Rainy Walk Along the Hooch

  • November 30, 2008 10:57 PM

It has rained all weekend — cold, wet rain.  After sitting in the house all day yesterday, Thomas and I decided to get out and stretch our legs with a quick walk along the Chattahoochee River.  I took along my camera, hoping to get a shot for the reborn Exposaroonie challenges.  Unfortuantely, I missed the deadline, but this is my photo of “Lines.”

Wooden Slat Wall

Wooden Slat Wall - "Lines"

And a few others from the walk…

Wet Berries

Wet Berries

Chain Link Fence

Chain Link Fence

Thomas

Thomas

You can see the rest on Flickr:

On Safari at Zoo Atlanta

  • November 10, 2008 9:34 PM

Sorry, I didn’t have a very verbal post yesterday.  I was tired after editing my photos and just wanted to get them online.  Thomas, however, posted a good description of our class on his blog.

Western Lowland Gorilla

Gorilla

First of all, the class was wonderful and I highly recommend it. Ron Mayhew taught it through Emory Continuing Education.   The class was geared more toward photographers with digital SLRs, and I mostly used a Sigma 50-500mm on my Nikon D50.

Ostrich (Struthio camelus)

Ostrich

There was a little bit of instruction, but most of the time was spent photographing the animals. What made it different from a regular trip to the zoo is that we got to go behind the scenes to get photos up close.

Orangutan

Orangutan

The day started out with a talk about minimizing the zoo-y (fences, unnatural lines, glass reflection) look in your photos. Next, we had a group tour of the overall zoo. After lunch and some more instruction, we had our close up sessions with the gorillas, orangutans, giraffes, ostriches, and birds.

Adolescent Verreaux's Eagle-owl (Bubo lacteus

Eagle Owl

At the beginning, the instructor asked us what single thing we wanted to focus on for the class. I said that I wanted to get a nice portrait of an animal, and I’m happy with a few shots that I captured.  I think the big keys are patience and a telephoto lens.

Western Lowland Gorilla

Gorilla

If you want to see more, I’ve posted the whole set on Flickr:

Coffee and Scrabble Date Night

  • October 13, 2008 9:06 PM


Thomas and I were feeling pretty stressed last week – nothing in particular, just the crazy things going on in our lives. So to relax and reconnect, we went on a date Friday night. We started out at a new coffee house – Land of a Thousand Hills. I’ve always complained that there are no decent coffee houses in this town, but this one is awesome.

It’s a cozy converted house with a patio outdoors where they have live music on Friday and Saturday nights. They have a bookcase with boardgames and books, and display (and sell) handmade Rwandan baskets. They even stay open until midnight.

This is exactly what I was looking for in a coffee house – it’s almost even better than Third Place in Raleigh. (Third place wins because I used always run into friends there.) We played a game of Scrabble – I won…barely – and then headed to Chaplins for dinner where we sat on the patio and ate and chatted in the cool Fall air. It was a great, relaxing night, and hopefully we can do it again soon.

Four-hour Hug

  • August 27, 2008 9:46 PM

This past weekend, Thomas took me out on a 4-hour ride on his motorcycle.  I guessed I owed it to him after dragging him to the pedicure and baby shower, and getting him to help with my quilt.  The longest ride before this was maybe 15 minutes to a motorcycle documentary at the movie theater.

Conveniently, I fit in his spare jacket and pants (that’s me in the photo above), and he has an extra helmet for me.  He recently got me some boots and gloves so that I could be ATGATT (all the gear, all the time).  While on the bike, the gear isn’t too hot, but when we stopped to walk around, the jacket gets pretty heavy.

The ride was nice.  We drove back roads through North Georgia and saw lots of farms, horses, and corn.  We were looking for a sunflower field, but no luck.  After two hours, we stopped at Carter Dam and stretched our legs, and then headed to Pizza Hut for lunch.

I took my camera with me and took photos along the way, though most came out pretty crooked and a little blurry.  The ride overall wasn’t that bad.  By the end, I was tired, but I didn’t even mind the rain we had to pass through.  I don’t think I’ll be ditching my car anytime soon, but I might consider another ride (or as Thomas calls it, a 4-hour hug) sometime.

Thomas posted a trip report on his blog, and the rest of the photos are on his Picasa album, “No Sunflowers.”  You can see the route we took with his photo map.

World Wide Photo Walk

  • August 26, 2008 8:44 AM

Thomas and I participated in Scott Kelby’s World Wide Photo Walk on Saturday. Groups of photographers, amateur and professional, gathered in 236 locations around the world to photograph their surroundings on the same day. We joined up with the Buckhead (near downtown Atlanta) group, led by Judith Pishnery, and took some urban architecture and night photography.

Buckhead Skyline

This is not our typical subject matter for photography, but I had a good time learning about long exposures. I downloaded the new Lightroom version to edit them, and so far, so good. I’m really enjoying the free presets offered by Lightroom Killer Tips.

Freeze Frame

This is my favorite shot that I took. My battery was running out, but when I turned around to see where Thomas was, I saw the bus passing in front of him as he was taking a photo of the sky and tried to quickly snap the shot. It feels a bit frozen but with a lot of motion to me.

Vroom

Thomas and I have posted our photos online and submitted a few to the contest Flickr group. Check them out if you get a chance.