Stuff that drives me crazy...

A blogger friend of mine recently asked if I was still blogging, because I haven't posted in a really really long time, about 6 months.  It was a good wake-up call for me.  I've had a lot going on in my life (some good, some not-so-good; it all balances out somehow and just takes up time; maybe I'll share some of it down the road) and somehow the blog fell to the bottom of my 'things to do' list.  There's a bunch of other stuff on the to-do list I haven't done either.  Anyhow, I don't suppose I can totally catch up for 1/2 year of missing posts, but I'm gonna try.

I thought for fun I'd start with a quickie post of a few things that annoy me lately, to let you know I'm still the same old snarky blogger I was 6 months ago.  (I think this great blue heron was pretty annoyed that this fish didn't fit in his mouth, and I think the fish was pretty upset that the heron repeatedly picked him up and tossed him around.)  *By the way, all photos in this post are mine exclusively.  So here goes:

1) Crooked horizons on photos, unless intentional for a specific reason.

 It only takes a moment, whether on your phone, tablet, laptop, or whatever, to straighten your horizon, as I've done in the photo above.  You don't need Photoshop to fix it.  Also crooked horizons on paintings.  I have an artist friend who does lovely plein air landscape paintings.  Here horizons are always slightly off-kilter and she doesn't realize it and I don't dare tell her (she doesn't respond well to critique of any kind).  Having one of her paintings in my home would be like having a painting hanging crooked on the wall; it would drive me bananas!  I wish she would notice it on her own.

2) Boomerang videos. 
Why do you think I want to see the same jittery movement over and over and over again?  I don't.   They give me headaches.  Please stop.

3) Instagram stories. 
I mean, I admit I do look at them sometimes (particularly those by 1bike1world; if you've never  heard of him, check him out.  He's a lovely young Scottish man traveling the world on a bike, who rescued a kitten he found who now is his traveling companion). But anyhow, they annoy me so much when there's text and the image flips before I finish reading it and then I can't get it back again to finish reading it.  Or I have to watch the whole damn story again to see the one part with the text I didn't finish.  Ugh.

4) Over-saturated colors on autumn photos. 

Autumn colors are beautiful on their own.  I can understand someone giving the colors a little saturation to pump them up, or even warming the color balance a little, but dramatically over-saturating the colors make them look fake, not beautiful.  The pic above is straight from the camera, unedited. 

5) Profile photos with Snapchat filters.  I don't have a lot to say about this.  The cutesy stuff simply gives me the creeps.

That's enough for now.  Next post will be back to art education stuff, including the finished projects I was posting about last April, and what my students are working on now.  By the way, here's a link to two other posts where I've previously written about pet peeves of various sorts: PET PEEVES POSTS.

Goodbye, old friend

 About 1/2 mile away from our little lakeside "camp" on the side of the road, stood this  old phone booth.  Year after year it quietly sat there, long after the restaurant on the hill behind it had closed. 

More than 20 years ago, long before the day of portable phones (unless you were watching Star Trek or some other sci fi), I had driven to the camp with my sister-in-law, with, I believe, our pre-school children in the back seat.  We were meeting our husbands there later in the day.  We arrived at the camp and realized we'd forgotten the key.  They drive back home is about 40 minutes, so instead, we drove back up the hill and down the road to the phone booth, and called home.  My husband told me which window I'd be able to get open to crawl in and open the camp.  The phone booth saved the day!

Year after year, we'd drive by the phone booth, and as cell phones became popular, we wondered whether if would be taken away or whether it had been long forgotten by the phone company.  The phone book hanging inside was more than a decade old, and the booth was overgrown, inside and out. 

Last spring, I tried putting a dime in the slot, and nothing much happened.  A few days later, we stopped again, and this time I tried a quarter instead.  Dial tone!!!  I called my cell phone, and discovered the phone booth actually still worked!  What a surprise! 

I've photographed it in all seasons (though I can't seem to find the winter photos) and had planned to set up my plein air easel this fall and paint it when the leaves had begun to change.  Unfortunately, when we drove by yesterday, this was all we saw:

The phone booth quietly had disappeared sometime within the past week.  

Goodbye, old friend.

Images from a summer

In a few days, my students will be back for the fall session of DragonWing Arts, and I'll be back sharing art projects with you all, but I thought in the meantime I'd show you a few summer photos, since photography is a big part of my summer creativity.  Above, a great blue heron is playing peek-a-boo! Below, a luscious sunset over the lake, as viewed from our dock.

We are incredibly lucky to have a "camp" (that's the Adirondack name for a cabin or cottage or summer residence by a lake, or for some other recreation) on lovely little Loon Lake (one of several Loon Lakes in NY, but anyhow...), so any chance I get, I'm either in my kayak, or relaxing on the dock, or tromping through the woods. This summer my kayaking has brought me close to this great blue heron on a couple of occasions.  I just sat quietly and watched him. 

 That thing you see hanging in the center of my kayak below?  It's a waterproof box, for my camera, a spare battery, and a phone for emergencies.  Of course, since I obviously took the picture, you probably have realized that my camera was not in the box.  

 I'm not sure what this interesting aquatic plant is!

 Drip drop splish splash. 

 Morning fog

 Lunch!!

 I hope you've enjoyed a little of my summer joy! 

4th of July Fireworks Fun!

It's been a while since I took some time to take a break from art education stuff and just share my latest photos with you.  So I figured I'd do it today, with fireworks photos!  On the 4th of July, I tend to avoid big crowded fireworks shows, and favor sitting on our dock by our sweet little lake, where inevitably someone nearby or across the lake will be setting off some fireworks, as in the pic above.

In the past couple of years, our son and his friends gather at our "camp" for the 4th of July holiday, and, being mature young adults of between 26 and 28 years old, they think setting off fireworks is a wonderful thing.  My son, being a photo nut like his mom, sets up a tripod and takes pics while his friends all light the Roman candles and other fireworks. But these are not his photos; they are mine.  The photo above is a single 15 second exposure, with a lot of camera movement.

I got my tripod set up, set my Nikon on bulb, put a new battery in my remote, and took some dusk and sunset pics while waiting to see what would be occurring on the lake.  Some kayakers paddled by in the waning sunlight.

My son, seeing the rosy sunset glow, used his phone to take some photos since his camera was ready and adjusted for fireworks.

I played with sparklers on the dock and used my remote to make some ghost pics of myself, while waiting for actual fireworks.

 The boys started using their fireworks on the end of the dock.

Just south of us, someone put on a beautiful fireworks show readily visible from my seat on the back of the dock.  I think this pic below looks like dandelion fluff.

But it got crowded on the back of the dock, and as it got darker, I began to worry that my tripod would get knocked over and my Nikon would end up in the lake.  So I took the camera off the tripod, and put it around my neck, and stepped back off the dock.

 I moved my camera freely during open exposures, zoomed in and out, and just had fun taking shots with no idea how they'd look.  I was pretty pleased with how much fun these images turned out!

 Here's a ghost tree and a spinal column!

 This one below looks to me like a profile of a long-necked woman with green eyes, pink ears, and white hair piled on her head.  Can you see it?

 Hopefully, the precautions that were used mean that there won't be any burn marks on our new dock.  My husband and son spent several days building it, just last week! Here they are, admiring their work.

 While they worked on building the dock, I kayaked to my favorite marsh and ended up taking these pictures of dragonflies. 

And finally, while my husband put the finishing touches on the dock, I tried out my brand-new French easel and some oil paints in anticipation of the week-long plein air painting workshop I will be taking in just another week.  I haven't ever painted plein air before, and I hadn't used oil paints in 30 years, so I expect it to be quite an adventure!

 Goodnight, all!  Thanks for visiting!