Brendan and Nova

We drove up to Connecticut for the day today, to visit family.  Vince and JoAnne stopped in Wallingford on their way back from Boston, and everyone got to hang out together.  So this is Brendan, and he is holding his niece Nova.  Nova is a beauty, two months old, and the belle of the ball.  When family gets together there is always a waiting line to hold her!  So this was Brendan's moment for today.

I Need To Buy a Doorbell Button

We tried to think of everything for the new addition.  But after the crew came and installed insulation, and then the crew came and installed sheetrock, Kathy said: "We should have a doorbell at the back door"  Yikes!  When the walls were wide open,  snaking a wire from the door to the basement would have been easy.  Fortunately the sheetrock only goes to within one inch of the floor, to allow the flooring to be installed, so there was an easy way to snake the wire.  So I did that.  Only thing, I forgot to buy the doorbell!  So until one arrives, it is easy to ring the bell - just follow instructions!

What Remains

I happened to drive by the place where the old power plant was, late in the day.  The sun had nearly set and the orange light was illuminating the fuel tanks way in the background.  This is annoying, but the colors that are displayed on my computeras I write this, are lacking saturation.  The tanks should be orange in color.  Oh well, here is what the scene looks like, where the power plant once was.   I think that if you click on the picture to enlarge it, that the colors will be a bit better.

Mother Comes to Visit

The mother cat has been gone for a long time, but she showed up about a week ago, and she was clearly pregnant.  It kills us that we were unable to trap her and have her neutered.  So she showed up three days ago, and she is now very slim.  We have no idea where her new kittens are.  She showed up this morning, and I got a dish and food to feed her.  The kittens heard the noise and both jumped up to look at her from the living room window.  The kittens were transfixed!  And the thing we can't stop thinking about is, if our kitten Grace were to meet the mother cat, would either of them know they were mother and daughter?  Makes your head spin, doesn't it?

Another Way of Seeing

I have just finished reading "Hold Still" the autobiography of the photographer Sally Mann.  She works with an 8x10 view camera, and glass plates that she coats with photographic emulsion herself.  She has a book of landscape photographs called "Deep South."  Many of the photographs are very impressionistic.  I was taken by them, and wanted to try and see if I could create this feeling in my own back yard.  This is a photograph of a vine hanging from a tree, with our house in the background.  I didn't use a normal lens on the camera, I used something called a "Lensbaby" which is essentially a simple lens, like a magnifying glass, mounted on the camera.  I love the feeling of this photograph!

After The Meeting

Tonight we had our annual business meeting and election of officers and board members.  No one else wants to be president, so I am it once again.  After the meeting a bunch of members were standing around talking, as we do each week and I decided to take a photograph of what is going on.  Nothing in particular was being discussed, I just liked the different looks on everyone's faces.

Night Light

I didn't have a blog post an hour ago, so I put the 50mm f/1.8 lens on the Canon 6D.  One of the cool things about this camera is that the ISO - the "sensitivity" of the camera, can be jacked up to 12,800 and above!  In the days of film cameras, an ISO of 400 was normal and 3200 was the absolutely maximum.  So 12,800 is crazy fast!  Then I went out looking for interesting things.  I found three different scenes, but this one was the most magical. - one of the lights on the front steps.