Tag : humor

02 Nov 2016

A real Kodak moment

This weekend I have an art show in Pensacola, Florida, which is a long drive from New Jersey. Since 18 hours is too much for me to drive in one day, I looked on the map to find a place that was a little more than half way and came up with Knoxville, TN. Looking closer I saw there is a town named Kodak, so I had to look into that. It turns out that a postmaster in 1892 heard about the new Kodak camera and he thought it would be a good name for the village. He contacted Eastman Kodak Co. and George Eastman said OK. So here I am in Kodak!

I thought that it would be cool to hear Paul Simon sing Kodachrome on the radio as I pulled out. It came on an hour later, and yes, I was singing!

29 Oct 2013

Hippee Halloween dog

halloween_dog13 Tonight was the annual Halloween costume contest at The Hungry Hound where dogs put up with their owners desire to make them look funny. Some dogs handle it better than others, wearing a wig and a hat isn’t something that comes natural to many pooches. My favorite of the evening, and the official winner, was Gia, dressed like a funky hippee from the ’60s. Gia was far out and groovy and matched the look of her handlers. She also was good at posing in the studio. There are more photos over on The Hungry Hound’s Facebook page.

13 Apr 2013

Nasty swan gives friendless goose a chase

A swan nips at a Canada goose while flying around a Cape May pond.

I witnessed one those things in nature today that I doubt if I will ever see again. I went to a state park in Cape May near the lighthouse to see what birds might be around this early in the year. As expected, there wasn’t much activity but I went to a blind on a pond to take a look. I’ve gone to the blind a dozen times before and probably didn’t shoot a frame and I really didn’t expect anything different this time.

As I walked in there were a couple of ducks swimming around and soon a Canada goose landed to my left and went into the tall grass. In a few minutes a mute swan swam in from my right. It paddled right in front of me as I shot away. I noticed the swam wasn’t swimming in a normal, smooth way, it was lunging, like it was doing the breast stroke. The swan headed for the goose and the goose flopped into the pond and starting swimming. The swan headed out toward the goose and quickly caught up. I learned swans swim faster than geese.

The swan got right behind the goose and the goose flew about 30 feet and then landed again. The swan quickly got on the goose’s tail and the goose flew another 30 feet, landing in the pond. The two raced around the five acre pond a few times and then the goose took to the air. As I was watching the goose fly, I heard the swan taking off and I learned that swans fly faster than geese. The swan would get right on the goose’s tail, the goose would dive and the swan would be right back on the goose. They circled the pond, flew up and down as the swan tried biting the goose in midair. Lucky for me they were going right over me and I was ready. I had a 70-200 mm lens with a 2X teleconverter and filled the frame as the swan tried to take a nip of the goose.

The goose landed in the pond and the water chase was on again. Three more times across the pond and they did the aerial chase again. The goose landed in some tall grass and was safe. That was until two other geese landed on the pond and the goose who was getting bullied started honking at them. I was thinking the goose should shut up or the swan was going to know where he was. Well, the goose flies out and lands over by the other two geese. They looked at him and flew off. I don’t know if the goose had BO or was a jerk, but obviously he wasn’t liked by swans or geese. As soon as the two geese left, here comes the swan and the chase is on again.

After nearly an hour, I left and they were still swimming around the pond. When I go back to Cape May for my photo workshop in May, I’ll see if they are still on the chase.

Animals / Humorous / Photo adventure

01 Sep 2012

Surviving the Mt. Tom death march

I used to be in fairly decent physical shape. It has only been seven years since I did a 30-day bicycle ride from San Francisco to Somerville, NJ. So when Lisa Lacasse asked me if I wanted to do a sunrise shoot from Mt. Tom in Woodstock, Vt. I didn’t think anything about it. I even asked if she wanted to invite her photographer friend Derek MacDonald to join us. The full moon would be setting, so there should be some great photos.

(more…)

Humorous / My life / Photo adventure / Scenic

13 Jul 2010

What’s good: Being in Denali, Alaska

A coyote poses in Denali, Alaska.

We traveled to Denali National Park on our bear search. On the way, we saw a pretty coyote sitting along the road. So, of course, we screeched to a halt and went back for some shots.

Fireweed grows everywhere in Alaska.

You can drive 12 miles into the park and then you have to take a converted school bus the 89 miles to the end of the road – unless you know somebody. Walter has a client doing road work past where the buses go. So we are going in with them tonight at 6 p.m. It is a four hour ride, then Walter will shoot some photos of them working for a couple of hours and then we’ll ride back out.

A gull sits on our car roof in Denali National Park, Alaska.

We drove the 12 mile route a couple times this afternoon. It was a rainy day so we decided not to do any hikes. We’re also saving energy since it will be a sleepless night. We are amazed at the number of gulls in Alaska. They are everywhere, including Denali which is hundreds of miles from any major body of water. At one of the pulling off spots on the 12-mile drive, a friendly gull lands on car roofs. It seems like it his gig, being cute for food. I’m sure it works way too much.

Be sure to read more at Walter’s blog.

Animals / Details / Humorous / My life / Photo adventure / Scenic

08 Jul 2010

What’s good: My first day in Alaska

My new moose friend mugs for the camera.

What a first day in Alaska. It started with arriving at the Anchorage at 2:30 a.m. and then catching a 6 a.m. flight to Fairbanks. That meant catching a few winks in the airport, very few.

Walter and I hit the ground running, heading right out to shoot in the beautiful weather. Our plan was to head to Copper Center near Wrangle-St. Alias National Park, the nation’s largerst and least visited. We stopped in North Pole on the way to make fun pictures with all the Santa stuff, then it was down the Richardson Highway. We stopped for lunch along a river and then met our first big animal. A moose who was happy to pose for pictures. The rest of the day featured big mountain ranges, following the Trans Alaska Pipeline, watching a loon family and ending along the Klutina River.

See more of Loren’s Alaska photos

Read daily details at Walter’s blog.

Animals / Humorous / Photo adventure / Scenic / Showcase

17 Jun 2010

What’s good: Worth the wait at McDonald’s

Frustration shows on the guy behind me in line at McDonald's.

I was sitting in a slow line at the McDonald’s drive-thru for what seemed to be 20 minutes. Yea, before you ask, I was there for a salad. I wasn’t in a big hurry, so it didn’t really matter how long I was sitting there, but the guy behind me wasn’t taking the wait too well.

Humorous / My life / People

31 May 2010

What’s good: Flies on the eye of the frog

Flies sit on the eye of frog in Pomfret, Vt.

I went back to the big pond on the property I visited yesterday. It was the perfect day and place, the air was warm but not too hot, the scenery was beautiful and the only sounds were frogs, birds and wind. It is a place of total relaxation, I’ll be spending a lot of time there.

Blooms are just appearing at the edge of the pond.

Animals / Details / Humorous / Scenic / Showcase

14 May 2010

What’s good: Sisters smiling

Penny, left, and Robin in downtown Somerville.

I had dinner tonight with Robin and her sister Penny at our favorite restaurant, Chao Phayo in Somerville. We call it “cheap Thai” because we can get out of there about as cheap as any place and the food is always good and plentiful. We go there at least once a week.

The only thing Robin doesn’t like about it is they have small wine glasses. She likes those big ones that fill up your hand. Robin hasn’t seen a wine glass that was too big. So she started taking her own wine glass to the restaurant. The owner, Apple, thought it was funny, so I suggested that the restaurant keep the glass. So now when Robin sits down, a large wine glass appears on the table.

Humorous / My life / People

01 May 2010

What’s good: Getting a greeting from a real horse

A horse poses outside of Ringoes, NJ.

Yesterday I photographed the strange horse statue, today it is a real horse. I was on a grueling bike ride with Kathy Johnson through the Hunterdon County countryside. We are training for the upcoming MS Coast the Coast ride in three weeks. Please donate! It was over 95 degrees, which I’m not acclimated to and we were planning on doing 35-40 miles but I could barely make 25.

The horse had an interest in my camera.

As we were heading back to the cars, I saw two horses in a field. They looked nice, so I stopped to photograph them. I took some shots of them grazing and they came over to the fence. One was very friendly and it posed for a photo. It was a curious horse and wanted to check out the camera.

The horse had an interest in my bicycle

Then it obviously had an interest in carbon fiber and it went over to my bicycle to give it a lick.

Animals / Humorous / Scenic

30 Apr 2010

What’s good: A horse statue in the middle of a field

A redwing blackbird sits on a horse statue in a Readington, NJ field.

When I first saw it, I almost crashed my bike. I was riding along a backroad, not really sure what town it is, I’m guessing Readington. Out in the middle of a field, nothing else in sight, is a statue of a horse rearing up. I’ve gone past it many times since that first sighting, and when others see it for the first time, they have the same reaction. Why would someone put that in the middle of a field? I thought the light might be good to get a picture of it today, so I drove over to see how it looked. When I got out, there was a redwing blackbird sitting on the horse’s nose. Life is good.

Humorous / Scenic 2

25 Apr 2010

What’s good: The wet nose of friendly hound

Domino, a cocker spaniel

I had another day in the photo studio at The Hungry Hound. Today I photographed Domino, a black and white Cocker Spaniel. Most Spaniels are nuts, rather hyper and Domino wasn’t much different. I always give dogs time to acclimate to the studio, do their sniffing and calm down enough to After shooting for 20 he finally calmed down enough that I could get in close and tight with my macro lens.

Animals / Details / Humorous / My life 1

23 Apr 2010

What’s good: Teaching dogs how to behave

Sophie relaxes after a hard session of obedience training.

We now have two Bernese Mountain Dogs, Sophie and new addition Zian. They are both about 85 pounds and our house only has room for 90 pounds of dog. It is tight in the house, everywhere I walk I run into dog. The biggest problem is training, Robin and I aren’t trained.

So we called in the expert. Kristian Hammermueller used to work for The Seeing Eye, that great place in Morristown that trains dogs for blind people. Kristian has been out on his own for several years and has a spa and grooming business in Lebanon, It’s A Miracle.

Our two dogs have recently decided to kinda attack each other every other day. It ain’t pleasant and that is the main reason we called in Kristian. Luckily while he was here for their first training today, they went at it and he had the pleasure of breaking it up. He made sure they weren’t going to do it again, today anyway. He gave us pointers on teaching them not to scrap. We’ll see how well we learned.

Animals / Humorous / My life

15 Apr 2010

What’s good: Up with people

I photographed Dash last Saturday. I love the way he paid attention.

I talked to kids at a local high school career day this morning about being a photographer. It was a small group of kids brought together by Middle Earth, run by Dan Puntillo, who I went with on the bicycle ride across America. The other speakers were a nurse, radiologist, police officer, attorney and dancer, who performed with Up With People for five years in the 1980’s. I only knew she was a performing artist when started talking but I was amazed by her pep and positive nature. It was easy to believe she was touring the globe with Up With People that long. She now works for the YMCA and does dance and music programs for kids. I wish I made a picture of her, she’s all smiles. It was a good group, it hit me that they all had jobs that make a difference in other people’s lives every day. Even the lawyer.

From there I went to Trenton with my boss. We were honored by the New Jersey Council on Developmental Disabilities for the newspaper’s annual Wish Book project that tells the story of people in need and then we raise money to purchase the items. I got the Wish Book going 20 years ago and it has raised nearly $1 million. I was humbled by the other honorees and the difference they make daily. These people are in there fighting for people who can’t. We sat with a group of high school kids with developmental challenges who started a club that anyone could join, whether they were challenged or not. For most of them it was the first time they had been to a large banquet or luncheon. They were proud to get their award.

Animals / Humorous / My life