Late last night / early this morning, I collected my sister-in-law, Marie, and niece, Rose, from the airport. They are in town for several days to attend the CS (Classical Singer) Convention and Vocal Competition being held at the Sheraton Boston Hotel. Rose is a very talented soprano. The convention is a combination of a vocal competition, a networking/recruiting event, and an opportunity to take masterclasses with renowned teachers. This afternoon, Jeanine and I drove our guests into the city and dropped them off at the venue. We then spent a couple of hours walking around the area. Jeanine did some shopping (new eyeglass frames) and made a full tour of the foods on offer at Eataly while I enjoyed photographing some of the area’s stunning architecture.

Rose had a great first day experience, performing in a master class and receiving a massive ovation, followed by interest from two recruiters. Kyle joined the four of us for dinner at Zaku Izakaya, a nearby Japanese restaurant, to cap a perfect day.

Pictured above is The First Church of Christ, Scientist (also known as The Mother Church), the global headquarters for the Christian Science denomination, with the recently (2019) completed Four Season Hotel towering in the background. Below is the Splash Fountain at the Christian Science Plaza with the Northeastern University College of Professional Studies on the right.

I was not able to attend the Bionic 5K last Sunday because of my soccer game. All three kids participated, with Kyle finishing 11th in a field of 707. Maya finished 15 seconds ahead of Nicolai, who placed first in the below-the-knee amputee division. Photos for the event were just posted, and sadly, Maya was not in the mix.

Nora was kind enough to share some photos she took during her visit earlier this week. The one below with Dora is my favorite. I am convinced she is going to be an early walker, and we worked together on some basic weight transfer skills. This, incidentally, is the key to learning to walk. Once a baby has mastered standing, the big breakthrough comes when they figure out how to take weight off one foot so it is free to move.

Simon did an excellent job recreating a photo I had taken with Nora some 15 years ago.

Jeanine and I had a triple workout today. We covered 3 miles on a walk with Anita and Dave in the Wright Woods. We then spent an hour weeding in the garden, followed by our normal workout at the gym. All of this exercise entitled us to our first visit of the season to Kimball Farm, where we enjoyed our last evening with the Coddingtons.

Visiting us for the first time in our new house are my cousin Anita and her husband Dave. We did a quick visit to the North Bridge and the Old Manse before they treated us to lunch at the Main Street Cafe. Later, as temperatures reached 93 degrees (23 degrees above the average for this day), we did a Walden Pond drive-by. Anita and Dave will spend two nights with us as they visit a number of friends in the area. In the evening, we watched the latest Top Chef episode during which cheftestant and their friend Laurence Louie advanced to the round of 6. Tomorrow, they will be dining in Quincy at his Hong Kong-style fast food restaurant, the Rubato HK Café.

Seventeen years ago, I volunteered to be a mentor in the Gordon Engineering Leadership program at MIT. I was paired with Nora, a smart, bright-eyed, and ambitious graduate student. She is a remarkable woman who continues to excel in life. She spent 5 years at Microsoft, 8 years at Meta, and has recently joined Google as the Director of Product Management. More importantly, she and her husband, Simon, have raised a wonderful family, including Lisa (10), Adam (7), Luna (2), and Dora (0.5). They are pictured above with her sister, Peri, whom they are visiting to celebrate her graduation from Smith College.

Jeanine and I attended Nora’s wedding in Seattle and have remained in touch over the years. We were thrilled when we learned that they would be visiting the area, and we enjoyed spending this afternoon with the whole crew. Jeanine prepared a wonderful quiche, and I was on pancake duty. Being so heavily outnumbered, I decided not to try to kidnap Dora, but did take advantage of every moment to get my baby fix. She is the happiest and most chill baby I have ever met and became my instant buddy. I have forgotten how heavy babies are and how quickly they can shift their center of gravity when they move their heads around. I maintained a solid grip at all times, an excellent excuse to monopolize time spent with her.

Her father addressed the weight / CG instability challenge by lashing the child to his body with a baby sling, a wonderful device I was unaware of when our kids were tiny.

Jeanine retrieved a huge box of toys from the basement, which kept the older children occupied so we could visit with the adults. It is pretty clear that our house was designed for adults and will need some safety modifications should we find ourselves with a grandchild at some point.

As we pass the halfway point in our spring season, my soccer team is sitting at the top of our table. This morning, we played the team currently in second place and beat them 3-0 in a game that we dominated from the start. We were missing several players, so I got more minutes than usual which was not ideal given air temperature in the low 80s and turf temperature in the mid 90s.

After a bit of grocery shopping, I returned home to process the team photo I took after the match. Suddenly, the whole house shook. I did not know what to think until I looked outside and observed a large branch partially submerged in the river. It felt like it hit the house on the way down, but I could find no evidence of damage to the house.

I should have started by reviewing our security camera footage. When I did, the entire sequence of events was captured. It is oddly entertaining.

Located two hours from Concord in Connecticut, I visited Chapman Falls today, hoping to find them swollen with yesterday’s rain. I was not disappointed. I had to wait for ten minutes to get a shot without the young man perched on the ledge, but I decided to post this one instead, feeling that he conveys scale and adds some human interest. Below, I isolated the upper section of the falls so I could include the bridge in the composition.

I also made a brief stop to photograph the lighthouses located at the Saybrook Breakwater. Regretably, I did not get a closer image of the more photogenic one located at the far end of the stone jetty.

In addition to testing new photo gear at the Sony event in NYC yesterday, I had a chance to photograph several professional dancers and models. Sony transformed rooms within the historic Academy Mansion into many different professionally lit sets, each featuring a different theme and model. I am not going to lie, this was a lot of fun, even though you had to jockey for position among a dozen other amateur photographers for a good angle.

I made a day trip to New York City today to attend the Sony Alpha in Residence program held at the Academy Mansion, steps from Central Park. It provided photographers with hands-on access to the latest Sony gear, along with expert-led panels, photowalks, and styled photo sets featuring models. I drove to Worcester at 5 am, boarded a bus for the Port Authority, and walked the final 2 miles to the venue, arriving by noon. I immediately signed up for a Photo Walk, which afforded me an hour-long opportunity to photograph birds in Central Park with the new Sony A7R6 camera and 100-400mm f4.5 lens, both of which I ordered when they were announced yesterday. Our group was led by Tony Northrup, an author, photographer, YouTuber, educator, and speaker with more than three decades of experience in photography and digital imaging. He offered several useful wildlife photography tips which only enhanced my experience with all the new gear.

Later, I spent time photographing inside the mansion, and I will feature those images tomorrow.

I walked back to the Port Authority by way of Times Square, where I enjoyed a nice meal and all the energy and madness that is NYC. I made it home by midnight, having logged more than 400 miles on the road and 6 on foot.

Today, Sony announced the A7R6, a 66MP, 30fps camera body. Based on the specs alone, I placed an order the moment it went on sale. It will replace my workhorse camera, its older sibling, the A7R4, which has served me very well for the last seven years. The new model offers even higher resolution, dynamic range, and shooting speed, plus 7 years of improvements in autofocusing, image stabilization, and ergonomics.

This is the first camera that I consider equally optimal for landscape, portraiture, sports, and wildlife. I currently use my A7R4 for landscapes and portraiture and a Sony A1 for sports and wildlife. It remains to be seen which I will keep as a backup or if I will sell both and pick up a second A7R6.

I am doing a day trip to New York City so that I can attend a Sony event where I will be able to try out the new camera as well as a new lens that was also just announced.

Our house is situated less than a mile from Walden Pond, as the crow flies, provided the crow climbs high enough to go over the hill that lies on the path.

Atop that hill, our nearest neighbor (3/10 of a mile) across the river is the very cozy geodesic dome pictured below. It is an adjunct to a small house situated nearby and seems like a perfect sanctuary.

As I am prone to do, I recently purchased a new tripod. This one is meant to support my large telephoto lens setup. Until now, I have been using one of my travel tripods for this purpose, but they are just not beefy enough for the task. I will not disclose the number of tripods I currently own for fear of self-incrimination, but I will observe my established practice of selling a tripod every time I acquire a new one. Pictured above is the one that I will sell. Even though it is widely regarded as the ultimate light-weight, reasonably priced, travel tripod available today, I have another that is a few ounces lighter with better ergonomics, albeit costing four times as much.

Pictured below is the gimbal fluid head that I use with my big telephoto lenses. It renders them totally weightless and a joy to maneuver. However, based on my infrequency-of-use rule, it is going up for sale as well.

The kids took Jeanine out for a fancy brunch at the Puritan & Company restaurant to celebrate Mother’s Day and her belated birthday. I was unable to attend because of my soccer match. I joined them later, still in my stinky uniform and cleats, for a visit to the Harvard Art Museum, but missed Nicolai, who was not feeling well, and opted to skip the museum in favor of rest. Jeanine and I also had an opportunity to officially meet Maya’s boyfriend, Brennan, for the first time (technically, we met him in England when we visited the MacKenzie clan). In deference to Maya’s arcane rules about photographing significant others, I was not permitted to include him in the group shot. This can only be done after the third meeting.

My soccer team faced Raynham, our toughest opponent of the season, and squeaked by with a 2-1 victory. There is little doubt that this will be the team we face in the playoff finals should we make it that far. I moved from right wing back to left wing back for this game, and it felt as uncomfortable as the unruly grass field we played on. I did little to distinguish myself offensively, but did a good job of defending against an opponent who was both faster and more skilled than I. This win required hard work from the entire team, and I felt good about my contribution.

My sister, Alissa, is in town for the weekend to celebrate Mother’s Day with her kids, who both live in the Boston area. She joined us for dinner and will spend the night before heading into town, where her clan will try their hand at candle making.

With heavy rain for most of the day, I tackled an indoor project that has been on my to-do list for some time. When we designed the house, I installed a TV in a purpose-built nook at the end of our main hallway. We use it to display family photos from a set of about 300, automatically cycling every 3 minutes. It brings us no end of joy. I have long wanted to set up a similar arrangement for my landscape photographs on the TV in our great room. Unfortunately, for various technical reasons, I have not been able to create a satisfactory solution that does justice to the images. Today, I connected an AppleTV to the system and took the time to select and prepare about 200 photos for display. I am very pleased with the photo quality, but this workaround still has one flaw. Images cycle every 20 seconds, which is about ten times faster than I would like. Unfortunately, this is a limit set by Apple software, and my search for a better solution continues.