First day of spring

Woodmansee Insurance building and looking down RT 138 in Wyoming

The Blue House, Wyoming, RI

I got up a bit early this morning to sketch as my evenings have been busy.  I did do a drawing of the house across the street last night but have elected not to share. I assure you that is a wise editorial decision. I got down to Wyoming before sunrise and was drawing the blue house as Spring happened at 7:02 this morning. Happy equinox! Both of these were drawn from inside my car as it was about 28 degrees outside and I am a weenie.

A few more pages. . .

Some of the latest pages in my sketch journal. I am trying to sketch every day and am wondering if I should post them here or stick to my photography. If you have an opinion please let me know. Click on images for larger view.

New (renewed) endeavor

Page 1

So the other day I made a small sketchbook from some left over Canson paper we had at work and decided to start sketching again. This is mostly inspired by a recent visit to the Worcester Art Museum. (which everyone in New England should visit) I kept sketch journals in the past but have a renewed interest in sketching again and getting back into more organic media.  I will still be shooting photos and 360º panoramas and video and animation stuff but right now I have set a goal to fill this book (120 pages) by the first of June. I figure that sketching and writing down my observations will help me see and understand my subject better and by doing a bit of writing, it just may help my blog writing. (wishful thinking) . . . anyway here is page one, a start, and hopefully many more to come, good, bad and certainly some ugly.

another couple of pages- I seemed to make Giovanni's arms look like those of a T-Rex. . .

Digging Out

So as you may already know - we had a snow event. The Great Blizzard of 2013 or so they say. In any event we had a lot of stinkin' snow along with some pretty high winds and lots of cold temps. Here at the ranch we were without power for almost 24 hours but survived it just fine, we kept a fire in the fireplace and a smile on our faces. Ben, Nana and I shoveled everything out. The driveway, the sidewalk and the paths to the trash cans, the wood pile and even a path to the bird feeder. I took this time lapse of the start of the work on the driveway. By the time we were done there was little snow left in the drive. . .

Best of 2012

I have been absent from the blog for a while but hopefully will get back in the swing of things soon. So I thought I would post some of the images that I was happy with this past year.  Please feel free to comment on your favorites - I am particularly fond of the Rose Island Light and the Morning Golfers. I think I did pretty good this year - I took 12,000 photos and got 20 good ones. . . .

Click on the images for a larger version.

Gaspee Days

The Blacksmith Shop, Mystic Seaport

Beach Polo in February 

Dinghy Buddies

Rose Island Light, Newport

Brugge Bridge

German Beer

Church along the Rhine

Window watcher

Kickimuit sunrise

Governor Chafee

Melk

Pomham Light, East Providence

Morning Golfers

Regensberg Sky

The Red Canoe

Sunset Speeders

St. Goar on the Rhine

Ruth Reinuaer

Steppingstone Falls

Water tower

In the tunnel

Dredging at Quonset

Dredge No. 53 - Click for larger image

Today I had the opportunity to go out onto the bay (via tugboat) and visit a dredging operation off of Quonset Point. I was very impressed with the entire operation, especially with the accuracy with which they are able to control the dig. The captain told us that they can dig as little as a tenth of a foot off the bottom and have dug trenches as deep as 150 feet! The clamshell bucket in the picture below will pull up "two dump trucks full' of dirt in a single bite. If you look at the barge tied along side of the dredge in the picture above and you can see that it is split in half. That is how it empties, they the haul the dirt to a spot about 6 miles west of Block Island, 9 miles south of the Rhode Island shore- an eight hour trip from this location. A truly incredible operation. Thanks to everyone at the Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company for their great hospitality

Digging Water - a demo of the bucket

The dredge company logo

Early Morning Light

Early morning rocks - Click for larger view

I shot this the other morning when I took the picture of the house in the post below. I was experimenting with HDR and ND filters around the Old Stone Dam waterfall in the early morning light. I liked the way the sunlight was warming up the rocks around the cool colors of the water. This is an HDR shot of 5 exposures which I developed in Photomatix and Photoshop. Not the best composition and it really doesn't have a subject that sticks out, but I like the action of the water and the contrasting colors.

Hope Valley Morning

Hope Valley Houses - Click for larger view

I got down to Hope Valley early this morning and took a lot of shot around the Old Stone Dam and as I was walking back to the car this view presented itself to me... I liked the light and the New England feel to the scene.

Dawn at 60 MPH

The Windmills of Providence - Click for larger image

Almost every morning as I commute to work I see the most wonderful weather along the way and especially as I cross the bay's head at Providence. And of course I am on the highway and traveling at 60 MPH so have little chance for serious photography. This morning, through drippy windows, shooting without framing, with one hand on the wheel, I got this shot.  Just before the sun came up the light was perfect. This shot has everything you could want in a photo, mood, fog, smoke, the American flag, oil tanks, the 3 new technology wind turbines (Made in China and paid for with stimulus money) and of course Cheaters Gentleman's Club. God bless auto mode. . . .

Stop Motion trip to Ohio

This stop motion video was shot June 5th 2006. It was shot using an Apple iSight taped to the dashboard of our rental car as Edrex and I drove from Rhode Island to Cleveland, Ohio. The iSight was attached to my Mac Powerbook and I was using iStop-Motion software. We captured at the rate of one frame per second, saving every half hour or so to an external hard drive.  The powerbook and external drive were plugged in to a power inverter. This video represents less than half of our trip, as we then went on to Illinois to visit my brother and back to Rhode Island, recording the whole way. I wish I had todays technology to play with... not even HD. The sound track is Mmm Skyscraper by Underworld  And as a simple observation, well after the fact, I seem to pass everything on the road!

The route