Just For Fun

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A good friend of mine celebrates her birthday at the end of March while I'm still in Hawaii.  I promised to take her out for brunch after I returned to NY.  Yesterday was the day.  We went to this great little place called Grapevine Farms that has the sweetest dining room/gift shop/wine cellar ever.

Between taking our time with our meal and wandering around the gift shop, we practically made a day of it.  It was wonderful.

Today, I went to another friend's house to help her figure out how to use her point & shoot camera.  I have the same one--she has a super-duper camera manual, so between the two of us and the manual, we managed to have a great time trying the special-effects functions on the camera.  

These first two images show the fish-eye effect, my personal favorite.  My friend isn't too impressed with it, but it's an effect that I really enjoy working with, even though it's not strictly a pure fish-eye.  It's just funky enough to be fun enough to use once in a while.

This next effects is selective color.  Although the composition isn't anything to write home about, the technique is so cool.  After putting the camera on the "selective color" function, you point the camera at the color you want to isolate, take the picture, and voila!!

And then!!!!  What fun.  This is called "color switch".  What a hoot.

The next two are just close-ups of flowers. But really, the lens is about 1.5 inches away from the subject.  If it's bright enough and there's no wind, you can get some great macro images.

No special effects on these last two.  Unless you want to call a slow shutter speed a special effect.  So that combined with some beautiful color in the sky and this is what you get.  I rested the camera on the picnic table because the shutter speed was so slow. I used a high ISO, so when they're enlarged they're very grainy.  But in small versions, they look pretty iconic.

Chase Lake

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It rained all week.  The forecast for today was partly sunny in the morning with chance of rainstorms in the afternoon.  We knew we'd have time to hike and get back to the car before the rain began.

It turned out to be a great day.  Just cool enough to enjoy the long walk with

an accompanying breeze.  And no rain!  

Our destination was Chase Lake lean-to.  2.7 miles one-way.

Hikers seem to be a breed unto themselves.  There's an etiquette among those who hike.  One of the  sayings of the Adirondacks is "Leave only footsteps, take only pictures".  

Wherever there's a lean-to along a trail, you'll find items left for the use of any hikers who frequent the location.  Hanging on the outside of this lean-to was a hoe, a shovel, a fish net and a hand saw.  

Inside was a coffee pot, a can of baked beans, a zip loc bag of plastic spoons, a bag of tea light candles, a couple of canisters of propane fuel and a plastic bag of newspapers to start fires with.  

Oh.  And one item you're sure to find at any lean-to even if there's nothing else, is a composition book and pencil (safely and dryly stored in a zip loc bag)

Leave a message, share a though, report on trail conditions, write a poem, make a complaint, encourage those who follow, whatever.  It's great reading.

One of the comments in this book was written by a visitor from England.  He was so impressed with the lean-to and the items left there.  He said that if such a thing were done in England, the items would be gone within hours and the lean-to probably burned to the ground by the next day.

High-five to the Adirondack hikers!

Another fun thing.  One of my hiking buddies brought pedometers for each of us to use today.  It only counted "steps taken".  

10,000 steps = 5 miles.

We took 13,434 steps on the trail.  Makes me tired just thinking about it.