Blog and work unite!

Now that was easy... I needed a picture of a picnic table for a flyer I was doing for the agency's family bbq in June. I was looking through the clipart in Word (which can offer some surprisingly good images) but none of their photos were just right for what I was doing... so I just went outside and took a picture of the picnic table at work. As I was taking the pictures I was thinking, "man these are going to look horrible." When I came inside and looked at them this one actually looked pretty good. So, it became my photo of the day... I love it when work and fun manage to combine :-D

Duck, Duck, Goose!

So, to put it simply, today's foray into photography went much better than yesterday's. I drove to a park in Wellesley where I used to feed the ducks when I was a kid. Lo and behold, there were ducks! They were quite friendly too so I was able to get very close to them. This group came walking over as soon as I stepped out of my car!

This guy, while not the cutest out there just fascinates me. He reminds me of the ducks in Norton that I saw in college. Ugly as all hell, but quite amusing and social.
These two were originally sitting on a little island in the middle of the stream, but soon they decided to join the others over near me. I have a sneaking suspision they thought they would be fed.... funny thing huh? I'm always trying to take pictures of water and seem to have a hard time getting it to look right, but I think this one came out pretty well.
This guy was just so cute! I was able to frame him nicely with all the woodchips, trees and water behind him. I was actually quite shocked by how close these guys let me get. Some of them were by a little fence and they literally let me lean over it and get a few feet away with my camera. I could get close enough to use macro mode and get some good details like in the ugly duck picture. Overall, it was a fun shoot. I talked to the ducks (an interesting habit I tend to break out around all animals) and ended up being very cold, but after yesterday's lack of inspiration, this little trip was very fulfilling.

Slim pickings

Wow, I basically had no luck with pictures today. It was always too dark or too cloudy or the shot was too busy or things were closed... I couldn't win. This one is at least slightly interesting. I was driving around Sudbury trying to scope out places to photograph later when I took this one almost in desperation. I went down Water Row, a road that goes by a bunch of wetlands as well as Wayside Inn Road to look at the inn, the grist mill and Martha Mary Chapel. So basically, I have a lot of places to take photographs once it's spring and a bit lighter when I'm driving home!

A thoughtful day

These pictures are of Montgomery (Trawberry) and Max (Bucks). They are just two of the many cats that own my friend Colette, her mother and step-father.... I've been friends with Colette since high school and have always felt like another well-loved person in her large family. I was with Colette and her family today becuase last Thursday Colette's Nona passed away and today was the funeral. I spent a fair amount of time over Nona and Gi's house in high school and was definately one of the girls they spoiled rotten. I used to go over for Sunday dinner with Susan, Bob, Nicole, Richelle and Colette and we would tell stories about what stupid things happened to us during the week. To Nona we could do no wrong, we were perfect angels, all of us... and we would always leave her house stuffed silly and with leftovers because we were all wasting away. You gotta love any person who thought I of all people was wasting away...

The funeral today was very hard, however it is conforting to know that everyone has begun to heal some. We spent alot of time together today and talked about all the good memories of Nona and our other illustrious moments. The meal we had after the funeral was even remeniscent of Nona's typical Sunday dinners of roasted chicken, ziti with red sauce, and italian bread. As usual, I was induced to bring home enough food for Brian and I to eat for weeks despite my initial flat out refusal. I just love Colette's mom....

I think the events today were a very fitting way to celebrate Nona's life. We ate much, cried some, and probably laughed more than one ought on such a day... but I think she would have wanted it that way.

I'm working, really!!!

This is my friend and co-worker Teresa. This image of her over the cube wall is documentation of a fairly typical occurance during the workday. Often she'll pop over so we can talk for a couple minutes, although sometimes it's more fun to pass notes like we're in middle school (especially when people are driving us nutz). Isn't it nice to know that we've all matured so in our 20's? lol...

Well, anyway, on to the actual artsy stuff. I took the second photo right after this one when Teresa I believe was trying to get me to "make my lunch already..." We have a nice little tradition of four of us having lunch together every day. It usually begins when one of us realizes we're starving and then brow-beats everyone else into getting their lunch ready. So, I think at this point Teresa was just hanging over the side of the cube trying to convince me to make my lunch. she happened to look down and I told her to hold the pose so I could take this picture.

Capturing the beast

It's so interesting trying to take photographs of our cat Molly because she absolutely refuses to stand still long enough for me to get a focused image. Apparently she was on her best behavior for this one... and I have no idea what prompted that. Maybe something tempting was scurrying by outside on the patio. All I know is that I managed a few good pictures of her when I took this. With my luck, she'll probably never hold still again.

Snowy self portrait

Ok, so it's not a traditional self portrait, but since when am I traditional? As I was walking around taking pictures during the snow storm today I noticed that alot of snow was sticking to my eyebrows and hair so I might be able to capture that. This was the one that came out the best. I wonder what my neighbors were thinking as I kept holding my camera behind my head to take pictures as I walked around the complex?