Maya captured this portrait of me during a post-match pool party at the home of our team’s goalie, Rob Morrison. Our team emerged victorious (2-0) from our semi-final play-off match this morning making for a very happy celebration. I was joined by Jeanine and the kids (plus my nephew John) who quickly found their way into a doubles ping pong match. Maya surprised everyone with her skills and game-winning shot.
For years it has been my ambition to photograph a humming bird. Photographically speaking it is significant challenge. At about two inches in length, you either need to be very close or use a big telephoto lens. Then there is the matter of those wings, beating at up to 30 beats per second, requiring a very fast shutter speed and/or short duration flash. Finally, you need to find one and track it through the air. Jeanine’s recently filled nectar feeder removed one of the big variables and all I had to do was wait for about thirty minutes before this little fellow showed up. I noticed he likes a particular flower in the garden as well. Perhaps I will catch him there with a more pleasing background next time.
Somewhat larger in size, Nicolai did some of his own mid-air hovering on the campus of Wellesley College. Jeanine, my nephew John, and Nico watched Maya’s last soccer game of the season before we took a few moments to make some videos of Nicolai doing front and back flips with and without his crutches. He is putting these clips together for another SideStix promotional video. Here we added to his collection of “levitation” photos.
Occasionally, my photography proves extremely valuable to my work. This afternoon I took a series of macro photos which helped us understand a failure mechanism in one of our products. Pictured here is a floating contact used in a charging station. The black pitted area at the top of the dimple is not supposed to be there. Once a failure mechanism is understood it is generally fairly straightforward to engineer a solution.
It was a long day in the office but I made it home just in time for the setting sun to light up Mattison Field in golden light. I feel very fortunate to live surrounded by such beauty.
Work has been extremely hectic this week due to the simultaneous emergence of a couple of engineering issues which demand my full attention. I handle this kind of stress best when I take time to pause momentarily each day to clear my head. On the way into the office this morning, I stopped for 15 minutes at the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge to charge my batteries before another high intensity day at the office. The little white objects on the lilies in the foreground are actually drops of water.
During a lunchtime stroll today I had occasion to make this image. Does anyone care to guess what or how big this object is? You would be correct if you guessed that it is the brush from a street sweeper which is little more than a Roomba the size of a dump truck. Whereas the Roomba uses a brush that is 10″ long and an inch and a half in diameter this one is more than ten times bigger in every dimension. My initial reason for photographing the brush was to test a new lens I received last week (a great subject for testing critical focus and depth of field). Eventually, my interest turned from technical to artistic and I settled on this perspective as my favorite.
My team has been working around the clock on a new robot which we introduced to the world today at the Infocomm Expo in Orlando. Developed for our fledgling Remote Presence business unit we partnered with Cisco to integrate their Executive Video Conferencing system with our AVA mobility platform. This robot can autonomously navigate through a facility to any destination you select and once it has arrived initiate a video-conference call allowing a person to participate in meetings, tours, or simply “walk around” a remote site which could be on the other side of the world.
My soccer team won our final match of regulation play for the spring season this morning by a margin of 3-1. Our record was a perfect 10-0-0 and we will be going back up to division one again where I believe we will fare much better this fall than last. With 6 goals, I was the second leading scorer which is not too shabby considering I missed 2 games to injury and played 3 at wing midfield rather than striker. Next week the top 2 finishing teams from the north and south regions will begin the Divisional Championship Playoffs. The winners will advance to the finals the following weekend.
Meanwhile, Jeanine has been kidnapped by her sisters for a secret 50th birthday adventure and I am told I can expect her to be returned safe and sound on Tuesday.
Nicolai graduated today from Concord Carlisle High School with National Honor Society distinction. The ceremony was held indoors due to heavy rains yesterday (rendering the normal venue a soggy mess). Unfortunately, this meant that only Jeanine and I could attend (due to the seating limitation of the gymnasium) even though my mother and sister and Jeanine’s sisters and friend all traveled here to celebrate with us. The commencement speaker was one of the school’s Spanish teachers and he delivered the best commencement addresses I have ever heard. He was funny, irreverent, and connected intensely with the students. His main theme was “Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained.” Two of our standard graduation photos, Maya inside the robes and parents kissing the graduate were taken before the ceremony (anticipating that Nico might return without his mortarboard).
We returned home after the ceremony to an intimate family celebration and small feast. The cake Maya made for her brother was the featured desert and was enjoyed by all.
Nicolai plans to attend the University of Miami in the fall of 2014 after he takes a gap year during which he will intern with SideStix just outside of Vancouver, Canada, travel across the US for a month, intern as a teaching assistant with Rivers and Revolutions, work as a gymnastics camp counselor over the summer, and who knows what else will be added to the constantly expanding list. Had it to do all over again, I would have taken a gap year between high school and college as well as between college and graduate school. Why rush the some of the best times of your life.
Normally I use a macro lens to shoot small objects since they are expressly designed for this purpose. Today I received a new 35mm wide angle lens and took it for a test run outdoors. Such a lens is the last I would pick to photograph a bee pollinating flowers but when the opportunity presented itself I get in very close and took the shoot.
Macro photographers tend to try and isolate their subjects from what can be distracting background elements. With the 35mm, I was able to isolate the bee with a narrow depth of field but still capture enough surrounding details to give a sense of the environment. If not for the fact that this new lens is so sharp, I would not have been able to crop for the composition I wanted and still have enough detail in the image. This new lens is definitely going to be a keeper.
Jeanine is preparing to send out a graduation announcement for Nicolai and asked me if I would provide two photos of him (one when he was younger and one that is current). I decided to make a composite image and this is the result. I still remember that little guy and can’t believe how quickly time has passed and how much he has grown (and in so many ways). We love the big guy just as much and are extremely proud of all he has accomplished.
Lauren, one of Jeanine’s two sisters, arrived this afternoon from Indianapolis. She is here to join in celebrations for Nico’s graduation and Jeanine’s 50th birthday party for relatives (yes, this is about the sixth 50th birthday party; Jeanine has been quite content to get all the mileage she can from this milestone). After preparing a healthful dinner of homemade falafel for the family, Lauren joined my nephew John and I for a short trip to the Nashawtuc Country Club to hear Nico and his band performing during the CCHS Senior Dinner. Later the sisters and I went for an evening stroll and I had an opportunity to catch up on family news.
The sun had just set and I was still without a photo for the day so I went out into the front yard in search of something interesting to shoot. It didn’t take long before I came across this fly resting on a flower. I knew immediately that I wanted a perspective that would place the fly in profile entirely in front of the white petal. It took some real contortions and patience to get the exact framing I wanted but I feel it was worth the effort.
I like it when it rains on Mondays, especially after a weekend of sunshine. Going back to work is just that much easier. All that strives to be green is hydrated and I am more motivated to be in the office when the allure of being outside is dampened by the weather. This is the view from our farmer’s porch. It is representative of the lush green that can be seen in every direction now. The wind chime in the foreground is calm and the rain is falling in a very soft shower.