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Phone-ography Art Show - Dog Meets Cow

Phone-ography Art Show – Dog Meets Cow

One of my happy places is a local place called June Farms. I can’t really describe it in words, but I can in photos. In September, I was still in my risk taking mode and submitted my favorite photo of my favorite pup to fotofoto gallery in Huntington, NY and entered their 8th International Phone-ography competition. Of over 400 entries, only 30 were selected to be included in the show. I was…

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The Risk Worked - Art Show Acceptance and Reception on July 21st

The Risk Worked – Art Show Acceptance and Reception on July 21st

In my last post, I talked about slowly growing in confidence and beginning to explore ways to publicly show my photos. I took some risks and ended up submitting photos to two juried shows. The first show was on street photography which really isn’t my thing, but I tried. I saw some of the photos that were accepted and while I was not accepted, I thought the other photos were amazing. I think I…

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As summer officially ends later this week, I thought I would post a homage to my favorite thing about summers.

I love summer nights when you are with family and friends, everyone huddled together on chairs or laying on a blanket in the middle of a field, looking up at the sky in hushed anticipation. The first slow low whistle breaks the silence. The sound gets louder and faster, shattering the night with sound and light. There’s the bang, the boom, the cascade of colored embers peppering the night sky in their magical colors and all that you and everyone around you can do is simultaneously exclaim, “Oooh! Ahh!”

Fireworks and the 4th of July are an obvious summer pairing.  A not so obvious pairing is fireworks and hot air balloons.  All of the photos here were taken at one one the most spectacular fireworks displays I have ever had the pleasure to witness — the opening day fireworks at the Twinkle and Glow at the 2014 Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In a previous posting, I shared pictures from our own hot air balloon ride with RainbowRyders.  We went a few nights later with friends to see the night launch of the balloons. The winds were too fast for the balloons to take off, but the fireworks display made up for the disappointing launch.  I hope you enjoy a few of the fireworks captured by me and my trusty Canon.

First, take a look of this slideshow of the birth to death of one firework display.

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I used a rapid burst sports mode to get the sequence above. These were the best 5. I have to say that my method was not very professional; I am an amateur photog after all. I didn’t have a tripod. All of the shots were handheld. Also, while I never use the digital display, only the viewfinder, I held the camera far from my face so both eyes could immediately go to the sky to watch the display in full view.  Only occasionally did my eye go to the viewfinder. My finger, however, kept hitting the shutter.  Here are some of the other spectacular moments I was lucky enough to capture:

Click on the shots below to make them larger.

Green Eyed Monster

Sparkle

Fiber Optic

Matchstick Firework

Eyball

Peony Explostion

Popcorn

Sunflower Burst

Falling Leaves

Crystal

Anemone

Raindrops

Bursting in the Air

Iris

Purple Haze

Star Wars

Finale

Palm

Lights On Film

Crowd View

Sky Tracks

Flower Power

Snap Crackle Pop

Pop Crackle Snap

Let me leave you with a little Boom, Boom, Boom…

All photos in this post and in all other parts of this blog are © 2015 Lisa D’Adamo-Weinstein – lisadw.wordpress.com

Oh, Oh, Oh – Fireworks in New Mexico As summer officially ends later this week, I thought I would post a homage to my favorite thing about summers.

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Following up on my Renn Faire Fairies post earlier this week, I thought I would share some more of my photos from the New York State Renaissance Faire. This time the focus is on the women warriors. The battles, sword play and general merriment displayed by these powerful women captivated this photog. In addition to the picture taking, I was even inspired to finally buy my own sword.

The purple one is mine. The others are my son’s swords.

Perhaps one day I will wield it with the strength and enthusiasm of the women I saw at the faire.

We had so much fun watching all of the battles at the live chess match.  There was humor, athleticism and graceful  thrashings of their male opponents.

My all time favorite sword wielding women are a bodacious, bad ass and bawdy troupe called Vixens En Garde. We’ve seen them at the NY Capital District Renaissance Faire and at the New York State Renaissance Faire. They never fail to entertain. For this performance Athena, Hera and Persephone  had us laughing and thoroughly engaged.  Being there is the best way to fully appreciate these women wielding weapons, but until you get a chance to go to a faire and see them in person, enjoy the photos below.

Click on the individual picture to enlarge the image.

I love how their hair moves in the aftermath of this slap.

Maid Marion is not shy with the sword.

Vixens En Garde!

Athena

Hera

Hera

Persephone

Vixens

More of the Vixens

Women Wielding Weapons Following up on my Renn Faire Fairies post earlier this week, I thought I would share some more of my photos from the…

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Age 14 and still loving the faire!

Age 3 – 1st attempt to pull the sword out of the stone

Hubby and I have been going to renaissance fairs since we were in grad school.  We’ve been to fairs in Indiana, Maryland and quite a few different ones in New York (Sterling & NY Capital District). While we’ve enjoyed them all, our all time favorite is the one in Tuxedo Park, NY – the New York State Renaissance Faire.  We’ve been there almost every year since 2003.  Sometimes we dressed up and other times we didn’t. One of my most memorable “costumed” visits was back in 2004 when we all went in costume and our son took his first attempt at pulling the sword from the stone.  This year, we didn’t go in costume, but we did get the son (now a teen) to pose with the sword. His version of a costume this year was to be the “Black Knight” by wearing his Batman T-shirt.

While at the Faire with friends on Labor Day weekend, I felt my childhood fascination with fairies take over; I became obsessed with taking pics of the fairies. I fell in love with fairies when I got Brian Froud and Alan Lee’s illustrated Fairies book for Christmas when I was about six or seven. I spent hours pouring over the pages holding imagined conversations with the fairies and sprites who came to life in the intricate artwork. The pen and ink illustrations reminded me of my father’s style of artwork, so I was immediately drawn to detailed depictions and descriptions of fairies and the fairie realm. When I would wander in the woods behind our house or my grandparents’ home, I would search for signs of them.  As I grew older, searching for fairies got pushed to the wayside.  I didn’t realize how much I had missed my fairy hunts until we went to the faire this year.

I hadn’t particularly noticed a lot of fairies out and about on previous visits. Maybe it was because I was running after my son or I was on the look out for knights and sword fighting that I had missed them, or perhaps they were relegated to the forest in previous years. This year, when we entered Sterlingshire, this fairy (with his “Captain Jack Sparrow/Johnny Depp” aura) was perched on a log.

The first fairie we saw when we entered.

His silent slow motions; his mimicking and following of the guests of the shire; and frankly the beauty of his costume and face mesmerized me.

But, isn’t that what fairies are supposed to do?

He wasn’t alone. As we waited by Queens Landing for the arrival of her majesty and her court to start the festivities, several fairies began to gather. They cast their magic on me.  They were silent, beautiful, graceful, colorful, elemental and oh so much fun to watch and photograph. I hope you enjoy the photos here in this blog post and that you are inspired to go search for your own fairies very soon.

CLICK ON THE IMAGES BELOW TO ENLARGE.

The first fairie we saw when we entered.

The Fairies performed and played before the live chess match battle.

I love the bird on her shoulder.

Renn Faire Fairies Hubby and I have been going to renaissance fairs since we were in grad school.  We've been to fairs in Indiana, …

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Dragonfly Days

While on a much needed vacation in the Adirondacks, we took our son and his friend fishing at Rockwood Lake.  While they did their best to hook the “big one” in terms of pike and trout, I focused my Cannon Rebel SSL1 on something a bit smaller and no less elusive  – dragonflies. There were only two of them that afternoon, but only one loved being photographed. He stayed around long enough for me…

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This is my third post featuring some of the shots I took on Mother’s Day at the Berkshire Botanical Gardens. For this post, I decided to focus on the beauty of the magnolias this year and added a few more pictures from a 2009 trip to Mount Vernon.

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I often thought of magnolias as a southern thing. Cliches firmly held in my cheek by my tongue, I imagined members of the Magnolia Society, on steamy hot August afternoons, laying on a blanket looking up at the magnolia trees covered in big, beautiful and steely cream colored flowers, sipping mint juleps in the garden of good and evil.

Magnolias are not limited to the southern parts of the United States as we found when we were at the Berkshire Botanical Gardens in May. The only other time I paid particular attention to magnolias was on a trip to Mount Vernon several years ago. At that time, I was fascinated with the reproductive carpels and the anthers which looked like delicate matchsticks.  After sorting through my favorite magnolia photos, I did a little more research on magnolias as I consider redesigns of my own gardens here in the northeast.

I particular liked Martha Stewart’s video about magnolias. It’s a nice overview of magnolias given by Andrew Bunting, the curator of the Scott Arboretum of Swarthmore College. And if you are really into learning more about growing magnolias, here is a longer one from a 2008 episode of Martha Stewart Living. It is a more in-depth 10 minute video on magnolias.

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Berkshire Botanical Garden magnolia – front and center of the star

Berkshire Botanical Garden magnolia – branching out

Berkshire Botanical Garden magnolia – folding in

Berkshire Botanical Garden magnolia – out on a limb

Berkshire Botanical Garden magnolia – star magnolia

Berkshire Botanical Garden magnolia -inside out and upfront

Berkshire Botanical Garden magnolia – Teacup shadow kiss.

Mount Vernon magnolia – I call this one matchstick because of the way the anthers look between the tepals.

Mount Vernon magnolia – A little shy

Mount Vernon magnolia – A little shy – close up

Mount Vernon magnolia – a little closer – I love the way the anthers are resting on the tepals.

Mount Vernon magnolia – Out with the old, in with the new.

All photos © 2015 Lisa D’Adamo-Weinstein – lisadw.wordpress.com

Carpel Diem: Seize the Magnolia This is my third post featuring some of the shots I took on Mother’s Day at the…

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This is my second post from featuring some of the shots I took on Mother’s Day at the Berkshire Botanical Gardens. For this post, I decided to focus on the varied shades and shapes of green.

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There is a bit of magic to the first sightings of green in spring. The first hints of life after a long cold and snowy winter make us pause with wonder and delight at the newness of color in the landscape. While the snows had melted long before we went to the gardens in May, it was our first all day outing that didn’t have us wearing boots and sweaters.  It was glorious to feel the sun warm us and smell the richness of the earth as we walked on and off the paths of the garden’s many acres. I found my thoughts wander to the fantastical worlds and words of Lewis Carroll.  I could imagine Alice and the White Rabbit coming around the bend asking us to join them and the Mad Hatter for tea in the garden.   Since there were few people at the gardens, we would often be alone, so I wasn’t self-conscious of how often I stopped to photograph the flora and fauna of the Berkshires.  I think this intimate family time added to my whimsy as well as the headiness I felt by finally seeing the world in shades of green instead of cold bright white blankets of snow and ice.

The greens were strong and solid as well as soft and sheer.  The ferns were particularly delicate from their unfolding fronds to the fan like display of their feathery leaves.  The greens were also more solid and shiny as the lime green spot of the frog we saw just under the water by the pond’s edge.  His stillness added a hint of brightness to the brown murky water. Then there was the contrasts of greens and whites and greens and yellos as flowers met stem.  The perfect starch white of the snowdrop flowers (galanthus nivalis) punctuated by tiny green dots immediately brought a scene from the movie Fantasia to mind when the fairies come to light up the flowers so they can dance. I wonder what these gardens would look like at night with the flowers gently detaching themselves from their stems and floating down to dance to Tchaikovsky’s Valse Des Fleurs.

When I would look up from the flowers to see where my husband and son had gone, I could see my husband sitting with his head turned up to the sky trying to drink in the sun.  Our son could be found either cautiously peering under leaves and rocks for garden snakes and rollie pollies or running through the fields and woods with a stick in hand.  My son’s obsession with sticks and branches that he brandished sword-like at the air and beheading dandelions of course brought Lewis Carroll to mind again.

The only thing I can say about our day out in the sunny green world was that it twas brillig!

The fiddleheads are opening.

I want to come back in a month to see how lush the fronds of these ferns have become.

The shades of greens added depth to the browns of the murky water as we walked around the pond.

Then there was a glorious hint of lime green hidden in the reeds.

This little frog sat silently as I took picture after picture of him.

He looks a little battle worn with a red mark behind his right eye.

The beginnings.

Up close unfolding.

I love the curves as they unfold

Fanning out.

There is something so delicate about ferns.

Yet there is also a strength to them like this one growing out of the bark of a fallen tree.

Then there were this beautiful bits of ivy and fern in the flower box outside the tool shed.

The greens and whites were so beautiful after such a snowy monotone winter.

I loved the perfect little green dots on what I am calling fairy skirts event though their real common name is snowdrop (galanthus nivalis).

One single yellow flower in the sea of rippling green leaves.

I love how it is hard to tell where the green ends and the yellow begins.

Boys love their bugs.

His vorpal sword in hand.

Full out fan.

Single curled frond.

All photos © 2015 Lisa D’Adamo-Weinstein – lisadw.wordpress.com

It's Beautiful Being Green: Of Ferns and Frog This is my second post from featuring some of the shots I took on Mother’s Day at the…