SnapShots & WhatNots

Apple picking in North Carolina

On Sunday morning we woke up relatively early and drove up to North Carolina to go apple picking with some friends. We did this two years ago and ended up eating all the apples we got within about 2 weeks…making it not exactly worth the long car ride. So this time we bought twice as many apples and I almost made myself sick from eating so many while we were there – it’s pretty amazing to pick them straight from the tree and just crunch right in! So delicious!

There was also a beautiful field of pumpkins and sunflowers which I couldn’t resist taking photo of. Our friends used the day as an opportunity to take family photos but we on the other hand had hair sticking out in all directions and I looked like I’d been dragging through the corn maze backwards. Instead we just took photos of the flowers and ate some apple cider doughnuts.

Now I'll spend the rest of the week baking apple sauce...apple butter....apple pie...apple bread.....and anything else I can think of with apples in it! The house is going to smell amazing!

Cherokee NC

On Friday evening after work we packed up the car with our camping gear and drove 3 and half hours north to Cherokee NC for an impromptu camping trip – I say impromptu because Kathy was running a race on the Saturday morning and I of course had forgotten about it (she runs so many races!). I had also not remembered to go food shopping prior to the weekend and as a result there was a severe lack of food/drink in our cooler. The theme of forgetfulness continued throughout the weekend as we soon realized we’d forgotten to bring a lot of our creature comforts that we normally bring on trips like chairs for beside the fire and books to read late in the evening.

I was thankful that I at least remembered to pack a ton of extra blankets because the nights were cold – I spent the first night drifting in and out of sleep while trying to stay warm, on the second night I wised up and slept in my clothes! This was our first time camping with friends and where we forgot everything they brought the kitchen sink – I have never seen so much food/snacks and accessories while camping before and we balanced each other out perfectly.

The race was an early start on the Saturday and we arrived at the start line in a valley surrounded by foggy mountains while the moon was still high in the sky. Kathy ran off to do her race and Boomer and I hid from the morning chill in the car knitting and people watching.

The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing by the campfire and driving home along the BlueRidgeParkway to watch the fall colours in action. It’s so beautiful up there, every turn in the road is a new wonderful view. We’ve explored so much of the Blue Ridge Parkway now and I loved every bit of it. Last but not least I convinced Kathy to swing by Asheville on the way home so I would go to my “local” yarn shop and buy myself some goodies 

Struggling with my camera

I take far too many photos on my phone rather than on the “big camera”. Mostly this happens because my phone is always to hand whereas the camera lives on my craft desk tucked away. I reach for the big camera when I’m going on a trip, I want to take some shots of the dog outside or if I’ve finished a project (like the cushion yesterday) and want to photograph it. Yet I rarely if ever reach for it to capture everyday simple moments. I seem to always rely solely on my phone for that and it’s a shame.

Another reason I often choose the phone over the camera is because in certain settings, like low-light (which my house has an abundance of) my camera decides to act the maggot and will refuse to take a photo for me….I end up having to zoom out or zoom in or change settings and take the photo the camera wants to take rather than the photo I want to take. It’s frustrating enough that I often resort to taking the photo with my phone anyway!

I would love, love to upgrade my camera but that’s just not on the cards for me at the moment so instead I need to learn how to work with my camera and not against it. I did a night course on beginner photography a few years ago that really helped me learn the basics of aperture, shutter speed and ISO etc. but the main thing that’s holding me back in improving my photography isn’t my camera…it’s lack of practice.

So I’m challenging myself to once a day put down the phone, pick up the camera and just photograph something. Photograph anything, even if it’s just the plants on the windowsill. Practice, practice, practice. 

San Diego Zoo - Pandas, Polar Bears and friends

On the last afternoon of my trip of San Diego, the conference wrapped up early and we had about 9 hours to kill before getting the red-eye back to Columbia at 11 pm that night. As soon as I’d seen the schedule (weeks in advance) I knew exactly how I’d be spending that free afternoon. San Diego Zoo has been on my list of "places I want to visit" ever since I lived in LA. I promised myself that no matter what happened when I lived there I would get to see the zoo, even if I had to fly or take a bus down from LA (I had no car at the time).  Two weeks before I left LA I was telling my then roommate over breakfast how not getting to see the zoo was the only regret I had after a year in LA. Then in an act of pure spontaneity she announced “why not go today?” and so we did. It was fantastic then…..so I knew it would be even better this time around with even more time to explore.  

Most of you already know how much I love zoos, mostly because I love taking photos of animals and zoos offer such a fantastic opportunity to get close to animals that I will never get a chance to photograph in the wild. Every trip is different and there is always one or two animals that stand out from all the others as being better/easier to photograph on a given trip. This trip that prize goes to the Giant Pandas and the Polar Bears….I took at least a hundred of each bear but I’ve only shared my absolute favourites here.  

I definitely think I have a contender or two for my “take 5 photographs I’m really proud of” goal from this bunch.

San Diego baby!

I’m back! After a whirlwind few days in San Diego from which I needed the entire weekend (and then some) to recover from, I’m finally back catching up on my favourite blogs and of course updating my own with the hundreds of photos I took in San Diego.  Although in fairness most of the photos were taken in the zoo and I’ll save them for a separate post.

Less than a week after coming back from my trip to Ireland I was heading off again this time to San Diego. Except that while Ireland was purely a holiday this trip was for work. I attended a major scientific cancer conference that was really engaging and informative but also exhausting. I always forget just how hard it is to stay alert and attentive for all the talks which ran from 7am to 6.30pm....not to mention the networking (which I'm terrible at because I'm super shy!) and the walking.... it easily took 10 minutes to walk from one end of conference center to the other. After 5 days I was shattered.

Unfortunately (because my work is currently unpublished) I can't share the photo of me with the ribbon I got for the "scholar in training award” I was fortunate enough to receive from the Susan Komen foundation. But it was awesome, and I brought the ribbon home so it will be gracing the walls of my house soon and I’ll share it then.

Obviously I was in San Diego for work and even though I only brought the “big camera” out with me one day I still managed to capture a few photos to remember San Diego by. One evening we took a ferry out to Coronado Island for dinner (we'd been hoping to make it to the beach too but science got in the way) but as luck would have it the sun was setting just as we boarded the ferry - best $4 sunset boat cruise ever!

And of course we managed to sneak in a cocktail (mango mojito) outside in the sunshine overlooking the marina, and then later that night we had the most amazing icecream ever (chocolate with butterscotch sauce) from Ghirardelli icecream.....heavenly!

 

So even though I didn't get to venture any further than the tourist parts of town, I still loved loved San Diego, it's going back on the "to visit" list and even on the "might move there" list, although it was very expensive compared to Columbia (but then again everywhere seems to be more expensive than Columbia).

Until the next time San Diego....