Education Vacation

     My day job requires me to complete 20 hours of professional continuing education each year. Since I have to go anyway, I try to pick seminars in locations that are fun to visit. We are just back from a combination of education and vacation on the East Coast. The convention center was very nice. So nice, in fact, that I felt a little out of place there. This place was so rich that there was a vending machine in the lobby with $350 Bose Headphones for sale. Where I come from, vending machines are for crackers.
    Here is a view across the hotel atrium and out to the yacht club on the river. The atrium was set up like a little town with shops and restaurants in little buildings like the one you see on the lower right.

    This rocky stream courses through the atrium.

Outdoors, a wild Mallard Duck stops briefly at the hotel's  landscaped waterfall before flying on downriver.

    In front of the hotel, the limo drivers prepare for a busy day.

                           

     One morning we discovered a dirt road near our hotel that curved around a bend in the river. We were quite close to the convention center, restaurants, and shopping, and still we saw Mallard ducks with their babies, diving ducks, Canada Geese, and a Red-winged Blackbird. On the ground we saw deer tracks. Honey Bunny walked out there with me the following night so that I could get this shot, otherwise I would not have felt comfortable there alone. The convention center is on the far right. The purple lights are from the sixteenth floor night club.

                             

    Here are two more photos of the river. The bridge you see in the distance is a drawbridge. I always get the creeps driving over those. It is  1 and 1/4 miles long and carries twelve lanes of traffic. There is a concrete barrier to protect pedestrians who have their own lane. We saw people jogging there, but were told that noise from the traffic is deafening.

                        

                            

    This is part of a 70 foot sculpture that depicts a giant trying to free himself from the sand.

    That's okay. I don't want to get on your dumb old boat anyway!

                    

    The seminar we attended offered full time learning. Night classes, lunch-and-learns, and wet labs were all a part of the package. One morning I took advantage of the free continental breakfast in the exhibit hall, only to be bombarded by big screen TVs with advertisements from some of the vendors. None of this surprised me until I saw these signs paired together. I then had to wonder if the "full time learning" thing was getting a bit out of hand.

              

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Deserted Fishing Cabin

    I spend a lot of time thinking about photography and very little time actually taking photos. Often while driving I see an old barn or a stately oak tree and I think about taking a picture. But I rarely get around to it.
    Recently I decided to take some of those photos I had been thinking about. Here is one of a dead tree that looks like an old woman with her hand on her hip.

    There is an old house I pass by often. I had hoped to photograph it when an oak tree behind it was in full fall color, but it didn't happen. So I used an HDR program to give it a "painterly" effect.

     A small town nearby suffers from a plague otherwise known as "road construction." Its citizens decided to make light of their plight with signs featuring those darned orange barrels.

    Many times I drove past this old house and wondered how best to photograph it.

    Finally I decided to take the grandbaby there.

    Honey Bunny convinced me that it looks better in black and white.

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Lost, Yesterday.

      "Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered for they are gone forever."

Horace Mann

    I was lucky enough to get an invitation to the coast last weekend. The short winter days turned out to be advantageous as I could see the sun rise and set without having to miss sleep. I do so love to sleep!

    If you reached my blog from Facebook the bad news is that the photo you saw there was Photoshopped. This is the actual moon photo I took. The good news is that you can make any of these photos full screen by clicking on them.

    My second shot was a happy accident. I moved the camera and mashed the shutter button at the same time. But I like it. There are many articles in my photography magazines about how to do this on purpose. I have never tried it because I am sure I wouldn't be able to get anything worth showing to you that way. It had to be an accident to work.

    Luckily my host suggested I get the sunrise over Indian Island. Otherwise I might have missed it while photographing the moon set in the opposite direction. This one looks especially good when enlarged to full screen, if I do say so myself!

    Sunset. Needs no further explanation.

    Another shot at sunset. I very much like having the grasses in the foreground.

    I might have more for you, but my hostess is SUCH a good bartender that I had a tough time remembering all the finer points of photography!