My Best Photos of 2012

I don't normally do this year in review crap, but I'm off work today and I have the time. So I decided to go back through my photos for this year and pick my favorites from each month.

January:


I didn't take a whole lot of photos in January, in fact everything in my January 2012 album is from the first two days of the year. Les and I went to New York City for New Year's Eve last year and we explored the city a little.

I would have to say that my two favorite photos from that trip are the one I took of the skyline from the Staten Island Ferry and this one of Les at Grand Central Terminal. I like the first one just because it turned out so well, it was a long exposure taken without a tripod from a moving boat full of people. I like the second one because it so accurately represents the hustle and bustle of New York.





February:


The year's shortest month was also fairly slow for me photography wise. It was a month I worked a lot and not too much else. Les and I had finally started to feel comfortable with the atheist meetup group and were finally getting to know local people outside of work. All the photos I took in February were taken from my house. My favorite one is probably one I took of a full (or near-full) moon through the tree in my backyard. I took it from inside the house because that was the only way it would line up properly.










March:

Les and I have stopped really giving each other gifts for our birthdays, mostly because if we want something we just buy it. As a replacement we've mostly gone on trips or to concert. In 2012 for Les's birthday we did something I've always wanted to do - we went to a rally in Washington DC. It was the Reason Rally and we went with some of the people from the meetup group. It was cold and rainy but we had a great time. The only photos I took all month were from that rally. And of those my favorite was the sign that read "At least it's not raining Santorum."


April:


My two favorite photos from the month of showers are both from my front yard. The first is one of the numerous rainbows I have seen while living here. I took several of that particular rainbow but my favorite is the one I took where it looks like rainbow is coming out of a pink tulip. The second one is of Les and our dogs in the grass. I just like it.

May:

May was the month I really got back into taking photos. And the reason behind it was geocaching. Les and I did a lot of geocaching in May and I took the camera along for all of it. We ran across a few creatures in our hunting and my favorite photo of the month is of one of them we found in a little park in a very little town. I did a little research and it is an Eastern American Toad. In this photo he is sitting on Les's hand.

My other favorite photo from May is one I took of Les when he opened my door for me. I like it because of the composition but it has the secondary benefit of making me look like I am a gooey romantic (which I'm not at all, Les is though, as if you couldn't tell).

June:

My favorite photo from the first summer month is one of a summer storm. It's no secret that I love lightning storms and I was finally able to capture some lightning from my bedroom window. It took hundreds of tries and I only got 3 good shots, but they're pretty awesome.

My other favorite from June is from a hike Les and I took the dogs on. We went on the Power Line Train in Letchworth, the trailhead is just down the street from our house. The end of the trail overlooks the gorge and  I took a photo of the dogs looking over it. They are really looking at the deer on the other side, but it looks like they're being all deep and contemplative and shit.



July:

When one thinks of photos from July one thinks fireworks. But I don't like any of the firework shots I have taken more that the one I took in 2009 in Chelan. And one fireworks photos look very much like any other fireworks photo. So I have to say that my favorite photo from July is one I took of a chicken crossing a road. Just because it is a chicken and it really is crossing the road. We actually had to stop the car for it.



August:

For my birthday in 2012 we went to Boston. I've always wanted to go to Boston and it was an absolutely fantastic trip. I had a very hard time choosing my favorites from that trip, I had great photos and memories from Boston and the Cape. In the end I have to go with the long exposure of a very interesting bridge right in Boston.

September:

Labor Day weekend in Dansville is the New York State Festival of Balloons, a hot air balloon festival. It's an interesting festival, and the biggest thing in Dansville all year. Of course having been to the International Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque it seems small, but it is a big deal around here. This year Les and I got to chase a balloon and I got several good photos from it. But in the end I think my favorite photo from the month is one of railroad tracks near my house. It's a shot I've been trying to get for a long time, since Price, but that I've never got right. Finally in September 2012 the lighting worked out right.

October:

Autumn is my favorite time of the year for photos and Les and I realized we hadn't taken a photo of ourselves since we moved here.  And his parents are always bugging us for a new one for their wall (but I think they're only after one where my shoulders aren't showing because having my bare shoulders on the wall of a Mormon household is akin to putting porn up on the church wall). So we headed out into the woods with a tripod and took several. We finally figured out how to stand that doesn't look so awkward and I think this one, taken in Letchworth, is my favorite.

November:

Over Veteran's Day weekend Les and I took a whirlwind trip to Cleveland because we had never been there. That's the kind of people we are. I didn't take many photos while we were there because we spent the majority of the day in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame where photography is not allowed and we spent the rest of the the day eating fantastic food. All the photos I took there are in my blog post detailing Ohio. My favorite from the month is yet another skyline, Cleveland with it's tower lit up like a bomb pop for Veteran's Day.

December:

Today is the last day of December and of 2012, so assuming I don't take any awesome photos in the next eight-and-a-half-hours (which isn't likely since I'm sitting on the couch typing and eating chips and dip) my favorite photos from December are from both very Decembery and of things I don't like. The first is a self-portrait in a Christmas tree ornament. I took it while sitting in the Springwater, NY Town Hall waiting for children to come sit on Santa's lap so Les could get a photo for the newspaper. I had seen it done before but had never tried it myself because I tend to avoid Christmas trees in general. But I think it turned out really well.

My other favorite from this month is of snow. The snow didn't start falling until the month was almost over, but once it started it came in force. The day after it started, and the day before it quit, I didn't go to work because all of the people who produce the clothes I put away called in so there was no reason for me to brave the roads. Instead I took the dogs out to play in the snow. And Luna had such a good time playing in it that I had a hard time deciding which photo was my favorite.

Ohio [5/50]

For Veteran's Day weekend Les and I decided to take a short trip, something within a day's drive. We had a few options but eventually narrowed it down to Toronto and Cleveland. Since I have this crazy plan to visit all 50 states and we've technically been to Ontario three times we decided on Cleveland.

The other part of my plan to visit all 50 states is to take photos that represent each state. When I think of Ohio I think of three things. And I got photos of all of them.

This photo is exactly the picture of Ohio I had in my head, down
to the lawn chairs and campaign signs. I would like to thank these people,
whoever they are for not cleaning the signs off their lawn
immediately after the election so I could take this photo. 

The first is suburbia. Tree lined streets with modest two story homes with 2.5 kids and yards. Having only been through Ohio (with one exception for a wedding when I was 15) I was surprised how eerily Ohio lived up to that picture in my head, maybe I've picked it up from TV over the years.

The second is elections. Everybody knows that Ohio picks the president. There's no real reason for it but it's true. And it shows. We were lucky enough to be there only a week after a presidential election, one that was won when Ohio was called.

The photo I chose for Ohio is so perfectly Ohio that the other one is completely unnecessary, but I'm adding it anyway because it is also an Ohio landmark.

No photography is allowed in the Rock and Roll Hall of fame at all,
so after we left I took this of the outside, it's a really cool building.

The third thing is rock and roll. Specifically the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Since we had a single day for this mini-vacation we decided to pick one Cleveland thing to do and it was the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It was a little bit pricey but I'm glad we did it. It wasn't exactly what I was expecting, there were way more clothes on display that I thought there would be, but I'm glad we went. There were some really cool displays, I found the history exhibit fascinating and the building itself is fantastic. 

We ate locally the entire time and the food was fantastic. We're getting better at finding local food and not going for chains at all, it makes a huge difference in the overall experience of a trip.

Ohio is the 5th state I've marked off my visit and take a representative photo list, there are actually more but I only have film photos from those states, I was scanning them a few months ago and I somehow lost them. But 10 percent in a year isn't too bad I don't think.

The Cleveland skyline at night. It was veterans day so the Terminal Tower was lit up red white and blue. It reminded me of a bomb-pop and that's what I referred to it as all night as we used it as a landmark to find our way around.  

My 26th Birthday in (and Around) Boston [part 3]

Sea lions playing with keys, my favorite from the aquarium.

Rays in the touch tank, almost Les's favorite from the aquarium (he liked the bigger ones in the middle tank, but my camera died and these are similar. 

This guy is grooming himself,
he is at the aquarium because he is blind.

Saturday we headed back into the city to do thing second most recommended to us, visit the New England Aquarium. It was a little pricey, but worth it (and it would have been more so if all the penguins hadn't been gone and the first floor virtually empty).

We saw the feeding with the trainers, very interesting. 

Les touching the ray in the touch tank,
I chose to abstain from such icky things.

Little Blue Penguins, the only
ones left at the aquarium.

I thoroughly enjoyed the marine mammal exhibit, we watched the seals get fed and the sea lions playing. The center of the aquarium is a giant cylindrical tank with a ramp around it. It has all manner of fish, big to small, really cool looking to really, really ugly, sharks, rays, a giant turtle and, at one point, a scuba diver. Les found this tank fascinating. He was like a little kid. Every time the turtle would come by he would get excited and he was fascinated by how the stingrays moved. I took a video with my iPod but it didn't work out all that well.

The sea lion just loved these plastic keys,
she would throw them and then chase them.

Because it is the end of mating season the males
pretty much stayed out of the water, in the wild
they would be protecting their area of beach
 from other males. 

The hardest thing about doing stuff like this, for me, is all the children. I know when I go to an aquarium or the zoo or an amusement park or something that there are going to be lots of children there, I shouldn't expect otherwise. And I don't, but it's still overwhelming. They are so loud and sticky (and they have no concept of personal space) that I often find myself not enjoying whatever I came to see or do. This wasn't too bad as far as that goes, or rather it was but in small doses. The touch tanks were near panic attack inducing with all the screaming toddlers, even the handlers were going a little nuts trying to calm people down so the sharks and rays didn't start biting little fingers. But then we went and saw the marine mammal show and it was better, everyone was sitting and watching and I only got my hair pulled two or three times. The tanks around the outer walls were horrible, "Get in there little Suzy/Johnny, look at that cool thing! Oh you're too short, just stand the feet of that lady behind you or pull yourself up on her shoulder." But that was really only a problem at the tanks with popular things in them and the middle tank was large enough that we were able to find a few spots pretty much to ourselves.

The last photo I took before my camera died. 

Of course halfway through our time at the aquarium (we wanted to have plenty of time to get our money's worth) the battery in my camera died. And my phone was still dead from the day before at the beach. Luckily my 365 project made a real photographer of me and I had a third camera with me, my iPod, so the rest of the photos from Saturday aren't great quality.

After we left the aquarium we spent some time just wandering around the city and headed to some of the Boston landmarks we hadn't seen yet. We started with some old cemeteries on the Freedom Trail, the Granary Burying Ground and King's Chapel Burying Ground, we skipped Copp's Hill. We saw some famous people's graves, Samuel Adams and Paul Revere and the like, but what I found most interesting (other than the number of people willing to walk around in the middle of summer wearing period costumes) was the artwork on the headstones.

Les took this with his phone, it has all three of the common
symbols we were noticing, the skull, angel wings and an hourglass.

Compared to the Victorian cemeteries I am familiar with, the imagery is much more direct and I found it fascinating. Victorian headstones pull from Greek myth, Biblical allegory and just random period symbology and are always pretty and nice, look at the photos from Mt. Hope in Rochester or Green-Wood in Brooklyn, everything is gorgeous. The earlier headstones we saw in Boston had realistic looking skulls, angel wings and hourglasses, very dark and deathly symbols. The earlier style is very obvious that this person is dead, they ran out of time, we are sad about it. The Victorian stuff is pretty but doesn't convey the same sense of grief to me.

This squirrel would NOT let go of this
apple, it was bigger than he was.

After the burial grounds we headed to Boston Common, and on a Saturday afternoon, it was packed. We sat and relaxed for a bit. We people watched a little bit, saw the fountain, the kids playing in the wading pool, a squirrel eating an entire apple, some performers, a drum circle whose weed you could smell from half a mile out, the monuments and memorials. And in true form, the State Capital Building, which we got a history lesson on from a very loud passing bus driver with a very thick Boston accent. We might have stayed longer to take some people watching photos if I had my camera, but with just the iPod it doesn't really work.

Gates at Harvard

We decided after seeing Boston Common that the only big thing missing from our trip that we had to see was Harvard. So we got on the T and headed to Cambridge. Because we did this trip for my birthday it was also move-in weekend for Boston's 250,000 + college students. The campus was crawling with students moving stuff, parents saying goodbye and tourists forming lines to take photos of famous Harvard landmarks, I'm sure there was more than a little crossover between the latter two.

We wandered around Harvard for a little bit looking for a snack and a bathroom when I finally gave in and stopped at a bookstore. We spent quite a while there and I forced myself down to only one book, Les bought it so it counted as a birthday present. 

After that we were pretty tired and since we had decided that we had to go back to the cape and see the end of Hwy. 6 before heading home, we called it an early night so we could get everything packed up.

Provincetown

On Sunday we checked out of the hotel ridiculously early, makeshift beach clothes set aside and headed for Cape Cod yet again. We saw the end of the highway and took some photos as proof (some people in Price don't think the damn thing ever ends). Then we explored Provincetown, an awesome, quaint little New England town, we liked it quite a lot.

We did a geocache near Provincetown that took us to Shank Painter Pond, which is the largest known quaking bog anywhere in the world. It was pretty cool, we saw some interesting plant life, a cross-country cyclist taking a bath, a great blue heron taking flight and a giant butterfly.

Shank Painter Pond

Cape Cod Lighthouse

After Provincetown we headed to the beach. On the way we stopped at the Cape Cod Light (aka Highland Lighthouse), the oldest lighthouse on the cape and took some more photos. We walked around but decided that we would rather spend more time at the beach than go up in the lighthouse for the tour.

Picking up rocks
for the Taylors

Eventually we stopped getting distracted and made it to the beach. We walked around barefoot in the sand and Les convinced me to get my feet wet this time. I didn't have any shorts with me, but I had leggings and a tank top I wore underneath another shirt earlier in the week, Les just wore the same shorts from before and we went in the ocean together for the first time. It was the first time I have actually gone in the ocean since sometime in either 1990 (I only remember that Jason was a baby and a seagull stole a chip out of  his hand when we lived in Florida). I went to the beach in California when I was in high school, but it was a school trip and we weren't allowed to go in the water.

Whenever we go on a trip Les likes to send something to his sister and her kids, when we went to Vancouver he wrote on a map of Stanley Park and mailed it to them, we sent them maple candies from Vermont, that kind of thing. They had recently gone to visit his brother in Seattle and had gone to the coast. So he decided we should send them some shells from the Atlantic to go with anything they may have picked up from the Pacific.

It turns out that there weren't all that many shells on this beach, there were a few broken mussel shells and the occasional crab claw, but all very delicate, nothing that would survive 2,000 in the US postal system. So we picked up really cool rocks (at least they looked cool when wet, they turned out to be kind of plain once they dried out) instead.

We sat in our chairs on the beach for a little longer. I remembered how much I love the feeling of burning hot sand on my feet and Les reminded me that he is a big giant baby when it comes to hot things and then, unfortunately it was time to head home.

But we didn't.

We stopped at the visitor's center to take some photos of the dunes and read a little bit of the history of the area. I found it particularly interesting that the entire area was covered in forests when the pilgrims arrived but they cut them down so fast that the first environmental laws to prevent erosion and the spreading of the dunes was enacted in the mid-1600s.

Then we did have to head home. Because we spent so much time on the beach we got caught in a bit of traffic, but it was totally worth it.

I was unprepared for how my feet would sink when the
wave hit and I nearly fell flat on my ass. And I was buried
up to my ankles in sand.

Les had more experience and was
able to remain upright.

Best vacation so far.

My 26th Birthday In (and Around) Boston [part 2]

I took this on Cape Cod, it's going the wrong way and it's from an airplane
but it seemed appropriate considering all the Bewitched stuff we saw.

On Friday we decided to take a bit of a break from the city and see a bit of the outlying touristy type stuff. We started with Salem.

It sucked.

Well, it didn't all suck, but it wasn't like I was picturing it and it was WAY overpriced. I'm not that interested in the kitsch and hype about witches, I am more interested in history and Salem doesn't seem to have a lot of that left. Or if they do, they are going to charge you out the ass for it.

The House of the Seven Gables (3 of which are visible here) as seen from the shore. 

Les pretending to drive a pretend boat

We started out at the House of the Seven Gables, which was pricey, but considering what you get to see on the tour and the amount of information both historical and literary, not overly pricey. The tour guide was very knowledgeable and gave information about how the reality of the history of house differed from that in the book. And it was restored quite well, you get to walk through it, even a secret staircase. We also visited the Friendship of Salem, a recreation of a trading ship from the local area that epitomized the Great Age of Sail. It was kind of interesting and Les had a good time playing the kid's guessing games on the walk out to the lighthouse (see photo).

After that we decided to look into going to the witch museum. It turns out there are like 6 of them.  So I looked up the admission for each of them and they were all about the same. Then I saw the information about the Witch House. It is the only structure in Salem actually connected to the witch trials and they wanted $11 a person for a self-guided tour and $14 for a guided one, ridiculous.  That told me that all the other museums were probably going to be spouting psuedohistory and sensationalizing.

The Friendship of Salem

And psuedohistory and sensationalism would seem to fit with what we saw just walking around town. The restaurant we had lunch it had the Bewitched logo on the wall, there was a statue of Samantha from Bewitched in the green space nearby. Every business we passed either had something to do with witchcraft on their sign or in their name. And I get it, people who are into the sensationalism of witches are going to pay money for that kind of thing. And people who take the occult seriously probably get a kick out of being pandered to and spend money. But I was pretty disappointed in the lack of real history in the place. Maybe I didn't give it a fair shot and if we had gone to one of the museums I would have found it interesting, but based on the rest of the town (and the kitschy webpages and signs for the museums), I highly doubt it.

So we left Salem, we had planned on spending all day there but barely made it through lunch. We were  at a bit of a loss for what to do next, we didn't want to drive the car to Boston, we read many things and spoke to many people who told us not to do that. We didn't want to stay in Salem and we weren't ready to go back to the hotel, so we decided on the other touristy thing near Boston - Cape Cod.

Our first time at the beach together.

Nauset Lighthouse

It was a bit of a drive and we did end up going through Boston, but not on surface streets. We didn't get to the beach until nearly dusk, but we had a great time there. Les was willing to drive back in wet shorts so he went out in the water a little bit. Actually it was supposed to be a little bit but ended up being more like a lot.

He put his shoes and socks up on the beach and put everything from his pockets in his shoes. My pockets weren't big enough for my phone ('cause girl pants suck like that) so I added my phone to his shoes as well. Then he wandered out into the surf while I took pictures. We even saw some seals or porpoises or something jumping around, it was really cool to see them out in the wild like that, unfortunately it was too dark and they were too far away to get any photos.

Then, right as we have decided that it was getting too dark and we should go take a photo of the lighthouse all lit up and head back to the hotel, a giant wave came up farther than any other wave had come in quite a while (I could tell from the dry sand) and washed away Les's shoes and all their contents. We were able to retrieve everything although the pen he had in his pocket was ruined from sand and the screen on my phone became unresponsive.

Nauset Light Beach at sunset.

It was the first time we have ever been to a beach together and Les's first time in the Atlantic, it was a great time and I am so glad we went there after the disappointment of Salem. It was a little stressful not having a phone for the rest of the trip, or rather having a phone that could take calls and receive messages but not being able to answer or read them. And Les had to drive back to the hotel in wet shoes and socks because apparently he hates driving barefoot (which I don't understand at all, I drove barefoot for 90 percent of our cross country trip). But it all worked out, my phone was damaged by sand not water, the water damage indicator hadn't changed so I got a replacement phone for free after we got back home and we made it safely back to the hotel despite Les's wet socks.

On the trip back that night we realized that we were near the conclusion of US Highway 6. We both wanted to go to the end of the highway and, since we had a ton of fun in just one hour on the beach, we decided to come back to the Cape on Sunday before heading home even though it was in the wrong direction.

Nauset Light Beach at dusk.

To be continued...