Some thoughts and a wedding photo

This picture really isn't anything special. Last September we went to Westbury Gardens, which is really a great place to take pictures. I'd love to go back there this fall with my Sony.

Anyway, there were three wedding parties having their pictures taken on the grounds. I believe one of them was actually having a reception there, which must cost a fortune, but I'm digressing again... My favorite bride was this one. I wasn't a fan of her bridesmaids' dress color (black), but I did love the idea of the parasols. I love black and hot pink together. I wish I would have been bold enough to take some pictures as they were posing. The bride's dress was really neat, because it was split in the back with some pretty fabric underneath. As it was, I felt very daring as I took this shot. LOL!

I've been searching for some photography blogs, and I did find a few that were really nice. One of them made me think of my film SLR, and how I haven't used it in such a long time. I've been thinking about it for awhile, actually, because while I do love my digital cameras, I felt so comfortable with my Minolta. Sometimes I felt it was so much easier to focus manually. I think that's the one part I really prefer. Sometimes the auto-focus is nice, but a lot of times I thought it was better to go manual. I'll have to work on that with the Sony. So far I've only used to LED screen, but I'd like to play around with the view finder when I can get the chance.

Pompeii

Today is the anniversary of the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. I'm very interested in ancient history, mainly Rome and Egypt. Pompeii and the Etruscans are two subjects about which I have several books.

I totally forgot about the significance of the date until I went to bing.com before to look up something. I also just like looking at the daily pictures. Even though I prefer Google to search, Bing does have that one cool feature with the picture.

This isn't my own picture, although I hope to go to Italy one day. I found it on SPQR 360

Another butterfly house...

Hershey Gardens has a really nice Butterfly House, like I posted a few days ago. It's smaller than the one in the Bronx Zoo, but it was jam-packed with butterflies. My only complaint was that the walkway was kind of small. One of the rules of the butterfly house was that we had to watch out for butterflies on the walk.

My niece Maddy seemed to take that very seriously, because she wouldn't walk around a butterfly on the walk. She was behind me, so I didn't see the whole thing, but my brother-in-law had to pick up the butterfly with the garden map and move it to safety. She acts so brave, but she's pretty afraid of bugs. I hope she grows out of it.

I just finished catching up with all the shows I DVRed tonight. The last one I watched was Bridezillas, which I find hilarious most of the time. It reminded me of some pictures I took at Westbury Gardens last year. There were three weddings being photographed there at the same time. Maybe I'll post something from that visit next.

ZooAmerica

We went to ZooAmerica on Tuesday morning. It was already getting hot, so some of the animals were either hiding or sleeping in the shade. The bears had a nice pool stocked with fish, which I thought was pretty cool. There was a place where people could watch the bears swimming in the water. In fact, one of the bears swam right up to the glass, but, of course, there wasn't a spot over there for me to get a shot. (People who don't give other people a chance to experience things like that up close annoy me.)

One day I'd like to take my DSLR to places like this. I'm glad I didn't do it this weekend, though. I was already sweating bullets. I need to get a little case for the camera, though. One came with my Minolta SLR, which was great. I can't imagine lugging around the camera bag I use for my digital stuff in that heat. I could use both lenses and my bounce flash, though. I was even toying around with the idea of bringing the Minolta with me, even though it would mean actually getting the film developed. I miss it sometimes.

While we were away, my sister-in-law told me that my niece Kayla wants to become a photographer now. I thought that was kind of cool. I always toyed with the idea, but I never did anything about it. Maybe for Christmas we can get her a simple digital camera. I've seen a few nice ones for kids. It reminds me of when my godson first got interested. I wonder if takes any pictures beyond the ones for his MySpace now. LOL!

Hershey Gardens...

This morning we met my in-laws at ZooAmerica in Hershey, PA. I got some nice pictures there, but many of the animals were sleeping or hiding, since it was pretty hot, even this morning.

We went to Chocolate World after that, which was a nice, air conditioned break. After that we went to Hershey Gardens. I've never been there, but I've always wanted to go. I'm not really sure today was the best day for my first visit, but there you go. I managed to get through the Children's Garden, the Butterfly House, and most of the Rose Garden before I gave it up.

This picture was taken in the Butterfly House. Like a lot of pictures I take with the Samsung, I wasn't totally sure how this one came out until I got it on the computer. I didn't realize that I had taken a picture that included the statue of the little boy fishing. I didn't notice him when I took the picture. I really just wanted to take a picture of the pond and the plants surrounding it. It was a nice surprise.

Trip to Mystic

We took a trip to Mystic, CT this weekend to see Jeff Dunham perform at Mohegan Sun. (He was great, by the way.)

Before we left this morning, we went to the Mystic Aquarium. I'm glad we went early, because by the time we left, it was HOT. One thing that annoys me when we go anywhere during what's close to a tourist season is rude people, ie. people who walk right in front of you when you're trying see a display. I actually had a guy try to crowd me out of the way so he could take a picture at the anemone garden! Are you serious? They're anemones, they're not going anywhere. The most annoying exhibit for me today was the Beluga whales. People were just being...well, browsy (please refer to John Pinette's latest DVD, I'm Starvin' if you don't get my joke there. He's hysterical.), so I couldn't get any decent shots of the whales.

We got to see the Birds of the Outback exhibit, which was new to us. I thought it was mostly parakeets. We did get a millet seed stick to feed the birds, which I didn't do. It's not easy to hold out a millet seed stick and take pictures at the same time. LOL! I did get a few nice pictures of the birds, though, and this is one of them.

We leave for Lancaster, PA tomorrow. We're going to meet my in-laws to go to Hershey, so I'm hoping to get some good pictures at the zoo.

Local Color and a Thought...

This is QuackerJack, the mascot for the local minor league baseball team. Usually I get some faraway, grainy shots of him, but the night I took this we managed to score seats right behind the dugout. I have some other shots as well, but this one came out the best.

We're going to Hershey the beginning of next week, and I'm thinking of taking my D-SLR with me. I think we're supposed to go to ZooAmerica, and hopefully it won't be too hot for the animals to show themselves. The last time we went it was too hot, and most animals were hidden off somewhere.

I'll probably bring my Flip camera as well, but I probably won't be posting much of what I record with that, because it will probably be mostly videos of my nieces. I won't be posting any pictures of them on here. Anyway, I got a Flip HD for Christmas last year, and I really like it, but I don't use it as much as I probably should. I just keep forgetting to take it places. Maybe I can take it into Chocolate World with me. LOL!

An idea...

My mom suggested that maybe I can post some of my photography on my blog. I thought it was a good idea, so here's a picture I took last summer on a visit to the Bronx Zoo. I'm assuming I must have been there as a child, but if I did, I don't really remember it.

My favorite part of the trip was the Butterfly House. (We didn't have enough time to visit the tigers, unfortunately, but I think we got in just about everything else.) We were able to get into the Butterfly House twice, since we went about a week after that horrible incident with that overhead tram thing. I would love to go back again someday.

This is one of the pictures that I took. I have a little Samsung camera that I bought the night before this trip. It wasn't too expensive, and it takes great pictures. Unfortunately, it can be a bit of a battery hog, so I have to get special batteries for it. I was able to get quite a few pictures in the Butterfly house before the batteries gave out on me, though. The detail in some of them was excellent, which I couldn't tell from the screen as I was taking the pictures.

First Post

I'm not really sure what I'm going to do here yet, but I thought it might be something interesting to do. So I guess it's a work in progress...