Day 181: June 30, 2010

Ottawa River

The Ottawa River runs through the campus of the University of Toledo.  I had to stop by the library today before class to pick up a book.  The nearest parking lot to the library is across a foot bridge over the river - I was glad I grabbed the camera when I got out of the car.  The 8:00 am sun made for a beautiful sight - this is looking west down stream.  

I also decided to see what it would like like in black and white - the results are below.

Day 180: June 29, 2010

Inside a Logo

My class took a field trip today to downtown Toledo to tour the world headquarters of Owens Corning and learn about their green initiatives.  Their building is very distinctive and sits on the Maumee River.  As you drive into downtown towards the river, you can see their very distinctive logo rising like the sail of a boat - a giant red, curved, swoosh with portholes all over it.  As the overall design of the building resembles a ship, most people assume the red thing is a sail.  My daughter and I have always thought it looked more like a slice of watermelon.  Today I learned the truth.  It's a representation of their logo, which can be seen HERE.

This is a shot from INSIDE the building, shooting straight up into the logo.  I still think it bears a closer resemblance to a slice of watermelon than the O-C logo.

Day 179: June 28, 2010

Brain Overload

One of the biggest challenges to the graduate program I am in is the extremely accelerated pace.  Completing a 3-credit hour Masters' level Physics of Energy course in 3 weeks (@3 hours a day) is utterly insane.  The sheer volume of facts and figures to memorize is almost insurmountable.  Our second test is tomorrow with the final exam on Friday.  I am eating, breathing, dreaming facts about energy and fossil fuels.  The notecards above are some of what I've been studying.  They're in a jumble in the photo because that's how they feel in my brain.  Hopefully enough facts will stick with me long enough to pass tomorrow's test!

Day 178: June 27, 2010

Be Sure to Get My Good Side

This is Dozer.  He lives next door with Abby, who was featured in this blog way back in late January if memory serves.  He's a big, muscular dog with the heart of a kitten.  He very rarely barks and always wants to play fetch.  Today he came right up to the fence when he saw me and started nuzzling my hand.  Normally he's moving way too fast to shoot properly, but today he gave me a split second pose.  I like his expression.

Day 177: June 26, 2010

Monochrome Metal Regatta

These are part of a trio of bright yellow sailboat sculptures that float on the water at the Toledo Botanical Gardens.  They're tethered  to anchors which allows them to float around in the breeze a bit.  These two looked like they were racing!  

This weekend is the 45th annual Crosby Festival of the Arts at the TBG - I've been going every year for as long as I can remember.  It's always super hot, raining, or both for the festival.  Today was both! I went early to beat the heat but got caught in a drizzle.  Which resulted in gray skies and a not overly well lit photo.  I think it looks better in monochrome.  Since it's both a reflection AND in monochrome, it gets to be part of two memes at once!  Please visit the super-talented photographers over at  the new home of Monochrome Weekend; The Weekend in Black and White.  AND please also visit the awesome photographers over at Weekend Reflections.

Day 176: June 25, 2010

Festival Season

The church festival season is in full swing in these parts.  Tonight was the first night of the St. Pat's festival and they had a bunch of rides.  I like the colors in the pic above.  The Gravitron below is the one where the floor drops out and you stay glued to the side of the ride thanks to centripetal force.  Makes me nauseated just watching it spin!

Day 175: June 24, 2010

Limestone Tower of Learning

University Hall.  Not made of ivory, but symbolic all the same.

Day 174: June 23, 2010

Viking Totems

Today was hazy and overcast during the small opening I had to shoot.  This sculpture actually is called Viking Totems according to the little sign at its base.  It sits just outside the 3rd floor entrance to the building I have my classes in - since the building is on a hill, there is a 1st floor entrance and a 3rd floor entrance!  I'm not quite sure why vikings would have large elbow macaroni pieces as totems, but to each his own!  I'm also not sure why there's a price tag of $8,000 on the little sign under the name of the piece - it appears to be a permanent installation. Good to know tuition money is being well spent.  Ahem.

Day 173: June 22, 2010

Reflected Perspective

The building on the right (which is reflected in the building on the left) is where I have class each day.  Our classroom has no windows, so it's refreshing to step outside sometimes and get a different perspective!

Day 172: June 21, 2010

Summer Solstice

OK, so I really need a UV filter.  This was shot with the kit lens (as are almost all of my shots) and, once again, hand-held as I was on my way to class this morning.  Normally I don't deliberately try to stage a shot, but today I made an exception.  The focus of my graduate program is renewable energy, and every day, on my walk from the parking lot to the classroom, I pass this solar panel. There's a sign with educational information about solar energy nearby and the lights (you can see one in the foreground) are solar lights.

Since today is the summer solstice, I wanted to take a picture that was symbolic of that.  This was taken about 50 minutes after the offical (ie meteorological) start of summer.  I tweaked the post processing a tad to enhance the lens flare.  

I didn't notice the bicycle leaning against the solar light pole until I got the photo uploaded to my computer.  But it seems fitting for a photo celebrating solar power and alternative energy.  If you look closely, there are power lines in the distance - beyond the cars.   Alternative energy sources need to be in the foreground of everyone's thoughts, but we've got a long way to go to wean ourselves from our dependency on fossil fuels.

Day 171: June 20, 2010

Stone Wall

The neighbors across the street have a low stone wall that serves no obvious purpose.  It's only about 1.5 meters long and maybe a meter high.   But I liked the different colors of stone and moss and the pattern the stones made.  This is a highly cropped shot - once again, I need to make myself take my tripod everywhere to improve my shots!

Day 170: June 19, 2010

Leavin' on a Jet Plane

No, I'm not going anywhere, but this jet was moving super-fast across the sky!  It looks like a rocket taking off.  The sun was just beginning to set and I was facing almost due West when I took this tonight.  I've got to remember to grab the tripod more often - I think it would have made this shot better.

Day 169: June 18, 2010

Yellow Lily

Different colored day lilies keep blooming - the latest bunch are bright yellow with a gorgeous red-orange band of color inside.  There are more things budding in the yard - can't wait to see what blooms! And on the vegetable front - the only things the rabbit and squirrels didn't eat this year are the carrots! Go figure!  Time will tell if they'll leave them alone long enough to mature.

Day 168: June 17, 2010

The Noble Horse

Got to UT early again today to shoot.  This wire sculpture of three horses is located in front of the visitor center.  There is a small rock with a plaque with the words "The Noble Horse" in front of them.  I like how the grounds crew deliberately leaves the horses some longer grass to munch on!  They are larger than life-sized - the one in the foreground stands about 9-10 feet at the withers (my guess, anyway). 

Day 167: June 16, 2010

Balance

This is the very top of a tallish rock sculpture near the fountain from yesterday's post.  Right now, my life feels very much like these rocks - precariously balanced - so far diligent planning, organizing, and scheduling is keeping things from falling apart.  Here's hoping they can stay in equilibrium until my coursework is over in 5.5 weeks (but who's counting?).

Day 166: June 15, 2010

Fountain Detail

For those of you keeping score at home, this week I began my PhD program at the University of Toledo.  I'm actually enrolled in a grant-funded program designed to grant a Master's degree but as I already have one, I'm applying as many of these courses as possible to the PhD.  At any rate, this means I am in class from 9-5 Mon-Fri for the next six weeks.  It's a bit intense and takes up a great deal of my time, therefore a lot of my weekday photos in the near future will most likely be of shots of UT.

Today I arrived early so I could walk around a bit and get some shots.  This is a close-up of a fountain that is near the Education Dept. buildings.  I like the way the surrounding buildings are reflected yet distorted.  It was an overcast morning so the lighting was not ideal, but in general, I'm pleased with the shot.

Day 165: June 14, 2010

Wild Thing...

A nearby church held it's annual festival/carnival this past weekend.  I didn't go, but did drive by today and saw all the carnival rides closed up, waiting to be trucked to the next carnival.  This particular ride is called Wild Thing according to it's sign.  I liked the lines and different colors of the cars.

Day 164: June 13, 2010

Wavy Wall

Back at Walbridge park again today, picking up my daughter from the Zoo Teens picnic.  There's a stone wall that runs the length of the park, parallel to the river with steps leading down to the river, stopping at the terrace level with the benches from a previous post.  Down near the yacht club, the wall suddenly becomes wavy.  It's a perfectly straight line for the other 1/4 mile or so of wall!  I'm not quite sure why it's wavy here, but I liked the lines of it and thought it looked good in monochrome.  For lots of better monochrome shots, head over to Monochrome Weekend.

Day 163: June 12, 2010

Cloud Fountains

My daughter signed up for another day of storm clean up with the Zoo Teens, so I found myself back at Walbridge Park on another gloomy Saturday morning, looking for something to shoot.  One of these days I am going to be there when the lighting is good!  This fountain/sculpture sits in the roundabout near one end of the park.  I just think it's a cool piece of art.

Day 162: June 11, 2010

Day Lily at Night

Sorry for the late post - managed to get a virus on my camera's memory card - not overly harmful but annoying to remove.  This picture was actually taken on June 11.  It started to rain in the evening and I realized I hadn't taken a picture yet so I ran out to the yard and started shooting lilies in the rain.  It was dusk; dark enough to make the contrast really pop with the flash.  I did do a bit of post processing and ended up isolating just the blossom and inserting a completely black background.  I really like the way this one came out - it looks sharp even at 100% magnification.

Day 161: June 10, 2010

Classical Fountain

This one's actually from yesterday but today was just too insane and jam-packed to shoot.  This is a water fountain (with three spigots) on the U of M campus.  It seems like an incongruous extravagance surrounded by students writing slogans in chalk on the sidewalk and listening to iPods while studying on the grass.

Day 160: June 9, 2010

Duet

While driving past the U of M campus tonight I heard and saw these two playing their hearts out on the street.  I found a parking spot a block and a half away and got back to them just as they were finishing their set.  I was shooting quickly without a tripod, so the shot's a tad blurry, but I love the expressions on their faces!  I realize the saxophone player's pants look like an optical illusion at this resolution, but if you embiggen the shot you can see they are actually just a horrible checked pattern.

Day 159: June 8, 2010

Cone of Shame and Frustration

Wednesday the kitten got spayed yesterday.  When I went to pick her up this morning, they said she was already licking the incision, so they recommended she wear an e-collar for a week.  It's both pitiful and comical watching her both come off the anesthesia AND adjust to the cone.  She keeps bonking into walls and walking backwards in a futile attempt to shake it off.  Not the best photo, but I had to share this one!

Day 158: June 7, 2010

Shadows of a Tree

It was too nice a day to be inside as much as I was, so I took my dinner to Wildwood Metropark and enjoyed the perfect weather.  I sat at a picnic table under a tree as the sun was pretty intense and I wanted shade.  I looked over and saw the shadows created by the setting sun and had to try capturing the effect.  It looked better in monochrome, even though it's not the weekend.

Day 157: June 6, 2010

Go, go, Airstream drive through...

(With apologies to Gomez. If you haven't heard the song, click here: Airstream Driver)

Zingerman's is an Ann Arbor icon - good, albeit pricey, food and phenomenal coffee.  Stopped into their Roadhouse restaurant for brunch today and couldn't resist snapping a pic of the iconic Airstream drive through.  There's almost always a steady line of cars getting coffee and pastries to go.

Day 156: June 5, 2010

Peony Garden

(Posting this a day late due to not being near my computer to upload til today.)  Ann Arbor has a peony garden in their arboretum!  I had no idea!  They started blooming a week ago, and after this week's storms, they were starting to look a little bedraggled, but they were still glorious.  So many flowers! So many colors!  Had to shoot quickly as storms were looming (damaging tornadoes with fatalities touched down just south of Ann Arbor and both north AND south of my house overnight, but we were spared the brunt of the storms).  

I think I figured out how to do the magic "make just one thing colored" part of PSE so I had a little fun with the pink flower above.  

Including two bonus shots below as the colors are just too pretty! If you want to see more, click HERE to see my online Picasa album.

Day 155: June 4, 2010

Blue Hydrangea

More flowers from yesterday.  (Yes, I took the photo today - just received the flowers yesterday.)  This is a close-up shot of they gorgeous hydrangeas one student brought in for all the teachers.  His mom ordered them special - they are imported from somewhere but he couldn't remember where.  Huge round balls of delicate blue and white blossoms on long, sturdy stems.  We each got several stems in a large, simple glass vase.  They almost don't look real - even in person!

Day 154: June 3, 2010

Pink Peony

Today was the last day for students in grades K-7.  I got the usual smattering of gift cards, thank you cards, and pretty pads of paper from students.  I also got an unprecedented amount of flowers this year.  Beautiful flowers like this peony from a students' garden.  My house looks like a florist shop!

Day 153: June 2, 2010

Red Door

I was up at 5 am unintentionally for the second day in a row today (thank you cats that like to bang cupboard doors and figured out how to work the TV remote).  That meant I had a few extra minutes on my drive into school today, so I stopped at the college campus/convent across the street from school.  I really liked the contrast between the flowers and the red door of the little chapel.

Day 152: June 1, 2010

Graduation Day!

I don't care that I did everything wrong when taking this photo - poor lighting, no tripod, etc...

Ten years of Catholic school (age 4 through 8th grade) = one pretty great kid.

Congrats, kiddo! I'm proud of you!

(This photo was taken on our way to Graduation last night which is why this is being posted a day late - it was a very long day!)

p.s. Please excuse the weed garden in the background - mowing is on the agenda very soon!