travels

Catching Up! News + Chicago Trip

Posted by Ivy

Wow, a lot has happened since the last time I blogged. Let’s see if I can actually backpost everything in a reasonable fashion…

First and foremost, I got a full-time job! I am back with the Vineyard Gazette, the paper I freelanced for last summer, as a staff photographer and high school sports reporter (and general assignments reporter when needed). I’m so excited about the job; I loved working in that newsroom before and it’s very nice to be back. I’ve never lived in the Vineyard year-round, though, which is going to be interesting. It’s so quiet here right now (now that there are 15,000 people here instead of the 100,000+ who come in the summer), but the lack of traffic and the fact that I can always find a parking spot when I need one are definite bonuses. :)

Before I moved out here to start the job, I took a longish trip to visit friends in Chicago and Houston, which was great (okay, better than great. okay, there really isn’t a word to describe this trip). Before I left, I decided to rent a fisheye lens to take along with me. I did this for one reason, really, and that was “taking photos at Beer Bike” (one of the Houston events I went to). More on this later. But I’d never used a fisheye before, and wanted to test one out just for fun. I can’t justify the cost of actually buying one and adding it to my arsenal, but the rental cost was more than worth it. This was also the first lens I’d ever tested out, and I can definitely say that the overall renting process was a breeze.

Here are some (fisheye and nonfisheye) photos from the Chicago leg of the trip.

Northwestern University

I still find Lake Michigan (and the Great Lakes in general) to be a very strange concept.

I got so distracted setting up the exposure for this photo that I then forgot about my pasta leftovers from dinner and left them at the El stop. Oh well.

At Midway Airport. Had to literally chase this picture down (my lens was a 20mm; this has been cropped), and then shoot one-handed because I had my suitcase, too. But it was worth it! So cute!

Northeast Roamings: Let’s Hear It For New York

Posted by Ivy

David, Halley and I finished our tour of the Northeast in New York City, where we met up with some other friends from college for New Year’s Eve. Most of the day was actually spent going back and forth between our hotel, Manhattan, and Laguardia Airport in search of David’s suitcase, which the airline had lost a few days earlier. We still managed to fit in a short trip to the Met and Central Park, though.

Northeast Roamings: On the Freedom Trail

Posted by Ivy

It’s no big secret that I love Boston. David and Halley, my friends who came up to visit from Texas (and got delayed by the snow), already knew this, but had never actually been to the city with me; it was a ton of fun exploring all over with them. We kept ending up on the Freedom Trail, but then again, that’s not all that hard to do in Boston.

Kiddos going sledding in the Boston Common [cropped; I liked the panorama-style composition better even when taking it].

George Washington statue in the Public Garden.


Mainescapes

Posted by Ivy

I meant to post this first one when I took it just before Thanksgiving. The others were taken when I went back up to Maine a couple weeks ago for Christmas at my grandmother’s house.

Taken through the window at 6:20 a.m….when I had to wake up to take the dog outside. The blue light was great, though.

Science Is Super

Posted by Ivy

After attending Megan’s wedding in Florida, I flew to San Francisco to spend the rest of Thanksgiving week with my parents and my brother’s family. We stopped at my uncle’s for a few days, during which my mom and I visited the California Academy of Sciences.

The Academy (the name is a little misleading, since its focus is definitely more on the life sciences than anything other areas) underwent a huge series of renovations a few years ago, and it’s definitely worth a visit if you’re ever in the Bay Area. They’d just started their winter programs, which included bringing in a couple of reindeer, installing a snow machine in the main pavilion, and putting up a Geodome for watching the Borealis. I was surprised by how crowded it was—the line to get into the rainforest exhibit was ten minutes long—Bill Nye would have been proud.

Now. Here is a question for other photogs out there. There is a photo in here (guess which it is!) that I like now and liked when I took it…but I didn’t get any names because I didn’t know what the best way to approach it is. I’m not on assignment. I’m not in a class. I don’t want to be creepy and say “I am a stranger and took your photo and might like to put it on a website some day,” despite the fact that…that’s what I’m doing, basically. Has this ever happened to you? How did you phrase the request?

Anyway, these were all shot with the 7D and my 20mm (which, as I’ve mentioned before, is my favorite lens in the arsenal). Enjoy!

You can just barely see the anaconda’s head in this one.

This picture has probably never, ever been taken before. 😉

And, because they’re just so cute (and a lot smaller than I thought they’d be!)…here are the holiday reindeer!

My Favorite Holiday

Posted by Ivy

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:

Cliffside

Posted by Ivy

After photographing Dan Sauer in his backyard garden on Tuesday, I decided to hang around Aquinnah for a little bit. Aquinnah is the westernmost area of Martha’s Vineyard and is home to less than 400 people, a third of whom (more or less) are Wampanoag. The town actually used to be known by the English name of Gay Head until they decided to change back to its original Wampanoag appellation.

There isn’t all that much to do in Aquinnah…unless you’re a tourist and want to visit the cliffs. Of course, even homegrown Islanders should visit the cliffs, because they are simply gorgeous.

This photo has probably been taken several thousand times by now, but never on my camera:20100621_0398_edit_web

Some more ‘been-there, taken-that’ pictures:

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I came down from the lookout point to find two girls squealing about a little black snake on the path (“Pick it up!” “It might be poisonous!” “Just pick it up!”). An older naturalist-type guy walked up and scooped up the snake for the girls to see (it wasn’t poisonous, for the record…). In related news, I’m not sure those shorts count as shorts.
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(26) Up in the Air

Posted by Ivy

I’m exceptionally behind in posting these photos, but I have been keeping up with the daily challenge! These are from March 18.

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Even though I’ve been to Texas multiple times in the last six years, I can’t remember the last time I took a night flight there. It might have been freshman spring, back in 2005.

This is kind of sad, because as much as I enjoy flying (quite a bit), I like night flights even more. It’s a very surreal feeling to get on a plane in one location when the sun is still up…and then land in a new place while it’s dark. I love it. I love seeing the landscape below me, and nightscapes in particular are fascinating. National Geographic did a great feature on this phenomenon last year (I think it also won some POYi awards), which I highly recommend checking out.

I was scheduled to arrive in Houston at 9pm, but gave up my seat on that flight for a $200 voucher on Southwest and a brief layover in Dallas. And it only took an hour longer to get to Htown. Not too shabby!

Dallas by night

Got tired of highlighting passages of reading for my thesis and instead highlighted all of the states I’ve been to on my Southwest napkin.

A happy accident of a picture taken right as the plane was landing. I had the shutter set to ‘bulb’.