Back from the beach...

Just got back from the beach.  Thursday night we drove down to Lewes and had a wonderful "Firecracker Crab Bomb" at Jerry's Seafood...Do It!!  It was the best crab cake I ever had.  No filler...at all.  Jerry's in D.C. was spotlighted on the Food Network last year.  It did not disappoint.  After dinner we went to our hotel and slept in.  It is after all, vacation.

Friday morning, we went to Ocean City for the day.

Lifeguard Tower in Ocean City

Kites on the beach in Ocean City

Not much to do for old folks on the boardwalk so we had our lunch then drove over to Assateague Island to see the ponies.  It was just a short drive.  The ponies were all over the place ANNNDDD, we even saw a 3 legged Sika deer (small variety) with her baby trailing behind her.

Pinto

Mom and Foal

Egret in the Marsh

  We wanted to have dinner in OC so we drove back to Harrison's Harbor Watch Restaurant.  They had some killer Chincoteague Salt Oysters.  Yummy on the half shell.  I could have had them for dinner, too.  Finally we went back to the hotel and got freshened up to drive to a place on the bay side for sunset.  It was just so-so.  Not the glorious Arizona sunsets we've grown used to seeing.  A non-event.  Afterwards we went to bed, as we had a 4:45 AM wake up call to catch the sunrise.  We were hoping for better results and we got them.

Rehoboth Sunrise

There were dolphins arcing all over the ocean.  We were treated to a great sunrise, then went off to catch a quick breakfast so that we would be on time for the WORLDWIDE PHOTOWALK in LEWES.  The walk leader was Judy G. Rolfe, a professional photographer and former photo editor for USA Today.  She was a fantastic walk leader.  We started out on the Lightship Overfall.  Judy had arranged for it to be opened just for us.  We explored every nook and cranny of that ship which was being renovated .  It was in marvelous shape.

Lightship Overfalls

Water Depth Markers

Fire Hose

Hook to tie up ship when in port

(I'm sure it has some wonderful nautical name.)

Lettering from the ship

(Sorry, but I collect lettering photos.)

Around 9:30 AM,  we were off to the Lewes Farmer's Market.  It's comprised of about 25 or so farmers who grow their own and sell their own produce, etc.  It was a wonderful experience.  Everyone was really great about the photographers (there were 50 of us) milling around and taking pics of all their produce, etc.  There were vegetables, lavender, lamb, lambskins, eggs, home made ice cream, home made yogurt, home made cheeses, corn, mushrooms, pepper, cucumbers and of course, tomatoes of every variety.  So many beautiful things to photograph.

Portabellos

Fuzzy Peaches

We then left for the historic area of Lewes, just 2 blocks away.  It's a cute little town and you can see that everyone takes pride in the homes.  All were well kept.

Restored Lewes Home on Second Street

We then headed to the Beach House Restaurant, over the drawbridge.  It was eleven o'clock in the morning and with the sizzling temperatures, we all had a beer.  My first breakfast beer.  Then we had some steamed clams.  It was great to sit around with my fellow photographers and share stories of the day and to see some of their photos, too.

A very pleasant weekend, altogether.  Thanks, Judy Rolfe!

Time for Bed...

I have been away taking photo online classes, so I haven't posted in a month or so.  However, tonight I posted about 4 or 5 pages of stuff.  Just keep hitting "Older posts" at the bottom for those of you who are brave enough to stand it.


This is my very favorite photo that I made a couple of weeks ago.  I am going to have a giclee print made from this one.  It's not perfect, but it's probably as perfect as I'll ever get.   I just love it.

Nite, all.  Thanks for viewing my work.  Let me know which ones are your favorites.

Love you all.

Carol

Sunflower Study...

So I'm in the shower and the back door bell rings.  As I rush to get out and get clothed, my cell phone is ringing.  No one at the door, cell phone message is my neighbor telling me that her sunflowers fell down and broke off in the storm and that she left some heads at my back door so I could photograph them.  I have the absolute best neighbors.  (some day I will post their scare crow -he's wearing a scuba wet suite and goggles.)  They are fun, fun people.


So now I'm trying to get something out of sunflower heads.  They just kind of lay there.  It's about 6pm on a Friday night, the temperature is about 97 degrees and the sun is still in the sky.  I spend 15 minutes in the yard with the sunflowers and perspiration was running down my face, so I called it a night. 




Here are the Sunflower Studies.

A Happy Face

Happy Face and Friends

Somebody call Hallmark!!

Photomontages

The reason I haven't been posting, I'm in an online class by a gal from Oregon, Carol Leigh.  She is a magnificent teacher.  I can't say enough good things about her.  She is caring and offers gentle criticism of our work so that we can learn and grow.  I've really learned an extreme amount from her these past few months.  (I'm on my third class.) 


Here are a couple of the photomontages that I have made in the class.  

Clematis Leaf

Quail on our wall in Arizona with the

Superstition Mountains in the background

Carol gave us these crows on a white background

and asked to see what we could do with them.

Composed of a photo of a tree from our yard,

a picture of the crack in our breezeway floor,

and a California Condor being chased by

ravens at the Grand Canyon.  Isn't it cool?

Those darned crows again.  

The man is my great grandfather, the orange lines are from a picture of a parasol lying on its side, the crows are shifted to align with the parasol,  the circle is a carving from a tombstone from the Steve Gottleib workshop, and the bottom right corner is an eagle medal my son won in the German Armed  Forces military olympic style competition.  Oh, yes, and the writing comes from a "fan" letter I received from a concert that I did while a senior in high school. (Who keeps these things?)  This class has been one of the funnest things I've done.  I've really learned lots.  

Thanks Carol Leigh.  You are the best!

Repeat...But...

This shot got an Honorable Mention at the Delaware Photographic Society End of the Year competition.  I took it on Ellis Island in November 2009.  It is one of my favorites.  


Needless to say, I'm excited.  There were over 400 prints submitted.  Not too shabby for a club newbie.

Happy Fourth of July!!

Fireworks are extremely difficult to shoot well.  I have never attempted it before.  So armed with my internet print out on how to shoot fireworks, I arrived at Neumann University, one of the highest points in the Delaware Valley, to watch the show being sent up on the Sun Valley High School grounds.


Can't say I'm real pleased, but I photoshopped some of the less blurry ones (even though I was on the tripod) and here is what I got.

Thanks God for Photoshop!

Kind of outer spacey

Cool Composition

Whoa, Nellie

Looking forward to doing better next year.

Gibraltor Gardens - Wilmington, DE

Gibraltor Gardens are located on the Marion Coffin Estate in northern Delaware.  The estate has been abandoned since Mrs. Coffin passed on  in the 60s and was recently sold to developers who are going to restore it to its former glory.  The Gardens have gone to the Preservation Delaware project.  Funding is very low, I guess due to the economy, so they weren't able to plant any annuals this year.  But there is a lovely lily pond and a wonderful sculpture garden to explore.  The dragonflies were all over the lilies.

As I said, renovations are needed, but what a lovely door design.

The gates into the gardens

Sweet cherubs at the entry to the sculpture garden

Wonderful Lily Pond

Tons of lilies to photograph

And Mr.Dragonfly stopped by.

Isn't he cute?

The Marion Coffin Gardens - Gibraltor Gardens - is open to the public with no admittance fee, but you may leave a donation for Preservation Delaware.  If everyone who visits does this, maybe we can get some annuals to photograph next spring.  I took my envelope home to mail in.

Horizon Workshop - Chesapeake City, MD. - Steve Gottleib

Last month, I was fortunate enough to attend a Creative Photography workshop by Steve Gottleib in Chesapeake City, MD.  Steve is a great instructor and a fun guy.  It was a one day course by invitation from the Delaware Photographic Society for members only.  


Our day started out in a cemetery, oddly enough.  It was interesting and we learned many things.  Afterwards we drove to an orchard to photograph some trees, then a lunch break.  After lunch, we were taken to a back country road and parked on the road by the woods.  We lathered up with the bug spray, traveled through poison ivy and traipsed into an old abandoned saw mill.  


There were many things abandoned in those woods.  We came upon 2 rusted up old trucks, an old rusty table with some colored glass bottles on it, apiece of Caterpillar equipment of some kind - huge and rusted, some kind of enormous block of gears, two wooden boats, and finally, the saw mill with its gigundus blades, rusted of course.  Rust is a photographers dream.  We stayed about an hour shooting all kinds of things.  I can't say the shots were great because my camera doesn't do high ISOs well, but it was the most fun I've had in a long while.  We were like kids in a candy store and Steve was there the whole while to give us guidance.


Here are some of the shots.  Nothing earth shattering, but it was fun. AND I did learn a lot.

Headstone at the cemetery

OLD RUSTY TRUCK

RUSTY TRUCK II - WITH STEVE GOTTLEIB

(Note the can of bug spray under his left arm- He took real good care of us.  

How we suffer for our art!!)

God only knows what this is, but I was thrilled to get a half decent shot of it.

Any Guesses what this is?

Me thinks it's a wrecking ball.  About 24" round, 

too heavy to move and rusted all over!

And last, but not least...

The Boat!  Or what was left of it.

After the woods, we returned to Chesapeake City to do some outdoor shots of the quaint little town on the water.  After all was over, Dick drove over to pick me up and we had crabs at The Tap Room, a local bar with yummy crabs.  What a great day.  I could spend it doing something I was passionate about, then enjoying food I am passionate about, with someone I'm passionate about.  And the cold Corona didn't hurt, either.

Can't get much better than that.