Alissa is my only sibling to follow in the footsteps of our parents who met on the ballroom dance floor and danced together for the rest of their lives. My mother, soon to turn 90 years old, still dances every week. Alissa has created a website to document her performances and those of her daughter Rachel and husband John as well as those of our mother and father. The impressive collection of videos can be found here. I often think of myself as being fairly athletic (my substandard performance on the soccer pitch this morning notwithstanding) but the truth is that both of my sisters are even more so, Alissa with her dance and Mayela with her swimming and hiking.
A brief visit to the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge netted some nice photos. Pictured above is a marsh wren, the first I have been able to capture in 15 years of visiting. They are very small and rarely stay perched for more than a few seconds. Below we have a clouded sulphur butterfly and water snake. The former has to be followed until it lands; virtually impossible to photograph in flight. The latter is easy to photograph but hard to find.
I walk to Central Square from my office twice daily; once for breakfast and again for lunch. The shortest path has become quite banal so each day I seek to find a new, if somewhat longer, route. Today I was rewarded with daffodils and construction motif artwork.
Last month the Phase 2A section of the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail opened to the public. It includes this pedestrian/bike bridge over Rt. 2A/119. The next two phases (2B & 2C) are in Concord with scheduled completion dates a year from now. Once finished, the trail will follow the 25-mile route of the old New Haven Railroad Framingham & Lowell line. I stopped for this photograph on the way to a business meeting in Westford this morning.
The Boston Common and Public Garden was my morning walk destination today. Spring will be here and gone in a matter of days so I took advantage of the nice weather to visit one of the prettier destinations in the city. I only had time for a 15 minute visit but found many nice compositions in that time.
Taken from the window of my car as I drove past Harvard Square. You would be amazed at the number of unusual things I observe while passing through this corridor.
On the way to my soccer match this morning I was compelled to stop for a turkey rafter sighting. Had I a few more moments to spare, I have little doubt that these photos would have been x-rated. My team secured a 2-0 win over Lexington today, our toughest opponent thus far. We remain undefeated and have yet to give up a single goal this season. I started full-strength dosing of Ibuprofen two days ago and the regime paid off. I managed to play without any knee problems. It remains to be seen how I will feel when the drugs wear off, however, and I will likely continue taking them for another day or two. If this works it will confirm that my pain is from inflammation rather than any serious mechanical problems.
As a favor for Jeanine, I took photos at a retirement party for the architect who helped design the new Open Table facility. The complete set can be found by following this link and includes my favorites shown here.
The Boston Public Improvement Commission just announced that it would return Yawkey Way to its former name, Jersey St. at the request of the Boston Red Sox organization. Tom Yawkey owned the team for some 44 years and is generally viewed today as having been a racist. Despite the good works of the Yawkey Foundation, created after his death, many felt that it would be racially insensitive to continue to associate his name with the street bordering Fenway Park. I personally would have preferred to keep the name of the street and added a very prominent plaque which acknowledged his racist behaviors while also recognizing his accomplishments. I think we gain more by understanding than trying to simply erase.
I thought I would get a photo of one of the signs before they all get stolen (I am sure they will be quite the collector’s item one day). While I was in the neighborhood, I put up my drone for a nice aerial view of Fenway Park.
Geese are not high on my list of interesting photographic subjects but I found the wavy tall grass reflections in the water as they swam away very interesting. I encountered this pair on my morning walk which took me to the Fenway Garden Society this morning.
A sure sign that spring has arrived is the nightly chorus of peeper frogs that can be heard throughout the night. I had to work rather late this evening and did not return home until ~10 pm. As I drove down ORNAC (Old Road to Nine Acre Corners) I could see dozens of frogs hopping across the road (also a number who were run over in the process). I pulled over and used my flashlight to illuminate the little fellow above. He was quite cooperative, remaining still as I struggled to hold my light with one hand and properly focus my camera with the other. It made for a very satisfying conclusion to a very long workday.
At work today I needed to create a photograph that will be used in a media campaign by one of our bike frame partners. The goal was to convey a sense of motion while still featuring the brand identity of the product. There is a standard technique for doing this. You set a relatively low shutter speed and pan with the action so that the background is blurred and the subject is in focus. Easier said than done was my takeaway after the exercise. It took over a hundred shots to get the one above and I am not really all that pleased with it. Next time I will use a tripod with a panning head, and a lens with a larger aperture and spend more time scouting a better background. Live and learn.
At long last, signs of spring are beginning to pop up. It has been a long and unusually rough winter that has dragged on far too long. As I looked around today there were signsof new life everywhere and I am reminded how quickly the spring season in New England comes and goes. Hopefully, there will be enough sunny days between rainy ones to get some decent photographs of the transition from greyscale to color.
This website is dedicated to sharing, with family and friends, the day-to-day adventures of the Calabria family.
