s h u t t e r c h i c k

My husband was sharing a memory from when he was very small in which he remembers his mother pulling over to the side of the road to pick some of these blue wildflowers. It was such a sweet story, I decided to shoot a few and choose one to put up in our living room. This is the picture I chose:

Nellie McKay: Happy Flower

Five Minutes for Mom is holding a photography contest titled “Summer Fun” and I am submitting this photo of Jack. This was one of those great summer days where flowers are still blooming. It was a bit windy, which was perfect for breaking out the bubble wands.

Thanks to Sara for the recommendation.

The Sundays: Summertime

B&H Photo is one of my favorite camera stores of all time. Going there is, to me, like taking my 6-year-old to Toys R Us in Times Square. They have a huge inventory of anything necessary and playful for anyone who has ever picked up a camera. It’s my version of Mecca.

B&H has an email newsletter that offers tips and news. The most recent included a link to this excellent article on the latest way to add information to your images, Geotagging. It’s a must read for anyone feeling clueless on the subject:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/find/newsLetter/Geotagging.jsp

Joshua Heineman at the Cursive Buildings has taken some old photos and created amazing animated GIFs. The photos were produced by a dual lens camera that, when put into a special viewer, would product a 3D effect. Heineman has taken these two image photos and created two frame animated gifs out of them.

http://lala.cursivebuildings.com/tagged/reaching

I originally thought that perhaps the blue bottle trees were a prank or some symbol for a secret organization (I may have read a few too many Dan Brown novels). The next sighting dispelled both of those theories. A tall bottle tree with its “trunk” painted bright yellow appeared in the nicely manicured lawn of a house in Princeton. A little bit of research (read: googling) lead to this:

The bottle tree reflects an ancient African tradition that can be traced as far back as ninth century Congo where natives hung hand-blown glass on huts and trees to ward off evil. The tradition continued in Africa and eventually became a part of Southern African-American folklore. In the early American South, trees, typically cedar because its branches point toward the heavens, were stripped of foliage and decorated with colorful glass bottles.

According to African legend, the bottles attract evil spirits, which are drawn to the bursts of sunlit color. The spirits then become trapped inside the bottles, their voices heard moaning as the wind passes by. Though the legend that the bottles trap evil spirits is widely accepted, some believe that the bottles hold the spirits of their ancestors, while others contend that the bottle tree grants wishes.

(”The Campus Chronicle”, Savannah College of Art and Design)

Why this southern legend has made its way to New Jersey and who planted the trees along two roadways are mysteries I still have to solve, but it’s nice to know that the pretty trees are a part of a long-standing tradition. I might “plant” one of my own.

Secret Broadcast: Blue Bottle

Two weeks later, I discovered another blue bottle tree along the tow path several miles away from the first. This tree was taller and had more bottles dangling from its iron branches. Like the other bottle tree, this one straddled the road in an overgrown area. It couldn’t be a coincidence. There had to be some sort of meaning to the pretty blue bottles. It took the third appearance for me to finally start doing a bit of research into the mysterious trees.

The Beloved: Hello

As I drove along the tree shaded road by my new house six years ago, I saw a curious looking pole with a dozen or so bright blue bottle dangling off of nails drilled into it. I thought it was pretty, but strange. It had been pounded into the ground on an overgrown stretch of the road and didn’t seem to be a part of anyone’s property. I came home and asked a few of my neighbors about the curious bottle tree, but although everyone had seen it, no one knew why it was there. I continued to pass it every day while running errands, but just wrote it off as a curiosity until I saw the second bottle tree a few months later.

DJ Patrick Reid: Blue Bottle

I was raised Catholic and my husband is Jewish so we try to make an effort to make sure that we expose our son to both traditions. Dustin and his dad were in China this year over Hanukkah and rather than missing lighting the candles and saying the prayer (I know Hebrew like he knows the rosary), we used Skype to bridge the planet and light the candles together.

I can tell from this picture than Dustin is looking up trying to remember all of the Hebrew properly.

There are times when I take technology for granted and then there are times when I’m awestruck at how far we’ve come in such a short period of time. It really wasn’t that long ago that I was playing with the card punch machines at my dad’s work. Crazy.

This is Part Three of a series about my high school reunion. Read Part One | Read Part Two

Many hoped to bring those friendships of the past into the future. “I decided to attend because I had recently reconnected with some of my former classmates and developed a curiosity of what it might be like to see and spend time with them again,” Sandra said.

Robyn and I with another friend in 1987. Totally. Awesome

Cliff C. looked back at those years and had a very different response. “I slept with everyone that I wanted to then,” the Washington D.C. photographer said. “What’s the point of a rehash now?” Jokes about ex-girlfriends aside, my former classmates also wanted to update their personal biographies, which is part of the stress of attending a reunion. Beckford said she felt awkward at first because she never married. I was worried how being a stay-at-home mom and college undergrad would stack up to my friends and former rivals who became lawyers and engineers...

But mostly I worried about the size of my butt...

I would like to meet the person Zen enough not to worry about their appearance before a high school reunion, because most of us noticed the changes. It happens. We’re almost 40. But whatever anxieties we walked in with seemed to have disappeared by the time the buffet line formed as the adult versions of the class of 1987 began to relax and reminisce. Unlike the ten-year reunion where the high school cliques kept us divided into social sectors, this time around most of us ventured out and talked to people outside of those tight social circles.

“At 10 yrs out most people are still trying to impress each other with how they’ve changed,” Ross said. The need to impress people wasn’t particularly important ten years later. “Most of the attitudes were like ‘I’m here and this is who I am like it or not’,” she said..

The reunion was a weekend filled with old memories mixing with new for the hundred of us who attended. Every person I spoke to said they would be back for the 25-year and while some of the non-attendees said they had no interest in ever joining in, most would consider a future reunion. Beckford understands why. “It’s just too interesting! It’s an experiment you’re a part of - a living time capsule.” .Thankfully, we get to leave the legwarmers in the ground.

Wang Chung: Everybody Have Fun Tonight

This is Part Two of a Three Part Series. Click to see Part 1 | Click to see Part 3

Jason H. won an Emmy© this year for his work as a segment producer at WFOR, the CBS affiliate in Miami. That’s a pretty impressive accomplishment – I suggested he bring the statue as his date – but an army of cheerleaders couldn’t have dragged him to the reunion.

“I don’t really feel a connection to most of the people I went to high school with anymore,” he said. Jason and I are still really good friends, but has no interest in going back to the way things were. “I don’t like the idea of falling back into that hierarchy we all shared in high school,” he said.

Robyn B., another friend who made the transition from high school buddy to life long friend, sees it differently. A reunion isn’t just a time to talk about bon fires and Budweiser, it’s a time “to talk to people who knew me before I was fully formed,” she said. “People I know now only know me as an adult compared to people who knew me back then,” she said.

We are able to reconnect with our teenaged selves by seeing the 38-year-old through the eyes of people who knew us when we were younger, or as John M. put it, “I’m getting older but I really don’t feel that old.” John works as a Nuclear Power Operator in Miami, which is mind boggling because my enduring image of him from 20 years ago involves doing donuts on an abandoned golf range while blaring “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right to Party”. No matter how philosophical we may get about them, reunions are also about those bon fires and Budweisers..

Previously: I Want to Go Back ||| Next up: Everybody Have Fun Tonight

Simple Minds: Alive and Kicking