Project 365 - September 21, 2009

Sitting on the Dock of the Bay

When I got home from work I wasn't ready to be in the house. The weather is cooling off a bit in the evening (in the shade anyway) and I grabbed my camera and started looking for subjects to shoot.

I found these two birds hanging out on the dock. I shot a ton of photos from far away and slowly worked my way closer. and closer. This is the closest that I could get before they flew away. I liked the dichotomy of the two birds, dark and light, calm and disturbed.

Project 365 - September 20, 2009

My Laundry Assistants

My Sunday wouldn't be complete without a mound of laundry to wash and fold. But my cats make it ever so much more interesting. They were playing with the tie on my pajama bottoms! Looks like a tug of war to me!

Project 365 - September 19, 2009

Las Olas Photo Walk 2009

So I signed up to go on this photo walk with my photography teacher. I was so excited about it but the weather was horrible all day long. In addition, I had the times wrong so I showed up an hour late. But, I had a blast on top of being scared to death of the lightning!! But we were given a list of "concepts" to shoot and I got as creative as I could in the one hour that I had. Everyone else had two hours.

The first photo is called, "Where the Wild Ones Go" the second is "Infinity" and the third is "All that Glitters."

The photo of my daughter is just funny. She got her flu shot with my husband and she insisted that he write that on her bandaid!

Project 365 - September 16, 2009

Like a Pro!

Tonight my photography class went on a field trip to a REAL photography studio!!! It was so much fun. They plugged their TTL devices into our hot shoes and suddenly our photos looked unbelievable. I didn't even touch these with Photoshop except to crop them a bit.

The dog belongs to the owners of the studio. Her name is Lucy and she is the ultimate ham!!

Project 365 - September 15, 2009

It's All About Adina Tonight

Tuesday was open house at Adina's school. We had to go from classroom to classroom to meet each teacher. It was actually fun. Her teachers had only good things to say about her and it sounds like she is off to a great start.

At home I snapped a few photos of Adina doing her homework just playing with different angles.

The last photo was me playing with my new Speedlight flash!

Project 365 - September 10, 2009

Public Art at Port Everglades

One of our public artists, Michele Oka Doner, recently installed a free-form terrazzo floor that is 3,000 sq. ft. at Terminal 18 of Port Everglades soon home to the largest cruise ship in the world . . . Oasis of the Seas which can hold 5,400 passengers plus a crew!

This first photo is my graphic designer, Jose, taking a photo of the floor so that we can finish the panels at the public art exhibit, Natural Forces, which opened yesterday at the Art and Culture Center of Hollywood. The floor had just been poured and we needed a photo for the wall at the exhibit.

The second photo is upstairs of the highly polished cement floors reflecting the straight lines of the fluorescent lighting. I liked the geometric patterns and the reflections.

Project 365 - September 9, 2009

The Cultural Crew

After about 18 months of planning, applying and receiving a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, graphic design, publicity and endless phone calls and meetings . . . the Natural Forces Exhibition finally opened at the Art and Culture Center of Hollywood.

Perhaps we don't look tired, but I was in this photo. Once I am done creating and promoting an event, I want to move on. And, to top it off, I was missing my photography class! However, I was very proud of the staff who worked on this project and we still have to pack it up and move it up to the Coral Springs Museum of Art in the spring and publicize it once again!

Project 365 - September 7, 2009

You Can Have Your Cake and Eat it Too


Our neighbors came over for a barbeque and after dinner Joel brought out these really good cupcakes. Gianna totally enjoyed this cupcake and gave me this look with her pretty blue eyes. She was lost in the moment! And I thought she looks so sweet.

Project 365 - September 6, 2009

Body Painting

Ok, so they had clothes on, but Adina and her friend, Sierra, spent about two hours in the garage with white pants and short and fabric paint and splattered colorful creations all over each other.














This was only the beginning. I was watching the Jerry Lewis Telethon and taking breaks every few minutes to check on their progress. It isn't Labor Day without Jerry Lewis. Joel used to work for him for five years. But that is an entirely different story!















Behind the creative process!




















My little artist is really getting into the act of splattering. She loves when I take photos of her. Such a ham!














And artists can't create without music. This was her ipod in the speakers filling the garage with Green Day sounds.














How appropriate is this bandaid? It did look like a crime scene from the TV show Dexter except in Technicolor.




















And this is the final product! We hung the pants from the ladder to dry overnight.



Sierra was very proud of herself too.

Project 365 - September 5 2009

Homework

I have never had so much fun doing homework in my life. I guess I was not taking the right classes! I had to play with my light meter and bracket the shots with different settings on the aperture and the shutter. It was all on manual and in some cases I took the auto-focus feature off. Not the most exciting of shots today, but I think I accomplished what I set out to do. I didnt' upload the dark or over exposed shots, only the ones that I liked the best with the best possible color saturation.

Project 365 - September 2 2009

Back to School

So, I decided that I needed to take a class in photography. Yeah, I know, it is a bit backwards, but I wanted to make sure that I really understand my camera and the basic principals of aperture, shutter speed, flash photography, light metering, and so on and so forth.


The first night of class we learned about light meters and a light bulb went off in my head. I can't believe I wasn't paying attention to my light meter!

So here are some of the pics that I shot. We do half an hour in the classroom and the rest wandering around campus shooting whatever. I was filthy dirty, sweaty and tired when I got home, but I loved every second of it.

Project 365 - August 28, 2009

I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Scream

This is Adina's friend's Rachel. Joel and Adina decided to use the ice cream maker that our friend, Kim, gave to us. It was very sweet and really thick. And I do think that they enjoyed making it as much as they enjoyed eating it! Rachel had more ice cream on her nose and chin than in her mouth.

Project 365 - August 28, 2009

A New Performing Arts Center

I took a tour of a new performing arts center in Fort Lauderdale. It is at St. Thomas Aquinas High School and it can accommodate almost 300 people. It is an interesting venue because the seats retract and the theater can be in the round or dinner theater or any configuration theater!

We are going to hold our November cultural executives committee meeting there so that they can see the venue and maybe think about using it as their performance space.

Project 365 - August 25, 2009

Ignorance is Bliss

Gracie has absolutely no idea that Newton is at the other end of the bed. If she knew she would be growling, hissing and running away! But I thought this looked like a lovely, peaceful photo while it lasted!

Project 365 - August 24, 2009

First Day of School 2009

It was so strange that this year only Adina was on the rock outside the front door posing for the first day of school photo. We have first days from all the other years of both girls. It was sad but a happy day. Adina started high school. To celebrate we had a Carvel ice cream cake after dinner! She is very happy with her classes which include interpretive debate and American Sign Language.

Project 365 - August 23, 2009

And It's Goodbye Again














Ok, so I had one more shot at taking photos of the lake. I wish I could see the leaves changing in the fall. But Rachel can send me photos of that!















This was the moment that made us all cry. We are in the parking lot of Rachel's dorm and it was time to leave for the airport. So Joel gave her one last hug and that was it. We all started with the water works. It was like the TV commercial for Walmart!!




















And this is the site that greeted us when we came home. Not only did a really large poster come crashing off of the wall in the downstairs bathroom, but it knocked a shelf off of the wall which was holding some books. The books fell into the toilet and must have been in there all week because there was white, fuzzy mold growing out of the toilet and the water was all black because the ink dissolved. Needless to say, the smell was like there was a dead animal in the house. It took me about an hour to clean it up. But that was fine because we had to stay up till ab out midnight because the airlines lost our luggage and they were delivering it to our house! What a long, long day that was.

Project 365 - August 22, 2009

Last Day

Our last day in Indiana. We had a few last things to take care of with Rachel on campus, but mostly we were cleaning up after ourselves in the house where we were staying, doing some laundry, packing and then we took Rachel out to dinner. It was a strange day because we knew we were leaving her the next day and we didn't want to hover over her and make it any more difficult. This was the day that all of the students were moving into the dorms so Rachel was able to meet everyone as they moved in.
















I was up at 6:30 a.m. again. The temperatures had dropped overnight to about 55 degrees. I went out in my pajamas and a sweatshirt to snap these really cool shots of the mist over the lake. I have tons of these, but this is my favorite.




















I made sure that I had my coffee on the porch so that I could try, again and again, to snap a decent photo of the hummingbirds that came to feed on a daily basis. They are so quick and every time I would lift my camera to my eye they would take off. But finally, finally, finally my patience and persistence paid off and I was able to get a few good shots. Even though I had to shoot through the screen, I liked these because it gave the photos a canvas-like quality.




















Mid-day we stopped at White Castle so that Joel could FINALLY get his hamburger that he was craving. He and Adina went out to the dock to eat. I loved this shot of father and daughter eating.














Adina asked me to take this photo. She saw this construction site and loved the rough quality of it so we stopped and she posed for me.














This photo was taken outside of Kleptz Restaurant in Brazil or if you want to get really technical, in Seelyville which is straight out on Wabash Avenue which turns into US 40 and then about 20 miles. It is a little place that has good homecooked food.