How soon they grow up to fly the nest

Although it’s a few years away until my children will truly “fly the nest” today was the day when my youngest daughter literally flew away from me. She joined 31st Wing Civil Air Patrol earlier this year and today was her chance for her orientation flight. After an initial briefing by her instructor and a detailed walk around the Cessna 172P for pre-flight checks, the mist had finally lifted and she was ready to leave the ground. It was quite nerve wracking watching her taxi out and fly away, and I know the feeling too, as both I and my wife have flown single-engine planes when we were students a long time ago. In fact, as I told her on the way home, she’s the third generation of our family to do this as my father was in the Air Cadets in the UK as a teenager and also flew small planes.

When she landed she had a smile as wide as the Cheshire Cat’s from Alice in Wonderland. She had basic instruction and flew the plane for a while on her 45 minutes in the air. And at 14, she has now flown a plane in advance of sitting behind the wheel of a car.

I think she’s hooked!

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~Richard

September 10, 2016 0

52 Week Challenge: Week 28

WEEK 28: Portrait: Family – Whether it’s the family you are born with or the one you choose, show the world what family is to you.

This was always going to be a difficult portrait given my family’s general dislike of being photographed. However, our recent trip to New England afforded me a genuine opportunity for the dreaded “family portrait.” I ran off a quick set of shots but I love the informal nature of the very first one I took, outside The Verb hotel, as we were planning to leave.

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~Richard

July 30, 2016 0

Happy Mother’s Day (UK)

Today is Mothering Sunday in the UK. Although we Brits also refer to it as “Mother’s Day” it has a different origin to its namesake celebrated in the US.

Mothering Sunday has origins from a historical religious holiday associated with encouraging people (as in servants, largely) to go back to their “mother churches” on the 4th Sunday in Lent. The fact they also visited their mother’s was probably just taking advantage of having a rare day off from their toils and also because their parents were most likely to live near the original church since, years ago, people didn’t generally travel so far. Over the years, as Britain has become more secular, the original meaning seems to have been largely lost.

Mother’s Day in the US, on the other hand, was first celebrated in 1908 by a lady called Anne Jarvis who held a memorial to her mother Ann Reeves Jarvis, if Wikipedia is to believed, and occurs on the second Sunday of May. It appears to have no particular religious connotations.

Anyhow, being of British origin, my children helped to celebrate today by accompanying my wife and I to a nice brunch and walk through the local horticultural gardens. I had my small camera with me and so was able to get a few nice uplifting floral shots to share.

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So, to all you mums out there, in the UK and elsewhere – Happy Mothering Sunday!

~Richard

March 6, 2016 1

52 week challenge: week 4

Week 4: Portrait: Headshot – You shot a selfie, now shoot a “selfie” of someone else!

As I mentioned in my earlier post on this subject ‘… (portrait) is largely unexplored territory for me to date, other than through reluctantly granted periodic “family portraits,”’ so I felt that this was going to be a tough assignment.

Help came though in a totally unexpected way – through Winter Storm Jonas! Bizarrely, as the storm was heading towards us, the majority of my family left to go on a pre-planned ski trip in Vermont, thereby missing the storm in its entirety. I, on the other hand, was left at home in PA to look after the place, but mainly because I no longer ski due to an accident in the Austrian Alps 10 or so years ago. Staying with me was one of my daughters, and as I was spending 8+ hours shoveling snow to dig a path to the road she, obviously, decided to build an igloo.

Aha! I thought, I will strike a bargain and, as part payment for providing some material for her to use as a roof, she agreed to let me take a few pictures of her. I particularly liked her choice of headgear and I had her pose inside her igloo too to provide an interesting backdrop. I admit to taking several shots over a short period (1-2 minutes) and I stuck to using my 20mm f1.7 (40mm equivalent) lens simply because I wanted a large aperture as the light was fading.

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After some minor touch up in GIMP I also tried a black and white version, so this week I offer up two images to the challenge!

I would be interested to see which one is preferred, as it’s a tough choice for me.

~Richard

#dogwood52 #dogwoodweek4

January 25, 2016 0

Tag: family

How soon they grow up to fly the nest

52 Week Challenge: Week 28

Happy Mother’s Day (UK)

52 week challenge: week 4

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