Mars?

Although it looks like a monochrome photo, it's actually colour. No tinkering with the camera and I don't own Photoshop... this is straight from the camera.

As I was getting into the car yesterday morning I was struck by the way the ow morning light looked on the... the... I don't know what to call it. It's that snow stubble that gets left behind when the winds blow all the loose snow away. This is the street right next to the car, with the camera lifted of the ground about a foot.

I have no idea why, but I really like this one.

Snowy wild cherries

I tried for a bit of colour with this one. It's surprising how difficult it can be to find colour in a snow storm!

Front porch steps

The storm blew the snow all round, even up onto the top step of the front porch. The plant is trailing from the planter, and was blown by the wind atop the snow. Early morning, as you can see from the shadows. The green and concrete helped the camera choose a decent setting, but I still tinkered with it on manual.

Skywatch Friday

Another impromptu, informal Skywatch Friday post. The real deal is over at http://skyley.blogspot.com/

This is how it looked outside my front door this morning. The skies were clear and I was reminded that I hadn't made a post in a few days so... here it is! 24F / -4C and thankfully, no wind.

Snow storm

This is the morning after the storm. Amazingly enough, all the people shoveled their sidewalks - that's not a given, especially with some of the older folks. I'm sure some Good Samaritans helped them out!

Weekend snow storm

Had a snow storm this weekend. Left something like a foot of snow down here in the valley; two feet up in the hills. At times, it was coming down in excess of an inch per hour. This is one of those times

Skywatch Friday

Sort of. It's unofficial. The real Skywatch Friday folks are over at http://skyley.blogspot.com/ I'm just an occasional interloper :-)

Yes, another ice storm photo. This is the 2nd day after, and it was an eerie sort of light. I waited all day for a photo of today's sky, but it basically went from 18% grey to 100% black and was completely featureless but for the snow!

Unfortunate ice

Ice has an ugly side, too. Just about every tree on the block lost limbs, weighed down by the heavy sheath of ice that encased them. Falling limbs damaged cars and tore down power and telephone wires (which are above ground here.)

This particular branch was merely an obstacle in the road - it didn't cause any additional damage. We'll have to see how the tree fared when spring arrives.

Ice at night

Ice on one of those decorative little trees one finds planted in corporate parking lots. I parked the car close enough to frame the shot and planted the camera firmly on the roof of the car to steady it. It took a couple of tries to get the one I wanted, a bit of adjustment of the manual settings. The flash was a different sort of shot altogether, too hard for my tastes, so I went with the available light instead. I probably would have taken the same dozen shots with my film camera but it's so much easier with electrons!

Ice on sedum

On the 5th, we had snow. On the 11th, we had ice.

I photographed this sedum back then, and here it is now encased in ice. The temperature finally went above freezing today, so this truly was a fleeting image.

Ice

Had an ice storm last night. Everything is covered, and many tree limbs came down due to the weight of all the ice. Lost power for a bit too.

Mystic Aquarium

The aquarium has beluga whales in a very large outdoor enclosure. At one end of the enclosure is a glass wall where people can interact with the whales. And interact they do. The whales see you very well, and they swim by the window almost constantly. I'm pretty sure they nod their head if they catch you waving but I didn't exactly do a scientific study on it!

Mystic aquarium

In contrast to the chilly weather (it was 8F this morning) this creature lives in perennially warm water. It's a spiny lobster, close up. This is his face, from his right side.

My Bahamian Mum calls these guys crawfish.

Natural light - I felt strange using a flash right next to these guys.

The Mystic Aquarium is located in Mystic, Connecticut and has some nice outdoor exhibits including penguins and beluga whales. These particular penguins are warm-weather birds, and go inside when the weather is below about 20F. The lobsters stay inside where it's nice and cozy. There's a touch tank for the litle ones, and several larger tanks (enclosure is a better word) for larger species like sharks and rays.

The tooth!

The little guy's second tooth came out (he was quite brave about this one!) and he insisted on taking its portrait. I had to take several, actually, as he was so excited he couldn't keep his hand still!

The tooth faery is going to make a visit. He'll place his tooth under his pillow with a note, and the tooth faery will 'write back' and leave a coin in place of the tooth.

I wonder if other cultures have this tradition?

Christmas lighting

Some people decorate their houses and shrubbery with lights for Christmas. There are all sorts of ways it's done: some people put up as many strings of different colours as they can, with Santa Clause full sized in his sleigh on the roof, to boot!

This neighbour was not quite as... exuberant as that, preferring a more delicate touch with miniature white lights instead.

There's certainly room in the world for both, but this one came out better in the photograph!

Snow on sedum

This is the front garden, with Sedum 'Herbstfreude' - Autumn Joy. There isn't much colour left out there now but this is a neat picture, reminiscent of the gentle hills surrounding the valley.

Snow

I'm late posting; apologies! Had a bit of snow Sunday afternoon. It was mostly gone by Tuesday morning, but it was enough to make snowballs!

Theme day: Circles/spheres

Every month, City Daily Photo encourages bloggers to post a photo based on a common theme. This month, it's Circles/Spheres. Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

A few days ago I attended my 30th reunion of my high school - Mont Pleasant class of 1978. It was a last-minute sort of thing, but it was a lot of fun. I didn't take all that many photos, spending the time chatting and even dancing. For my classmates who knew me back then, yes, it's probably a surprising thing to imagine me dancing but life is fun when you try new things!

Our school colours were red and white, and the great people who decorated the hall remembered that, putting up red and white balloons at each table. This particular photo is intentional. The balloons were moving slightly in the air currents and I thought they'd look cool if I left the shutter open a long time - here a full second. I braced the camera on the table and hoped for the best. 'Manual' is cool, even on point and shoot cameras like my Nikon CoolPix 950.