Joan Wanted a Puzzle

So the other day I mentioned I had a picture that would be a puzzle, but I posted the beautiful line of Sycamore trees along Shore road instead. My sister Joan said she wanted the puzzle picture! :-) OK, so here is the puzzle picture from the snow we had earlier in the week. Perhaps this is particularly relevant because of the coming storm. So take your guesses, and post the answer, (in between shoveling snow) and I will jump in at the end and tell you what is in the picture. Big brothers have to keep their sisters happy, because that's what big brothers do! :-)

Lunch With "The Photodude"

For those of you who are frequent readers of the blog, and especially of the comments section, the name "Phototodude" will be familiar to you. He is the guy with the very offbeat and creative comments. He is also an accomplished photographer. We have known each other for several years now, and decided it was time for Mike and I to sit down and have lunch again. We talked a lot about photography and the meaning of life, and everything else under the sun, it seems. We both brought cameras of course, and so I needed to document the occasion.

"Beverage Week"

It is interesting to me how photographs seem to sometimes come in subject groups. I am joking by titling this post "Beverage Week" - I did that because yesterday I posted a cup of cappuccino, and today a steaming hot cup of tea. It just happened that way. I usually have a cup of tea with a sandwich at lunch. I always put the tea in this spot on the corner of the bookcase - it just happened that a shaft of sunlight was shining on this spot. Steam from a cup or bowl of something hot needs to be backlit in order for it to show up, and the light was perfect for this. It also helps that the background is dark, allowing the steam to stand out. You might be interested in the bright yellow cup. I bought it in the airport in Barcelona, and it is based on a design by Joan Miro, who was born in Barcelona.

Breakfast Cappuccino

Confession: I am a coffee brat. That means, if the coffee is not at least great, then I am not interested. For years now I have roasted my own coffee beans. I have an Italian "Atomic" espresso maker that I have had for 30 years for making expresso and steaming milk. And when we were in South Carolina staying with friends who lived in Italy for two years, I learned about yet another way to make cappuccino. So I had to buy the Bialetti Brikka, and a "frother." Anyhow, this morning after I had breakfast I made a cappuccino the new way, to drink while I read the newspaper. Do you what a newspaper is? To quote Craig Ferguson, "It is a papery kind of blog, only everything happened yesterday."

It Snowed! It Snowed!

It only snowed about an inch, which is fine with me. I get bored easily shoveling snow. I looked around the yard and shot a couple of things, but nothing really moved me. I did one photo that would make a great quiz - a "What is This?" photo. It would have been a good quiz, but it wasn't a beautiful photograph - it was mysterious, but boring. So on the way back from my bagel run I saw this scene, with small amounts of snow on the trees, and a bit of snow under the trees. I liked how the white of the snow matched the white of the clouds. Subtle but lovely.

In Tribute

I was making my run to the bagel store this morning, when traffic slowed and I came upon this - a giant American flag suspended between the extended ladders of two fire trucks. I don't think I have ever seen a flag this large! So the traffic was down to one lane moving slowly, and as I went by the firemen, I asked what the occasion was. "A funeral" he replied. Oh. I should have figured that out. It was a really impressive thing to see. I photographed this two different ways, by the way. Going south, the flag was backlit by the sun. This is the view coming back north, and the flag was front lit. When I was shooting, I thought the backlit shot was more dramatic, but I ended up choosing this instead. It showed more detail of the stars in the blue field.

Two Views

I have photographed this power plant before, as some of you might remember. I love industrial architecture, and this is one of my favorite structures. I came around the corner late this afternoon and saw the orange light of sunset on the stacks, and the brilliant blue sky in the background. But what I saw first, and for the first time, were the power poles and transmission lines in the foreground. I thought "Wow, I never noticed that before." So I stopped and took the first photograph. Then I walked toward the plant and continued taking more pictures, watching to see if I could get all the wires out of the sky. The difference in the photographs is that the second one is just about the power plant - the first one is more about all the poles and the wires. It is worth clicking on each of the photographs, especially the one with wires, to see how different it feels.