This month marks the 13th anniversary of this blog and this is my 6,927th post. Between photography, post-processing, and writing, I spend an average of about 15 minutes each day (72 days in aggregate) keeping it updated. A labor of love, no doubt; but also a time each day to relax while photographing and writing about the people I love and the adventures we pursue. To put 13 years in perspective, here is a look back at the family from May 2005.
At Superpedestrian we have been working recently to diagnose some problems we have seen with one of the seals we use on the Copenhagen Wheels. Using my camera stand and a ring light, I took a high-resolution photograph of a suspect seal so that we could use available software to perform critical measurements (a poor man’s optical comparator). The most tricky bit of this setup was ensuring that the camera sensor plane was dead parallel to the seal. I also made a set of images with my flatbed scanner which offered higher resolution at the expense of 7 minutes per side scan time.
The family returned to Concord arriving just after 1 am this morning. I had much to catch up on at work and little time for anything else. These photos were taken yesterday before Nicolai’s commencement ceremony. I was up before the sun and was well positioned in time for golden light at the Garden of the Gods.
Nicolai graduated from Colorado College today with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Education. Over the summer he will be doing professional development for the college museum’s docent staff. In August, he will join the Teaching and Research in Environmental Education (TREE) program staff as a fellow. He has also been accepted into the Colorado College Masters Degree program in Education which he will begin in September 2019. Nicolai has thrived at CC, made a wonderful group of friends, and taken advantage of all his college experience had to offer. We are very proud of him.
Jeanine and I enjoyed a walk on the Colorado College campus and through parts of downtown Colorado Springs this morning. Seating and stages for tomorrow’s commencement ceremony were already set up and worthy of an aerial photo based on the colors and geometric symmetry. If you examine the set of black chairs on the right, you will notice that they form a point with two chairs at the end. This is where I will be seated during tomorrow’s event, carefully picked for the angle it offers of the stage and unobstructed sight line.
After our walk, we rejoined the family and those of Nicolai’s roommates for a lovely brunch. Afterward, we gathered the group for a photo in a nearby park my first such photo using the drone.
Later in the day, the sibs hung out while Jeanine napped and I set off to visit Seven Falls. It is worth a double click to examine these falls covering a drop of 181 feet.
This evening we dined at Four by Brother Luck. Brother Luck (that is the chef’s real name) was the winner of Food Network’s Beat Bobby Flay where he won the judges over with his love of pork and also a finalist on Food Network’s Chopped. Our four-course meal was delightful and shared with Nicolai’s roommate Thomas, his family, and Karuna. Afterwards, we attended Colorado College’s Commencement Reception and Dance where Nicolai performed on the keyboard with his band. It was the first time the family had a chance to hear him play in public and he was fantastic.
Earlier in the day Jeanine and Maya walked through, Kyle ran around, and I enjoyed photographing the Garden of the Gods. Despite overcast skies, it was nice to be in the great outdoors. Nico joined us afterward for a truly memorable breakfast at a nearby restaurant of the same name.
Jeanine, Kyle, Maya, and I flew to Denver this morning and then drove to Colorado Springs. There we were reunited with Nicolai and introduced to Kubo, the dog he gifted to his girlfriend Karuna. He is very nice and reasonably obedient. It is very clear that we are a dog family. Kubo received as much or more attention than Nicolai.
When Maya joined the ultimate frisbee team at Olin College she was new to the sport. Her only frame of reference was soccer which, for those who know the game, involves a great deal of physicality. Her Olin teammates were amused when she innocently inquired at the teams’s orientation meeting if ultimate frisbee was a contact sport; it is not, she was informed. During her first practice game Maya leaned heavily on her soccer training and apparently on the opponents she was guarding as well. This style of play quickly earned her the nickname “Punchy.” On most levels this is really not a very apt nickname for Maya, but it does have a slight ring of authenticity to it — a debate with Maya leaves you feeling like you just went 15 rounds in a boxing ring with the champ. It remains to be seen if “Punchy” will replace her current family nicknames of “Maya Moo” and “Maja.”
Earlier today she moved out of her campus dorm room and returned home having successfully completed her freshman year of college. She will be here for a couple of weeks before heading to Indianapolis where she will begin a summer engineering internship with Rolls Royce.
Before the rains struck yesterday, I was asked to photograph some Copenhagen Wheel-equipped bikes for an upcoming review article. If you look closely, this bike does not have a kickstand yet it is standing upright with no visible means of support. It is about two feet from the wall behind it and there are no strings or rods of any kind supporting it. Any guesses as to how this was done? I will share the answer in tomorrow’s post.
My work commute is bad enough under normal circumstances. Add in torrential rains and it becomes downright unbearable. It took me 1 hour to travel the first 3 miles of my return home this evening. I could have made better time on foot. The final 17 miles took another 30 minutes making for a very frustrating experience. I made a lot of experimental photographs while stuck in traffic including the one above. It is taken through my rain drenched windshield of the car and traffic lights in front of me.
Olin’s Expo is an end-of-semester celebration of student learning and achievement, where students from every class share their project work through poster sessions, interactive demonstrations, and artistic performance. The projects range in topic, including but not limited to course assignments, competition teams, passionate pursuits, and research projects. Jeanine, Kyle, Caleb (Maya’s boyfriend) and I were in attendance as Maya shared two of her projects. The first a mobile app called Thrifter, a sustainability project aimed at extending the life of used clothing by facilitating barter exchanges between interested parties. The second, a data visualization project showing the shooting location and conversion rates for NBA players compared to league averages over the last seven years. Maya was as confident as she was ebullient. It was an inconvenient time of day to miss work but I am very happy I did even if it meant staying at the office until 10:30pm to make up for it.
Having decided to give my knees a couple of weeks to recover from soccer competition, I decided to photograph my teammates as they cruised to an 8-0 win this morning. When you reach the over-56 age group, the game becomes less physical and more strategic. While just as satisfying to play it does not produce the same level of photographic drama that can be found in younger age groups. Even so, there was still plenty of action to shoot. A full set of photos from the game can be found here.
The 2,100-acre Crane Estate in Ipswich was home to the family’s summer country mansion built between 1924 and 1928. The Great House, as it is called, contains 59 rooms and is surrounded by no less than 21 outbuildings. I stopped here briefly yesterday as I drove from Rockport to Plum Island where the final three photos were taken.
Rockport is a quaint and extremely photogenic fishing village and artist colony located at the tip of Cape Ann located about 40 miles northeast of Boston. I have visited several times and taken many photographs of the iconic Motif No. 1, a red fishing shack at the end of a granite wharf. The picturesque old structure may be the most photographed building in the United States, if not the world. It has also appeared in movies, as an award-winning float, on magazine covers, on a postage stamp, in a 1960s Winston cigarette ad and as a Kentucky bourbon bottle. Using my drone, I was able to capture some new perspectives of the shack and bay.
