Relay For Life

At Relay For Life, the all-night walkathon for the American Cancer Society.  Many of those energy drinks were consumed through the night.  The second photo is of us on the field, holding glowsticks up to form a glowing cancer ribbon for a photo shot from above.

the reason for my hiatus

These past two weeks have been spent frantically running trials for my thesis research and writing the damn thing up.  Here's a bit of what I do in the lab (it's a psychology lab, and a blood glucose/cognition experiment).

Taking a blood sample in a glucometer cuvette.

Placing the sample in the Hemocue meter.

Relatively high--I think I had just eaten before this and was mapping out how fast my glucose levels would spike.

budding ginkgo

Ginkgos are my favorite trees, and I can't tell you how delighted I am that their little larval leaves are finally coming in.  The top two photos are of the Pratt Ginkgo, a rather famous tree around UVa grounds due to its age and size.  It's a male, and you can see the cone-shaped "flowers" (but of course, these aren't really flowers because ginkgos are gymnosperms and developed before plants evolved flowering structures!).  The bottom two photos are of a female tree, and its little leaves are probably no bigger than a quarter of an inch across.

Ginkgos are considered "living fossils" because they are the last remaining species in their entire phylum (which is kind of a big deal).  Also, they were around during dinosaur times, which is pretty cool too.

miami

nested

scenes from Jamaica

thatched

Back from spring break--I went on a cruise to Jamaica (where this photo was taken).  Returning from the tropics to dreary Charlottesville was less than desirable, but I can feel the stirrings of spring!

inky

This looks pretty cool in color too--shot at dusk, so the sky was a deep saturated blue.

wink

Those of you who read this blog may think that Jimmy is my only friend.  Luckily, only Jimmy reads this blog.

red ladder

I love blue and orange together (good thing I go to UVA).  I hope those beams aren't completely rusted, though, and that it's just paint (although it makes so much sense to paint steel beams rust-colored, so that when they do actually rust no one can tell).

lamppost

 Pictures taken at dusk always have such a delicious, dreamy look.  Actually, dusk in general rocks, from a lighting standpoint and just as a time of day.

Also, random biology fact--the term for organisms active at dawn and dusk, these in-betweeny times: crepuscular (think deer, or rabbits).  Yeah, I hadn't heard it either.

brunch

Whole wheat rotini and Earl Grey with lemon.

unkempt

One of the graveyards at UVa.  This shot is so melodramatically literal, but hey, I didn't stage the shot. 

This is the less well-kept cemetery at UVa, and you almost wonder if it was meant to look mysterious and tangled.  Of course it would have headstones hidden in wild thorny rosebushes, and faded bouquets surviving in the melted snow.  Or maybe I shouldn't be so cynical about these things.  Faked or not, the cemetery is a charming place, full of dead University presidents and names that we have on our classroom buildings today.

budding

excited for spring...

hotlips

When I'm home alone for the afternoon, I have a bad habit of picking out a particularly lurid lipstick and slathering it on--maybe thinking that since I use these colors so rarely, putting on several layers will make them worth the money.  A downside of this is that I generally forget about this and then go out about my business with fuschia lips.  So that's why the UPS guy gave me such a weird look...

in the chapel

Surreptitious snap during a wedding ceremony.

frosting

My house after 24 inches of snow.  I tried shoveling it with my dad, but then our mini snowplow broke, and there was no way we'd finish the 0.1 mile driveway (almost the length of two football fields) before next week.

corgi

My friend's Welsh Corgi, taken in Arizona.

By rights I should be posting pictures of the 12+ inches of snow we've gotten so far in Virginia (and it's still snowing!)  It's a little cold to be venturing out though, but maybe when it stops falling I'll take a  few snaps of what it looks like.

of rods and cones

One of my favorite things about night photography is that the camera can capture colors that often go unseen by the eye.  This orange sky is no exception--I remember the sky being a muddy brownish purple and was surprised to see this blaze against the low-lying clouds that night.

Based on what I've learned about the human eye and its light-sensing cells (and I really don't know whether this is true or not, but it makes sense), our cones, which sense color, aren't as sensitive to light as our rods.  Cones aren't adapted for helping us see at night, and rods take over, meaning the color (wavelength) sensitivity of our scotopic (dark or night) vision is different than that of our photopic (light) vision.  I'm learning more about the human visual system in my Sensory Neuro class, so I'll update if I'm horribly wrong, but basically our color vision just doesn't work as well at night, and we miss images like this--unless you're like me and carry a camera to random places (even out to bars for the night).

Speaking of carrying cameras: My point-and-shoot (Sony WSC-120) broke the other day after a year of hard use and good service--not its fault, but gravity's. I'd definitely recommend this camera--most of the photos on this blog were taken with it until I got the Nikon d40. It's a great multipurpose camera for everyday use and more. Honestly, what I said earlier about bars was slightly untrue--I don't routinely carry a dSLR out at night with me (and obsessively guarded the camera in its case on my lap when I was actually out), and had only brought it specifically for night pictures of the snow. Without my wonderful little point-and-shoot, though, which fit so beautifully in a clutch or a pocket, I feel like I'm missing all these opportunities to document my life! I'm searching for a replacement now (although I might just get one of the same model).

afternoon coffee

Things I don't like about this photo: it's slightly out of focus, and would have benefited from being a little less zoomed-in.

Things I like about this photo: the out-of-focus background, and the diagonal lines of Jimmy's forehead, nose, and coffee mug.

radio silence

You'd think that getting a new zoom lens for Christmas would make me take more photos, but strangely enough I've taken not a one since I got back to college.  One of the biggest reasons is probably that I like photographing plants most, and it's been cold and dreary for the most part.  But, no excuses!  I'm pushing myself to take more pictures starting today, and challenging myself to find good photographs...yes, even indoors.

Photo taken while studying for a Religion final in the stacks of my favorite library.

double take

Photos of UVa's rotunda reflecting in the flood on the Lawn, taken with a friend's Canon Rebel XSi. Truly ghostly with the light coming off the low clouds--I was walking home from a friend's and had to stop and stare at the reflection for a while.

Click to enlarge.

the golden hour

My favorite time of day (and time to take pictures) is what I call 'the golden hour'. It's just before sunset when the light is a perfect syrupy yellow. And it lasts nowhere near an hour--the best part of it will last maybe 25 minutes if you have a relatively flat horizon.

It probably doesn't make "good" photos in the sense of artistic colors (of the kind that Ken Rockwell chases), since the images invariably turn out saturated in gold. But I love the bright shock of yellow-orange in these pictures, and the fact that they remind me of being outside during the sunset.

Photo taken of a church in Yuma, Arizona, where I just attended a friend's wedding.

bodhisattva

new camera

Experimenting with my new Nikon D40.