Rollin’ on the river

Just in case you forgot what rivers look like.

Tho’ I guess the Passaic River is really more of a brook once it gets to New Providence.

Defocus obsessions

I’m an animator by day. Part of what I do, as an animator, is finesse inherently mechanical animations to look organic and real-ish. And part of the way I do this is to incorporate (fake) lens effects/flaws into these mechanical animations (lens flares, bokeh, general distance defocusing, chromatic aberrations, etc). Unfortunately, a lot of lens effects are difficult to fake— or at least difficult to fake WELL & QUICKLY using the tools I have available.

Because of all this, I have a TON of fascination with natural photographic lens effects. So the defocusing in this image might make a photographer squirm (are you squirming?), but as an animator, I study it with awe and try to figure out how I’d replicate it in 3D.

Photography and animation overlap a lot, actually. You might be surprised.

 

(Cross-posted to Instagram)

Tiny river clams

I see clams on the beach all the time, sure, but I never knew about freshwater river clams. They’re a thing! We have them! Isn’t that cool? I think it’s cool.

 

(Cross-posted to Instagram)

Fernie fern fern

Yeah okay so this isn’t very interesting but it was the golden hour and EVERYTHING looked so pretty and I just couldn’t help myself.

 

(Cross-posted to Instagram)

Hoof it

Deer prints in mud by the Passaic River.

Grassy lady

Today I walked around the Passaic River Park for the first time in a while.

For a year or two, after I stopped doing this blog every day, I stopped using my DSLR much ‘cos it’s too heavy to casually tote everywhere. I’ve trained myself now to grab my phone-camera when I see a photo op. Consequently, I’m sick of cameraphone limitations, and I’ve once again started looking for excuses to haul my DSLR out of semi-retirement. It is such a delight to see a subject, frame and focus, twiddle whatever settings you need to twiddle, and just GET the damn shot you want (or a sufficiently close approximation of it).

So yeah, anyway, river walks and bokeh are fun. Mosquitos and poison ivy, not so much.

Cicada molt!

pop out my own back like what

(More info about cicadas @ Wikipedia)

(Cross-posted to Instagram)

Explosives!

Fireworks display from July 5th. Bradley Beach and Asbury Park ended up doing their fireworks on the same night! My mother and I headed down to the Ocean Grove fishing pier (what’s left of it) to watch the Bradley fireworks at 9:00, and then turned around to watch the Asbury fireworks at 9:30. I never get tired of photographing explosives!

I don’t feel like/ have time to do a lot of editing, so I’m just gonna crop and resize and post a whole bunch of my favorites. (I won’t even STRAIGHTEN them. Yeah I KNOW. The AUDACITY, the ARROGANCE.)

Oh hey, P.S., I have an Instagram account, which is where I’m uploading casual snapshots these days. Follow me there for updates more often than once a year! (Side note: I have wayyyy too much fun with filters.)

SO MUCH RAINBOW

DOUBLE RAINBOW! (Do you remember that video meme? I do. This parenthetical phrase is a hyperlink to it.)

Taken after a heavy thunderstorm last week. It was rainbowing for a solid 10 minutes, right at dusk! So pretty! And finally, finally, finally, I put my polarizing filter to good use!! #nerd

Lightning!

Hi!

I’m not exactly out of retirement, but the summer sky over New Jersey has been doing some interesting things this week, and I’m sharing.

I caught my first lightning strike last night! I’m very excited!

And I caught a second bolt, too! Whoaaaa.

That’s it. I’m done. I can sell my camera now.

(That’s a joke.) (But “photograph lightning” has been on my bucket list for a few years. Now I just need some star trails and I’ll REALLY be all set.)