Category: photography

And So It Begins

Well, with Thanksgiving done and dusted, I suppose that officially begins the Holiday Season.

No stopping the relentless advertisements and ho ho ho’ing at every corner.

Each holiday season, it’s always a bit of a toss up for me if I am in the spirit or feeling grinchy.

Honestly? More often than not it’s the grinch that emerges in December.

But this year is a bit different. I have to admit, standing there in Rockefeller Center watching the ice skaters and gazing at the tree, I did sort of feel a warm, happy Holiday spirit wash over me.

Now I’m ready to head home and put up our own tree and make spiced cider and hum a few carols and enjoy the holidays this year.

No worry, I’m sure it will wear off in about a week.

But until then…it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!



Copyright 2012, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons license in the right column of this page. Taken with an iPhone5 and the onboard camera app using the panorama feature.



Getting The Hang of this Panorama Thing

When Apple introduced the new iOS6 for iPhones, it came along with a new camera feature called Panorama.

It’s a way to take really wide angled photos. The OS has a pretty clever little interface to help make it easy.

As I’ve been traversing this big ol’ city of New York, there are a lot of great views that are hard to capture in just one frame.

I posted a fun panorama view of the New York City Public Library a couple days ago.

And herewith, are a few more of my favorite panorama shots from the week:


This is the beautiful Lincoln Center where we saw War Horse. I took this as the show let out and New York was bathed in that magic hour light. This is by far my favorite shot using the new technique.



Copyright 2012, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons license in the right column of this page. Taken with an iPhone5 and the onboard camera app using the panorama feature.



Here is a shot from the American Museum of Natural History. I’d tried doing the panorama technique on the TRex skeleton, but the buggar was just too darn big. This was an awesome display of various skeletons ranging from a dino-era horse to a small dimetrodon. It was pretty nifty:



Copyright 2012, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons license in the right column of this page. Taken with an iPhone5 and the onboard camera app using the panorama feature.



And finally, we have Katz’s Deli on the Lower East Side. You know, where Harry met Sally?

It’s also about the most amazing deli in New York. Oh the corn beef! All piled high on a reuben with swiss and sauerkraut. Yum! The perfect egg cream. The knish to die for!

This photo just makes me drool. I may lick my computer screen…

This photo is also a bit of an amazing feat considering how many people are in the photo and everyone is moving around. That would usually cause weird pixel jumps and odd stuff, but other than one woman with a distorted head, it turned out pretty good.



Copyright 2012, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons license in the right column of this page. Taken with an iPhone5 and the onboard camera app using the panorama feature.



Digging this new feature! More NYC photos to come.



In The Great Room

It is a mild and sunny Monday afternoon and I am happy and healthy here in New York City.

At the moment I’m working on my NaNoWriMo trying to increase a word count that currently sits at just past 45,000 words. I gotta get 5,000 more written by Friday to make it past the goal line.

I think I can I think I can.

In order to inspire myself, I’m sitting in the great room at the New York City Public library tapping away at the keys to my MacBook.

It really is a great room:




Copyright 2010, Karen Fayeth. Taken with an iPhone5 using the onboard app and the panorama function


Downstairs there is a free exhibition of some artifacts from Charles Dickens. Among these treasures is the late Mr. Dickens pen and inkwell. Now that really is inspiring.




Copyright 2012, Karen Fayeth. Taken with an iPhone5 and the Camera+ app.


Here I lament tapping away at the keys, trying to make the words accumulate into something good while our man Charles scribbled them all out longhand, dipping pen into ink every so often.

I suppose one might be a bit more thoughtful about the words if one had to write them out one by one in pen and ink, eh?

For me, I can’t imagine going back to even writing on a typewriter. I remember having to type up papers for school on my mom’s old manual typewriter and being so head bangingly frustrated at having to type each page perfectly with no mistakes. Argh!

No, I’ll take my beat up old MacBook, words slopping out from the edges of my Word document like water in an overfilled and somewhat leaky bucket.

I can veritably shower in the words here as they fly free and easy from my fingertips.

Then again, he was Dickens. I have yet to fully be Karen Fayeth.

Back to tip tapping away in the great room.

Many words and many miles yet to go….



Winning is like..Better than losing

Last year was a tough one at the Southern New Mexico State Fair. My two amazing goddaughters raised pigs as part of their 4H work and then entered them into the fair. They had high expectations, only to learn some hard lessons about business, politics and collusion.

Their pigs didn’t place, didn’t make it to the auction and were sold at packer rates, which amounted to about $300, then loaded on the truck. This is not something they have yet recovered from.

So this year they got smart.

They decided to diversify into rabbits. Yes, I said rabbits.

Seeing as their Uncle is superintendent of the rabbit judging at the local fair and he also breeds and sells champion rabbits, it seemed like a good idea.

And it was.

Their cousin took first and grand reserve, my younger goddaughter took second and the oldest took third.

Then the goddaughters sold their rabbits at auction. Younger girl got $1,100 and older brought home $1,000.

The best thing about rabbit auction? The buyer almost always gives the animal back to the kid and takes the tax deduction on the sale. No packer truck means no big sad this year.

My girls are turning into brilliant business women, and for better and worse, learning how to play the game.

Even as I hate how good ol’ boy corrupt the whole animal showing and auction goes (it always has been), I’m proud of them for figuring it out.

That’s an education you don’t get at school.

Meanwhile, The Good Man says, “There’s money in rabbits!” and is plotting an extensive distribution channel of eatin’ rabbits. There are plenty of local high end restaurants who serve it and “peasant food” is so on trend these days. If a restaurant can charge $30 for a rabbit plate (I’m not making this up) then we can surely get the girls some back end on that deal.

It’s all about who you know.

All I know is I gotta stick close to my girls. Today the Southern New Mexico State Fair auction barn, tomorrow the world.


Photo from ©2011 livestock auction





Photo Copyright 2011, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons License in the far right column of this page. Taken with a Canon Rebel.



AppTastic!

I admit it, I’m a fool for iPhone apps, especially camera apps and particularly when they are free.

So yesterday when I stumbled across the free Manga-Camera on the top 25 list, I hit download purty darn fast.

It doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles, but it’s a lot of fun. Choose a frame, take a photo (no front facing camera availability yet and no importing other photos yet) and the app transforms the photo into manga fun.

Here, of course, the ubiquitous kitteh photo.
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The Feline is always the first model for any new camera or camera app.




And then, the all important selfie.





Fun!!

Except I have no idea what those Kanji characters say. Probably something odd.

Ah well. I won’t let that get in the way of my fun.

Ignorance is bliss?





Photos Copyright 2012, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons license found in the right column of this page. Taken with an iPhone4s and the Camera Manga app.