photography

Red Texture, Red Pattern

red and lavender grunge texture
Will this make a nice textured background for a web page?

flower pattern
Would this make a nice patterned background? Maybe if repeated with smaller flowers or leaves in between the larger flower. I think it would need to be toned down for a background or it would be too busy. Perhaps it would make a nice, simple header for a blog.

The textured pattern was taken from this shot:
roof of Dairy Deluxe
Shown is the roof of Dairy Deluxe, the ice cream place we visited on this Ice Cream Bliss post.

The flower was taken from this photo:
wall of flowers in Cape May Historical Village
The wall is at Historic Cold Spring Village in Cape May, New Jersey.

For more photos with red, visit Ruby Tuesday:
Ruby Tuesday

Ice Cream Bliss – SOOC

ice cream cone enjoyed
Spring weather brought us to Dairy Deluxe in Highland Park

For more shots straight out of the camera:
Straight Out of the Camera Sunday

Arts and Gardens in Central New Jersey

bunch of crocuses
Crocuses, March 2009

Some Artsy Events Upcoming in New Jersey

  • Rutgers Gardens will be having a photo contest in early September. I am tempted to enter or at least to visit Rutgers Gardens (a short drive from Highland Park) a few times over the next few months and take photos of the lovely grounds and flora. (hat tip: Jill)
  • Raritan Valley Community College will be showing the ballet Sleeping Beauty in late March. I would love to take my daughter, but it is the week before Passover. I will be “industriously” cleaning my house for Passover.

Jacob informed me via Twitter that he has already started working in his garden. Have you?

New York City Reds

Wien Hall at Columbia University
Yesterday we (my family) were in New York City for a wedding – a very, very happy occasion. The wedding was the Faculty House at Columbia University, and I took a photo of this red brick building (Wien Hall) as we walked from the (expensive) parking garage to the wedding. My middle son, who convinced me to take my smaller camera so I would pay more attention to the wedding and less to taking photos, said we would have gotten to the wedding a few minutes sooner if I had not stopped to photograph a few buildings on the way.

musicians at a wedding
At the beginning of a Jewish wedding the groom is marched to the bride accompanied by dancing friends and family and by musicians. The musicians at this wedding were from the orchestra Nafshenu. The groom then checks to make sure it is really his bride (as biblical Jacob got tricked, the groom wants to check).

The red in the photo was in the musicians’ eyes – I selected the red in Photoshop using the magic wand tool, desaturated the red, and adding back in enough color so their eyes looked brown.

On the subject of cameras and photographers, there were many photographers at the wedding (I believe some were friends of the bride and groom). I was jealous of their gigantic lenses, as was my father’s cousin, who said there is no end when it comes to desiring good photography equipment.

bicycle parking fees
In New York City one can pay to park one’s bicycle. The bicycle fees were considerably less than the car parking fees.

For more photos with a little or a lot of red:
Ruby Tuesday

Mosaic Wall in Sepia

Mosaic Wall at Raritan Valley Community College
You can see a full color version of this mosaic wall at Raritan Valley Community College in this post. To put this in sepia, I copied the original photo to a new layer in Photoshop, desaturated the photo, added yellow and red to get sepia, and then set the opacity of the sepia layer to 90% so just a wee bit of color would show through. I wanted to use the sepia effect to emphasize the textures of the mosaic.

For more sepia photos, visit Sepia Scenes:
bench in sepia

Masquerade Ballet in Sepia

masquerade ballet in sepia
This was my favorite dance at my daughter’s ballet recital (not counting the ballet, tap and jazz dances she performed, of course). It seemed like a fitting ballet for this time of year; on Sunday Jews around the world celebrate the holiday of Purim, and dressing up in costume is part of the tradition.

For more photos in sepia, visit Sepia Scenes:
bench in sepia

Oops – JPIX is Soon

surprise on dancer's face
My Mother Should Have Posted This Last Week

My daughter and her dancer friends want you to know that her mom should have told you last week to submit links for the JPIX Blog Carnival that will appear tomorrow on Pesky Settler’s blog. JPIX is the blog carnival for Jewish Photo Bloggers (about Jewish topics, but one can stretch this to nature, everyday living and food photos); everyone is welcome to enjoy the show.

Please also check out:

Hair Bow of Dancer – SOOC

hair bow
Bow of Dancer Waiting Her Turn to Go on Stage

My daughter’s dance rehearsal and show was last week. Lots of girls from ages 3 to teenagers performed ballet, tap and jazz. I love the costumes – they make the performances all the more fun. These girls, a group younger than my daughter, had polka dot outfits.

For more shots Straight Out Of the Camera, visit:
Straight Out of the Camera Sunday

Ruby Tuesday with X-Country Skis

cross country skis by hydrant
Last week for the first time in almost ten years I had the opportunity to go cross-country skiing while my daughter and her friends were sledding. The red hydrant behind the skis is what qualifies this photo for Ruby Tuesday, a photo meme where you post any photo with some red. And this was before our bigger storm that dumped over a foot of snow. Strangely, the Boston area, which I visited this past weekend and is over five hours drive north of our area of New Jersey, had very little snow.

I learned a good gardening tip on Saturday night while driving from Newton, MA to Marlboro, MA (we were invited to a laser tag party). If one of your small trees gets a lot of snow on it, brush it off with a long broom as soon as you can. Otherwise, the snow may permanently bend the tree into an unhealthy shape. If that does happen, you may have to trim the tree and wait years until it gets back a normal shape.

For more photos with a little or a lot of red:
Ruby Tuesday

Review with Hanging Pottery

bell pottery
Pottery Bell Hanging on My Porch

The bell part of this pottery that I made long ago never worked; it is supposed to chime with the wind. But it makes a pretty ornament on my porch.

On My Blog

great grandmother in sepia Fish in the Basement Aquarium of the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, MA Wanted for Murder: Her careless talk costs lives

Thank you to everyone who left comments on my interview with Raritan Air Water Power Service. If you haven’t left a comment yet, feel free to do so.

Elsewhere in the Blogosphere

I am leaving with my daughter in the morning on a trip, but I’ll be back by Monday morning. So if I don’t get a chance to visit your blog or respond on this one, that’s why. Have a great weekend everyone.

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