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This Week Around the Neighborhood
We have been trying to get the pugs out for walks whenever we can with the heat being excessive like it is these days. Mostly we take them out around sunset but on Monday morning, we got to take them in the morning. It was a little bit cooler and actually felt really good out. A neighbor stopped to tell us a young deer was just across the street in the park, so I grabbed my camera to try to get a couple of shots. Unfortunately I overstayed my welcome and the deer ran off. I did not feel good about that. So, I’m sorry, deer! We continued on around the neighborhood and stopped off at the pond. A bunch of geese (I think they were the geese – my husband thought maybe they were the local ducks, but I think they were geese) flew overhead and I was able to catch them. Then one of the neighborhood cats came over and pretty much demanded my husband pet them, so he did. And then Hazel posed for a couple of shots as well. I was surprised that there was so much to photograph because I always feel like there’s nothing here to see. So, it was a great morning walk!
All photos were taken with Nikon Z5ii and 70-200 2.8 Z lens.
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August.
Whew. It’s been a month for sure! We just got settled in to being home and then turned around and went to The Netherlands to visit family. And it was great. We were only there about 3 days, but we got a lot in. This was my first time there, and I loved it. It was a little more English/American than France but still retained its own vibe for sure. The trains were AMAZING. It was so convenient to have transportation that actually was very prompt, efficient and dependable. And side note: my husband left his phone on the train when we were on our way to the airport in Amsterdam. The train supervisor called me – I had marked his phone “lost” and put my phone number in as a contact – and he had found the phone and turned it in to the ticketing counter. We are still waiting for it. I was unable to get back to the train counter before the plane left to go home but my son sent it and it is en route. However, I was just amazed at the efficiency of these trains. And the bikes! SO AMAZING. The infrastructure is superb and bikes are king. It is so different from here in America where bikes are looked down upon. I loved it. We had a great time and visited Leiden, Amsterdam and Utrecht. Great food, shopping and scenery!
Here are some photos from Utrecht. Shot with the Nikon Z5ii and 24-70 2.8 (version one).
Here are some scenes from Amsterdam (yes, I know it’s a lot but there’s a lot to see there!). These are all shot with the iPhone 17 Pro; I was just not wanting to carry the camera all day:
And some from Utrecht, again with the Nikon Z5ii + 24-70 2.8:
Oh la la…so many photos. Well, I could have done separate posts, which I should have I guess, but here we are. Also some from a bike ride we did in Bussum (these are all iPhone 17 Pro):
All in all, I loved it in The Netherlands. I am so impressed with the infrastructure for bikes, and just all of it. Except the exceptionally steep stairs. Those I’ll have to get used to.
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And RAGBRAI LIII
And the second half of July was RAGBRAI! The annual ride across Iowa, in all its crazy glory. It was a great year; a little hot to start out the week but the temps cooled and the rest of the week was really pleasant! I love this week every year for so many reasons but I think most of all it makes me happy to come back to Iowa (where I grew up) and get to be part of this magnificent thing that is RAGBRAI. So here are some photos from our week. I did not bring a camera so these are all iPhone 17 Pro. It did a pretty good job!
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It’s Been a While…
And it’s been a busy summer! I was home for approximately 8 total days in July. First we started off by going to France again at the end of June. We got to see a lot of the things we love, like the coastline, and some new things like the Carnac Alignements and Le Tour de France. So it was a great time, although quite hot. And with it being really an unusual heat wave, for most of the trip we did not have air conditioning. But still, we had a great time and felt lucky to have gotten to be there! Here are a few photos from the trip. I only took my Fujifilm X100VI with me this time, so these are all shot with that.
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Our Backyard
I was surprised to find as many things as I did in the backyard to photograph with a macro lens. A macro just opens up so many possibilities that you’d never know about until you get up close. The grass shots were just sitting the camera in the grass, all of the shots were really low to the ground. I found a spider (I’m not a fan) on a piece of wood chip mulch. It was only about a half an inch across, but it looks so much bigger in macro. And the flowers were blooming and really pretty. And Hazel was too.
All photos taken with Nikon Z50ii and Nikon Z 105 2.8 MC lens.
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New Cyanotypes
These turned out pretty well. I maybe could go a little lighter on the exposure, I don’t know. The blues are just so vibrant and nice. Had an interesting double exposure, I had no idea I had two negatives stuck together. Not sure if I actually like it but I’m going to post it anyway. These have been fun. I think I have a long way to go before I get it down or find my own thing with it but it’s been fun!
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Polaroid Image Transfers
I honestly don’t really remember a lot about how to do these. I don’t think you can get the film I used anymore. You had a machine that projected a slide onto a Polaroid and then you took the top off and transferred it to other paper. It was a lot of fun and you got some really fun things. I think a few of these are emulsion lifts, too, which I’ve totally forgotten all about. I think honestly, some of these are 25 years old and they’ve held up well, I think. I still have the machine but a quick internet search shows 669 film available on eBay. And that’s mostly it, so I’m not going to be doing any more of these. It was a lot of fun, though!
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Not much going on lately…
I haven’t gotten a whole lot done lately. I did a few more cyanotypes (will share those later), did my 52 Frames submission and started drawing for another Portes de Pont-Aven painting. I dug out some old Polaroid Transfers from 2001-2003 and may list them on Etsy. We will see. I have a pile of them that have just been hanging out here. It might be nice to send them out into the world. I’ll make another post of them too. For today, I took a walk down to the pond, and I usually think there is nothing in the neighborhood really interesting enough to photograph. But I had a 52 Frames submission to do, and the theme was water. And we have a pond. I started off just taking generic photos of the pond, and they were ok. Mostly. Then I tried to do a few of just the reflections on the water. Then I found a rock and threw it in. And that was it. It’s not great, but it was fun to try to do something different. The extra credit this week was use a 1/4000+ shutter speed so I set the camera on shutter priority at 1/4000 and threw some rocks in. I even saw a little turtle and took a few photos of him. When I got back to the bank after going to hunt for rocks, I saw him trying to climb down the bank into the water, and it was a pretty steep slope. Poor little guy just tumbled all the way down to the water and just swam off, so I’m assuming he’s ok! It was really enjoyable. Here are a few from the pond.
All are Nikon Z50ii with the 16-50 2.8 Nikon lens.
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Ricoh Neighborhood Photos
I haven’t really gone anywhere interesting to take photos so took the Ricoh on a walk around the neighborhood; I can’t go far because Gary is recovering from extensive bladder surgery (he’s doing great!) but he can’t walk far. So, we just ambled around the house and neighborhood. I love the Ricoh, and it’s a great grab-and-go camera. I got a purple JJC ring for some bling on it, and maybe that made me want to do something with it. Nothing too exciting here, but I’m trying to appreciate where I am. And missing travel photography…
Ricoh GRIIIX, black and white custom recipe.
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Action Pugs
I had to do a fast shutter speed for 52 Frames and of course, it was going to be action dog shots. Only my dogs are awkward, so they just turned out to be funny. Oh well, it made me laugh and they’re super cute.
Nikon Z50ii, 70-200 2.8 lens.
