The Last Friday Night Lights

Posted by Ivy

…sure, there’s still one more game left—and it’s a biggie; it’s the Island Cup, when the Vineyard plays Nantucket—but tonight was the last home game of the season. Senior recognition, announcing of Homecoming king and queen nominees, all that good stuff.

I am not a fan of shooting night games; my gear isn’t equipped for the light conditions. I tried using a tripod for stability. I tried using my flash, of all things. I drew the line at pushing the ISO past 2500, though. Oh well. Some day I’ll have that 70-200 f/2.8!

In more exciting news, the Vineyard stomped all over Medford in this game, winning 21-0. They haven’t blanked their opponents all season, so that’s a good way to get ready to take on 8-1 Nantucket.

Island Grown Schools

Posted by Ivy

One of my favorite things about Martha’s Vineyard is the commitment to locally grown food that the community shares. Schools get a sizable portion of their fruits and veggies from the farms here (I wish my school lunches had been that homegrown!), and the kids start learning about where their food comes from as soon as they get to kindergarten.

A couple weeks ago, I tagged along on a fourth-grade field trip to an apple orchard:

Texas and the 50mm: A Wedding in Waco

Posted by Ivy

People keep telling me that I’m at That Age when friends start to get married seemingly right and left. I’ve only been to three so far, which doesn’t seem like that many (we’ll see what happens next summer, when the season rolls around again). I hadn’t been IN a friend’s wedding until last month, though, when I was part of the bridal party for my college roommate Kim’s wedding.

Rice ring! Yay!


Texas and the 50mm: BATS!

Posted by Ivy

There is a colony of Mexican free-tailed bats (I don’t have a clue what free-tailed means) that lives underneath the Congress Avenue bridge in Austin.

More than a million bats live under said bridge, and they all come out at dusk go to find dinner. This sounded like something that would be interesting (by interesting, I mean AWESOME) to photograph, so on my last night in Austin, we went down to the river to see what was up.

We weren’t the only ones.

From a photographic standpoint, I was a little disappointed to find out that most (but not all) of the bats fly east to find their food. And I felt ridiculously hampered by the 50mm, but it was still, as expected, AWESOME. If you’re ever in Austin between May and September, definitely go check it out.

Alex’s sunglasses. No bats in this one (darn it), but you can see the Austin skyline!