Fishing for Father’s Day

On our road trip we came across the Hoover Mudflats boardwalk in Galena, Ohio where we stopped to explore.  It apparently is a popular fishing spot as we saw several people coming and going laden with chairs, rods and bait.  While there were others there fishing, this little guy – who was torn between just playing with the hook-less rubbery lures or picking up every pole that was set out – caught my attention.

His father, the gentleman in the chair, was there to introduce the little two year old and his older brother to the joys of fishing along with their uncle.  I stopped and spoke with him about the usual things like what can you catch in here, what bait are you using, etc.  This fishing foray was part of his Father’s Day present; a steak dinner was going to be the other part on Father’s Day.  I told him how I still had fond memories of my father taking me fishing and how I enjoyed it until I became a teenager and wanted no part of it even though one of my chores was to clean and cut up any fish caught and brought home.  I became quite skilled at getting that chore over and done with as quickly as possible!

We traded fishing tales laughing about how messy scaling and gutting fish can get and compared notes on how to filet a fish.  He told me that on YouTube there is a tutorial on how to filet a fish in 30 seconds.  Who knew!  His older son caught a sunfish while I was still there and I got to see a skill being passed down, how to grip and unhook a fish.  He was a bit nervous about doing it but with his uncles help managed to do the catch and release.  I gave him a high five for it.

This brought back memories of being a little girl and staring at that floating red and white fishing bobber waiting for it to wiggle while my father sat in the shade watching me at the lake in the park.  I was so proud when I caught a fish and showed it to him even if that fish was all of 4 inches long.  Back then he had to unhook the fish, I hadn’t quite developed that skill yet.  I have a lot of memories of my father; most very good and a few not so good as in getting busted for coming in late from a dance and of course when he became ill and I had to assume the parental role.  But at this moment the memories of my father were all wonderful and it was beautiful to see another father and child making their memories.

Happy Father’s Day.  May it be a good one for and to you.

 

This is a Gar fish.  Most fishermen do not like them as their presence scares off the fish they want to catch.  They have a mouth full of very sharp teeth and unlike the sturgeon they resemble, their eggs are toxic to humans.  Nasty buggers!

Impromptu Jam Session

As mentioned in my prior post about becoming part of a jam session in the park, here’s more from it.  The sax player is Don, a local central Ohio resident who plays in a band.  Doug, the guitarist, is from Pennsylvania and was visiting his non musician – well, at least  he wasn’t playing any instruments that day – friend, Bill, the gentleman in blue sitting on the steps.   Doug teaches music as well as plays musical gigs.  As fate would have it,  Bill and Doug came to visit the rose park that day with Doug deciding to play some songs at the pavilion.  Along comes Don to the park and upon hearing the music came to see what was going on, asked about joining in, went back home for his sax and the band began to play.

Enter one photographer (how fortuitous that we all converged on the same park at the same time) who at first just took photos of the guys until she was asked did she know some of the tunes – which she did.  We sang Bruce Springsteen, The Beatles, Bob Dylan and more.  There were some park visitors who stopped to listen and applauded for us while others just walked past with a smile.  We were all enjoying ourselves, especially when we began making up our own lyrics to Dylan’s Rainy Day Women #12 & 35.  Phew! Talk about thinking fast on your feet for that one.

It was a magical musical moment in the park.  Cool, man…

 

 

The Sunrise, The Moon, The Palms and The Pool

One day we actually set our alarm to wake up in time for sunrise on the beach.  We had to walk past the hotel pool in order to get to the path to the beach when I saw this and knew I had to capture this wonderful moment.  It was the best sunrise of our stay as the other days the sky wasn’t as alive.  This is an example of high ISO when you are shooting hand held in a low light situation.  The ISO for this shot is 5K and while in the past this would’ve made one horribly noise filled image, today’s modern cameras can handle this and higher without too much damage to the image.  Some people even like a certain amount of noise in their images for that old film effect.  Plus, there are so many noise reduction programs and other ways to reduce noise in Photoshop and Lightroom.  What was important to me was capturing this oh so brief moment in time no matter what the ISO was.

It and the rest of the shots we took that morning were worth getting up at 5:30 in the morning on our vacation.  I will share the color version with you tomorrow.

Shot details:

F3.5 – ISO 5000 – 1/40 – 35mm – Canon 5D MarkIII

 

 

Good times call for a good…

Wine!  There was a celebratory dinner out last night and then there was some wine later.  I hate spending what I can get an entire bottle for on one glass in a restaurant sometimes so I opted for the decadent dessert there and wine at home.  I discovered this wine at a Greek restaurant here when we first moved to Ohio.  It’s a very nice California red blend and became a staple in our home but in recent years it has become harder and harder to find.  The original (well, original for me) label had a scene reminiscent of the one from The Creature from the Black Lagoon; monster holding screaming woman.  What’s not to love about a wine with a label like that?

When I noticed the wine becoming harder to find I stocked up on a couple of bottles.  No wine today – coffee!

 

Still Life: Prelude to an anniversary

It’s our anniversary and DH is taking time off from work (which means my time here may be spotty) so that we can both exhale and celebrate by doing whatever we want to.  A lot of that might be catching up on some sleep – we are one wild and crazy couple!  Still experimenting with still life photography and the lesson I learned from this shot is that glass and reflections can make you want to scream.  This was my first attempt at photographing these objects against a black background using a light box.

Practice, practice, practice but perhaps later 😉

Athena and Monty

Athena is a beautiful American Barn Owl and a bit of a Grande Dame at the sanctuary.  She has been with them for a long time and is about to be retired soon to a life of leisure – not having to be on display.  Capturing her image took some maneuvering and patience.  She was high up in a pine tree (wonder how they put her up there) and beside having to wait for a good pose, there were other people there taking her photo as well as tree limbs blocking her face as the wind blew.

That’s not to say that an image with the subject being  partially obstructed isn’t a good image.  Those shots have their merits too as they can tell you more about where and what was going on when the shot was taken.  I just wanted to capture all of her clearly because she was so striking on her perch.

While Athena was high in the tree, her European cousin was on the glove of a handler.  Monty here is a European Barn Owl and while they look very much alike (heart shaped face and those dark eyes) Monty and his kind are bigger which is something to say considering owls, no matter how feathery they look, really weigh very little.  Owl facts: The reason they can fly so quietly is because the edges of their feathers aren’t smooth but are somewhat comb edged which breaks up the air rushing over their wings making them much more stealthy.  Barn owls are also the most widely distributed species of owl in the world and they don’t hoot, they shriek.

Another interesting fact is that while we humans have seven vertebrae in our necks, an owl has fourteen which is how they can bob their heads around and do that head turning thing they do so well.  Also, both owls and hawks eat their prey whole but hawks can eat every bit of their prey while owls cannot digest fur or bone hence those owl pellets they spit up.  Interesting…

 

Who says I need to cut back on my coffee?

I can see sounds…