Powerful PowerPoint

I just want you all to know that I'm proud of myself. I was asked to take pictures to go in our CEO's PowerPoint presentation. So I did and they were. See how flummoxed this consumer was? Now see how happy he is? Oh the joys of marketing.

Photo-Ghost

Five points for whoever guesses how I took this picture. I promise there was no post processing at all. Not even color correction. Maybe, I stalked a ghost....

From ghost

A good hint might be this picture.

Walking in my Hood

I had some extra time yesterday and I wanted to practice some more photography, so I decided to take a short walk around my neighborhood. Sad to say I was a little apprehensive, since I was taking out my long lens, I didn't want anyone bothering me, but I decided to go out and see how things went. One of the first things I decided I needed a picture of was my neighbor's garage. I always laugh at his little door within the door. The funniest part is that he fits it, since he's the tiny Italian man that sweeps the driveway obsessively

From Jersey City

There are quite a few funny old men who walk around my neighborhood. When I turned the corner and snapped a shot of the view down the street another little Hispanic man started talking to me. I couldn't tell if it was Spanish or English so I just smiled. He asked if I lived around and I said yeah somewhere around here. I wasn't sure if he was asking me to take his picture or not to take his picture so I erred on the side of caution and passed by without taking one.
I've heard that tennis shoes draped over wires mean that there is a drug seller around. I don't know if that's true or not. I tend to think not, since these "Air Jordans" were on the line right outside the school at the end of the block. It seems more likely that some antagonistic high schooler threw them up there.
On the other side of the street I saw a religious figure in a bottle. Many people have Jesus or Mary in their yard, but this one made me laugh because I assume the bottle was supposed to protect the figure, but it made it look like the thing was trapped or in jail. For some reason the way mailboxes attach to the brick makes this happen fairly often. My mailbox is often swinging all cockeyed like this person's.


This photo isn't the best ever, but when I saw her I knew I had to share. Her cart is something everyone owns. It's the quintessential Jersey City accessory. We all just walk around with them to carry groceries or laundry, sometimes even kids!

I ran into other people too, one guy was sure I was on school assignment, another thought I should take his picture because he was "wild and exciting". I didn't because he was too close for my long lens.

Finally, I was taking a picture of a building and a guy from the Islamic center came over and asked what I was doing and invited me in for some info on Islam and a cool drink. He told me he wasn't trying to recruit me, he just wanted people to understand so we could live peacefully. Only his heavily accented English made it sound more like wistfully and I had a hard time figuring out how he wanted us to live for a second. I haven't read the books yet, but he pointed out the section where it shows the development of babies, not sure why that was a point he thought I should know.

There are often strange things strewn about the street and sidewalks, abandoned clothing or air conditioners or even large pieces of lumber. I'm not really sure where it all comes from. I'm guessing someone was tired of smelling "Black Ice" in this case.
It was just funny to me to think that no one could really imagine me just taking pictures as a hobby. I'm sure it has to do with the neighborhood, but to me it's like asking why you play basketball. Except I think the camera intimidates people and they're all suspicious of it

From Jersey City

From Jersey City

What's in a Domain Name?

So I've been thinking lately about my future and goals for that far away time. I've decided that someday I might like to run a little business from home incorporating all the things that I enjoy doing and hope to get better at. Photography, web buidling/design maybe even blog design or graphic design. Sooooo I heard something on the radio about how all four letter combinations of website domain names are now owned by someone, so I thought to myself jumpin' jahosevat I'd better buy a domain name so I can own it in the future when all domain names are gone. Yes, this is how far in the future I see my business coming to life. Anyway, so I started to try to decide what I should name my business based on the fact that it encompases many types of media so perhaps adding "studio" or "media" would be good. I could go with recap, which are the options I've included in the poll, or something totally different. Any suggestions are more than welcome! I've thought of things like "Mira" (look in Spanish). The MiraStudios.com domain name is available. I just don't know! If you were looking to do business with someone, what name would give you confidence in a quality product. What name would be least confusing and most professional? Words with homonyms just won't work. I thought of "peek" but then everyone would be looking for "peak" and they'd never find me. Please vote and comment away!

Brazilian Girls

At first glance, you might think this is a picture of some lady just talking to the guy next to her. Then you might study it a little more closely and think it is funny that the guy is not looking at her when she is obviously trying to get a major point across. Perhaps, like Scott, you look at the picture and say, 'that is not a woman, there is too much upper lip hair!' But I assure you, it was a woman and there was a very good reason the man next to her would not look at her, but instead plastered a tolerant grin on his face. In fact, I could have taken this picture at any time within a 20 minute time frame and the shot would be the same.
I'll start at the beginning of the thousand words this picture may capture. Friday night I decided to call up some friends, and they were out saving seats at a free concert in the park. A group called the Brazilian Girls was playing who I'd never heard of, but I figured I'd come along for the company and maybe I'd end up enjoying the music. So there we were sitting in our seats saving a few for people who happened to get up to go get a drink or go to the bathroom, when this lady and her daugher show up and try to walk past us. We politely informed her that the seats she was aiming for were taken. So we dind't think much of it until we turned around and saw her in the row behind, coaxing her daughter to hop over the chairs. So I walked over and again, politely said that the seats were taken. She informed me that we couldn't save that many seats, and I tried to explain that the people were here and would be back any minute. She kept talking at me for awhile and another friend tried to come over and talk reason but we realized it wasn't worth talking anymore, so we went back to our seats. Here's where we made our big error, for some reason we did not try to block the daughter when she again came around and tried to enter our row. At the direction of her mother she sat in the saved seats. Us ladies decided to let the large men with us deal with the situation when they returned.

Our friend Eric is not a person who just lets things slide. He is a man of action, and true to form, when he got back and realized that someone had taken his seat he tried to reason with the unreasonble person. He almost suceeded at convincing the poor daughter to move. She was obviously uncomfortable and just wanted to leave, but her mother wouldn't let her. So Eric declares that he's going to get security. I had my doubts that security would come, I figured they didn't want to get involved in a seat argument. While Eric was gone, the lady starts talking at the person next to her, because apparently she had stolen their friend's seat, so he said a few words and finally just quit talking and turned away. As evidenced by the picture, she was talking and talking and talking. Then her eyes started to bug out Rodney Dangerfield style and I thought I should take a picture to share with you all. The photo didn't turn out very well, so I put my camera away and waited for Eric to return. When he did, he told the lady that he had asked the police to come and they were on their way. I was sure he was bluffing, but the conversation continued and at some point the lady starts yelling at me. She is saying that I took a picture of her, but she was far enough away and the opening act was playing loudly enough that I could just pretend not to be able to hear her. I thought that at worst she might get up to come tell me that I took a picture of her and someone could get their seat back. I was also with several large men which helped. So there she is yelling at me trying to get her daughter to pass on what she's saying when Eric starts to pull out his camera, well that is just too much for her and she takes an aggresive swipe at him. Unbeknownst to her, Eric saw the cops walking up and at that point, they couldn't stand idly by while a lady assaulted a man. So the cop pulls her and her daughter out of their seats and stands there, letting her argue with him for awhile. Eventually the conversation turns to the fact that I took a picture of her, which by the way is totally legal since we were in a very public space. So the cop asked if I took her picture and I said I had taken a picture of the crowd, yes. He argues awhile more with her and finally turns to me and asks me to delete the picture. I said "ok". Eventually, he managed to get the lady and her poor daughter out of there, and we got to watch the concert from prime seats. I've made it a point to know the laws in the city, and I often even carry around a copy for people who try to stop me from taking pictures since it is expressly permitted by law. Moral of the story, know your rights and don't let people into your row, it will just make trouble.

3311 Reunion Tour

Back in my good ole college days the 4 girls in apartment 3311 were legendary for the fun and excitement that could always be found around them. Now that they've spread out over the globe from Joyanne in California and Sarah in Colorado to Valerie in Arizona and me New York it was time to take a break from the day jobs and hike on up to the final frontier.

From Roommate Reun...

Alaska was a fantastic place to vacation, made even better by the fact that Sarah's family took us in and fed and housed us like queens. Having a native Alaskan tour guide helped too. Sarah found us all sorts of Alaskan things, like moose, bald eagels, wild salmon and glaciers.

From Roommate Reun...

From Roommate Reun...

We hiked up mountains and walked and shopped and kayaked across the sea. I'm sure my lungs loved being away from the nasty New York air. One of my favorite wildlife sightings was watching the "combat fishermen" as they lined up along the bank of a river. If one person got a bite they'd have to yell "fish on!" so that everyone else would know not to get their lines tangled. We told the person at the tollbooth as we entered that we just wanted to come in and look at the fish, to which the park ranger gave us a raised eyebrow, shook her head and said 'ok, no charge if it's under half an hour.' With that time limit in mind, we wanted the fishermen to catch a big one more than some of them did. For awhile all was calm as the water rushed by tugging at one fisherman's beer bottles cooling in the water by his feet. Soon, you could see his pole dip sharply and he yelled, fish on! as he frantically grabbed to hold both his pole and keep the beers from floating away. Sadly his divided attention didn't pay off and that one got away. A few more lucky fish fought for and won their freedom as unlucky fishermen's poles bent nearly in two. Finally with just a few minutes left in our half hour, a nearby shout of 'fish on!' caught our attention. This man knew how to bring in a fish as he patiently reeled in and let the fish get tired as it swam closer and closer. The guy had a little boy with him who was just as excited as we were. He offered to help by suggesting that he could shoot the fish's eye out with a rubberband. Once the fish was on the ground the little boy offered to 'set a big rock on it'. The fisherman opted to pull out his knife and stab the fish in the brain, a pretty gruesome sight, but probably more humane than being rubberbanded or rocked to death. The fish was a big King Salmon, nearly as tall as the boy. Someday I think it would be fun to go fishing and cook one up straight out of the river. I think I might have to work out a little though, those things are huge! We certainly had our fill of seafood and just food in general. With the 5 Mapes women plus 3 more ladies, Sarah's dad was outnumbered, but at least he got some good meals out of the deal. I think we hiked and ate pretty much constantly. Since it didn't get dark until about midnight we didn't really stop or realize that it was getting late until then. It was certainly a relaxing vacation aside from the airport time where one plane's engine failed as we pulled away from the gate and another mad dash through the airport to a connecting flight left me facing a closed door just 5 minutes short of making it. Someday I may just have to go back.