Spring in Cambridge certainly lives up to the adage "April showers bring May flowers". Today was a lovely April day and in between thunder storms I captured some cloudscapes.
Well, mostly between showers. That black cloud at the top of the "Spring Rain" shot got me :-)
While in Belgium (visiting Aileen) we endured a week of sullen grey skies and intermittent rain. It was ideal for squelching about in wellies or staying inside but didn't hold much promise for photography.
Then finally one perfect day dawned - glorious light, blue skies and Magritte-style clouds. This was the view from my bedroom window early that morning.
As an added bonus the waterbirds decided that it was spring and time to argue about territory. This year the lake has a new pair of swans, younger and more athletic than its former inhabitants. The cob (male swan) put on a great display, claiming the lower end of the lake and its island as his own, and trying to chase away the Canada geese. This was a largely futile effort since there were dozens of geese and they seemed to take great glee in taking turns to taunt the swan. The geese are smaller and generally more agile than the swan, but a couple were surprised by the cob's speed.
We also had the rare treat of seeing the swan fly. The cob is a massive heavy bird: it takes great power for him to achieve liftoff - see the continuous sequence of shots. In contrast, when he circled back to land he skidded across the water at enormous speed while holding his wings aloft to slam on the brakes.
Though the show was fun, it might be unwise to argue with a territorial swan :-)
The Washington DC photos are now all up. If you looked at them the other day, scroll down since I hopscotched around in history when posting.
Our most recent trips were to Tucson for Seline and Dylan's wedding, and I went to DC to buy an application form for a new passport. The latter is a long story...
On the topic of Tucson, we missed our original departure from Boston to [Dallas Fort Worth] Tucson due to the never-ending delights of the TSA. There must have been at least three hundred people in the security line: even the airline staff were wondering out loud what the heck was happening. People ahead of us whose flights were due to depart after ours were allowed to skip the line, but we were told to keep standing in the queue... and eventually raced to our gate to see that the jetway had just been pulled back from the plane. The people who'd been allowed to cut the line (whose flight was due to leave ten minutes after ours) ended up with a delayed flight, so they had to wait airside too. Fortunately the staff of American were helpful, and Peter's BA status got us into the Admirals club lounge, where a star by the name of Maureen re-routed us through Chicago. We arrived only a couple of hours later than originally planned: good thing we were booked on one of the early flights [though if we had been flying later perhaps the TSA would have been more manageable?]
As for DC, the passport tale isn't done yet so rather than jinxing myself I'll wait to tell the story until I am able to travel internationally again. The upside was that I saw one of my business school classmates, Faheen (and her eight month old son Zain), and after all the embassy hoo-ha had a beautiful autumn afternoon of wandering around DC to see the White House [tourists + protestors] and war memorials [more tourists + a massive school group]. I have posted some photos and will post more over the coming days.
Oh, and there was *no* line at the TSA in DC, though I had hours of time to spare before my flight. The TSA staff manning the checkpoint I went through told me they'd been on duty for almost an hour and I was the first person they'd dealt with that day [they were a few checkpoints down from the end of the line]. Perhaps Dulles could send some of their extra TSA staff and scanners to Logan?
While Peter was in soggy Vancouver I had a very sunny weekend of sport in Cambridge.
The Prague photos are all up now - let me know which ones you like best.
I'm also glad to say that all the South African miners made it out of Elandsrand.
Most of our Prague photos have been posted, and I hope to post the remainder in the next day or few.
Somewhat inconveniently for the viewer, I have not been publishing the posts in chronological order i.e. an 'older' post might appear on the site after a 'more recent' post - so something published tomorrow may be further back in the blog's history than what's already there. (I hope this makes sense... it's 4 am and it's not clear if I'm perfectly coherent).
Apart from innate disorganization there are a couple of reasons for this:
Rather than cluttering up this blog with talk about technology, I've started another - Testing Testing - http://baobabtech.blogspot.com/ - where I can indulge my inner geek and post away to my heart's content about technology and photographic technique (or lack thereof!). I've been playing with the new Nikkor 18 - 200 mm lens, so there's already material for the photo-geeks in the audience.
Though we haven't been posting much about our travels since China, there are subsequent pictures from Cambridge and elsewhere on Images Across The Earth - http://baobabgallery.blogspot.com/. We are off to Prague soon, and I'll ask Peter to provide his usual witty reports.
We haven't been travelling much recently, though April brought a wedding in South Carolina, and July a short jaunt to Montreal for the Jazz Festival.
Peter went to Kentucky overnight for work, and I made a trip to New York for visa purposes - both were all work and no photos. Otherwise I've been puttering around taking photos close to home, often of the earth in bloom. Yesterday we went to a local farm for a glorious if windy day outside. We returned with loads of fruit, and lots of photos of bumblebees busily pollinating sunflowers - quite a feat (for bees and photographer) considering that the sunflowers were waving wildly in the wind. Good to have a fast lens!
As noted before, I've been very pleased with the images from the 18 - 70 AF-S DX Nikkor lens. The Quantaray zoom left a lot to be desired and quite frankly wasn't worth carting around China. So I am very excited (though until it arrives a little apprehensive) that I've just ordered the reputedly wonderful 18 - 200 mm AF-S DX VR Nikkor lens. Apparently Ritz Camera has them in stock right now, though they sell above list and sell out really quickly from all reputable vendors. For Nikon enthusiasts interested in more on the lens and where to buy it, see Ken Rockwell's site.
Taking photographs on this trip was not always straightforward.
In the places where we had a formal guide the guide was often focused on charging ahead through the day's checklist. If you're fortunate enough to have your own guide you can ask them to slow down and give you time. Some are more patient than others.
On boat cruises and long drives controlling the angle, timing and framing can be a challenge. The vehicle moves, the angle is enforced, and on large boats or at tourist attractions there are other sight-seers who also want the best angle. Patience, a rapid shutter finger, and a generous frame (which may be cropped) help. Shooting from a moving car can be surprisingly successful.
The best shots are of evanescent moments. Sometimes they simply can't be captured. These be memories.
Most photos were taken with a Nikon D70, mostly with an 18 - 70 Nikon lens. Some were taken using a Quantaray 100 - 300 zoom. Settings varied from fully manual (including ISO) to fully automatic. We also took some snaps with a Canon Ixus/Elph - see the to-be-posted airport series.
Camera wishlist for future trips:
We arrived home yesterday after a 27+ hour travelling day. Fortunately things went smoothly, with no detours to Hohhot, Newark, or other delightful spots.
The photo blog is now complete from March 7th (Dali) to March 14th (Yangshuo). Photos from earlier and later remain to be uploaded.
We tend to use big trips as an excuse to get additional bits of camera paraphernalia. This expedition is no exception, though the new gizmo is very 21st century... an iPod. Yes, that's right - an iPod in the camera bag. It turns out that with a nifty connector one can pull photos from most digital cameras to the iPod. No need to lug a computer or invest in huge quantities of expensive photo memory (i.e. microdrives/flash cards).
The data transfer will probably take time and a toll on the camera's battery, but we have chunky memory and backup batteries, so should be able to plan around that. One annoying feature that I haven't yet been able to figure a hack for is that the connector seems to offer the option of only pulling *all* the pictures off the camera, rather than selecting and transferring/deleting user-defined subsets. If the big card's full it could take a while to shift 4GB of images.
To reduce our katundu we're not taking a laptop - hopefully we won't have any trouble finding internet cafes, where we will then hook up said iPod as an external drive and post pictures to Pixamo / the blogosphere.
Though we're not in China yet I've posted some photos from previous trips to an accompanying gallery (also reached via the Images Across The Earth link at the upper right of this blog).
