Picture Perfect: Take Your Camera to Work

As a stay-home mom, my work descriptions are too many. Sometimes I feel that there's no perfect descriptions but to mention,  A MOM, when it's describing what I do. Eventually people will know and understand, I suppose. For that matter, my surrounding is my work place: our home, the laundromat, the supermarket, the kids' schools, etc. One of that long work descriptions is to entertain my kids. That's what I did last Saturday by the way, taking the kids to New York City, even though I really didn't want to. But our younger daughter insisted that we celebrated her birthday in the city. So after taking them to the museum, the kids wanted to see the attractions at Times Square, and for the dozen times, we're there. During that time, I spotted not just one, but four superheroes huddling together in the middle of busy sidewalk. I didn't know what they were talking about, but they looked pretty serious, even Batman shielded his mates with his cape. Could it be, they were concocting a special way to safe the world? Or finding out where their super villain was? But perhaps, one of this hero could help me, a mom who's got her hands full. I'm no superhero, you see. (Winking)

 For Picture Perfect: Take Your Camera to Work.

Picture Perfect: Yesteryear

While I was standing in the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge, I looked at the surrounding. Near and far are old buildings that some people reclaimed to be their masterpieces: the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, and the bridge itself. The Brooklyn Bridge is a symbol of determination and strong will. Its first designer had an accident and died afterward. When his son continued his work, he too got another misfortune. Then his wife assisted him and together they brought the idea to connect Manhattan and Brooklyn coming true. The stories of yesteryear always make me interested. The stories about determination, strength, courage and bravery to get through the hard life. Who are we then if we're going to give up easily? If we could only look back to the harder and hardest life in the yesteryear, we realize how very fortunate we have become today. This is my entry for Picture Perfect: YESTERYEAR.

 

"The secrets of life is that all that is really worth the doing is what we do for others."

                                                                          - LEWIS CARROLL -

Picture Perfect: ARRANGED

The men lined up in their positions. They stood proud and tall, arranged by their rank and duties celebrating an important event in the history of Connecticut, THE POWDER HOUSE DAY. The event took place in the city of New Haven on April 22nd 1775, led by Benedict Arnold with the 2nd Company of Governor's Foot Guard demanding the key to the King's (gun) powder. The troops wanted to support and help their countrymen who fought against British army in Cambridge. The fifty-eight members of the Governor's Foot Guard took the powder, ball and flint, and went off to the Battle of Lexington.

The men and women in this picture were some of the volunteers who every year honoring the Powder House Day by doing the re-enactment of the event. The ensembles that these men and women wore at this celebration was the Winter Dress style of the Governor's Foot Guard from 1893. The Second Company of Governor's Foot Guard was a military organization that was established in New Haven, Connecticut. Their purpose was to protect the Governor and the people of the state of Connecticut during the Revolutionary War. To see more of the photos from the event, please feel free to visit my other blog: The Red Coats Army in New Haven.

This is my entry for Picture Perfect: ARRANGED.

Picture Perfect: TWO

It was so exciting to visit Philadelphia Zoo a couple of years ago. My son asked if we could celebrate his birthday by coming to the zoo, and so we're there. Just when we just started to walk around, we saw one interesting and hilarious view. The view of two hippo behinds. The look of them were just too funny, my kids and I had to come up with a ridiculous conversation between the two hippos,"I think your butt is bigger than mine".

This is my photography entry for this week Picture Perfect, with the theme of TWO.

Picture Perfect: DISCOVERY

In an empty lot that looked abandoned, hundreds  of cornflowers grew in the end of spring last year. The fence that surrounding the lot was rusted and I saw two or three junk cars in the far side of the lot. One morning I went to the lot especially to see rows of light-blue, white, pink and purple cornflowers. When I snapped some pictures, a man greeted me and he turned out to be the lot attendant. He took interest of me and offered me to come inside the lot. He told me how he planted the seeds, in the hope to beautify the lot, and that there will be some morning glories in summer. The view before me was sublime. It certainly felt like I was in a meadow, not an empty lot with junk cars. When I took several pictures, suddenly I spotted a ladybug. Its black and red shell looked brilliant and contrast amongst the cornflowers. So I took some pictures of it too, when the ladybug jumped from one flower to another. The ladybug was my discovery that day.



This picture is my contribution for Picture Perfect: DISCOVERY.

Picture Perfect: Color Splash!

If you paint the colors of rainbow onto a big parachute, then some children gleefully playing with it, what would it create? It would create, FUN. This is what the picture is all about. Children laughed and played, some ran and hid, and one tried to catch. Under the parachute they scattered here and there between giggles and happy scream. Oh, what fun it was to play under the color splash!


 My photo entry for PICTURE PERFECT: COLOR SPLASH!

Picture Perfect Week 6: WINTER WONDERLAND

Ah, winter! When the snow falls, the world seems moving in slow motion. All the noises are muffled and subdued. But, then winter, also means piles of snow, make that big pile of snow. That's what happened after last week big blizzard of 2013 hit our state. We are miserable. We are tired of shoveling and digging. On Monday, the snow was still piling, like rows of hills and mountains on the sides of the roads. On Tuesday, some were melting, and we rejoiced, and the hills also mountains became giant puddles. Then Wednesday came, the puddles are frozen. Ice everywhere.

This picture happened when my daughter and I took a long walk (about 2 miles) to the closest supermarket to get some groceries one day after the blizzard. Our trip was hard because we had to walk in the middle of the street, since not all of the side walks were cleared of snow. Then suddenly, a big wind blew and my daughter turned around, so she wouldn't get sprinkles of snow. And in that moment, I captured her silhouette with one amazing backdrop of snowflakes flew towards us riding the sunlight.

My contribution for Picture Perfect: WINTER WONDERLAND.

Picture Perfect Winter 2013: HIGHS & LOWS

I was standing on some stairs looking down the park below and saw another set of stairs descending to the park ground. The autumn leaves were glowing from the sun rays, beaming with beauty. All was calm and pretty at Edgewood Park in New Haven, Connecticut, as I feasted my eyes with more breathtaking autumn views.

Now leaf and vine turn golden brown,

And purple asters shine

Along the roads where Autumn runs,

Drunken with mystic wine.

The  world is one vast tapestry

Of intricate design. 

          (Charles Hanson Towne)



My post this week for Picture Perfect Winter 2013: HIGHS & LOWS.

Picture Perfect: WEATHER

We've had a lot of foggy days lately, and in between were wet from the rain. Winter in our part is still without some snow. But when morning comes, all we wish is the blue sky and sunshine, not the white-foggy morning or the icy-cold rain poured down like crazy. Blue sky and sunshine, is good enough, to cast away the winter blues.

"Nobody can be in good health if he does not have fresh air, sunshine, and good water."

                                                                      - Flying Hawk -

My contribution for PICTURE PERFECT: WEATHER

Picture Perfect: PEEPING TOM

One day when my kids and I had our spring walk along this wonderful street that lining up with old and beautiful houses, something stood out. From a window at an apartment building, I saw some laundries hanging near it. It could be that the tenants whose laundries looking all hanged-out was conscious about the Earth's Day (I took this shot just a week before it), or they're cheap and didn't want to use a dryer. Anyway you see it, those laundries were somewhat an interesting sight to see for an onlooker like me.

If you wonder what this post is all about, it's about PICTURE PERFECT, a weekly photography activity that's been going on for several years now among bloggers who blog (or used to blog) on a site called Multiply. It is very sad to say that we have to move our blogs and this activity out of Multiply, since it's not going to support the blog feature anymore. Though this is still our first steps to reclaim the fun and merry way of our photography activity, I'm excited. I've been missing several events, but don't want to miss this one. This week the theme is PEEPING TOM.

Picture Perefect: BEFORE MY TIME

Another photography journal that I contributed for Picture Perfect's weekly competition and was chosen to be on the Top Ten. The theme was BEFORE MY TIME, reflecting things that were exist before we do or events that happened long ago. My entry was about a Civil War Hero's grave.

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Last October when suddenly a snowstorm happened, I was on my way to the library. The snow fell hard and harder, blanketing the ground surrounding me. Across the library was an old cemetery that got my attention. The gravestones stood silent and solemn draped with some snow. One gravestone stood out, with a small flag next to it. I went across to get closer. The stone bares the name of a Civil War hero. He was probably in his late teen or early twenty when he went to war. A young corporal fought against his own brothers. Perhaps he was anxious, I bet he was. Perhaps he was scared and also sad. He wouldn't know there's no victory. He wouldn't know the horror the Civil War carries to the future. We can only hope there'll be no more war here or everywhere. No more that a young man like this soldier goes to war for something senseless. Meanwhile, let's bow and send our prayer and thought to all lost heroes.


 

Picture Perfect: TRANSLUCENT

Picture Perfect is a photography community where I belong for sometime now through my old blog on Multiply. The site will be closed down soon and with sadness I have to move several (make that almost all) of my posts here in my new blog. This is one of the photography journal that was included on the weekly competition held by Picture Perfect and was picked as Honorable Mention with the theme: TRANSLUCENT.

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     In the corner of our backyard, there's some plants, make that some unwanted plants, that keep on growing even though I've tried pulling them by their roots and cut them also. I actually gave up because they just grow and grow. But then this Spring I've had some surprise when one morning I looked down from a window and saw something purple. It turned out between those unwanted plants, were purple Irises. This was the first time they bloomed apparently. Of course, I was ecstatic. Six purple Irises added the all-green nuance in that corner or our yard. I cut two, put them in a used soda bottle and placed it on our dining table. When the sun shone through the big window in the room, the rays hit the Irises and made them looked  translucent.