Yesterday I took a trip to the Sodus Point Lighthouse in Sodus, NY.  There are actually two lighthouses in Sodus, but only one allows visitors to climb up the lighthouse steps.  

Having never been inside a lighthouse before, I had no idea what the actual light looked like.  Now I know.  Although the lighthouse was only five stories tall, the view was lovely. Looking out I was able to see the other lighthouse down the road a bit.  It was a cool and overcast day, but there was one boat out on the water.  This little lighthouse may be small, but it is beautiful.  I love the stonework on the outside.  

Down at the pier was the smaller lighthouse, whose visitors seemed be be mostly of the winged variety.  I looked out at the water for a while, then looked up, looked waaay up and then headed back to shore and played in the grass.

Some random flowers from the garden outside the National Museum of Play...

Sunny side up
Full sun
Dainty little things
Flippin' off
Don't know what this is...
...or this
Happy little things
Drippy

Last week I visited the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, NY with my two young sons.  It pleased me to no end to see these boys, in an era of non-stop TV and video game obsessions, be perfectly content to spend hours playing with these simple toys.

We started with one of their favorites, the wooden train set.  I never thought I would get them away from that table.  But I did, and then we moved on to what I called the "construction area."  My 8-year-old dove right into these colorful bricks and played with him until he started seeing spots.  We spent the rest of our time tinkering and acting presidential.  But occasionally I needed to spell it out for my 4-year-old.

Today I began going through my archives to see if I could find anything worth posting. Most of my shooting over the past few months has been of mundane family stuff - my older son's swim meets (he's in the bottom lane), my younger son's birthday party, Cub Scout functions, etc.  

I did manage to find some stuff eventually.  Unfortunately, most of it involves more snow.  :)

In January I was asked to take some pictures of an old church in our town that was closing.  Although not a member of that church, I was still sad to see it go.  It had a beautiful old pipe organ that was the centerpiece of the sanctuary.  The caretaker also took me up a rickety old set of stairs to get a shot of the incredible stained-glass window.  This window has always been kept illuminated at night.  The church is located in the center of our town, at the end of a bridge, and I've always thought of the lighted window as a beacon for those crossing the bridge.  I was pleased to see that despite the closing, the church has left the electricity on, and the beacon still shines at night.

Back at my house, the deep snow covered all of my beloved gardens.  This bench that in summer is my respite from digging in the dirt and my perch from which to bird-watch, now sported a blanket of white.  Even the home of my little birdy friends had succumbed to the frozen weather.  

But the snow wasn't all bad.  My little one spent a rare sunny afternoon playing around in the backyard.  I just love his littlesquinchy face!

And speaking of faces, I decided that I wanted portraits of each of my boys which represented their personalities at their current ages.  My older one is eight now, and full of all of that I'm-so-much-smarter-than-my-parents condescension.  Yeah, that's him.  Then there's the little one.  He's all of four, and he's the biggest imp in the history of impness.  But I wouldn't have them any other way.

So there you have it - my 2007 so far.  I hope you can find something in there that you like.  

I live in a small town in Central New York.  Winters here are miserable.  We are due east of Lake Ontario, so we get this wonderful thing called "lake effect snow."  At the end of January it started up with a mean streak.  It kept going for three weeks.  When all was said and done, we had about five feet of the white stuff in our yard.  But we didn't get the worst of it.  A bit further north in our county they ended up with over twice that.  You may have seen us on the national news.  All of the networks were here.

So after the worst of it was over, I headed up to the lake to see it in all of its winter beauty.  First I had to stop by and see my favorite lighthouse.  The seagulls were abundant, as usual.

Closer to the shore, remnants of frozen waves made interesting sculptures on the shore.

Over at the marina, we found an icebound tugboat.  Hoping for warmer weather, along with the rest of us.

On the way home we passed a grocery store, and the pile of snow outside tells you all you need to know about snowfall in my little corner of the world.

Wow - a girl goes away for a mere seven or so months, and the whole place changes!  I don't think I've posted here since last summer.  I wasn't shooting as much as I wanted to, and we had an absolutely miserable winter...

But enough of the excuses.  I was out driving by our little lake  today and it was covered in fog.  I thought the pier and the trees looked beautiful, so I got out of the car and started shootin'.

More:
Pier and lamp post.
Pier and another lamp post.
Out to the pier.  
Tree reflection.
Tree and lamp post.
Wispy tree.

OK, so it's not a magazine cover, and it's not the Picture of the Day in Times Square, but I'll take it.  I entered this picture of my son skipping along the boardwalk in a photo contest at our local nature center.  I take a lot of pictures there, and entered this shot and one other one on a whim.  I never expected to win!  So I'm happy, and it's inspired me to get my lazy butt back out there and shoot some more stuff!

The other day I was asked to do some portraits of the daughter of a friend of mine.  The daughter is turning 13 this weekend, and her parents wanted some pictures to document this transition to teenager-dom.  We did the usual smiley-faced, standard pose shots, but I also wanted to try and capture a bit of that hands-on-hips teen attitude, the kind that you probably remember giving to your parents or getting from your kids.  That crossed-arm defiant look.  You know the one.

But I also wanted to show her as a young woman, thinking about all of the hopes dreams that she has for her future, and the pain and suffering that the teenage years will inevitably bring.  

The invisible keeps things visible.

OK, all of you that hate flower posts can move along.  C'mon, I'll wait while you scroll past.  

Now on to business.  I've had numerous requests from friends and family to sell some of my flower pictures, specifically in the form of notecards and such.  I didn't know that anyone actually still used notecards these days, but I guess I was wrong.  Anyway, I have many, many, MANY flower pictures in my archives, but some are my personal favorites.  What I need help with is narrowing the field a bit.  I need some objective opinions on which of the following are the strongest and/or most likely to sell well.  A few you may have seen here before, but most are new.  They are all from my garden, something that has been keeping me quite busy!

1. Daisy
   
2. Rose
   
3. Tulip
   
4. White lilies
   
5. Lilies & berries
   
6. Allium
   
7. Coneflower
   
8. Daffodil
   
9. Lilacs
   
10. Lily of the Valley
    
11. Pink flower (anyone know what this is??)
    
12. Yellow rose

Thanks for any and all feedback.    

The other day my husband commented to me that my photos tend to fall into one of three subjects - the kids, the garden, and any location outside of our town.  He seems to think I have some sort of bias against shooting in our little burg.  I realized that he's right.  I guess I just never think that there's anything photo-worthy here.  It's a small, lower-middle-class city in central New York, the local economy decimated over the past 20 years by big companies (like Nestle and Miller) closing up their factories and moving out of state.  Growing up here, most people try to spend as much time as possible outside of the city limits.  But I've resolved to find beauty here in town, and you guys and gals get to see what I uncover.

I decided to start this project with the town's most prominent feature, the Oswego River.  It's an offshoot of the old Erie Canal system.  The river is one of the few in the country that runs north, and it ends in Lake Ontario, just a few miles down the road.  Due to the significant elevation change along the course of the river, boats travelling it are sent through a series of locks.  Lock #3 is in our town, and is the place I visited this past weekend.  My son came with me, since he had never seen the locks up close.  After thinking about it, I realized that although I have lived in this town for most of my 37 years, I've never seen them up close either!

We first found a couple of gadgets and gizmos that apparently are part of the operation of the locks.  We then walked down about a bazillion steps to get to the lowest water level.  When I looked up at the big doors of the lock, I was astounded at their size.  (To give you an idea of just how big they are, in that picture you can see a railing that runs along the top.  That railing is about chest-high.)

Some more photos:
A close-up of the doors at the water line.

A simple traffic light for direction.

And of course I couldn't resist a shot of my son.

In honor of this holiday...

"Fireworks" from my garden.

A sincere "Thank You" to those who have served and those who have died.

I hope you all have a safe and happy Memorial Day.

Funny how life conspires to keep you from your plans.  I've had quite the hectic past couple of weeks, and have missed all of you here.  No real story to tell today, just some of the shots I've been working on during my absence.

Obligatory sunset photo

Texas

Red fence

Tranquility

Little bells

Last evening I took a little stroll through the local cemetary with my seven-year-old son, Grant.  The light was good and it had been a while since I'd done any real shooting.  As we walked, my son asked me about photography. We had a nice discussion and then I had him pick out an interesting subject. We both liked this one, and I especially liked the detail at the top of the monument.  

We spent most of our time in the older section of the cemetary, with graves from the mid-1800's.  There are a lot of Civil War veterans buried there.  

One of the things that my son was most interested in was the old crypts that are built into a hill.  He really wanted to go into one, and I told him that he reeeealy didn't.

This is another beautiful monument that I liked, and Grant liked these crosses.

I think next time we go out shooting, I'll let Grant take my old Kodak Easyshare with him and we'll see what he comes up with.  I'd love to see the world through his eyes.

I've been having a hard time with the Strangers challenge.  I had hoped to get out this weekend, but the weather has not cooperated at all (cold and rainy for two days now).  Instead I searched through the archives to see if anything would qualify.  I came across some photos I took last year, when I spent a weekend with almost 3000 strangers.  I participated in the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer 3-Day walk in Philadelphia.  For anyone not familiar with the events, the 3-Day walks take place in about a dozen cities every year, and participants walk 60 miles over the course of three days to raise money for breast cancer awareness and research.  

On the morning of the first day was Opening Ceremonies, where you could find many strange people. Very strange, indeed.

Out on the road there were Many People Walking.  Definitely.  There were also many strange crew members ready to assist you if you needed a ride.  And where do you sleep after walking 20 miles?  At the world's biggest slumber party, of course!

Along the way there are strangers cheering for you, strangers handing out cookies, and inspirational signs to keep you going.

At the end of the third day, your feet are tired, but the finish line is within sight.  After three days and 60 miles, we still have the energy to throw a big party, the closing ceremony.  One of the highlights of the ceremony is the  shoe salute when the breast cancer survivors all march in together in their beautiful pink "victory" shirts.

When it was all over there were hugs, tears, and a feeling of pride at the millions of dollars we had raised as a group.  My team vowed to do it again next year.  We all started out as strangers, but we ended up friends.  It's a weekend I'll never forget.