Help me out with your votes for my t-shirt design!

Hi everyone,

I need your help, scoring my t-shirt design in the Threadless Loves Photography contest!  If you click on the link above, it will take you directly to my t-shirt design, which is the above photo on a light pink t-shirt.  There are only 7 days to put your vote in and I'm hoping that you'll all forward this blog post/request to your friends and family members as well. 

Thanks so much!  Cindy

Bug Light Kite Festival 2012

Giant Manta Ray Kite

Lots of Kites everywhere

A butterfly kite joins the fun

Helping to control the Manta Ray

This morning, I went with my daughter to the Bug Light Kite Festival in South Portland, Maine.  It was a lot of fun--tons of kite flying, happy people, blue skies and warm, Spring weather.  We also got to go inside tiny Bug Light, which is something I'd wanted to do for a while, but the pictures aren't all that noteworthy. . . 

You can see these pictures and many, many more on my new Bug Light Kite Festival Gallery!

Night Photography in Deer Isle, Maine

A 35 minute exposure at ISO 160, f/4.5 taken in the field across the street from my mother's house.

The identical perspective and camera placement to the above shot, but a dramatically shorter exposure and higher ISO to be able to capture the stars not moving.  ISO 3200, f/4.5 for 45 seconds.

Taken by turning back across the street towards my mother's house.  Same exposure as the second shot here.  Amazing, how the dim, soft lighting inside ended up looking like I had placed bright flashes behind each window.  It even created light flares up in the pine trees and on top of the house. 

We visited my mother in Deer Isle for Mother's Day this past weekend and had a great dinner with her and my brother and his wife!  I had determined that if it remained as clear as it had been all day long, that I would get out well after dark and finally try my hand at some star trails and star photography.  So I am really happy that I was able to do that and got some nifty pictures.  It would have been better had I had some foreground element, but at least I got to practice! 

I was also very happy the next morning that the birds woke me up exceptionally early (4:40 am!) and I looked out the window and saw that it was mostly cloudy.  I thought I might go back to bed, but then I thought that I am hardly ever up in Deer Isle, so I dragged my butt out of bed and headed over to Marriner's Park, about five minutes away with my camera and tripod, where I was able to get some nice shots at high tide of the sunrise.

Marriner's Park at Dawn:  this water-filled canoe drifted into the picture and I placed my camera and tripod so I could capture the sunrise along with it and these beautiful rocks. 

This is an in-camera HDR.

You can see all of these shots and many more in my brand new Deer Isle Gallery.

Vote Now: Martini Splashdown Tutorial on Pentax Forums

click here to vote for my article!

Hi Friends of Pentax (and of me)!  I'm excited to announce that it is now possible for you to vote for my tutorial article, "Martini Splashdown: How I Made the Shot",  on Pentax Forums.  


I posted it back in December when the $1000 Giveaway contest was announced and my article made it as one of 15 finalists.  If you would take the time to check the article out and see if you think it is worthy of your vote, you can click on either the link below the Pentax forums picture or the hyperlink in the above paragraph.  


If you know anyone who uses Pentax gear of any sort, if you could forward this on to them and ask them to give me a vote, too, that would be greatly appreciated!  Thanks for your help.  Cindy

Shaken, NOT Stirred. . .

Shaken, NOT Stirred. . . .

I had a lot of messy fun taking this shot yesterday.  After many unsatisfying splashes in which those tiny green orbs just plunked in and barely made a wave, I realized that I could POUR the liquid into the glass and have it cascade all around in a very exciting way, much like I have done with wine pours. 

HOWEVER. . . .

When I put the olives into the glass first and then poured, inevitably, thanks to the physics of the glass shape, the water ejected the olives out the right side of the glass and OUT of my composition, leaving me with some great pours, but NO olives in sight, or olives flying hastily out of the frame along with lots of water.  NOT what I was looking for obviously! 

So, then I hit on the idea of using one of the underwhelming shots where the olives showed through the water nicely, but had made a really pathetic splash.  I put the best splash shot together with the best olive shot and erased the olives into the splash shot and voila:

A Martini, shaken, NOT stirred! 

You can see this and all of my other food & restaurant work here on my website.