giggled and hoped my neighbors couldn’t see what I was doing.

The sand and seawater and roasting pan were presented to me a while back in a cardboard box with instructions on how to affect the above photo.

The seashells were mine, collected on a trip last year along my familiar eastern coast, but added for the sake of realism.

😉

Can anyone, by the way, explain to me why NJ beaches are devoid of proper seashells?

Anyway so… it’s not exactly what I had in mind for #4, but it’ll do for now and I learned a couple things:

sand from that other coast is very pebbly and must feel nice underfoot

the sea is just as salty-tasting on the other side of the country

of course I tasted it!

(that wasn’t in the instructions, tho)

it’s good to have friends who travel to far-flung places and are as nutty as you

(or maybe more so)

if you’re going to do anything as silly as this, it’s best to save it for that moment when the mood strikes you at the end of a very long Terrible Tuesday when you’re sick of being the mean-social-worker-lady.

(silliness is an excellent challenge to meanness)

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Another attempt at 4 in last year’s 39 by 40. I haven’t quite perfected the new list just yet.

Crazy things i do to amuse myself, Snapshots, Wanderings, Whatever

Yesterday

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A visit to NYC…

(which felt kinda counterintuitive on Memorial Day Weekend, considering the horrendous traffic heading OUT of the city)

but I live at the beach

(lucky me, I know)

😉

I saw Strawberry Fields, finally, and was reminded of my best friend growing up and her total adoration of all things John Lennon…

I wandered around The Ramble in Central Park looking for photographic opportunities and good birds…

and loving the fun edge-aberrations of MevetS’ wide-angle lens.

I was prowling for stranger pics and found many…

NYC is especially good for that!

A happy bride on a beautiful day…

Somewhere along those wooded paths, by a bridge, we came upon a drumming group… but this one had singers!

My sense was that they were Cuban and this old guy…

😉

He totally stole my heart and my imagination and reminded me, somehow, of a long-dead uncle who I wish had lived long enough to share his stories with me..

I very nearly got run over by a bus to take this shot on 42nd street…

NYC is madness!!

death by bus or yellow cab, I wondered, as my short life flashed before my eyes

It’s Fleet Week and Steve forced me to talk to lots of handsome sailors…

😉

Who insist they HAVE TO wear the uniform and don’t do it just to pick up girls…

(Right.)

The real reason for this crazy goose-chase across NYC was Manhattanhendge, which we somehow missed…

??

At the end of the day, in Times Square, I felt very much like a country-bumpkin, out of my element, distracted with the bright lights and the madness of city life… and very glad for the little patch of sand waiting for me at home by the sea.

: )