The Munchkin's Notebook

This year started out good with lots of happy times but ended on a sad note. The year started out with my first trip to an anime convention, Katsucon to be exact. Which was a fun time, and I got a bunch of great pictures. This lead to me going to Anime USA in the fall, where I booked three photo shoots. I had a good time and the photos were well received.  So in 2015 I’ll be at Katsucon again, and this time booking shoots and hope those photos will be well received as well. At German Castle On to spring were I went to the Bavaria region of Germany for two weeks with my husband and our mutual friends. It was a great two weeks even if it did seem to rain a lot the first week and having to deal with a foot of snow and falling snow on the mountain. (It is a mountain it is supposed to have snow. I was prepared.) We saw several castles, ate lots of good German sausage, had good wine and my husband actually drank beer.  Overall, it was a good vacation; the next advent...

They say Christmas is a time of family and friends, of hope and cheer.  It is a time to remember the past, and those who went before.  It is a time to dust off old traditions, and enjoy them and the memories they bring while enjoying the present.  It is a time to dine, to dance, and to sing. It is also a time to look forward to the future.   However it is remembering those who went before which makes this joyous time of year so difficult.  When you are expecting a phone call that says, “What does your mother want for Christmas?” Or the conversation that starts out “So what do you want for Christmas, Dad?” to which the reply is “Neat stuff.”  Or the conversation that starts out, “so you’re going to wrap the presents I bought when you come home?” Then Christmas morning you’re expecting your father to go “oooh” to the things you got, like a toaster.  Then, those things don’t happen it just leaves a hole in your holiday, and in your heart.  While...

Yesterday I went to Great Falls National Park , on the Virginia side, with my husband and Teddy (our dog). It was a nice day and the park was very busy with people and other dogs.  Sadly, we missed many of the fall colors, but it was still a good way to practice taking photos while handling a dog on a leash.  Teddy was very good.  I used my standard 18-200 mm lens set at an ISO 200 with an aperture of F8.0 on aperture priority. I found aperture priority worked well while handling a leash with a dog on it.  I will however, have to work with Teddy so that he sits and waits while I focus and take the picture.  

I know this post is over a month late at this point, but as you can see by a previous post ( TEDDY ) I got a dog and it took up a lot of my time.  However, I wanted to post about Anime USA, because of the great people I got to work with during some photo shoots. ( AnimeUSA Gallery ) Anime USA is a small anime convention when compared to the last convention I attended which was Katsucon.  I would call Anime USA a more intimate convention, which has some excellent panels and less intimidating cosplay for the beginner.  I personally like the panel on the perception of evil, the speaker was very enthusiastic.  I also enjoyed the panel on historical costuming, and that boils down to do your research and historical paintings can lie about the fashion.   Now on to the photography. I had 6 photo shoots, 3 were planned (2 with the same person different cosplay) and 3 ended up being scheduled on site.   During all the shoots I used my 18 – 200 mm l...

Our dog Teddy There haven’t been any blog post for a while because my husband and I were busy rearranging our home for our bundle of joy, which just happens to be furry and have four paws.   We determined it was harder to consolidate our stuff then to get married.  Many things went to Goodwill or were sold on e-bay just to make room.  Not that our place is small but we had a lot of stuff we just didn’t use anymore.  But enough about the cleaning and rearranging effort on to the adoption process. My husband and I decided to get a dog. Actually, he finally agreed to let me have a dog because it would make me happy.  So we started the search. We determined a puppy, puppy would not be good since we both work, so we determined a dog about 9 months to a year old would be good.  I searched several adoption and humane society website, and went to several adoption days.  I ended up going through the Lucky Dog Rescue Group , since most places had t...

I went to the McKee-Besher Wildlife Management Area to photograph the annual sunflower fields.  I did this last year and found I would lose track of where I set my bag, so this year I tied a balloon to it.  The balloon happened to be a large pirate balloon (I gave it to a little kid when I was done), which got me many stares from other photographers in the area.  One person came up to me and asked what the balloon was for; one I told him it was to mark my stuff, he was like that is a great idea never thought of that.  The balloon also worked as a great piece of juxtaposition within the sunflower field.  I got several nice shots of the field, not so many with the balloon since the breeze would make it dip down to low.  However, what I would love to do; is do a portrait session in one of the fields. I think a nice earthy shoot, with big floppy hats and breezy dresses or the earth child/hippy look would be perfect out in the field. The other thing tha...

On Saturday, I went to the zoo, because why not do that on sunny afternoon; plus the National Zoo is free.  While I was there the lion cubs were out in there enclosure. I got a couple nice shots of them, but they were not being overly playful because it was hot outside.  I did see the baby panda; however, he was napping with his back to everyone so instead I got nice pictures of the panda parents.   The wolves were very active, pacing around their enclosure.  I captured a few good picture of the grey wolf through the glass without glare.  I also got a nice picture of the sloth bear through the glass, which is usually difficult because the glass is usually very dirty.   Overall, I had a nice little adventure at the zoo.  ( Zoo Gallery ) Lion Cubs Panda   Grey Wolf

July Fourth in the Capitol Yesterday I decided to actually brave crowds to capture a better representation of fireworks in the Capitol.  I traveled to Rosslyn and walked the half mile to the Marine Corps War Memorial (Iwo Jima Memorial).  Once there I walked a bit further over to the Netherlands Carillon .  The Netherlands Carillon is where many people go to capture that iconic shot of the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Memorial and Capital in line with the fireworks going off above them.   I expected it to be extremely crowded, but it actually was no worse than when I shoot from the Air Force Memorial .   People waiting for fireworks The traditional shot I picked a location that framed the monuments between two large trees instead of trying to jostle for a position directly under the carillon.  If I had a press pass, I could actually shoot from the top of the carillon.  I captured some nice shots through the trees from my location...

Today I went to the National Mall for the Annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival . This year the festival highlighted China and Kenya.  I focused on the China portion of the festival.   The first dance I saw was actually of a man dressed as a woman doing the traditional lantern dance; later in the program, he performed the male version of the dance with a female partner.  The man is one of the foremost traditional dancers in China.  Along with the lantern dance, performers also did dances that told the stories of flowers and trees.   I also was lucky enough to see the end of the lion cart performance.  The lion cart performance is dancing lion puppets controlled by a troop of 8 to 10 people.  It was fun to watch, once I squeezed myself into the crowd. The Lions in the Lion Cart Since these performances were held in outdoor tents, it was a slightly difficult to meter through the camera for some photos.  I mostly used either a 400 ISO...

Today I went out to a few parks around the Arlington, Virginia to see what they were like and if they would be suitable as photo shoot location and took a couple test shots.  I stopped by the Golf Branch Nature Center, and Bon Air Park. Both are lovely locations.  Golf Branch has some nice bridges, and an old log cabin that would work for some rustic photos.  In addition, a nice stream runs through the park that could work for some creative work.  The location is where I would love to redo the ranger shots I did back in April.   Bon Air Park has a beautiful rose garden with trellises. Here I could see doing some elegant princess shots or romantic photos in the sunset or sunrise.  It would also be a perfect location for engagement and wedding photos.  Now that I found some nice locations, I must find some models and refine the photo shoot ideas in my head.  At Bon Air Park At Golf Branch

Analytics I finished editing and posting all the photos from my trip to Bavaria. You can see them here .  So now that all the editing is done I went and ran some analytics/metrics on the photos (included are some of my husband’s shots I edited) and noted a few things.  I mostly shot in manual or aperture priority mode using a shutter speed of 1/60s, an aperture of F11 and a 200 ISO mostly using a focal length of 18mm.  I also noticed I kept only 938 shots and of those only 28 were from the fisheye lens (which I review below).   I used a LightRoom Analytics plug in to get these results. The Fisheye Lens For the trip, I rented a Cannon 8 – 15mm fisheye lens for the trip from BorrowLens. I did this expecting to have beautiful panoramic mountain views and nice weather. Since the weather did not cooperate, I did not necessarily get the large vistas I was expecting, so I did not use the lens as much as expected. However the...

I am about halfway through editing the photos from my vacation in the Bavarian region of Germany.   The long weekend is helping, since I can devote most of my time to it.   I have found doing all the basic edits like adjusting for lens aberration, and doing auto white balance in a batch process speeds up the editing process. Then I just go through and tweak the photos as needed.  I’m also editing my husband’s photos as well as my own which slows the process a bit since he does not do any editing except to pull out bad photos before giving them to me.  However this means there will actually be photos of me in the vacation photos, which normally there aren't any since I’m behind the camera.  You can see the galleries of the photos that have been completed by clicking here . I hope to have all the photos completed by the end of the week. 

We arrived back home today in the good old U.S.A today after a long trek through Southern Germany or Bavaria. Overall it was a good trip; I will provide a better summary after I don’t feel so tired and have time to organize my thoughts. I must now go through and edit all the photos I took with my DSLR over the course of the trip.  I took a little over 1700 photos but expect to keep maybe 60%.  I will then edit the photos my husband took.  Now he will help me out by culling the bad ones before giving me the files to fully edit.  Both my husband and I shoot in manual in RAW to provide more flexibility under low light conditions. So I figure I have about two weeks of work ahead of me.  I will be posting the photos in batch galleries based on location so I’m hoping to post finals about every other day.  I hope you enjoy the photos when they go up.   Note earlier photos pertaining to the trip were done with a point and shoot so I could quickly post ...

Sadly today was our last full day in Germany; tomorrow we head home. While it may be our last day it was still packed with adventure. Ok maybe not but we are staying in a castle tonight.  We drove from Rothenberg through the Rhine Valley to through Rudesheim to Kaub stopping in Oberwesel.  The drive along the Rhine was picturesque with castles and vineyards dotting the hillside. We saw the little M ä useturm (Mouse Tower) were supposedly a greedy bishop was placed in 969 and was eaten by hoards of mice.  We stopped at the little beer garden across the river from it, and then continued our journey down the road to a ferry crossing stop.  We drove on to the ferry to cross the Rhine River to continue our journey up to Burg Rheinfels.  Burg Rheinfels is an old ruined castle. We explored the ruins and walked through narrow passageways. It was a wonderful castle ruin site to explore.  After our little archeological adventure we journeyed down a little back cou...

Today we made the one hour drive from Nuremburg to Rothenberg were we are staying at a quaint little hotel with a bed and breakfast feel. They have a lovely garden in back and in front is a church, from which I can hear the organ music.  View looking down from tower The city of Rothenberg is small because it is a walled city with its original wall.  We did walk along part of the wall and in the old castle gardens. The castle is no longer there but the castle gate is which has a frowning face of a man from which hot oil/tar was poured out onto invaders. The gardens were nice and provided excellent views of the valley and parts of the city.  In the center of town we saw the Town Hall and Medieval Crime Museum. We climbed to the top of the Town Hall tower.  The tower is 200 ft. high and the climb up started with a nice stone spiral staircase, then turned into a bit steeper wooden stair case with switch backs, then a narrower steeper View from garden wall ...

Today we made the 3 hour drive out of the Bavarian Alps to Nuremberg. No the car GPS said it was going to take 3.5 hours because it decide we needed to the scenic route through town. So we used Google maps which took that extra half hour off the drive by using a more direct route to the autobahn. After we started the Google Maps route the car GPS placed us on that route as well. This insistence by the GPS to take scenic routes through town when set to quickest time to get to destination may be why it seems to take us longer then stated by the travel book.  Anyway, onto our adventures in the city of Nuremberg. View from castle garden Me in the castle garden I have been Nuremberg once before, but for about 3 hours as a lunch stop on a bus tour. During that stop we did not get to tour the castle or truly explore the city. This time I got to see the castle, which is up a hill and provides a lovely view of the city.  After we checked into the hotel then started on our ...

We thought today was going be like all the other days on our trip, rainy and dreary since it was raining when we go up this morning. However the weather turned in our favor and the sun actually broke through the clouds and chased the rain away. Believe it or not we actually had a sunny day today. Looking at second boat house of Lake Obersee We went to Lake Königssee which involved a 2 hour boat trip (round trip). Our first stop was Salet were I did the 45 minute hike (one way) over to the little boat house on Obersee and the rest of the group continued on for another 30 minutes (one way) past that point to see Röthbachfall (a waterfall). On the hike to Obersee there were Bavarian cows, wearing traditional cow bells, scattered along the mountain trail.  The cows didn’t seem to mind people and one of the cows came up to me and licked me.  I was licked by a cow.  The trail to Obersee was pretty flat to the first boat house on the lake however the trail leading...

Today we traveled from Oberammergau to Berchtesgaden. We arrived at the hotel a bit after 11, checked in then went for lunch before going on our tour of the Eagles Nest.  We at Restaurant Waldhauser, I had a potato, dumpling and ham dish that had a fried egg mixed in. It felt like a breakfast bowl but was lunch food.  Good thing the tour departure point was close to the restaurant because fast meals really don’t exist. The Eagles Nest in the distance  After eating we went to the tourist office to check in for our tour. Sadly we were informed that we could not travel all the way up to the Eagles Nest since it was snowing up there and it was closed to possible avalanches.  So we had to settle for only the tour of the documentation center (history museum) and the bunkers.  The tour guide was very informative and explained that the Eagle’s Nest is actually a tea house with three rooms and was not were Hitler lived. He actually lived a little ways down the m...

Neuschwanstein Castle from Mary's Bridge (it was very misty) Today we went to the most famous castle in Germany, Neuschwanstein Castle , better known as the fairytale castle. (Also the one Disney used as the model for the Disney World Castle). We had a private tour of the castle, before it was open to the public for the day. The castle was never completed, due to the king’s death.  However he did stay there for 127 days during the construction then returned to Linderhof Palace.  We saw the completed rooms which included the bedroom, the throne room, the study, a few ancillary rooms and the theater room.  Most of the castle is done in a Gothic style except the throne room which used Byzantine styling and architecture and done in bright royal blues and golds with a mosaic floor. The throne room resembled in my mind a church with the pictures of the Apostles, the Saints and Christ around the throne. The bedroom was definitely Gothic styling with dark wood paneling and o...

Today we slept in, well the rest of the group might of slept in I woke up with the 6:00 AM church bells.  We had a late breakfast which included a sweet waffle but with the sour berry compote worked just fine. Afterwards we took the hour drive via the autobahn to Munich. View from the New Town Hall Munich was completely destroyed during WWII, however they chose to rebuild using the historic architecture, which is why the still have an old looking town center. We walked around St. Mary’s square and went up the new town hall tower (which looks older than the actual old town hall) and got nice views of the city. Mind you it was still cloudy and drizzling off and on.   Then went to the Viktualienmarkt (Victuals Market) and had sausage and beer in a traditional beer garden.   We then met our guide who gave us a walking tour of the city. We toured the Residenz (Royal Palace) which is now a museum.   The Residenz was mostly destroyed during WWII however they had ...