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.

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”.

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.

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.

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.

Now the grass a luscious green, the plantings haven’t come in yet, but the trees were in full green leaves. We explored a section of the park we hadn’t been to. I can’t wait to go back with my bike, and ride this never ending road.

There is a beautiful stone wall that runs the length of this road on either side. I loved the old trees.

We headed back to the main house to enjoy the sunset from the back porch. There were people playing frisbee and families enjoying the grounds. As the sun started to set, I realized there was this beautiful glow off the windows.

I’m finding it very hard to capture a sunset straight on, I need to read up and experiment more. Before we left I walked up to the big apple tree and noticed the silhouette it’s branches made. I like how the branches resemble a printed pattern.

We walked back to the car in the dusk light, and I snapped this one last shot from the parking lot.

If you live in the area, I can not recommend enough visiting this park.

Several weeks back my photography friend’s, Shanna and Kelly, decided it had been too long since our last photography field class. Sadly enough, Shanna couldn’t make it today, but Kelly and I headed over to Harkness Memorial State Park to shoot photos. I went to college on this side of the state and discovered this park with Craig while driving around and exploring the area. Since that time I love to come over and visit. There’s a mansion on the property, gardens, a long stretch of lawn and ocean front.

We decided to head over a little later and let the morning storm clouds pass. When we arrived it was sunny and a light breeze. Perfect for our photo walk. Craig kindly came along and allowed me to shoot photos of him. I am very happy with how the photos came out today.

Slideshow available here.

The technical:
I shot all of today’s photos with a Canon Digital Rebel XTi, Canon 50mm 1.8f, Canon 100-300mm, Canon 18-55mm kit lense and tripod. I used primarily for the sky photos a graduated neutral density filter. I also shot, but not shown here, 120mm format black and white film with a Diana F+ camera. I’m hoping to work on those soon. I post-processed in Adobe Lightroom 2.0.

Processed with a Lithograph preset in Lightroom.

HDR of the park from the ocean side.

Craig coming to get me.

It was wonderful to see color this past weekend. The grass is starting to go from shades of pale green and brown to lush green. The trees are still bare but I can’t wait for the buds to start coming.

After brunch, we headed over to Squantz Pond to take a walk. The wind had other plans, but we persevered. I took a photo of my in-laws that I really like. I’m going to get it printed and framed and give it to them.

More photos from today available on Flickr.

We got chatting and discovered we only lived one road apart for a few years. I have yet to have a chance to take Ted up on going out for a photo walk, but I am very excited to be able to go see his photography at the Common Ground Caffe in Litchfield.

If your in the area please take some time and go see his beautiful work.

This is one of several amazing pieces of photography via, Light Art Performance Photography’s website. Their work is beautiful and inspiring. I love long exposure photography. Please go visit their site to see all their incredible work.

On a side note, I liked the music so much I bought it as well. It’s by James D. Stark, called “Ready” [iTunes link].

I found all of this via Colin Devroe’s post.

I loved watching these little guys dart around the sand, in and out of their holes. This is from our trip to Cape Cod in 2007.

Taken last spring during a field class. Inspired by, Maureen Gallagher’s “Suspended“