Joshua Tree Under the Milky Way from Henry Jun Wah Lee on Vimeo.

I can’t remember where I found out about Henry Jun Wah Lee’s incredibly time lapse photography, but ever since I’ve been mesmerized viewing the videos. The video above of the Perseid meteor shower and the Milky Way as seen from Joshua Tree. When we were in New Hampshire we were able to see the Milky Way from the Kancamagus Highway like I hadn’t seen it in a very long time. Everyone should have the opportunity to see the Milky Way like that.

The other video/time lapse I fell in love with is the Time Lapse Tour of Yosemite National Park. A place I would love to visit and hopefully will someday with my camera.

We spent the weekend, courtesy of friends at a beach rental in East Lyme/Niantic. It was a nice break from life and great times with friends. Our friend’s kids kept Craig busy wanting to play games and go exploring. While at the beach Dunkin Donuts flew their banner over head several times.

It was really peaceful to be in a private community where you can walk around, leave the house unlocked, everyone waves and says Hi, and people follow the speed limit. There was also something rejuvenating being near the water and having the expectations lowered significantly for two days. More photos on Flickr.

Bryan and his dog Anna

Val and Autumn

Fun with cameras

Unbeknownst to us the spare bedroom at our rental had a taxidermied bear under it. Craig and I had been in the room several times before my sister in law arrived and didn’t notice it. Then when she arrived and we went to make the bed, there was silence, a gasp and a scream. Of course this was all happening at night and thus making the “not what you expected” factor rise a lot more.

Before we left Craig and Kerry took some fun pics. Kerry has been vegan since the start of the year, so it seemed perfect to have her reading her book, “Simply Vegan”.

Of all the reasons to come to Maine this is by far my favorite; biking the carriage trails of Acadia. The hills are deceiving and I’m in awe of people who just fly by me. Today we did a 9 mile loop with a stop at Jordan Pond House for some pop overs.

Route: We parked at Bubble Pond, headed up to the Jordan Pond loop, went by Jordan Pond House, then around the mountain, down the backside of Eagle Lake and then back up to the Bubbles parking area.

Observations along the way:

• I bike up hills at 3-4 mph
• Stopping for longer than a minute after mile 5 garnered much longer start ups
• 65 degree weather and cloudy is perfect for me for biking
• Pack a small point and shoot camera
• Get an extra battery pack for the iPhone
• Listening to the Crystal Method for most of the trip seriously kept me moving?

Accomplishments:

• First ride of the season, 9 miles
• Did not have to stop on the hills, just went slow and steady
• Did not stress about hills, but accepted them and chose to conquer them

We managed to time our ride perfectly again to bump into the horse and carriage teams leaving the stables with their passengers. Each group waved to us and said Hi.

As always I loved the ride, had a great time and wish I could do it every weekend. A slightly easier version would be nice everyday to get to work.

We had fun later in the trip where we seemed to be the only ones on the trail and we shot some video. Craig is going to be compiling it into something fun to watch and I’ll post when he does.

Kerry and I decided to explore Great Wass Island today. The weather was perfect and we wanted to get out of the house, as well as get some exercise. My inlaws and Kerry had gone to this island last year but I never made it. It definitely ranks up as one of my favorite trails to hike.

The trail included several varieties of terrain, from roots and dirt, to boardwalks and several large boulders. I love the trees through these island landscapes, they’re small and scraggly growing in directions clearly blown by the Atlantic wind. In the woods the temperature was perfect, we worked up a good sweat. Along the trail I managed to scare a red squirrel and a spruce grouse.

At the terminus of the trail we got an incredible view of the Atlantic Ocean. We had the whole beach to ourselves for quite a while.

The rocks were wonderfully sun baked and kept us warm as the wind picked up and made for a chilly but sunny lunch. We were able to keep with our vegan eating packing left overs. It was a great way to spend the afternoon. According to the LoseIt app, our 2.5 hour hike totaled 1100 calories burned.  We spent a total of 3.5 hours out on the island.

Onto tomorrow and more adventures!

Unlike last year we’ve had incredible weather. Almost everyday has been sunny with a light breeze and as I said before, gorgeous views. I’m incredibly grateful for that. We’ve spent a lot of time reading and brainstorming projects and future plans. We’ve made some delicious healthy meals and working on sun tans. We both managed to get decent burns after sitting out for 5 hours on one day.

We made a trip into Bar Harbor and enjoyed town life and lots of lobster. I visited my favorite store, Cool As A Moose and picked up some new Life Is Good swag. Today begins the second week and we’re off to do some biking and enjoy the outdoors.

My mother in-law has a beautiful Azalea bush at their home. An idea of how much “warmer” it is this year, two years ago when I took photos of this in bloom it was Mother’s Day. This year it is mid-to-end of April.

I took this photo around 6pm with the sun setting behind the hill and backlighting the flowers. I shot it with the Canon 50mm 1.8/f lense which I love for it’s wonderful depth of field.

When going through old photos last weekend, I came across this one of my mother. I had said to her when I saw it, “my god Mom your hair looks phenomenal”. Her response was “yah but it was too hard to keep up”. It turns out this was from a family wedding in the summer of 1972, in Darien, Connecticut. Long before my parents were thinking of me.

My grandmother is on the left, and I believe my mom’s cousin is on the right. The original photo had faded quite a bit and I used levels, curves and contrast in Photoshop to bring back the depth of the photo. I also did some burning in of areas that had faded more than the rest of the photo.

Absolutely beautiful. I’m looking forward to watching the Olympics there in a few days. Vancouver has been on my list of places to visit for a while. Someday we’ll make it out there.

Liam and Kathy

Catching Autumn crack a smile

This picture and those vines feel like a metaphor for my life currently, well the past 9 years or so. We (Craig and I) had such clear dreams and plans for our lives back in 1998-1999. Then starting in 1999 it got chipped away at slowly and sometimes fast, over the next 10 years. Craig literally dealt with having his spine twisted at one point. Our efforts to keep the plan going seemed to get more and more complicated and frustrating. Here we are 10 years later and feeling like we’ve almost broken free from the vines and twists that tried to take over.

People reflected on the last 10 years with sadness of the financial crisis, housing crisis, political crisis. I looked back and said, “holy shit I survived it”. I really didn’t think I’d live to see 30. Between all the stresses over the past 10 years and then just my own health which I had put on a back burner it seemed inevitable this was going to be coming to an end. I don’t mean to sound doom and gloom, just felt like, really what else could be thrown at me.

Well maybe not entirely. I used to love the winter, but that was when I lived in a house that actually stayed warm. Our apartment when the wind kicks up can be very hard to keep warm. Thus I’m kind of missing those days of basking in the sun and feeling warm all the way through. I took this photo over last summer on our only visit to White Memorial that year. I’m determined to get out and enjoy the outdoors in 2010. It seems like so long ago but in 2006, I was biking at least once a week and doing all sorts of other things outdoors.

In the spirit of getting in better health

This past week I ate vegetarian from Sunday through Thursday. Friday we started running out groceries, time and I caved and picked up Starbucks for breakfast, Subway for lunch and pizza for dinner. Lesson learned though, as my stomach was none too happy with my meal choices and I spent the evening in a lot of pain. Which leads me to thinking, maybe I do have some level of lactose intolerance. The weekend was filled with lots of out and about activities, and I made decisions that were fairly good.

I’m looking forward to going back to eating simpler, not so rich foods this week. My goal for this week is to continue with primarily vegetarian meals and get in at least two days of exercise. I have to work on my core to help my back, which has been bothering me again. I am also planning to map out different places to mountain bike between home and work. Along with that, I’m putting together a shopping list of winter bike gear; booties, pants and a bright orange fleece jacket (I like my life).

It was probably earlier this past year I saw someone post their daily photo with DailyBooth. I didn’t think much of it, but I’ve seen more people posting lately and then today Gary Vaynerchuk’s job posting even mentioned it as a possible requirement. Since my thing is photography, I figured I’d give it a shot. Might also be a good reminder for myself to see the progress of losing weight this year.

Friend me up if you’re on there.

Shot with the 50mm lense outside my work in the afternoon on lunch break.

My humble and always willing photography subject, Craig. I was showing Ron how the lense worked with depth of field and the expo disc the other night. Craig kindly posed and I snapped this photo. I love the 50mm lense.

My good friend Ron is always fun to take photos of. Especially when we’re doing posed photos, he’s got the dead serious pose down to a science. I shot this with the Canon 50mm 1.8 lense.

A few weekends ago, we had finally set a date for our [Kelly, Debbie and myself] 30th birthday weekend away. It should be noted our birthdays are all in February and March. It has taken this long to get everyone’s schedules together. Just before the trip Kelly had to back out due to having contracted the swine flu. We only had a few more weeks left in the year, so we opted to go ahead with the day trip.

To add to the chaos of the weekend, we were also being deluged by tropical storm Ida. Our plans were to visit Newport, RI; shop on Thames St, eat at the Red Parrot and then head out to the cliff walk and mansions. We managed to keep our plans with several puddles, umbrellas and rain drop dodging runs.

The food at the Red Parrot was very delicious and we spent quite a while just catching up. Then we ventured back on to Thames and did some fudge shopping and Christmas gift shopping. We browsed through the GAP and the General Store. We decided to try to see at least one of the mansions before we headed to dinner. Turns out they have really short hours and high costs. It was $18.00 a ticket and we got 45 minutes in the mansion before they closed at 5pm. We visited the Breakers which Craig and I hadn’t been to in a very long time. They had some Christmas decorations out but not the full regalia as it will be this week.

If you’ve never been to Newport, RI and have never seen the mansions, it’s worth the cost and trip. They are amazing. To create these today would be nearly impossible, the raw materials would be too expensive, even for the Bill Gates of the world. The land is is beautiful and the views are amazing.

After the mansions, we tried to see if the ocean was visible enough for photos, but it got dark so quickly. We even went out along the Ocean Drive but it was just dark and foggy. The group had filled up on fudge and jelly bellies from earlier so we headed back into town and then back home.

I’m hoping Craig and I will get over there again before Christmas to see Marble House decorated for Christmas.

This year I was thankful for having a job, being able to spend my life with my best friend, a roof over my head that I even like living in, a car that runs even at 163K miles and being able to do for a living something I love.

What were you grateful for this holiday season?

This building has been eluding me for a few years. We stay at a hotel nearby and have always ended up on the backside which has a view of this building along with mountains and a river. It is a unique structure that I’m unsure of the history.

This past summer crows had taken up residence and each one had their own floor it seemed. I’m hoping to get back and get a little closer. I don’t think it would be safe to go inside. I’m also hoping to talk to some of the local residents and find out the history.

While finishing up the same roll of film, I was looking around my cubicle for inspiration. I realized the few items I have with me everyday are my MacBookPro and my iPhone. Coca-Cola is something I only recently started drinking, in moderation, but I liked how the curvy logo looked against the straight lines of the gadgets.

My coworker got me this kidrobot dunny, which I love. I was trying to finish up a roll of film and started playing around with this little guy on top of the cubicle walls. I liked how the light from the windows backlit him and created this great light.

Wednesday had an unexpected downpour in the afternoon, right when Kelly and I were supposed to be meeting to shoot photos at Southford Falls. It didn’t look like it was going to pass in the next 15 minutes so we opted to reschedule. By the time I got home it was dry and I decided to head down there after dinner.

The park was empty and I was trying to beat the setting sun, but I’m very happy with the photos and how they came out.

All of the photos I shot were with my tripod, a wireless remote and a neutral density filter. The photo settings were all the same as well, f/22 for 30 seconds at 400 ISO.

I snapped this photo quickly with my Canon SD550 to show my sister in law how the portrait mode worked. When I downloaded it from the camera I loved how it came out. I started tweaking it by shifting it to black and white. Then Craig and I thought, “this would make a perfect album cover”.

I used a gothic font, added some textures, reversed the y and then added a Photo Edges border to the image.

My favorite part of the image is the detail in her sun glasses.