Vehicular Vignette

I am totally behind in putting up posts, yet again, and now they're going to go up out of order, but I am too excited about these pics to wait to post them later.  I'm impatient like that.  Besides, I don't have to look up plants or mushrooms to identify them, like I need to do with a couple of my nature posts that are waiting in the wings.

This past weekend was the Jordan Fall Festival, which is a little local annual event my tiny Village is very proud of.  On the Sunday of the festival each year they have a car show, and this year there were more than 400 cars in it.  I grabbed my camera and my husband and I did a quick tour of it.  I really didn't have time to linger, since I had so many other activities crammed into my weekend.  I hadn't really expected to get photos I would do anything with, but as per my usual, once I started taking photos I got lost in the moment and wound up with a whole bunch of shots. 

Thank goodness for the invention of digital photography - if I had to pay to develop all my photos I would be woefully broke.

I found it hard to resist capturing a little of the character of the show.  There's no doubt that a lot of car enthusiasts have a sense of humor.  I snapped a couple of pictures just because the signs made me laugh:

But then, when I downloaded all my pictures, I was rather tickled some of them.  When I took the shots, I was focusing on just three things: the bright colors, the beautiful old-fashioned lines of the cars, and the reflections in all the shiny paint and chrome and glass.  Some of the photos turned out looking kind of like abstract art.  Others are wonderfully complex because of all that's contained in the reflections, even when they are showing just a tiny snippet of the car.  And the colors and lines I think make for a nice theme.

So, without further ado, my little car show vignette:

My favorite car in the show - a 1960 MG, British racing green with a tan leather interior.  I am such a sucker for cars with that color combination.  My favorite classic car of all time is a 1950 Jaguar XK 120, in those colors.  Yuuummmy.  But this little beauty was lovely, too.

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Labrador Hollow Unique Area

One of the problems with my husband's and my busy lives is that we do not get to spend nearly enough time with my Dad.  So we took advantage of having an extra day in our Labor Day Weekend and went on a little adventure/photography trip with him.  Dad picked a great destination - he always does.  We loaded up the dogs and cameras and binoculars and headed over to Labrador Hollow Unique Area, which is a sweet little spot that is maintained by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

Labrador Hollow is really a hollow left by some glaciers long ago.  It is a total of 1,474 acres, and is located in the towns of Fabius and Truxton on the borders of Onondaga and Cortland Counties.  There is a lovely boardwalk, which is what we spent our time on, but there is a pond that is open for canoeing and fishing as well.

I still haven't mastered taking landscape shots when the sky is bright.  I always, with 100% consistency, underexpose them.  Badly.  I clearly need to go back and take some lessons from my camera genius Lydia at Johnson Camera.  It irritates me no end that I keep getting better and better at using this camera, but I'm wildly missing the mark when it comes to landscape photos on bright days.

The upshot is that I did not really capture any really good shots of the lake itself, or the way it is cradled in the surrounding glacial hills.  I did, however, manage to get some nice photos in the course of the day.

This my Dad identified as Turtle Head.  I don't know that I have ever seen it before:

Some Jewel Weed, which was all over the place:

Some friends we met along the way:

Some friends we brought along.  This is just classic - Simon has gone splat, and Phoebe is still bursting with puppy enthusiasm.

Here is a little mystery.  Anyone know what this is?  I'm not sure whether it's fuzzy lichen, or a colony of furry bugs, or what?  We couldn't get close enough to do any kind of real examination, since we were confined to the board walk.

I love the way the wild cucumbers are catching hold with their telephone cord curlicues:

And just some random photos that capture a little of the atmosphere of the area.  Things have all of a sudden turned gold and autumnal, which doesn't make me particularly happy.  I am not ready for fall.  Nor winter.  For me there are only two seasons: summer, and Raynaud's, and it's already the latter again.  But at least all the fall colors are delightfully photogenic.

The goldenrod fields were just decadently lovely.

It's such a nice spot to have found. (Thanks, Dad!)  Next time perhaps we shall bring a canoe and explore the boundaries of the lake a little more thoroughly.

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Cemetery II

A while ago I shot a series of photos in a cemetery that I happened upon in the course of some travels for work.  I learned that afternoon that cemeteries can make for fantastic photo opportunities, at least for me with the way my brain works.  I love the angles of the stones, the way nature reclaims its own, and all the emotions cemeteries evoke with their sense of history and silent reflection on all the lives and loss that they represent. 

A few weeks ago my husband and I spent a rare quiet Saturday at home, and early in the evening, got inspired to go visit a lovely old cemetery we had driven past in Fulton.  So we loaded camera and tripod and selves, and spent the fading hours of daylight exploring the cemetery.  Here are my favorite shots from the trip.

These sort of fall into several categories: stones with interesting sayings, nature reclaims its own, and just aesthetically pleasing tidbits.

Here are my favorite words from stones.  Some I chose because I liked the words themselves, others because the words conveyed so much meaning, heartbreak, loss, or thought:

Only 21 days.  Such a short life.

I suspect, by now, this person has been forgotten:

 

Somehow something about this stone struck me as creepy, and my husband agreed. Is it the random door? the way it the stone has stained darkly? The fact that "Wolever" seems too close to "Werewolf"? I'm not sure. But creepy, it is.

I adore the name "Mercy Ordelia", and think the font they chose for this is incredibly graceful:

Nature reclaims its own:

And these are the "I just liked the look of them" shots:

I love this.  It looks like the crows, plus a squirrel, are conducting a funeral procession.

I think I need to take a cemeteries trip to Boston one of these days.  So many old and lovely ones there.  I'm sure if I do go on such a trip, the results will be posted here!

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