Unforgettable

The American Civil War was a devastating event that remains a central point in our history.  To this day, it is brought forward in our collective memory by events like this re-enactment of the Battle of Antietam.  Here, the Union line fires down at the Sunken Lane through a haze of gun smoke.

Camera: Canon EOS T3, Tamron 18-270 lens  Processing: PSE

Smoke

My husband is a Civil War buff.  This being the 150th anniversary of that conflict, he is in his glory.  Today, there was a re-enactment of part of the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest encounter of a horrifically bloody war.  Here, the Confederate troops attempt to hold the Sunken Road.  In the actual war, the soldiers from Connecticut--inexperienced and apparently expendable--were decimated at a different place in the battle.  There's a cemetery in our town with the grave of a man from our town who died there.  It's surrounded by a fence with a commemorative plaque on it--but the date of his death on the tombstone and the date on the plaque are off by a year!

Camera: Canon EOS T3, Tamron 18-270 lens  Processing: PSE

Angles

Hangers, Elizabeth's restaurant, Rocky Hill, Connecticut

Camera: iPhone5  Processing: Etchings app

Landscape

Wild Goat Island, Glacier National Park  
Camera: Canon EOS T3, Tamron 18-270 lens  Processing: PSE

Spot

We spent the weekend camping at Wells State Park in Sturbridge, Massachusetts.  We went for a hike into the woods where we spotted (!) this spotted salamander on the trail. 

Camera: Canon EOS T3, Lensbaby Muse   Processing: PSE

Dangerous

It's pretty and it looks all soft and harmless--but phragmities is an invasive species which threatens native plants.  There's a stand of it at Paper Goods Pond.

Camera: Canon EOS T3, Lensbaby Muse   Processing: PSE

Overlooked

I completely overlooked the little bug crawling on the silk when I took the picture--didn't notice it until I downloaded it to the computer.

Camera: Canon EOS T3, Lensbaby Muse  Processing: PSE

Plants

I wasn't sure I'd be able to post this tonight--we have some wicked winds and the power was down for an hour and a half.  But it's back for now at least--and so is my Canon!  Well, a replacement for my original, which had a defective sensor.  I'm still working on getting the setting back to where i want them to be, but it's great to have it back in my hands.  I feel whole again!  What with the wind and rain, it wasn't a great day for trying it out, but I did get a few shots of these flowers outside our library.

Camera: Canon EOS T3, Lensbaby Muse  Processing: cropping & basic adjustments in PSE

Faucet

This isn't art; it is personal history. This is the faucet that changed my life.  In 1998, when my kids were 13, 11 and 6, and I was 45 and blissfully healthy, we camped at a site near this tap.  Because the campground was associated with an organic beef farm, we were particularly careful about water, only using it only if it were bottled or boiled.  Except for one night, when, after we'd put the kids to be in the tent, John and I decided to have a bit of wine at the campfire.  We rinsed off the glasses at this tap.  A few days later, the two of us had a GI bug; the kids were fine.  John quickly got better.  I didn't.  Over the next two years, I wasted away from a healthy 131 pounds (at 5'8") to 90, eventually becoming desperately sick.  In so many ways, it felt like I was disappearing. Eventually I got the diagnosis of celiac disease, apparently triggered by the GI infection that I am sure we got from the water from this tap.  All these years, we had not returned to that campground, but I was finally ready to do it this summer.  It is a spectacular place on the coast of Maine.  John couldn't understand why (I scarcely do myself) but I needed to find the faucet that really did change so much for me.  Having celiac disease is not great--but, because of it, I have met wonderful people from all over the continent and even in Europe and Australia.  And being that sick taught me to slow down and appreciate THIS day.  So I needed to come back to that place where, bizarrely, my life turned.

Camera: iPhone 4s  Processing: a whole series of apps!

Silence

Autumn is settling in--evening falls sooner and the air is developing a chill. With the cold comes a certain quiet after dark, which is palpable down at Paper Goods Pond.

Camera: iPhone 4s  Processing: PSE

Experimental

We took granddude Aidan apple picking today.  He told us he liked red apples, but we talked him into trying a pale gold variety.  It was so sweet, and he loved it.  I'm also experimenting with a new app, Etchings.

Camera: iPhone 4s  Processing: Etchings app plus a few others...When one is experimenting, one tends to lose track!

Seashore

Technically, this is not a seashore.  It is a lake shore.  But the lake is Lake Superior, a huge inland "sea." It has dunes and winds and waves and storms like a sea--all that is missing is the smell of salt (which, having grown up on islands on the Atlantic coast, I found unsettling at first.)

Camera: Canon EOS T3, Tamron 18-270 lends  Processing: PSE

Vacation

Two canoeists enjoy their vacation on Lake Louise in Alberta, Canada. 

Camera: Canon EOS T3, Tamron 18-270 lens  Processing: PSE

Dream

It has been of a dream of mine since I was very young to visit Glacier National Park and to see the Canadian Rockies.  This summer, we were able to realize that dream.  It was better than anything I could have imagined.  This was the view at dusk from our campground at Glacier.

Camera: EOS T3, Tamron 18-270 lens Processing : PSE

Transportation

A Metro station, Washington DC.

Camera: iPhone 4s  Processing: minor adjustments in PSE

Summer

Summer is fast waning, but we had so many fabulous experiences while it lasted.  This is my husband, John, kayaking ahead of us on an arm of Casco Bay in Maine as the sun set in  molten gold. 

Camera: Kodak Z915  Processing: PSE

Discovery

This is my ultra-adorable nephew, Vincent, who is going on two. He has just discovered a marvelous building toy & is working at putting the parts together. Vincent & I are now building buddies.

Camera: iPhone 4s. Processing: PhotoGene2, Noir apps

Pleasure

A woman absorbed in her book at Blue Back Square in West Hartford, Connecticut.

Camera: Canon EOS T3, Lensbaby Muse   Processing: PSE

PS: I *may* be getting my camera back on Monday.  Not exactly getting it back--they're telling me it's beig replaced with a new one.  I have a feeling the sensor was bad.

Dead of night

Not exactly the dead of night, but as close as I can come to it with the equipment I have.  This is the moon rising over the Three Sisters in Canmore, Alberta. 

Camera: Canon EOS T3, Tamron 18-270 lens  Processing: PSE 

Rural

Sheep graze in a meadow as the sun goes down in rural Maine.

Camera: iPhone 4s  Processing: SwankoLab app

Strange

This funky tattooed dude posed with bemused passers-by at Blue Back Square in West Hartford.

Camera: Canon EOS T3, Lensbaby Muse  Processing: PSE

Trauma!

There's been a problem with the sensor of my Canon EOS T3 since I bought it last October.  Because I was afraid to use the camera for the first month or so after I bought it (I was terrified of dropping it), I didn't notice it until I'd had it past the return period. After that, I kind of ignored it, but when I looked at the photos from our vacation out west, I knew I'd have to have it fixed while it was still under warranty.  So, today, I brought it back to PC Richard, where I bought it, to have it looked at and probably sent back to Canon.  I feel bereft.  Where a little over a year ago, I was afraid to hold it, now I take it nearly everywhere I go.  I am suffering from separation anxiety. 

Embark

A sailboat embarks on an evening cruise on Long Island Sound.

Camera: iPhone 4s  Processing: PSE

Many

Many boats, many clouds--Noank harbor in Connecticut. 

Camera: iPhone 4s, Hueless app  Processing: a few minor adjustments in PSE

Mother Nature

Our youngest, Sierra, is leaving again for college on Tuesday.  It's become a tradition that on her last weekend home, we take her to Abbott's in Noank, Connecticut for lobster-in-the-raw.  We sit outside by Long Island Sound to eat.  Tonight, we were treated to a rainbow rising over the Sound--the best of what Mother Nature has to offer. 

Camera: Canon EOS T3, Lensbaby Muse  Processing: PSE to bring out the colors.
I wish I'd had my Tamron lens on the camera, as it's very hard to focus on the distance with the Muse; but I did manage to get a few sharp shots.

Wide angle

Lake Huron

Camera: Canon EOS T3, Tamron 18-270 lens  Processing: basic adjustments in PSE