Mommy's iPad

Mommy's iPad [152/366], a photo by timsackton on Flickr.

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Some days, the morning goes a lot more smoothly with a little bit of iPad time.

Running Through the Water

Running Through the Water [151/366], a photo by timsackton on Flickr.

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Yesterday morning, the power cord for my laptop died. I spent the better part of the morning trouble-shooting, and then gave up and decided it was really and truly broken, which meant I had to spend the better part of the afternoon heading downtown to the Apple store for a replacement. Argh. However, the Apple store is practically right across the street from the Boston Public Library, which is not only a great place to work but also a great place to photograph (featured previously in my 366 project here). This is the fountain in the courtyard of the McKim Building. Shot with a very fast shutter speed to freeze the motion of the water, I kind of think it looks like the woman is running through a sprinkler.

Barley, Hops, Water, and Yeast

Barley, Hops, Water, and Yeast [150/366], a photo by timsackton on Flickr.

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Playing around with extreme beer close-ups tonight. This didn't quite come out exactly as I imagined, but I'm still pretty happy with it. The beer, by the way, is Victory Hop Whallop, a great, extremely hoppy IPA.

Baby Bird

Baby Bird [149/366], a photo by timsackton on Flickr.

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A few days ago, I noticed these baby birds nesting in one of the play structures at the local playground. With the day off today, and knowing we were going to spend a considerable amount of time playing at the playground today, I decided to try to get a nice shot. This is not perfect, but given the light, my lenses, and the difficulty of setting up a tripod in a place where I could actually photograph the bird, probably the best I can do.

Fun with Bubbles

Fun with Bubbles [148/366], a photo by timsackton on Flickr.

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On Sunday, we drove up to Crane's Beach, north of Boston, for a beach picnic to celebrate my cousin's birthday and high school graduation. It was a perfect afternoon for the beach, and we had a lot of fun playing in the waves and sand, as well as making bubbles in the wind.

New Best Friends

New Best Friends [147/366], a photo by timsackton on Flickr.

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A busy three-day weekend for us. On Saturday, we drove down to Providence, RI for reunion at Brown University. Both my wife (class of 2000) and myself (class of 2001) did our undergraduate degrees at Brown, and although it is not a reunion year for either of us this year, several of our friends from the class of 2002 were up celebrating their 10th reunion. As it is only an hour drive, we decided to make the trip for the afternoon on Saturday.

One of the best part of 10-year reunions is seeing the children of your college friends, and this year was no exception. Isaac really hit it off with the son of one of my best friends from college: they had met before, but this weekend was the first time they were really old enough to appreciate playing together. As you can see, they had a great time running around.

The First Bounty of Spring

The First Bounty of Spring [146/366], a photo by timsackton on Flickr.

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I had grand photo plans today. I was going to leave work a bit early and walk around Harvard Square practicing my street photography. But while I did manage to leave myself a few minutes at the end of the day, I was really not inspired and came back with hardly any photos, none of which are worth anything.

Fortunately, my sister brought some of the first fruits of her farm for dinner tonight: broccoli. I forgot the variety, but rather than producing one big head it produces many little heads, hence the look. Steamed briefly, and dressed with salt and pepper and good olive oil, it was delicious.

It's What's For Breakfast

It's What's For Breakfast [145/366], a photo by timsackton on Flickr.

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Made some granola tonight. It is quite easy: oats, nuts, dried fruit, maple syrup, cinnanom, allspice, and a pinch of cloves, salt, and caradomon. Toast at 300 until it looks and smells good.

Sea of Chairs

Sea of Chairs [144/366], a photo by timsackton on Flickr.

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Harvard's Commencement is tomorrow, so campus will be a nightmare. For the past few days, tents have been going up, and yesterday afternoon this sea of chairs sprang up. I got this shot early this morning while walking to work.

Rainy Day Rhododendron

Rainy Day Rhododendron [143/366], a photo by timsackton on Flickr.

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The past few days have been busy trying to get caught up at work, so no vacation pictures tonight. More soon, though. Yesterday was a cool, rainy day, and the rhododendrons were in full bloom everywhere, so I couldn't resist this shot.

Europe on 300 Pictures a Day

Europe on 300 Pictures a Day [142/366], a photo by timsackton on Flickr.

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I returned from vacation with some French chocolate, lots of great memories, and over 3000 photographs to process. This is going to take a while, especially as the time shift is wrecking havoc with my sleep schedule, so I am crashing only an hour or so after my two year old goes to bed, leaving little time for picture processing.

Lining Up to Fly

Lining Up to Fly [141/366], a photo by timsackton on Flickr.

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Day 141 was our travel day. It was a very long, tiring day, but I still managed to get a few decent shots. This is a line of planes waiting to take off at CDG, shot through the window of our plane.

Red Panda

Red Panda [140/366], a photo by timsackton on Flickr.

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Day 140 was our last day in Paris. As we had not yet made it across the Seine (we were staying on the Right Bank), we decided to go to the Jardin des Plantes and then wander around the Latin Quarter. This is a shot from the zoo in the Jardin des Plantes, which is one of the oldest zoos in Europe. The animal is a Red Panda, a relative of the weasel and raccoon.

L'Amour

L'Amour [139/366], a photo by timsackton on Flickr.

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Getting back to vacation photos - only a few more days to go, and then I'll be caught up! You can see the whole (still incomplete) set of Italy and Paris photos here, if you are so inclined.

This was our second day in Paris. We spent most of the day wandering around the Right Bank. The Stravinsky Fountain, pictured here, is quite a lot of fun for toddlers and adults alike. I had a lot of fun photographing it, although like so many things in Paris it is hard to find a new take on it. Other highlights of the day, in addition to the Stravinsky Fountain pictured here, included some amazing hot chocolate and a nice playground.

Light and Color

Light and Color [138/366], a photo by timsackton on Flickr.

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On our first day in Paris, we spent a lot of time just wandering around and eating good food. But we did make time for one major attraction that we had not been to since our first visit to Paris in 2003: Sainte-Chapelle. The stained glass of Sainte-Chapelle is one of the largest surviving in-situ collections of original 13th century stained glass in the world, and is truly a sight to see.

This is a three exposure HDR, shot handheld in burst mode, and then merged in Photoshop and processed in Lightroom.

Artichokes at the Market

Artichokes at the Market [137/366], a photo by timsackton on Flickr.

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Back to slowly working my way through vacation photos. I know that Day 136 is missing, I'll come back to it soon. You can see the whole (still incomplete) set of vacation photos here, if you are so inclined.

Day 137 was our last day in Rome. We had to leave around 11 am for the airport to fly to Paris for the final few days of our vacation, and with packing up and getting organized we did not really have time for any sightseeing. However, while heading out to get pastries for breakfast and snacks for the airport, I walked through the daily vegetable market in the Campo de' Fiori, which was quite close to where we were staying. I love photographing markets, and this one was no exception. My favorite shot was this photo of artichokes, the quintessential Roman vegetable, traditionally prepared either fried (Carciofi alla giudea) or braised (Carciofi alla romana).

Vatican Lion

Vatican Lion [136/366], a photo by timsackton on Flickr.

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The Vatican Museums. Overwhelmingly large for anybody, but especially a toddler. And yet filled to the brim with things of beauty, some unrelentingly famous, but others small and unnoticed and striking in their own way. For my 366 photograph, I tried to find one of these latter items, a small detail that spoke to me.

Colosseum at Night

Colosseum at Night [135/366], a photo by timsackton on Flickr.

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Our third day in Rome. We spent the morning walking around the historic center of Rome, seeing the Trevi Fountain, Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, and other sights. After a nap in the afternoon and a great dinner, I was feeling energetic and wanted to try to get some night shots of Rome. Although I also took pictures of the Trevi Fountain and the "Il Vittoriano" monument, it was the Colosseum that really stood out to me.

Piazza Navona

Piazza Navona [134/366], a photo by timsackton on Flickr.

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On our second day in Rome, our main plan was to see the Roman Forum and the Colosseum. However, I wanted to play around with my B+W 10 stop ND filter (which I got for my birthday in April but had not had the chance to use yet), so I set off at 7:00 am for Piazza Navona to take some long exposures of the fountains. This is one of my first shots with the ND filter - a 50 second exposure of the main fountain in Piazza Navona. I had to darken it by a stop or so in post (I didn't quite get the exposure right), but I was quite happy with the composition and the effect of the ND filter. Converted to black and white using the Blue Hi-Contrast filter preset in Lightroom, and the adjusted slightly.

Although I did take some pictures of ancient Rome that I was pretty happy with (which I will upload once I get them processed), I picked this shot to be my picture of the day because Piazza Navona turned out to be one of our favorite places in Rome. The fountains, people, and buildings provide endless opportunities for photography and plenty of toddler entertainment.