Cemetery trip, Whippy Dip, and meet Chauncey

Meet Chauncey.Chauncey is a fun little sock monkey Christmas ornament that was sent to me by me friend Laura, who knows and revels in the magic of sock monkeys. Chauncey has been sitting on top of my computer hutch these last months, happy to watch me clacking away, but apparently he has dreams of the wider world beyond. See, in one of those serendipitous moments that sometimes occur, Chauncey fell into my camera bag last night. When I saw him there, I thought, "Hey! What a neat idea, to let Chauncey ride along on my photo shoots and do a little Chauncey series?" Or maybe it's not a neat idea. Maybe it's cheesy. But whatever...I'll be shooting some shots of Chauncey in these upcoming months and we'll see where it goes.

We headed to the Erie Cemetery today. Erie Cemetery is huge, encompassing some 10 square city blocks or so. We didn't venture through the whole thing, of course, but I found some neat sights.

Erie Cemetery has lots of cool mausoleums, but I think only my kids would be comfortable sitting on top of one.
Chauncey liked these rhododendron blossoms.

Em took a break while I shot a couple of neat headstones.

And I happened upon another industrious bee, this time on some white rhododendron.

Chauncey helped me make sure I got a flower shot for the POTD.

Another cool thing about cemeteries is the advice you see on the stones sometimes.

After the cemetery, we headed to the Whippy Dip. Whippy Dip is one of the older ice cream stands in Erie, and therefore, a tradition.

Everyone enjoyed their cones. Chauncey didn't eat any....he's watching his figure right now.

And until next time, Liam says, "Stay classy!"

in·dus·tri·ous

industrious \in-ˈdəs-trē-əs\ (adj.): hardworking; constantly, regularly, or habitually active or occupied.

Isn't that the perfect description of this bee? I took about 25 shots as he moved from blossom to blossom on this rhododendron. Excellent macro practice, though my macro skillz are nowhere NEAR as mad as my friend Lou's. She's macrotastic. She's the macro queen. She's macronificent. (Okay, okay. I'll stop.) Check out the bee, why don't ya.

Bits and Pieces

I took some really sweet shots of Madison tonight. I'm still editing but wanted to post this one along with a couple of other tidbits.

The only way to truly improve any skill is to practice, practice, practice. (And that's also the way to Carnegie Hall. Who needs GPS?) To that end, I've been hanging out at 2Peas' photography board. There are enough moderate to fantastically experienced people that there's always something to learn, and there are still enough newbies like me that I don't feel like a huge dummy most of the time.

Two running projects at 2Peas are the Photo of the Day (http://potdchallenge.blogspot.com/) and a project called "26 Things." In the POTD, you try to follow a weekly list and post photos for constructive criticism while also viewing (and learning from) the work of others. 26 Things is similar, but one receives a very random list of 26 different themes/ideas. You're supposed to shoot things that would fit the theme. Here is the list of the 26 Things we'll be focusing on for June and July:

1. Aahh!!

2. Accessory

3. Believe

4. Color my world

5. Did you see THAT?

6. Effort

7. Flat

8. Framed

9. Fun in the sun

10. Game on

11. Half and half

12. Historic

13. Juicy

14. Metallic

15. Moody

16. Movement

17. On the road

18. Priorities

19. Relief

20. Sparkle

21. Spiral

22. Splish splash

23. This magic moment

24. Tiny

25. Way to go

26. Yummy

I'd like to challenge anyone who likes to take photos to try one (or both!) of these with me! You don't have to post the pictures anywhere special....if you have a blog or a favorite gallery, those will do. Even Photobucket or Flickr would work.

The POTD challenge for this week is "flowers." So in keeping with the theme:

Off to shoot baby pictures

I'm off to shoot pics of Baby Madison tonight. The last time you saw Madison, she looked like
this:



She's out now, and cute as a bug. I'll try to get a couple posted tonight!

Helicoptors

That's what we always called the seed pods of the maple trees: helicoptors. That's because they spiral to the ground and look like, well, helicoptors.








I'm seeing helicoptors in a whole new light this year.









My photographic eye now sees the beauty in their shape,

























and in their color,









and in their clusters,























and in the light that shines through and illuminates their veins.

Mama's new little baby

I got an external hard drive today! So long, slow-ass computer! Hello, 500gb of storage space!

I'm embarassed to say that I nearly filled my hard drive since I got this new camera. It takes such large picture files, I only had 8 gb of free space left. Now that I've transferred all my pics and all of Em's downloaded music, I'm back up to 45% free space on the ol' hard drive. Plus, I got an excellent deal on the hard drive....only $89.99 at Office Depot. (Thanks, Luce!)

I'm off to play with some pictures I took last night. The computer's running a lot faster now, too, so hopefully it won't take me 4 hours to edit some pics.

Finally, remember Gina, Matt, and Madison? Well, Maddy has made her debut and I'll be taking her newborn pics tomorrow. She's an adorable little peanut and I can't wait to get some shots of her.

Maybe magnolias?

(I have absolutely no idea what these flowers are...I'm guessing magnolias from what I've been able to find online. They're on a short tree at Asbury Woods, close to the bridge that spans Walnut Creek. If one of my more horticulturally-inclined friends has a clue, feel free to let me know --Ed.)

I take many, many pictures of flowers and leaves. Each flower is so fascinating to me. Until I became more interested in photography, flowers were nothing special. Now, I find myself drawn to their construction and growth process.

I stood for about 20 minutes taking pictures of these blossoms from every angle. I love the texture in the petals and the hint of color on the very edges.

I find that there aren't many words that could adequately describe these pictures. At the risk of seeming a big sap, I'll let them speak for themselves.

Done!

Finally done with the wedding pictures. I got a lot of snapshots and a few real gems. Once I got done with the editing and weeding out, I ended up with close to 400 pictures!

I am happy I did this for Kelly and I know she'll like them. I also have learned a lot about what to do and what not to do should I ever have the opportunity to do this in the future. For now, we'll leave Weddingville behind for a while with a last couple of shots. Tomorrow, I head to my sister's for a family cookout. Hopefully, there'll be lots of photo-ops.

They say rain is good luck on a wedding day. I bet rainbows on your wedding day, especially rainbows that seem to point to your reception site are like the good luck jackpot.