Remembering someone who left too soon

Rufus and Maya at sunset, July 2007, Kawanhee Inn on Webb Lake, Weld, ME. . .

This morning, I'm remembering someone who left us too soon. . . My mother's boyfriend/partner of 13 years, Rufus Hellendale, died this past week in a tragic and senseless accident that we're all still reeling over. Apparently, he was pruning a tree on a 16 foot ladder that was quite rickety in the woods near his cabin when he fell and broke his neck, dying.

He was so much to so many people, it's unbelievable to think that he's gone at age 53. He was a rebel, a wild, untamed spirit, in so many ways, and while he died doing something he loved, which was working on his many acres of land in Cape Rosier, Maine, I wish we could've gotten a phone call on Friday saying that Mom had found him in the woods, alive but badly injured, or that in a passing way she could've told me that he had had to leap off his ladder when it broke, spraining his ankle or even breaking it.

Not the way it really went down. . .


Rufus was the love of my mother's life, and they should've been able to grow old together. He loved gardening, and working with his hands, building things out of the cedar trees from his own beautiful property. He loved fine foods, traveling and learning about new cultures, getting exercise in so many ways. But most of all, he loved the outdoors, nature. He died doing one of the things he loved most, which is a small consolation, I suppose, but I know we'd all rather just have him here, perhaps limping around for a while on an injured ankle, alive and well.



He could be infuriating sometimes, to me, but I adored him. We sometimes had a bit of friction, such as the time I told Jon I didn't want him to have Rufus teach him to paraglide because I felt it was an unsafe sport--boy, he was pretty ticked off at me! (and vice versa!) But we got through it, and many other things, and in the last three to four years, we'd been getting along famously, aside from minor, petty things. (He was always rearranging stuff in my house when he came to visit, and I STILL can't find my favorite attachment to the Zyliss cheese grater that he was the last one to use two years ago! lol!)

Rufus windsurfing (another passion) on Webb Lake when we stayed at Kawanhee Inn last July 2007. . .

Rufus and I had so many incredible conversations. . . We talked about everything from photography (my passion) to slow food, global warming, politics, being a parent, gardening, my mother, travel and life in general. I wish I'd recorded every conversation because I always came away from them feeling uplifted. Rufus had a fascinating perspective on life. . .

I had an amazing dream about him on Friday night after Mom called me about his death:

Rufus was showing Mom, Maya, Jon and I around this beautiful little cedar house he'd built in his inimitable style--live edge boards, peeled cedar poles as supports, everything looking like it grew that way as opposed to being physically crafted.

We were following him up this beautiful spiral staircase in the center of the house and rich, golden sunlight was pouring through every window, as though it came from every direction. he seemed radiantly happy and at peace as he showed us knick knacks and things that had been meaningful throughout his life: books from his childhood, cups and trinkets.

The last thing he showed us was this bar of handmade lavender soap that was wrapped in lavender colored paper and had another piece of paper wrapped around it with the logo of the company that had made it with a nice drawing of lavender and some text on it. He let us all smell it, and unfortunately, I woke up before we could get to the top with him.

I told Mom the next day and it was very meaningful to her, but it became even more meaningful to us on Sunday afternoon. We had visited his cabin and laid lupines on the spot where he fell, and visited the lady slippers that grew all over his woods as he'd always wanted us to do. Maya took a swim in his lovely pond, and we all drank a cup of delicious water from his well.

When we left, we stopped at the Bucks Harbor Market to get a few groceries we needed, and when we got up to the front counter, I looked down and saw THE SAME SOAP Rufus had shown us in my dream, stacked up with a few other scents of soap from the same company.

I showed Mom, and she was really surprised and shocked, because last year, she and Rufus had gone to the woman who owns that soap company and spent a pleasant afternoon of soapmaking lessons with her. One of rufus's favorite scents was lavender. . .

There's no doubt in my mind that both incidents, the dream and seeing the soap, were a message to all of us that he is in peace now. Whether or not it's really true, it means a lot to me and I will treasure my memories and many pictures of Rufus always.

You left us too soon, man. . .

Rufus with Maya, her first Thanksgiving, November 1999. . .

You will be missed. . . .

Dawn Visit to Portland Headlight

Maya and I got up superbly early on Saturday, May 24th and drove out to Portland Headlight in Cape Elizabeth Maine. I took 4 panoramas as the sunrise changed, but this one is the one that has come out the best so far:

Click on the picture to see the full-sized version. Hope you like it! Cheers, Cindy

Now selling 18 x 24 gallery posters of Dawn on Portland Headlight!

I've been learning how to do more complex things with the wonderful book my father gave me at Christmas (among many other awesome things!) The Photoshop CS2 Book by Scott Kelby. I learned today how to create gallery prints and I put this one together. I am very proud of figuring this out!

I am selling the prints at $25.00 plus $5.00 S&H. I hope people will be interested, as it would certainly help publicize my photography business!

More splashes and a new self-portrait. . .

Still trying to get the crispest splash photos possible in my quest to become an istockphoto provider at some point. This high speed experiment has been a real learning experience, I'll tell you. (if you click on the pictures, they will open into a large view.)

These were shot at f/16, ISO 200, and this time, set up my shoot with the martini glass standing on two bricks with a white dropcloth covering them and the picnic table to reduce shadowing on the bottom of the glass, which is what I got when I shot with the glass atop the dark wood alone. It really paid off--the first shot is my favorite.

What I encountered with istockphoto the other day when I uploaded 3 of the former images was this: rejected, due to overfiltering. . . (cue the funeral dirge!) In doing some research and with the handy advice of a fellow Pentaxian on the dPreview Pentax SLR discussion group, I discovered just what I was doing wrong in Photoshop CS2. I was really booping up the shadows in camera raw, as well as adding quantities of 50% in the luminance smoothing, color denoising and sharpening categories, which basically is overprocessing for istock. They want minimal denoising, no sharpening and the right exposure every time. . .

Not so much to ask, you say? Well, it's easier said than done, but I'm learning! I'll keep you posted (literally!)

Also, as a last point of debatable interest: take notice of my new self-portrait, taken yesterday in the back yard for my upcoming show this summer at Terrell Lester's Deer Isle, ME gallery!

High Speed obsession!!!

Martini Splash. . .

So I spent the last few days learning how to take high speed splash photography, much as I did last spring with the Canon poin-and-shoot. Only, as I have recently discovered, the Canon did much of the work for me! I've had to actually learn how to set the camera to freeze the splashes. Here are some of the best work so far, using only available full sunlight and a black cloth background I bought at Joann Fabric for about $2.50:

Strawberry Margarita. . .

Orange Splashdown. . .

Manhattan Style. . .

I understand how to set the camera, but even with bright sunlight, the black background sucks up so much of the available light that whatever pictures I took were extremely underexposed. Taking them in RAW really helped, because Photoshop CS2's camera raw feature allowed me to adjust the exposure settings and end up with the nifty-looking photos you see here, but blown up to 100% size, they look grainy and full of artifacting from being so underexposed.

So, I have been on a quest to find an less expensive light source that would work but not cost me an arm and a leg, so to speak, by purchasing true studio lights.

Orange Vertigo. . .

I discovered that Halogen worklights are extremely HOT and have a yellow cast to them. Then I discovered that there are such things as Painter's Halogen worklamps that in addition to having a true color bulb, they also have a frosted front panel that acts as a diffuser, which won't make hot spots on my photos. So that may be the way I go. . . To be continued!

And last but not least:

Raspberry Margarita! Cheers!

Spring Blossoms

I went out this morning after yesterday's heavy torrential downpour to capture some shots of all the beautiful blooms here in Portland. I was particularly happy to catch these cherry blossoms.



This tulip was in my garden. Still is. . .



I had a hard time photographing forsythia blossoms. They're just so unrelentingly yellow--which is a good thing, just hard to get.



Dewdrops on some pretty green leaves



And at last, dewdrops on lady's mantle from my garden.

To all the evil virus-dispersing people of the world. . .

This post isn't going to have much to do with photography. Instead, I'm going to write a letter to the black-hearted individual who so kindly placed a comment on one of my posts that was in truth a lovely packet of FIVE different viruses: 2 worms, 2 trojan horses, and something else that I don't recall the name of. First of all, I cannot believe that Blogspot doesn't have the ability to detect such viruses and delete them before they are ever allowed to infiltrate people's computers. But I cannot imagine that people would actually waste their time creating viruses to destroy other people's hard work and things bought with their hard-earned money when they are obviously intelligent enough to do things that actually BETTER our obviously sick society. Shame on you, if you are reading this. While I am lucky to have a husband who is an IT professional, and knew enough to start my own virus scan and delete the rotten things from my computer, many people don't have the access or knowledge to get rid of viruses, and millions of dollars are wasted each year on ridiculous creations just like yours. Why not be a hero, and HELP stamp out viruses, instead of a nameless, faceless LOSER of massive proportions, as you currently are? I challenge you to try to find something good to do in society. Otherwise, GO POUND SAND my friend. . .
To anyone else reading this: watch out if you post or even click on Blogspot comments, because they obviosuly DON'T protect from such onslaughts.

More panoramic madness! and a couple of other side-ventures. . .

So, last night after writer's group, I headed to a chic bar in Portland's Old Port section called UNA and took an 8 image panorama of it by night. It had slight stitching flaws on the top and bottom, so I cropped in to get the best part of the picture. I'm pretty happy with this! (In each image, you can click on it to get to the full sized versions!)



This is a better version of the wooden chapel I posted last time. Dad did it for me with PTGui, which I can't afford yet, as it costs over $200 and I have put too much dough into other photographic ventures as of late--namely the gallery show I'm going to have in July and August at Terrell Lester's gallery in Deer Isle. To date, I have spent more than $700 (ulp!) on printing, matting and framing supplies. When all those framing supplies arrive in a week or so, I have to get down to the drudgery work: putting them all together correctly. *sigh*



I'm quite happy with this one too--this is the cathedral of the immaculate conception, the Catholic church my great-grandparents, Thomas and Mary Joyce, were married in 1905, so it means a lot to me. It is comprised of (can't remember how many) many images vertically shot to capture the amazing groined ceiling, and it is all built from white marble. The immigrant Catholic population of Portland scrimped and saved to pay for it to be built and it's quite beautiful and imposing.

Other news is that Dad gave me his currently unused macro lens attachments, a Raynox 150 and a Raynoc 250, which I used to make these nifty shots of crocii and bees last week:













I am thrilled with the Raynox lenses--they just sort of easily clamp onto the front of your lens and you move near your subject and snap away. Those bees were HARD to capture though--they move sooo fast!

Check back again soon to see what else I am working on--Spring has officially sprung!
Until next time, I bid you adieu!

Panoramamania!

Well, thanks to a really great photographer from Germany, Phil Zucker, who posts on the Pentax SLR talk site I frequent, I've had a little renaissance with my panorama making skills! I hope very soon to make them even better, but I'll show you the newest ones here. The panos don't show at their widest lengths, so if you click on the image, it will take you to a full view of it. But you get the idea. . . Also--gave up on the namby-pamby pastels--I like basic black!

The first image here is a vertical pano of St. Luke's Episcopalian Cathedral on Portland's historic State Street. I particularly like this view:



Below this, you'll find a horizontal pano comprised of either 9 or 10 images of St. Paul's Anglican Church on Portland's East End that I took the other day:




This one hasn't been perfected yet, but my Photoshop Wizard (read: Dad) is going to work on it in the near future to make it look better. But this is the side chapel at St. Luke's. The entire thing is built out of highly polished, dark, carved wood, in a duomo or dome shape. It has an octagonal translucent skylight at the top. The priest was just about to lock the church up for the day, so after spending all the time I did in the Cathedral proper, I only had about five minutes to get one SLICE of the chapel. I intend to get back there soon and take the whole chapel in one pano, if possible.



Last but not least is the horizontal pano I did of St. Luke's Cathedral. I believe this is comprised of about 10 images as well:



I also took what I call an "Omnirama" series of images of the cathedral, where I also captured the ceiling above the lower part--so it will be twice as large as the one above this. My father is going to work on that, too--then I will be able to post it here. In the meantime, keep checking back!

HAPPY EASTER 2008!

These are the eggs Maya, her cousin Eve and I dyed yesterday afternoon--they're pretty cool, aren't they? It's actually a lot easier than it looks--the dye comes in liquid packets with some sort of oil in them that stays separate from the dye, so when you dip the hardboiled eggs in with a spoon or a dipper and swirl them around in a circular pattern for a second or two, they get coated or dappled in the pattern you see. Then you dry them off with a paper towel and dip them in a contrasting color, and so on, until you have the effect you want. Easy, peasy, japanezy! And here are Eve and Maya, hard at work in the kitchen: