Category: photo sets

sign and symbol

I often find my eyes drawn to signs, especially the bold and simple graphics of traffic signs. (That is, after all, what they are designed to do.) While some people find that the signs can be detracting from a photo, I actually like the way signs can give a sense of place, especially through the language, text and cultural symbols. In other cases, a sign symbol is used so internationally that rather than reminding us of the locality of a site, we are reminded of our connections.

This is all a rather lofty and overblown introduction to a set of photos I have which include “do not enter” signs. The symbol is a red circle with a horizontal white bar, and it appears on signs the world over. (Or, at the very least, many countries around the world.) Here is I selection I have from 4 continents, taken in 5 different years.

Europe:

In front of the Notre Dame, Paris, France, August, 2007


Sevilla, Spain, September, 2009

Asia:

Macau, August, 2011

North America:

Boston, MA, USA, October, 2010.

South America:

Campinas, Brazil, May, 2008. (Yes, this last one isn’t actually a sign. It’s the light shining through a circular window onto a red carpet in the hallway of the hotel where I was staying. The window is open slightly in the middle, which caused there to be a brighter bar of light in the circle of light. Try to tell me that this doesn’t look like a do not enter symbol.)

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This week’s (okay, last week’s) friday foto finder theme was “circle.” I have oodles of circles in my photo library, but this circular symbol was one that came to mind for the theme.

3 photos of broken glass

Here are 3 photos of scattered broken glass fragments on pavement that I’ve come across in recent years.¹


Train station parking lot, August, 2010


Sidewalk, May, 2013


Rest area parking lot, September, 2013

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I had to drive into Boston for a meeting yesterday, and traffic was a bit slower than is typical late morning, due to construction. I’d also had rough night, sleep-wise, so I’d had more caffeinated beverages than is typical. These combined factors led to me stopping at the rest area on my way in, which is not typical. I looked down at the ground and admired the patterns made by the cracks and the weathered paint, which is typical of me. And I was rewarded by the sight bits of aquamarine-colored glass, bits of someone’s broken car window, sparkling in the sunlight like cut gems. Naturally, I stopped to take some pictures. I was especially pleased that I now had a third photo of broken glass I’d come across to round out my collection. I find it funny that I can remember where I was when I took each of the previous broken glass photos. My mind is littered with this sort of largely useless information.

Shooting the moon

The moon orbits the Earth in an elliptical pattern, meaning, among other things, that it varies in how close it is to the planet. When a full moon coincides with a day when it is closest to the Earth in its orbit, the moon appears both bigger and brighter. 2 years ago, the moon was closer to the Earth than it had been in about 9 years, and this supermoon was dubbed the mega moon:

The March 19, 2011 supermoon was 356,577 kilometers (221,566 miles) away from Earth. The last time the full moon approached so close to Earth was in 1993. It was about 20 percent brighter and 15 percent bigger than a regular full moon.

Even more remarkably (yet strangely not even noted on the Wiki page), on that 2011 date, I was many months into my own 365-day trajectory of daily photography. This meant that not only did I keep my camera handy, I also had by that time learned to use it on full manual, and learned the advantages of using a tripod. In other words, I was in just the right position, in time, space and personal circumstances, to shoot the moon.¹

Even so, it was a bit of an adventure. Living as I do in a heavily wooded area, there was quite a bit of trial and error finding the right spot for the tripod. Not to mention figuring out the right exposure.

This shot, for example, showed me the futility of trying to get a photo without the tripod.

This shot was overexposed, and while it is a lovely glowing white circle, it could just as easily have been…a glowing white circle.

The more I got the moon into focus, the more the surrounding trees made themselves apparent.

Moving the tripod around got me different views of different branches, many of which I actually quite liked.

Eventually, I both found the right place to get a tree-free view, and figured out the right settings to actually see more details with my telphoto lens than my naked eye could make out.

I admit that I was pretty excited. Perhaps not over-the-moon excited, but quite pleased with myself, nonetheless.

This week’s friday foto finder challenge was to share a photo for the theme “moon.” To see more moons, pay a visit to the fff blog.

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¹ I’ve had this title in mind for a while, as this was a set of photos I’d meant to share ages ago. (As in probably in 2011.) I was reminded of this when I saw a post by my friend Sarah also called Shooting the Moon, though with a completely different reference. When Archie announced a couple days after that the fff theme was “moon,” I figured it was all a sign that these were the photos I should post.²

² Especially since, I’m sorry to say, I couldn’t even motivate myself to even go outside and look at last month’s supermoon. It’s not that I was, you know, over the moon, but without the push of daily photography, I am much less likely to get out the tripod. Plus I was tired.³

³ And besides, I’d already recently posted photos related to a different meaning of the word moon.

around the world in big metal boxes (friday foto finder: transport)

Shipping containers are a common sight at ports the world over, as well as making their way inland on freight trains. These large rectangular boxes are often brightly colored, and, especially when stacked together, look like oversized toy blocks. The enormous cranes that are used for moving these boxes are also a striking sight, resembling strange, gigantic creatures. (Robot dinosaurs, perhaps? There is a claim, sadly debunked, that such cranes inspired the AT-AT walkers of Star Wars.)

I’ve found that my eye (and camera lens) have been drawn to shipping containers and their cranes on numerous occasions during my travels. Here are some shots of them on 3 continents.

First, here are some in the Port of Oakland (Oakland, California, USA) taken in 2008 from a ferry.

Moving westward, we have containers in Hong Kong. (Photos taken from a train heading to the airport in August, 2011. You can see more cranes in Hong Kong, this time in Hong Kong Harbour, on this earlier post.)

Heading westward to Europe, we have the port in Barcelona, Spain. (I took this from up on the Castell de Montjuïc, in September, 2009.)

And for good measure, we’ll return westward to North America once more, this time on the East Coast. These cranes for moving shipping containers were near the airport in Newark, NJ. (I think. This was on my way back home from Hong Kong in 2011. I’m too lazy to look up my old itinerary right now!) These cranes look like they might be at a rail yard.

This week’s friday foto finder challenge was to find something to represent “transport.” With my love of travel by so many different modes of transport, the big challenge was to narrow things down.

3 shop window displays

Here are 3 displays I’ve come across in unrelated shop windows in the past few years.

Buttons. Paris, France. August, 2007.


Sewing machines. Boston, MA, USA. December, 2010.


Thread. Shanghai, China. May, 2012.

oft-travelled roads (friday foto finder: road)

Over the past few years, my family has made many road trips, especially between Massachusetts and New York. I tend to be the passenger more often than the driver on these trips, and sometimes I will entertain myself by taking photos. I love the way certain stretches of road will wind, following the curves of the landscape in these hilly regions. Here are a few photos taken on various road trips to New York state. (I don’t know exactly where the first two were taken–we follow highways through parts of Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York. The last two are definitely in New York.)

This week’s friday foto finder challenge was to find a share photos of roads. Once again, my photo library overflows with photos to fit this theme. To see what roads others have travelled, and to see the theme for next week, check out the friday foto finder blog.

3 silhouettes of statues

Here are 3 statues I’ve come across in my travels, and in my wanderings closer to home.


At the de Cordova Museum in Lincoln, MA. (August, 2012)


In Lowell, Massachusetts. (July, 2009)


In Bath, England (January, 2005)