Maine Street, Brunswick
It was coming down thick and fast, the only people out were business owners suddenly demoted to street sweepers and this poor, bedraggled poodle. Atticus was safe and warm back at the house. He’s due a long walk today.
Bowdoin College Campus
You might have already seen this one on my blog or at Flickr. Sorry to repeat post, but I’m quite proud of it. Mainly for managing to get up early enough to capture it… We’re due for more snow tomorrow and I’ve been reading up on snow photography tips.
BTW- Gina, Evan & Adrian, thanks for the card! Little Ady’s looking cuter than ever.
Christmas Dex in Portland, ME
For First Friday Art Walk in Portland I met up with the usual suspects for a couple of hours of night urban photography. I tried to do the whole thing flash-less which meant some nice bokeh wherever I pointed the camera.
The Abominable Photographer
When I told people we were moving to Maine, after the ‘Hope you like lobster’ comment, the next was usually ‘Hope you like snow’. Lobster’s alright, though it seems more trouble than it’s worth. I reckon you burn more calories in cracking it apart to get to the meat than you do digesting it. Like cucumber encased in concrete… I’ll take smoked haddock over lobster any day of the week. Actually, I’d take fish fingers over lobster too. But snow. I bloody loves it.
It’s feeling well Christmassy what with the 4-6″ we got on Saturday night. It only seems like yesterday that I was packing our fibre-optic tree into the back of a moving lorry in 3 digit temperatures. Now we’re in the cold and I’m back to using centigrade cos 32° sounds like a ridiculously high temperature for water to freeze at. We were up late on Saturday night watching Dollhouse (which has recently become unmissable and is a real shame that they’re going to cancel it) so I had 5 hours sleep and got up at 6 to see Brunswick in all its frozen glory. I was amazed that the roads had already been ploughed, and Bowdoin maintenance staff (bless ’em) had already shovelled and gritted the path from our door to the road. The ploughed bits were really icy and I nearly fell on my arse several times until I realised it was a lot easier to trudge through the unploughed bits and making full use of the boots mum bought me from LL Bean.
I took around 50 photos, half of which are on Flickr in this set. This is my favourite:
There should be a top-up of snow on Wednesday and if so I’m going to try and get to the coast because I don’t think I’ve seen that particular combination since Cape Cod in 2000 with Matt & Meg.
Also the snow’s a grand excuse for comfort foods here’s DrSita’s latest soup:
Also, just for his fans… here’s Atticus:
Easy Apple Crumble Recipe
I know I shouldn’t criticise until I stop weighing myself in stone and pounds, but Pecks? Really? Anyway I purchased half a peck of pommes to practice providing puddings to my peeps.
You might have already seen the recipe over at Flickr, but just in case you’re desperate for the info and Flick has the hiccups, please hold your clicks or summat:
Cut up apples, sprinkle with sugar (and cinnamon if you remember), mix marge into flour till it’s crumbley, cover them apples with crumble. Put more sugar on top… oven it on 350° for about 45 minutes, serve, add generous dollop of your local vanilla ice cream.
Mum, if I’ve missed anything or you notice any other oversight therein, comment away… and thanks for the Autumn cooking lesson series 🙂
Autumn Sunset
We got to Wolfe’s Neck state park as the sun was setting which made for gorgeous views but had to get back to the car as apparently the park shuts its gates when the sun goes down. And it was cold…
Shiny Sea Dog
Brunswick and Topsham are also connected by this bridge over the Androscoggin River. This is from last week when a day of showers gave way to low mist illuminated by a setting sun, one of those moments when I was glad to have my camera on me.
Going Out in Portland, Maine
From Saturday’s Maine Photography Meet-up in Portland harbo(u)r. It’s got decidedly colder since then. Snow/Ice on its way… On the plus side, I’m an amateur photographer with free heating and don’t work on a tugboat…
Newsround
It’s been almost a week since me mum left town. We did so much it’d be painful for all concerned to write/read about, but suffice to say we now have a near-native command of places to go to when you come and visit us is deepest, darkest Maine. Well I do anyway; DrSita’s been working like, well like the consummate, conscientious, rock-star professor we all know she is and thus had to forgo most of the opportunities to get to know the area better.
Highlights?
- Mum cooking for us almost every day with an accompanying lesson
- Popham Beach is a bit special, with the tide out even better.
- Discovering a Twiglets & Robinsons Blackcurrant & Apple dealer in Freeport
- Watching the waves at Ocean Point, off of Boothbay island.
- Seeing mum get to grips with her new camera & netbook and getting her on Flickr (and picasa and skype and gmail and…)
Also 3 weeks ago I went on my first Maine photography meetup. It’s a vibrant little group and has met every week since I joined and every time it’s been perfect weather every time. Lovely folks all of them and it’s well gratifying getting so many new, active contacts at Flickr. The first was at Wolfe’s Neck, which is well local, then at a cemetery in Portland during peak, and I mean really peak, autumn foliage (I’m calling it falliage, let me know if that gets tiresome), then last Sunday it was down Kennebunk way at a nature reserve. I think the frequency of the meetups now reflects the impending winter when it’s going to be cold…
(willard~beach~girl)
I’ve been angling for more work/ a ‘proper’ job via craigslist and suchlike which has involved a re-theming of agaveweb.com . I’m going to try writing more articles for it, rather than the usual self-congratulatory, thinly-veiled marketing pitches, and see where that gets me. The first is called 10 tips for your non-profit’s website, since I seem to have a fair bit of experience working with cash-strapped but very worthwhile ventures. I still need to update the portfolio though ‘cos I pretty much let the site fall by the wayside once I started web developing for Lewis & Clark last year.
We’ve bought our tickets to go back to zummerzet, I won’t say when cos I don’t want to give the squirrels notice of when atticus won’t be guarding the house. But I’m stoked (to use the parlance of our recent times). DrSita’s not been back for ages and there are tons of people I ain’t seen for a good long while whom it’d be lovely to catch up with.
If you’ve read this far, first off, thanks, secondly there’s a new icon at the end of this (and all others) post(s) 
if you click the + sign next to it that means you “like” what I’ve written. Comments are best of course, but if you’re not feeling that inspired just give it a click. I can be needy at times. Of course a ‘like’ and a comment would be grand too. Can’t quite offer as much as Skippy over at his site, “A kingdom for a comment”…
Where the Wild Things Are
There was an impromptu shadow puppetry display whilst on Sunday’s Maine Photography meet-up. I missed a shot of “Nixon meets a Duck”, but I liked this one… It’s the textures I think.
This won’t look good in syndication…
Just limbering up, trying to remember how to blog… below’s what I take photos of. Click on a subject if your reflexes are up to it.
Action
Alameda
Animals
Artesanía / Craft
Autumn
black and white
car
Chameleon Cars
Chapala
Cityscapes
Coast
Collages
Countryside / Campo
Extreme Weather
fisheye
Flowers
Food / Comida
Guadalajara
Indoors
Landmarks
Lucha Libre
Markets / Tianguis
Misc
Monuments
Mops
Nature
Panoramas
People / Personas
Portland
Prime
Santa Cruz
Sky
Spring
Tequila
Water
winter
WP Cumulus Flash tag cloud by Roy Tanck requires Flash Player 9 or better.
I do solemnly swear to update this blog in the next day or three
Blue, Yellow, Black
From Saturday’s Maine Photography Meetup in Wolf’s Neck State Park, 20 minutes south of here. Just the 5 of us, but it was a grand day for a walk. More soon I hope.
Shell Planet
I’ve got me mum visiting at the minute so we’ve put her to work making fantastic meals in exchange for showing her around the Maine countryside. Today we went to Bath and Harpswell. This one’s from the latter. Got to go now, chicken curry and apple crumble are almost ready.
Lisbon Falls, Maine
The town (not the waterfall) where Stephen King went to school if Wikipedia‘s to be believed.
Nice area. It has trees… water… trees.
All Atticus, all the time.
In honour of getting our little black dog back from his holidays there’s a new item in the menu on the top right. Presenting “Cusify”. Click it to have all the images on the page replaced with random ones of Atticus. And then see if you can tell the difference…
Here are some sample images which start off not being of the dog.
You can also drag that link to your bookmarks and click it when you’re on any page at all. An image search for squirrels f’rexample.
(nicked and adapted from the Kittenifier)
We’re back. Luggage too.
We just got back from a 4-day trip to Los Angeles, I won’t go into details but it wasn’t really for business or pleasure. It went as well as could be expected and it was nice to catch up with everyone on the other side of the continent.
Atticus still needs picking up from his canine hotel, we could have gone this morning to get him but his massage and pedicure treatment was scheduled for the early afternoon so I’ll be nipping off to the “10 acres of land in beautiful Freeport, Maine” to get him in an hour or two. In the meantime I can actually get some work done…
Our luggage got delivered this morning. It couldn’t keep up with on all three flights. It was problems all the way and if we have the choice of other airlines I’ll be giving Northwest/Delta the widest possible berth in the future. On the plus side, we weren’t travelling with the dog or it could’ve been bad.
This week on the work front: Maine Latino, Belgian cookware, sending off the Fan Club photos to his fans and a few other minor bits and pieces. Time to start drumming up business again.
And talking of business, Moocards had a 3 year anniversary offer to print 50 business cards for free. They turned up and survived the water sodden post box. They’re pretty. I got one of each of my 50 most ‘interesting’ photos on Flickr.
Cos they were free there’s a blurb on the front of each one, so I might spring for the actual paid version…
Flow
Jesse gave me a quick tour of the surroundings of Amherst, Massachusetts on Sunday. He’s got a ton of fancy equipment but doesn’t have the same narcissistic urge to share his pics with the internet at large so I can only guess at the outstanding quality of what he shoots. This one’s from Rattlesnake Creek near Leverett. Trees about to turn, bubbling brooks and long exposures made for a bucolic Sunday morning.