rantings & ramblings
Can you hear the locomotive
Over wooden trestles running?
Now and then its whistle plaintive
Names the letter Q. Now coming
Ever closer, see the native
Coal-steam rising and billowing,
Towering and authoritative.
The title for this post comes from “Dog Days are Over” by Florence and the Machine:
The dog days are over
The dog days are done
The horses are coming
So you better run
The recent time change seems to have affected me more this year than any other year.
My colleagues tell me it’s because I’m getting older.
“Just wait ’til you’re our age!” they say.
But the benefit to the change is I can see things like this:
The sun rose slowly, as if it wasn't sure it was worth all the effort. ~ Sir Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic
Winter in eastern North Carolina comes in one color: brown.
Winter rains transform open ground into a morass of dirt and mud, covered by the winter winds with a blanket of dead leaves and pine straw, leaving barren trees standing as skeletal sentinels waiting for spring’s resurrection.
In this scene of seasonal tedium I discovered a hint of things to come:
Our assignment was this:
Capture the natural world with your camera: document a moment outside, big or small. From a panorama snapped during your morning hike to a close-up of a leaf in your yard, we invite you to document this wondrous world around us.
Can’t go outside? Photograph something — furniture, architecture, etc. — that looks or feels organic, or mimics the shapes and movements of nature.
Today’s Tip: Exploring the outdoors, with camera in hand, is an opportunity to look for natural lines that lead our eyes to different parts of a frame. Envision the bend of a stream, or the curve of a petal: how can you use these lines in your composition? If you see strong vertical, horizontal, or diagonal lines, can you play with the orientation to create a more dynamic composition? Can you apply — or break — the “Rule of Thirds“?
I find a sort of beauty in the asymmetrical radial lines of the pine cone against the horizontal wood grain.
I’m also kind of proud; this is the first time I can recall producing any sort of natural soft focus in the background.
What do you think?
Yesterday’s big perspective theme stumped me . . . until I arrived at work this morning.
As I walked outside, I looked up, expecting the same overcast, cloudy sky obscuring the morning moon.
To my surprise, the clouds had begun to dissipate, their rapid movement permitting brief glimpses of a majestic silver orb suspended in a sea of blue.
I ran inside to the science supplies, grabbed the telescope I’d been experimenting with, rushed out to the nearly-empty parking lot, and pointed the sighting lens at my target.
After a few brief adjustments, everything was in place. Lacking a camera mount and unable to correctly focus the telescope, I did the next best thing: I placed my camera against the sighting lens, manually focused, and clicked when I thought the frame appeared decent.
I took six photographs overall, but only one captured the moon with minimal shake.
I’ll let you be the judge of any relative success:
For Perspective
My First Attempt at Shooting the Moon!
We interrupt Photography 101 to bring you a feature new to Running In My Head:
Teaser Tuesday
What is Teaser Tuesday? I’m glad you asked!
Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by Should Be Reading A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along! All you have to do is grab the book you’re currently reading, open to a random page and share two sentences from that page. But make sure you don’t share any spoilers!*
*I wish I could take credit for this introduction, but I shamelessly stole it from Heather over at bitsnbooks. To help me make amends, you should go check out her blog.
Anyway, of the books I’m currently reading, Republic of Pirates by Colin Woodard is closest at hand, so here are two random sentences:
By some accounts, she lost her mind during her
incarceration, and (with the possible assistance of
the Devil) escaped to live a hermit's life on the
stark tablelands above the Atlantic beach.
There she roamed, scaring children, searching for
Bellamy, and bringing nasty storms down on
passing mariners, hobbies that earned her the
epithet Sea Witch of Billingsgate . . .
If you want to know more, follow my Goodreads account and get notified when I give it a rating or review!
Discovery seems to be the Word of the Week.
First, photoblogger consistentrelent gave RIMH its 1,000th like!
Then I decided to take the plunge and join my first MOOC: Irish Lives in War and Revolution. After listening to NPR review MOOCs and doing a little independent research, I hit upon this course thanks to OpenCulture. Seriously, if you’re not following them on Twitter, you should be. I find something worth reading, saving, and sharing several times a week.
Speaking of Twitter, another good Twitter account is Bibliophilia. I find myself saving their shared images daily. Images like this one:
Oh, and speaking of images, I’ve been taking WordPress’ Photography 101 course and found it extremely inspirational. I’ve discovered that I can, indeed, take and edit good pictures with my iPhone 4s (I highly recommend the Afterlight app). I’ve also discovered some apps to manually adjust the ISO and shutter speed and some tips on taking iPhone photos with a telescope; given the time change – is that today? It is! – I’m going to attempt some “morning moon” pictures this coming Thursday or Friday. Stay tuned! In the meantime, here’s a gallery to get you caught up:
Was I talking about apps earlier? I think I was. Another good app I discovered this week is InstaQuote (thanks, Gus Sanchez!). I had some iTunes money left from Christmas, so I went ahead to bought the full package. The app lets me do things like this:
Look for a weekly feature to being next week highlighting a quote or random text from a book I’m currently reading or a song lyric that’s been stuck in my head. Want to know what I’m reading? Check out the bottom widgets! Want to know what I’m listening to? Sometimes I share it on Twitter!
And then there’s that moment when an author you follow on Twitter retweets you.
Twice!
With so much going on this week, I’m certain I forgot something.
Look for an update if I remember anything!
Running In My Head 