France Day 3 Paris & a walk at night

May 15, 2013May 14, 2013 Timothy Price14 Comments

Today we went by the outdoor market on our way to the Rodin Sculpture Garden, Napoleon’s tomb, the Military Museum and Map Museum as part of the class. Then Laurie and I walked to the Cimetière du Montparnasse, found Serge Gainsbourg’s grave, then walked back to the hotel. We walked to a restaurant that specialized in crepes for dinner, which was a mile and a half from the Hotel. The crepes were delicious, and a couple of women sitting at the end of our table gave us a sample of their apple cider, which was really good — it reminded us of Spain. After dinner we walk back to the hotel, which was mostly along Rue Mouffetard. A light rain was falling making the air slightly hazy and the stone streets glisten. One of the stores we walked by had Moulin Rouge Goth style dresses and an ad for a Goth-style model. There were several bars and food places along the walk, and the dog in the second photo was part of the crepe restaurant. I measured our walk on Google Map Pedometer and got 6.5 miles for the day.

France Day 2 — Paris

May 14, 2013May 13, 2013 Timothy Price4 Comments

Today we went to Notre Dame, Paris City Hall, the Pompidou Center, and a tower commemorating a king as part of class, then Laurie and I went to the Medieval Museum in the afternoon. We were going to go to the Deportation Museum, but it was closed, but then we walked by the bridge over the Seine where lovers put locks on the bridge to seal their love (or something like that). One of the students said his parents had placed a lock on the bridge many years ago — we decided it would be impossible to find it.

I used a super wide-angle lens for the exterior and interior shots today, so the buildings are distorted. But then, you can Google the building and see photos of the buildings closer to the right perspective.

Notre Dame is 850 years old now, and the exterior has been cleaned and the cathedral is free of scaffolding on the exterior. The interior is dark so the stained glass is very luminous. There are a lot of nice gargoyles on Notre Dame, but most are very high and difficult to see well with the naked eye. I have some details of gargoyles on Notre Dame, but the gargoyles I posted today are on the commemorative tower — I had better light at the tower, so the definition is better in those photos.

City hall (not pictured) is a big, recently cleaned building, with a lot of statutes of famous statesmen, artists and people who were involved with the arts and sciences. There had bee some kind of celebration or fiesta over the weekend, as there were work crews taking down tents and amusement rides.

The Pompidou Center is a large, modern building that was very controversial because of it’s raw, skinless, functional structure. The multicolored pipes on the one side of the building are color coded by function — hot water, cold water, HVAC, etc. — and are exposed and color coded throughout the building.

The tower was built by a king for himself and serves no other purpose but as a monument to the king. It has great gargoyles, so I included a statue of St. George flanked by gargoyles and then a detail of St George and one of the gargoyles. The second detail shows how expressive the gargoyles are. Professor Janetta Rebold Benton, in her talk on gargoyles in April, said the gargles were made for God, because they are so high and hard to see. Fortunately we have telephoto lenses today that let’s us see want my have very well been for God’s eyes only.

The Medieval Museum was fantastic, but we didn’t have time to really look at everything. We will go back to it when we return to Paris in June. There a lot of groups of school children in the museum listening to lectures on the art, running around and finding pieces on their worksheet, and drawing some of the artifacts on display. The last photo shows a class in the room with swords, shields and other accouterments of chivalry.

Laurie has a little magnifying glass on the compass, so we were looking at some of the illuminated manuscripts with the magnifying glass. Tiny details about the size of a pin head have amazing detail of faces with expression and realistic looking flowers, and lines no thicker than fine hair are perfectly drawn. I can only imagine that the artists used some type of magnifying glass to do the work, or they had amazingly good vision.

France Day 1 — Paris

May 13, 2013May 12, 2013 Timothy Price7 Comments

We didn’t sleep a wink on the flight from Salt Lake City to Paris, so if parts of today’s blog doesn’t make sense, it’s because I haven’t slept in in past 40 hours. I don’t think many did by the number of monitors of at around 5:00 am. There was darkness then cloud cover over the Atlantic and England, but the clouds started to breakup along France’s shoreline, and the there was green and yellow farmland up to and surrounding the airport.

Our plane landed about 20 minutes early, but we ended up getting off the plane about 45 minutes later because there was a problem at our gate, so the tower sent our plane to back to the remote unloading area, but then either solved the problem at the original gate or got us another gate close the the original, because the pilot taxied the lane across the the airport again before docking the plane and allowing us to get off. So we were among the late arrivals.

The class met outside the Hotel at 2:30 and we all followed our professor as he lead us on our way to lunch. When we got to the spot where the restaurant used to be, it wasn’t there, a gift/luggage shop was in its place, so we headed for a Greek, Gyros place for lunch/dinner.

After we ate we headed to the Eiffel Tower, via the long RER and Metro route. Part of the long route was metro seasoning for the students, but it also put us out at the top of the park, with a full view of the tower. It’s impressive, but the really fun part of photographing the Eiffel Tower is photographing other tourists photographing each other doing silly things in front of the Eiffel Tower. Most of us climbed the stairs up to the 2nd level of the tower, but the had the top closed because of wind when we got the tickets to climb the stairs, so no one in the class got the the top.

Before we climbed the steps, the professor gave each student a metro ticket and left us — our assignment was to make it back to the hotel without his help either by ourselves or in groups.

The Trouble With Bras

May 6, 2013 Timothy Price28 Comments

The only aisle that is a straight shot from household goods to groceries in Walmart runs right through the bras. For as much as people complain about Walmart, they are good at merchandising, because I have never seen a woman walk past the bras on her way to household or groceries and not stop and at least flip through the large variety of brightly colored, multi-patterned bras hanging on the displays. If she decides to try on a few, and she happens to have a man in tow, he will slowly die of hunger and thirst waiting for his lovely gal to find a bra that fits just right.

Since l was done with the grocery shopping and there was nothing else I needed or wanted to look for, I sat on the wire bench outside the fitting rooms while I waited for Laurie. While fidgeting around trying to get comfortable, I started thinking about how suicide bombers believe they get 72 virgins after they blow themselves to hell. “Hmmm!” I thought to myself, what if they actually got condemned to shopping for bras with their 72 virgins for eternity? Now that would be hell! Think about it, sitting on an uncomfortable bench watching his 72 virgins all lined to get into the fitting room, each with a half a dozen bras in their hands. One by one they would come out and explain to him in detail why each bra didn’t fit quite right — “The cups fit on this one, but the straps dug into the fat! This one bloops out unless I stand up really straight and stick my chest out… this one’s underwire poked me, and this one…” And she’s off to grab another handful of bras to try on. While he’s waiting for his next virgin to give him the run down on the inadequacies of the load of bras she hauled into the fitting room, he has the rather round and tired old lady who’s at the end of her shift that never comes to keep him company. She’s nice enough, but he’s not enjoying fantasizing about what she would look like in her underwear. Another virgin interrupts his fantasy to describe her delicate dilemmas with the colorful display of cups and straps she’s dangling in his face — “This one doesn’t….”

Walk & Ride

May 2, 2013 Timothy Price3 Comments

Walking, riding, driving and a table waiting to be occupied.

Senior Photos

April 28, 2013 Timothy Price3 Comments

Marisa is graduating from high school next month. These photos were done in the bosque and along the river.

No Agua, Large vacuum leak & Other Random Chaos

April 13, 2013April 13, 2013 Timothy Price6 Comments

Since I am up past midnight, I thought I’d be clever and go out and see if I could get irrigation water since the ditch rider just turned it in to our ditch for the week. All the water was already taken. The farmers above us probably leave their gates down so when the ditch rider turns the water in, the farmers upstream of us will be sure to get it. The license plate on this old Corvair says it all!

For those of you who are old enough, and have good memories, the Corvair was on par with the Devil in Ralph Nader’s “Unsafe at any Speed” published in 1965. The only reason I remember it is because we had one of “The Sporty Corvair-The One-Car Accident” as per Nader’s title of Chapter One in “Unsafe at any Speed”. The Covair is long gone, but our evil, water guzzling plants remain, and the Conservancy is making Corrales farmers fight for water, leaving us with “No Agua” for three weeks at a time.

The “Check Engine Light” came on in our Mazda Speed 3 this afternon. I stopped and reseated the gas cap and checked the oil, and everything seemed ok. We had just filled the car with gas, so I suspected the gas cap didn’t get seated well enough. I took the car by Auto Zone and they got the code for me which gave use an error that there was a “Large Vacuum Leak” meaning the gas cap didn’t seat properly.

As I was walking back to my car after class, a young couple were playing guitars by the statue of “Mexican dancers” on the mall between Popejoy Hall and Johnson Gym. I noticed the young man was playing a flamenco guitar with pegs instead of machine heads to secure and tune the strings. Tuning pegs are rarely seen on guitars these days, so I asked the young man about his guitar. He said he got it from John Truitt and that is was made in Albuquerque by a local luthier in the 1970’s. That was really cool to learn, because I’ve known Truitt for many years, and he is like Mr. Music — you can give Truitt anything with a string on it and he’ll produce great music on it.

When I pulled into the parking lot at work, the was a young woman photographing a man and his daughter. I pointed out other locations in the downtown area that were good for portraits. They were friendly and cheerful and it made me happy to see they were having lots of fun with their photo shoot.

Sarah, who’s in French 385 with Lauie and I, and French 302 with Laurie, organized a fun night at Wilson Middle School with four or five other students for their senior project in Communications. It was really well attended, we had to park a block from the school, the food was good and the kids looked like they were having a lot of fun participating in art, science, poetry, etc. The 5th photo is of her team calling out numbers for a raffle.

On my way home from getting the engine light checked, a crew was filming at the Corrales gas station, so I pulled over and got a few shots. I have no idea what movie or show they were filming.

Laurie pointed out the spider in the last photo after she got home. It looks like spider season is coming on, so the macro lens is coming out.

Great Getting

March 31, 2013April 1, 2013 Timothy Price8 Comments

The “Great Getting’ Up Mournin’ celebration” with the CUMC Chancel Choir and Fellowship Baptist Unity Choir was fantastic. Jazz a la Carte played Dixieland Jazz before the service, between sets and after the service, and they were very enternaining. Pastor Scott Sharp (CUMC) and Pastor Dennis Dunn (FBUC) both delivered short, but inspiring sermons. The music, choirs, musicians and congregation were very lively. It was a great service and moving experience.

I’ve been looking for a second full-frame Canon body, but new Canon full frame bodies are expensive, so I started looking at used bodies. I saw a Canon 1Ds advertised on Amazon as “Like New, little use” for $650 with no other description. I emailed the seller and asked what it came with and the shutter count. Canon 1D bodies are the hard core professional bodies that start new for $6000 and run up to over $8000 depending on the model. Normally used 1D bodies with low shutter counts are priced higher than 5D and new 6D. 1D bodies in the $600 range usually have very high shutter counts (80,000+), and are normally very well used.

The seller emailed back and said the camera came with all the original accessories, in the original box, and that the shutter count was 1846. My 5d that is only a year old is ready to turn over 20,000 clicks on the shutter. I ordered the camera and it arrived on Friday, and it is really “like new”, so it was “great getting” on my part.

All the photos, except for the photos I took of the camera sitting among Laurie’s cookies, were taken with the 1Ds. The sky was overcast and very bright when I took the outdoor photos, so it was a good challenge for the metering system. The auto focus is fast and accurate and it focused on black (Rosencrantz) immediately without searching like the 5D. The shutter is much quieter than the 5D and is super quick and responsive. All the photos are how they came straight out of the camera with little manipulation (of course, the panorama of the sanctuary was stitched together). The service tonight was a good test for indoors, under low light. While it focuses in the shadows very well, I discovered the autofocus searches on bright white, so it’s not perfect.

I got a photo of the first butterfly of the season, and it looked pretty ragged, so it either wintered over locally or migrated. One of the peach trees is blooming, as are the wild plums, and the honey bees are enjoying them.

After the service, we gathered in the ‘Life Center” for fellowship and cookies. The couple in the last photo asked me to take their picture. They are a handsome couple, and my first portrait with the 1Ds. I put on the super-wide angle lens and got a photo of the trombonist in the jazz band with his “le long trombone!”

HoneyBeeBlossom

Tenebrae

March 30, 2013 Timothy PriceLeave a comment

The Tenebrae service at Central United Methodist Church last night was beautiful and moving. Tonight is the “Great Getting’ Up Mournin’ celebration” with the Chancel Choir and a Baptist Gospel Choir. It’s supposed to be fantastic and not to be missed. The celebration is at 7:00 pm, 201 University Blvd NE. 243-7834.

Adam and Marissa

March 13, 2013 Timothy Price4 Comments

Adam is leaving for boot camp next week, and will serve in the Army for the next three years. He brought is girlfriend, Marissa, with him to the photo session, and although she was reluctant to get in front of the camera, she turned out to be a delightful model. Marissa is studying mechanical engineering at UNM. Rosencrantz had to get in action, of course!