11.11.11. : 53 project week 41

Hearts and stones aplenty

on a woods/beach walk

on 11.11.11

a little place in the country

On my recent road trip I took a little detour up along the Hudson River, and stopped at the Vanderbilt Mansion in Hyde Park, New York.  It was getting late in the day, and so I missed the last tour of the interior of the house, but the building and grounds were just beautiful in the fading afternoon light.

 The building has such fantastic architectural details, shapes, and shadows.

And the gardens, even this late in the season, were still lovely, 

full of light and little unexpected treasures.

hang on

OK, so I don't want this blog to become just a pass-through to my photo pages, or a boasting page when I get a nod from some photo group or other.

BUT, that being said, the site Beyond Megapixels had a fun photo challenge this month and asked readers to submit photos featuring bokeh. Now this time last year I had never even heard of this word. The technical definition of bokeh is the blur in a photograph, but not just the blur but the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light. Some people think it's just sparkly blurry blobs in a photo, but it's also the smoothness of the blur and the creamy texture that can make a photo really yummy.

I took this photo in the mall, thinking that the hangers looked very cool all lined up in a row, and I was using a lens that allows me to focus on a specific point and have the rest of the photo blurred. Little did I know, though, until I got it home and looked at it, that even though most of the photo was blurred it was very clear what the subject was, and how the light was dancing on the metal of the hangers. Like little sparkly diamonds, all be-jeweled and "bokeh-fied." This photo was featured on the Beyond Megapixels site today, along with other photos in the challenge. Check them out!

Click the photo to see the sparkle!

giants in lights

The Cape Cod Times this morning had an article about the giant metal sculptures along Route 6A in Sandwich that are lit up for the holidays. Coming home from a meeting the other night, I snapped this photo of the glass blower. If you're in the vicinity, it's a fun night drive to see some very creative lighted sculptures.

hurricane danny

Cape Cod's been in the news a lot in the past few weeks. With the sad losses of Eunice and Teddy Kennedy, and the visit of President Obama and family, we've seen familiar scenes on the nightly news, and an increase in end-of-summer tourists and visitors. And there've been a couple of storms that looked threatening but in the end didn't amount to much. Today Hurricane Danny brought a whole lot of rain and wind, lots of flooding, and we even lost power for a couple of hours. A good excuse to light some candles and do a little reading.

A good day for ducks

Battered rain lily

Power out

The perfect book for a rainy Cape Cod day

And you know the drill. You can see more of my latest photos here.

miscellany

morning light