I didn’t mean for the photo to come out this way–I thought the balloons would be less transparent–but I like how it came out anyway! Long exposures are the best.
holidays
Happy Hanukkah!
Christmas Is Coming
Happy Birthday, America!
The Fourth of July weekend here is insane. I think it’s the biggest tourist weekend of the season, although the four-day extravagaza of the fair, the August fireworks, and Illumination Night later in the summer might give it a run.
But still, there are a ton of people here soaking up the Americana–and the sun, as the weather was absolutely gorgeous (my friend Erin stopped by for the weekend on her way back to Michigan, and spent most of her time at the beaches because I was running around like a maniac).
The parade in Edgartown, which is the main event of the holiday craziness, is generally kind of nightmarish to shoot because it’s impossible to get the names of anybody on the floats. I tried to work around this this year by shooting a few floats and then running ahead to the elementary school where the parade ends. But of course, by the time I made it back to the school, the floats I needed to have names for had already dispersed. Oh well. I had enough group shots and spectator photos (much easier to get names) to make it work (and we had another photog on duty).
I shot the entire parade with my 70-200mm, which was a change from last year when I was working with a wide-angle. In a way I felt like I was cheating because I wasn’t getting Close to the subjects, but I much prefer the look of these, with their nice separation, to last year’s. Some day I’ll be able to afford a wide-angle that can give me that (dream big!).
Edgartown becomes even more of a mess after the fireworks show, so Erin and I went to State Beach just outside of town to watch it. Then we spent most of the time messing around with long exposures. The photo I liked best was, of course, the first one I took.
Memorial Day
I did my very first freelance assignment for the Gazette last Memorial Day, reporting and photographing the annual parade.
This year, I was just doing photo duty, which was a huge relief.
I also got to photograph at the Memorial Day picnic, which was very Rockwellian.
My Favorite Holiday
We spent Thanksgiving in Napa with my sister-in-law’s family. For Molly and Liza, my nieces, this meant Thanksgiving with four grandparents, one auntie, and Mommy and Daddy. I hope they’ll remember the day as just as wonderful as I thought it was. If nothing else, they’ll at least remember the key lime pie!
Here’s what I’m thankful for:
Night of the Fourth
Some hours after the parade, there are also Fourth of July fireworks in Edgartown. I will be completely honest and say they aren’t as good as the August fireworks in Oak Bluffs, but it was still a good show.
I used a dock post as a tripod, opened the shutter for half a second at f/2.8, and this happened:
More interested in taking picture of people taking pictures than in the fireworks themselves…
I sat on the luggage rack of the bus on the ride home because it was so crowded inside:
Paradin’
The parade in Edgartown on the Fourth of July is a Big Deal here. I had never been before; I don’t usually come to the Vineyard until August, and have missed the action. I was one of two photographers assigned to cover it this year.
It’s hard to cover events like these because I always feel trapped in cliches. I know what the paper is going to want to run (kids, veterans and flags), and I know I have to shoot those things…but I feel like I should be doing something MORE, and then when I don’t, the assignment seems like a wasted opportunity.
But despite feeling like I didn’t do enough, I did take a photo that combines the three above things, and it was the one that ran on the front page. Which is pretty sweet, because the photo was about 11×6 in print and I haven’t yet gotten over seeing images THAT big in the newspaper.
Some of the other parade images:
Bagpipes- not a hit with everybody:
I took this mostly because I long for the day when rollerblades will be back en vogue and was so excited to see them IN A PARADE:
I was so sad this didn’t make it into the paper. The dog (she was an Irish Wolfhound) was about as tall as her owner. Adorable:
These looked better in black and white. They’re lens-flarey, but I like them anyway:
Post-parade exhaustion:
Solstice Saturday: Juneteenth
I confess I am a terrible person because I didn’t even know Juneteenth existed until last year. This is pretty ridiculous considering I lived in Texas for four years and the holiday started there…but there you go. I am all the better for my fledgling knowledge. And this holiday is an excellent one that should take its message nationwide.
Juneteenth commemorates the day word finally reached Galveston, Texas that the Civil War had ended and the slaves had been freed. Nobody had bothered to tell the Texans about the Emancipation Proclamation before that (but then, the Texans didn’t really want to hear about it, anyway). It was unfortunate that the celebration this year happened to fall on the same day as every other festival on the Island, but turnout was still decent considering that factor.
The event was very low-key–people gathered for a quick meal and reception at a restaurant in downtown Oak Bluffs–but was still powerful and moving. Also, Carole Simpson (formerly of ABC News) was the main speaker. This was quite awesome. She did three costume changes during her speech (I talked to her afterward and she said that after giving “thousands of speeches,” she wanted to jazz it up a little this time), going from a modern African-American woman to a slave woman to a free slave woman in Southern garb. In between one of these changes, Grant Meacham, who’s a high school senior here, read Frederick Douglass’ Fourth of July speech. Also awesome. He does theater and is going to Scotland this summer to perform with a group of other high schoolers. So cool!
These are basically all from the same angle because there was a table full of food in my way. Can’t win sometimes.
Easter Shenanigans
I’ve been to many, many Easter egg hunts.
But I’ve never tried to photograph one, and it was a very good thing Caitlyn reminded me yesterday (after her own egg hunt shoot) just how short they really are. There’s a whole lot of buildup, a mad dash, and then…it’s over and you go play games.
When I went to cover the Douglass Park EGGstravaganza (their emphasis, not mine) this afternoon, I intentionally went straight for the part of the park where the 1 and 2 year olds would be gathering eggs, since I knew they would be the slowest group. I was right, but the hunt was still over in less than two minutes.
All things considered, I guess the egg hunt photos aren’t terrible…except that two of the ones I liked best—the first two—couldn’t be used in the paper because I lost track of the families right after the eggs had been collected (there were about 350 people there) and I thus didn’t get names. FRUSTRATING. I’m still mad at myself about this.
The kids are still cute, though.
Extra bonus photo- balance flash from the in-camera flash on my baby Rebel XT! I just love the facial expressions here; the little girl had essentially just cut in front of the first boy, and you can definitely tell.
