Too Much Free Time - New Hampshire

You'll notice that I've given the blog a new layout. I guess I wanted a change of pace. You can explore the different "layouts" available for my posts by clicking on them in the upper lefthand corner. Also, mousing over the righthand side of the page will bring up a few different options.

Well, it's great to be back in the good old U.S. of A. I'm slowly regaining the weight I lost and am enjoying the little amount that I have to do in the meantime. At this point, just four days (one or two of which will be devoted to packing) stand between me and 4 months on the other side of the world. In the meantime, I'm doing what I usually do - taking photos of anything I can to keep boredom at bay.

I'll provide some backstory when it will help out, although I can't say the story of finding a bug on a leaf will be as interesting as meeting strangers on the streets of Ghana was.

I hope you enjoy the photos and feel free to subscribe on the righthand side of the page if you'd like.

Mike making a fool of himself for the camera's sake

I asked for a portrait, ended up with this pretty funny picture thanks to Mike throwing a football at his (our friend Dan's) face.

Above is the last photo I'm going to post from my now old camera, the Olympus E-PL1. The image quality was definitely great but I missed way too many great photo opportunities with it because it was just too slow to operate. I upgraded to the awesome Olympus OM-D EM-5 and couldn't be happier. The image quality is definitely better, but more importantly, the controls are so much faster that it gives me room to take advantage of what I've learned about photography.

So, the rest of these are from the new camera.

Mom's garden - providing plenty of image opportunities

If I were back in Ghana, this probably would've given me a heart attack. Thankfully, New Hampshire doesn't have anything but garter snakes (I hope).

My camera came with a great new lens, too. The best thing about it thus far has to be the macro (extremely close focusing) option. This lets me take pictures of tiny insects no bigger than my fingernail (like the one below). Another good way to pass time since I won't have to worry about running out of subjects.

Here are a few more photos from around the house and in the garden. I really could just spend all day outside using the lens. I appreciate how it makes me see things I otherwise wouldn't have seen, like this spider that had built its web on a plant in the front yard.

St. Andrews Cross Spider

Bonus points if anyone can tell me what this tiny little insect is. Again, never would've seen this if it weren't for the lens I was using.

This dragonfly actually sat still for me for a few minutes while I tried to get the best composition - still working on seeing the best angle and light.

And luck helps too. I was just trying to frame a shot of this flower when a bee flew in and landed on it.

To wrap up the garden photos, here are two more shots using the macro lens that I particularly like. This lens makes it way too easy.

But, it hasn't been all boring lately. One of the best things about being home is that, well, I actually have family here. My aunt Terri came to visit for a couple of days and thankfully, she shares my passion for photography. I'm pretty sure we tested the patience of my two brothers and it's becoming increasingly obvious that I'm obsessed with my camera, but at least I'm pretty happy... We went out to Kimball Farms, an awesome restaurant in Jaffrey, NH, for dinner, where the scenery is almost as great as the food. Here are a few family photos from the trip.

And here's a bit of the scenery I mentioned. I'm really loving the way this camera renders color.

And of course, no trip to Kimball's can be complete without ice cream. What you see is a small, and I could barely even get through half of it. 

Side note: This shirt is one that I was given in Ghana for taking part in a volunteer trip to a village that I mentioned in my blog before.

Having the brothers with us was great company, but it kept me and Terri from going crazy and running around taking photos all day. So naturally, we had to leave the two of them behind to take a photo walk with Sadie the following day. We just went around the neighborhood, but we had some fun anyway.

Took this in the yard before leaving, can't get over the detail. You can actually see me taking the photo in the reflection of her eye.

Early in our walk we came across a neighbor's garden that was particularly interesting. Looking like complete weirdos, Terri and I walked over to the flowers and started snapping photos. I'm confident that the neighbors running by thought we were absolutely out of our minds. Again, I saw some things I never would've seen otherwise, and I'm happy about that.

I'm told this is an invasive species, and that I should've killed it instead of photographing it. Oh well...

I took a ton of other shots around the neighborhood, but nothing really worth sharing. I was too busy chasing  Sadie out of neighbor's yards and was pretty overwhelmed with the heat (excuses).

Here's one last photo taken before Terri left - Sadie was literally licking Michael's face for a solid 15 minutes straight, so this wasn't very hard to capture. 

I apologize as I know this blog is now getting way too long, but I've been really going crazy with the camera lately and I'm also extremely happy with how the pictures look at the size I'm posting at, so I'll share a few more experiences before ending this entry.

I met up with my friends Nelson and Kurt recently to take a trip over to the nearby Pisgah Park. It's located in Chesterfield close to me, but I'd never seen it before. Here's a photo from the car ride there, I was just curious to see what it would look like and I'm decently happy with it.

When we arrived at the park the light was pretty nice. We had a pretty lengthy walk through the woods before reaching our goal, and I managed to get one decent shot of the light coming through the trees.

After a bit more walking, we made it to where we were going. There were no other people in sight and, if it weren't for us, there would've been next to zero noise at all. I say all the time how bored I get in New Hampshire, but I can really appreciate places like this. Nelson and Kurt were bold enough to do a few dives, and I took the chance to try out the burst mode on my camera. Of course I could have done better, but I'm pretty happy with what I got. 

I also did my best to capture the scenery, although my composition really should be better. This is one area I'm hoping to improve before I make it to New Zealand, where I'll really want to be taking landscape photos.

Okay, just one more set of photos I promise. Last night, we had a blackout. The power was out from about 9:30PM until after I went to sleep. Rather than letting this ruin my night, though, I actually found a way to turn it into a good thing. The lack of lighting meant I pretty much had complete control over the lighting in any picture I wanted to take, so I did some experimenting. First, I grabbed Mike and our friends who were with at the time and got them together for a portrait. Using only our friend's phone for lighting, I ended up with this result.

Those of you who have been reading from the start might also remember my first attempt at light painting, which I posted about before Ghana. Well, the lack of light outside encouraged me to try this again, and I think I've improved. I have to thank my camera in part for this, too, as it has a fancy mode that actually provides live updates of what the final exposure is going to look like. When the exposure is going for 20+ seconds, this can really make a big difference.

Here are a few shots - I'll have to get one of dad's fancier cars out to try again soon.

The lines of light running around the car are the result of the camera seeing the head of the flashlight. Did it on accident, happy with how it turned out.

And of course, what set of photos could be complete without Sadie. I didn't even try to get her in the photos, she just decided she wanted to be a part of it all I guess. This made things quite difficult as even a slight movement of her head while I was shining the flashlight on her would leave things blurry, but I got lucky a few times.

Now I just need to get my act together and try printing some of these photos in large sizes. I'd like to have a "photo wall" or something so that I can show off a little bit of what I'm doing. What did you think? Are the large images too big, or do they help the presentation? You can leave a comment here or email me if you'd like. Thanks for viewing.