Ring Around the Moon

RingAroundMoon

The moon had a really nice ring around it when we got home last night. The fast moving, thin cloud cover formed ripples and streaks under the influence of my 1/3 second exposure and 17mm lens at ƒ/4. You can still see a few stars twinkling behind the clouds and Jupiter next to the moon at about 1 o’clock.

Hi-Ho Silver

Does anyone remember the Lone Ranger? For some reason this couple reminded me of the show. The sun had set when I did the first two photos, so the light, softness, and color from the slow exposure and wide-open aperture gave the photos a real western movie look. The photo of the cyclists were taken after sunset as well, but I added effects to that photo. An old car pulled up next to me at the light while I was on may way to Lowe’s and when I pulled out of the carwash, I got mooned by a droopy-pants’d kid working on his car. All together, I ended up with a somewhat disparate, short history of transportation in the photo series.

One the subject of droopy-pants, I cannot comprehend why young people want to wear their pants below the butt-lines, half falling off — other than to bother people. When I was in my early teens, I was 6’2″ tall, had a 26″ waist and a 36″ inseam. It was impossible to get pants that fit, so I either had to be 40 years ahead of my time wearing pants that were falling down all the time and getting called names like “baggy butt” and “saggy pants.” Or be 40 years ahead of my time wear pants that fit my waist but were way too short in the legs — I got teased for wearing “high waters”, “expecting a flood”, etc. for the long shorts. If I had been as far-sighted as my legs were long back then, I would have copyrighted and patented both the baggy pants and shorts that ended mid-calf. But who would have thought in the late 60’s and early 70’s that such uncomfortable, awkward and stupid looking clothes would become all the rage? We had Star Trek and the Jetsons showing us fashions of the future, and none of it rode below their butt-lines.

Sleepy Moon

On their way home from our birthday gathering last night, Laurie’s parents left me a message that the moon looked really good. I went outside to check it out, but I couldn’t see the moon because of the trees. I got up on the roof, but the moon was low so the trees still blocked it. So I ran back inside, got Laurie, and we drove up to the top of the road just before the sleepy moon slipped below another tree line. The birthday dinner was perfect, the cake was heavenly, and the moon added I nice surreal touch to the end of a great evening.

We dropped by Laurie’s brother’s new house on the way home from the weekly rehearsal for Handel’s Messiah, and a roadrunner was in the yard foraging for insects or whatever it could find to eat. I got a couple of orchids for my birthday that replaced the dried peonies that had hovered over my computer all summer and into the fall. They were making their last stand on the railing of the front porch before going into the compost.

Marlboro Man

Remember the Marlboro Man? He traded in his horse for a Harley. I got a couple of new flash units today, and was messing around with photographing the sliver moon and flashing the trees in front of it. The trees were about 75 feet from the camera so the flash barely lighted them, but it was enough. I think I got the last web of the season in the third photo.