Cookie splash! is a series of photos taken by Siebe Warmoeskerken, Owner of De Vetpan studios and fellow flickrite. Each photo in the series features beautiful bokeh and huge, amazing, perfectly in-focus coffee splashes, with cookies, of course! Warmoeskerken created the splashes using chocolate easter eggs, but says that any tiny, heavy object will do. I love the beauty of the splashes and the fantastically colored backgrounds.
For the try-it-at-home types like myself, Warmoeskerken provides a quick step-by-step tutorial and also a “making of” video on Vimeo. If you try this out, let me know. I’d love to hear how it goes!
If you’re one of the few people that actually read my site on a regular basis (Hi Mom!) you might have noticed that I’ve been a bit absent lately. We’ll it’s been for a very good reason – I’m moving to Seattle! My husband, Jim, has taken a fantastic new job and we’re moving at the end of the month.
So starting on December 1st I’ll be blogging to you from the emerald city. I’ve only been once, last weekend, so I’ll have a lot of exploring to do. I’m looking forward to sharing this new adventure with all of you! In the meantime, feel free to peruse the handful of photos I took over the weekend in my future hometown.
Yesterday morning it snowed, the first snowfall of the year. The temperatures plunged below zero, and in one night some trees dropped all their leaves in a panicked attempt to keep up with the temperature change. It was amazing to see the blankets of green leaves covering the grass and snow and gathering in the street. My planned trip to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum took on a new twist, as I had to gear up for winter hiking, but I got some nice shots of fall of color with a bit of snow on it.
It was my first trip to the arboretum, so I didn’t really know what to expect. It was a lot of fun tromping though the trails, making first tracks on the first snow of the season, photographing flowers and trees with little snow caps and catching droplets of snowmelt in the sunlight. We saw little waterfalls, quick-moving streams and even quicker-moving wild turkeys (maybe the snow made them think it was November). We got a little lost, but it was nice to just explore without having to worry about direction. We went where the interesting photos were and it worked out just fine.
It seems wild to me that only a few weeks ago I was eating at Lucia’s outside patio in a tank and shorts. Yesterday’s snow had melted by lunchtime, but we got some light flurries today, and tomorrow we’re expected to get up to a few inches of accumulation, so it looks like winter is here. For me, I’ve got a log burning in the fireplace and a whole chicken roasting in the oven. Winter, bring it on.
This short, created by Olympus, tells the story of the Olympus PEN camera, which lives on in the new micro four-thirds digital camera, the Olympus EP-1. As you probably know, I’m a Canon girl, but I’m finding very hard to resist the pull of this cute little camera.
The video above was created entirely with stop motion, no video camera involved, just stills! As per the creators, they took all the photographs, developed them, and then arranged them frame by frame for the video, which is compiled of 1800 individual stills (outside of the stills IN the video!). To me, part of the beauty of stop-motion is the simplicity, but what really impresses me is the patience and time that goes into each individual frame. In a time where most everything we see is about time-saving and flash, I like the idea that a company is willing to take the time to sell a still camera with just that, the stills.
This phenomenal video was shot entirely with a brand new Canon 7D by filmmaker Dan Chung, just hours after he purchased the camera at a local retailer in Beijing. Chung used some top notch L lenses and a professional video setup to make the film, but because of the low light most of the video was shot in the ISO range of 1600 – 6400! I have to say I’m very impressed.
To read more about Chung’s experience making the video and working with the 7D, and to learn about the equipment he used check out his website, DSLR News Shooter. You can also view the video in HD and read Chung’s write-up on Vimeo.
The first year I lived in Minnesota, I heard a lot of talk about the state fair. It seemed like the Minnesotan event of the summer, the one thing that everyone seemed to go to. I was intrigued. I’d never been to a state fair before. Oh, sure, Michigan has one, and New York has one too. New Jersey even has a state fair (although I didn’t know until I looked it up just now)! And yet I’d never been to any of them.
Growing up, I thought only people who raised livestock went to the fair. I was slightly disturbed by the whole idea, having grown up reading and watching Charlotte’s Web. I didn’t want to see cute little(!) pigs and cows that would be eaten when they got home. My parents weren’t interested in going to the fair either, but for different reasons. It seems the Michigan State Fair is held in a somewhat sketchy part of town. Neither of my parents grew up going to fair; it just wasn’t the thing to do there. So I was pretty surprised to find out that it IS the thing to do here in Minnesota. So that first year, Jim and I hopped in the car and drove out to the fair to see what it was all about.
On that first visit we didn’t really check a map and headed north to see what there was to see. It seems the northern part of the state fair is where the farm equipment is displayed. I’d never seen so many tractors in my life, and was in awe of the size and variety of tractors and tillers available. Being a city girl, I didn’t even know what a lot of the stuff was used for! It was a real eye-opener for me, knowing that I truly was in the heart of farm country. We also got to see some of of the logging equipment in use, classic cars and tractors and the dog show. It wasn’t until we started to get hungry that we ventured over to the south end of the fair.
Continue reading Discovering the Minnesota State Fair »
Florian Schulz is a professional nature photographer and a founding member of the International League of Conservation Photographers (ILCP). His Freedom to Roam Project chronicles wildlife migration corridors and shows how each piece of the conservation puzzle connects with the others. This project documents the affects of global warming and human encroachment on wild spaces and makes clear the need for protected wildlife corridors to allow migrating species to be able to move throughout their ranges safely and freely.
Phase one of the Freedom to Roam project documents the wildlife corridor that runs from the arctic down along the coast and through the mountains of North America. The photography from this phase, known as Y2Y or Yellowstone to Yukon, was compiled into a book and selected photos are also on display at the Field Museum in Chicago. Schultz is now starting work on phase two, B2B or Baja to the Beaufort Sea.
The stunning video above puts a face to the conservation efforts and shows just what it is scientists and other conservationists are working to protect. The caribou in this video migrate over proposed oil drilling land, pristine wilderness that the oil companies would have us believe is barren and purposeless but for the oil that lies beneath it. With the effects of global warming diminishing arctic habitat it is more important than ever to protect that habitat, and to make more habitat accessible to arctic wildlife.
For more information on the Freedom to Roam project and award-winning photographer Florian Shulz visit visionsofthewild.com. The NY Times article Home on the Range also provides information on the proposed protection of the Y2Y wildlife corridor.
There’s about an hour in the morning just after sunrise and an hour in evening just before sunset where the sunlight is especially golden. This is the golden hour, or as I prefer, magic hour. Here in Minnesota we really only get it in the spring, summer and autumn – while we do get it in the winter, it’s a lot less noticeable because the sun is low on the horizon all day.
Last night we had a good rain, but the clouds cleared just a bit along the horizon at magic hour and it made for some really beautiful light. Everything seemed to glow against the dark skies. It reminded me that there truly is magic in this world if you open your eyes to look for it.
Last week Thursday and Friday were beautiful days here, sunny and in the 80s. On Friday I headed down to Lake Calhoun with my camera and watched the tall grass near the water blowing in the soft breeze, the buoys bobbing up and down gently in the water and the little children playing on the swings near the beach. But it was this dandelion that I passed on my way back from the lake that I found the most inspiring. It had planted itself in the tiny amount of dirt between the sidewalk and the retaining wall of the adjacent house and had succeeded in sending up not one but two flowers so early in the season, even though we’re really low on rain this spring. We call them weeds, and we look down on them, working to root them out of our yards, frowning on their ability to disrupt our plans for perfect lawns and sidewalks. But I have to admire their tenacity and persistence. They persevere in the harshest conditions and are never afraid of disrupting the status quo. Their little yellow faces shine right back into the face of adversity. Yes, this is exactly the kind of inspiration I need right now.
Photographer Patrick Farrell has won the Pulitzer Prize for his photographs of Haiti in the aftermath of the hurricanes that ravaged the country last year. If you haven’t seen these photos, you should. While we usually see the destruction of buildings in hurricane photography, Farrell’s work shows the human destruction. The images are very moving and sometimes disturbing. I watched the slide show, with Farrell’s voiceover, three times in succession as, sitting in my living room, it’s hard for me to comprehend what it must have been like to be in Haiti during these storms.
Patrick Farrell, I commend you on your courage in taking these photos and I congratulate you on your win.
January 29, 2010, at 4:20 pm
