Ryan McDonell Photography: April 2010

yard findings

Playing around with settings again. Trying to stay at ISO 50 even with wind, so I was at f1.4 and 1/1000 of a second for one of the shots, f2.8 for the others.

Once in awhile I'll come across decay that's fun to examine and photograph. We found these old buses rotting away and of course we had to snap some shots. I always think about that show on the History Channel "Life Without People" when I find abandoned structures, vehicles, and objects. These buses are returning to the earth pretty fast, they're actually sinking into the mud.

Hamlin Beach

Hamlin Beach was gorgeous this morning and it was practically vacant. I had to shoot some engagement shots so my wife and son tagged along to play in the sand. I finished my work and walked down to meet them taking some shots of things along the way. I was again amazed at clear the water looked and what interesting reflections and textures were available to shoot. Fun little trip.

Adirondacks Spring 2010

Reached the summit of Mt. Seward (4365 ft.) in the Western High Peaks region of the Adirondack Mountains Wednesday under perfect weather. We were the only ones to climb Seward In quite a while according the the log book at the trail head. It was the first time in three trips through the Seward range it did not snow on us, and we saw no people. We packed in 9 miles Tuesday, hiked 8 hours Wednesday, and packed out 9 miles Thursday. No fancy photo gear, I brought only a simple Kodak point and shoot camera which took surprisingly decent pictures. The climb was sketchy, and coming down was worse due to the deep rapidly melting snow. To make things more challenging this mountain does not have a marked trail and is unmaintained, so getting lost is possible. The nights were cold, but we were in a nice lean-to next to Blueberry Pond and a good stream where we could filter water for cooking, oh and no bears this time. Great trip, but glad to be home.

experimental optics

I was playing around with my own homemade optic filter, kinda weird and distorted, but fun.

Purveyors of great grease

Tom's definitely makes the list on my top ten comfort food restaurants of Rochester, along with Don's Original, Fujiya, Monte Alban (Irondequoit location), Mr. Dominic's, and Amico Pizza... My definition of comfort food does not limit it to one ethnic style. I think of it simply as food that I would crave if I was living somewhere else for an extended period of time. When I was in Spain for six weeks I was surrounded by "great" food, but I wanted to be at Don's for a burger, Mr. Dominic's for a steak, and Amico's picking up a pie. I guess I think of "comfort food" as regional specialties that are constantly/consistently prepared, and readily available within that specific region.

another take on it:
http://www.accidentalhedonist.com/index.php?title=what_is_comfort_food&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

popping

My favorite tree in the yard is at it's peak of producing gorgeous flowers. I don't know what it's called and I really don't care enough to research it, I just look forward to seeing it bloom every year.

cold wind and rain

Today is too Rochesterish for me. We had family up from Maryland and at least it was the Rochester they always remember, not the warm sunny place the three weekends prior. Maybe people who are visiting need a dose of home, and would be let down if there wasn't a "Garbage Plate" readily available, a bad mall to visit, or the crappy weather. I do like living here, I just like the post "Global Warming" early summer we were being spoiled with, 80 in March is cool with me.

Drive to work

cell phone art

We went out to shoot some pics on our cell phones today, I wanted to illustrate the point that art can be made even with low quality camera's. Later we plan to shoot the same subjects with the Hi Res SLR's and compare the quality differences between the two printed images. The students will see that the image quality is always better from a real camera, but hopefully the low resolution cell generated pictures will have some redeeming qualities like: interesting composition, good subject matter, and creative light. The above picture "skull of doom" was shot with my Samsung Rogue (3.0 Megapixel), more pixel generating capacity than my first Kodak digital camera ($800.00 1995).