jgrussell – my world

I try to look around every so often to see what in my immediate vicinity might make a good image. The cats? They won’t sit still. My furniture? Boring. The kitchen fixings? Been there done that. But there’s that grate over there…

The grate

I really enjoy the drive to and from the Cook Student Organic Farm where, I am glad to report, my summer share may be over but my fall share has another eight weeks to go. I’m awfully glad I didn’t opt for the shorter share period… Just before the farm there is a pond on both sides of Ryders Lane. I’ve gotten the west bound side once or twice. Today I managed to get a couple of different views of the east bound side.

East Brunswick pond

East Brunswick pond

I haven’t had much chance to get out to do sunset shots. There aren’t too many really photogenic locations nearby that I can get to in time after leaving the office as late as I usually do. But things kind of worked out today for a couple of somewhat different sunset shots…

Seagulls at sunset

Sunset on the mudflats

School nights are really hard. Busy busy all day and then on well into the night. I came home with a great idea of trying to replicate an image I’d seen, and discovered I just don’t have the equipment for it. So… what to shoot… what to shoot… and my eye fell on a small white brush…

Row upon row...

Not at all sure about the shot, but… hey, at least I shot something today.

An awful lot of these have gone up all over the building in the past few weeks. (I suspect the state has a lot more requirements for the Rutgers Business School, which now occupies floors 2-11, than private industry ever had for the rest of us schmoes who’ve been in the building forever…) And I hafta say… I really don’t feel any safer.

I don't feel safer...

Busy busy day… no time to even think about shooting, and then somehow switched the camera onto a setting where not all of the controls work, and I do that so rarely I had no idea what was wrong. So I grabbed what I could grab… and the sign on the gas pump was what I could grab.

Stop engin!

Weekends are just NOT long enough. Since I spent all day yesterday out shooting, I had a whole bunch of chores to do today. Not to mention the time needed to review and process the shots I like from yesterday’s photo shoot. So I didn’t get a chance to do any shooting today. I had to content myself with feeding my face with (and stashing away a whole bunch of servings of) my favorite squash casserole…

Squash casserole

Had a great day out in two separate wildlife refuges and got a lot of stuff I felt good about — not to mention being outdoors on a spectacularly beautiful day. First I went up to Allendale to a refuge called The Celery Farm. I assume they once grew celery there, or it was owned by a family named Celery, or some such… In any event, it’s now this wonderful tiny jewel of a park, about 100 acres or so, with this great pond in the center.

Pond at Celery Farm

I loved the reflections of the trees in the stream to the side of the pond.

The stream

And the old tractor on the side of the trail was too good to pass up…

Old tractor

There weren’t a lot of birds out, except for a bunch of cormorants that were fun to watch.

Cormorant

The only thing that was a bit of a downer was that there were clear signs that summer is over…

The leaf

On the way home, I realized that I would be passing very close to DeKorte Park again, so I stopped off to see if anything interesting was around. I had great fun with a gorgeous little yellow warbler who was kind enough to stay still for a couple of seconds…

Finishing a tasty bug

The mudlfats attracted all kinds of birds, including this gull…

Gull landing on mudflats

But I think my favorite shot of the day may be this one that I call “Mirror Image”:

Mirror image

I understand all the reasons why grafitti is a bad thing. But I like street art. I always have. Even when the only thing cool about it is the colors the street artist (or vandal, if you will) has chosen.

Grafitti

Every day, on my way home from work, I pass a particular shop and think to myself: “I have GOT to get a photo of that place.” And just about every day, when I pass that shop, something prevents me from getting that photo. There will be a vehicle in the turn lane to the left of my car or, more commonly, the light is green and there’s nowhere to stop to be able to shoot, or it’s still too light out (rare) or it’s way too dark (much more frequent). But tonight it seemed that all the stars were lined up:

The sign shop