Wednesday, May 25, 2011

My Time + Guy Time

Last weekend I had the house all to myself for 3 full days.  I was super busy all weekend, so I really did not have time to put my feet up, drink coffee and read books.  I had to shoot a senior on Friday and a golf scramble on Saturday.  Scrapbooking and dinner with some dear friends, Stephanie and Andrea on Friday as well.  Saturday my Indy friends Mark and Lori and their boys were in town for soccer and took me to dinner at a quaint Newburgh restaurant on the river.  Sunday a double shift at the connection center at church and lots of photo editing and grass cutting.  

The guys left on Thursday afternoon after school.  They headed to Northern Michigan to for the annual Minniear Morel Mushroom Hunting Weekend.  Two friends went along, Carlos and Bo.
They were a little early, season wise.  They found plenty of mushrooms, however, they were the blacks and not the yellows that they prefer.  But guy time was fun and they all had a great time.
Here are some photos of them packing up and heading out.










Wednesday, May 18, 2011

 Say Cheese for 20 minutes!

Photography at its very beginning was neither instant, color or very comfortable. Here are 3 things you probably didn't know about what photo fans had to go through at first.

The first photography process available out there required people to stand still for 10 to 20 minutes in order to obtain a proper exposure and have their photo taken. It was going on around the year 1840.




People had access to color photography well before it was actually invented. How come? No magic was involved. After the black and white images were printed, specially trained experts were coloring them by hand, using a brush. It was a very complex and detailed process and only very skillful persons were able to do it.



For almost 50 years after its invention, photography remained a luxury accessible to few people. It was George Eastman who introduced the flexible film in 1884 and turned photography into a hobby for all. The same Eastman invented the popular brand Kodak.  (pictured below is the Kodak Brownie camera)




From 2011 Best Family Photography Tips Newsletter

Images from Google Images

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Flooding along the Ohio

Rain, Rain, Go Away, come again another day!  Here in southern Indiana, as in many places in the mid-west we have seen our fair share of rain during the month of April and already 5 inches have fallen the first 2 days of May.  I went to downtown to the Old Newburgh  Lock and Dam to see the swollen Ohio River and walk along it banks.  I was amazed at the amount of water there is.  I did not take my camera, but I had my cell phone.  So come along with me and see what I saw.....


The water is normally quite a distance from that park bench.


The banks of the river are washing away in chunks!


The amount of debris was amazing!

This is a view of the boat ramp.  Normally there is a driveway just before that leaning pine tree where you exit with your boat trailer.    To the right of that leaning pine tree is a huge parking lot and the ramp, now underwater.


To the right of the sign, between the chain area, is where you would have driven up a long winding steep hill to exit with your boat trailer.

The Old Lock and Dam building's basement is under water.

You can see right through the basement windows.


Flag in the park area.  Unfortunately the park is underwater.



The following photos and information is from the Evansville Courier and Press Newspaper

DENNY SIMMONS / Courier & Press
A sidewalk is buckled after nearly half of the hill at the Newburgh Old Lock and Dam Park — saturated from the rain — let loose and slid down the hill. Vectren workers were on hand on Tuesday to turn off the gas lines that ruptured during the landslide.

One of two houses atop the hill at Newburgh's Old Lock and Dam Park sits about 20 yards from where a huge section of dirt and grass slid about a foot downhill.


A part of the parking lot atop Newburgh's Old Lock and Dam Park collapsed — as nearly half of the park's hill did — and created a landslide Tuesday.


Randy A. VanWynsberghe photography
The flooded Ohio River is seen looking north toward Evansville's downtown on Tuesday afternoon


DENNY SIMMONS / Courier & Press
The confluence of the Wabash River, left, and the Ohio River, right, covers miles of farmland and is backing up water upriver from both watery thoroughfares.


DENNY SIMMONS / Courier & Press
Ellis Park Race track is surrounded by the muddy floodwaters of the Ohio River Thursday morning. The infield is also flooded with seepage from the river and U.S. 41 has been unaffected so far.