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!