Blog – Page 2 – Sandy Connolly

August 24, 2015

What Can You Do With All These Lady’s Thumbs?

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It happens every August, and maybe it happens to you too: we’re being invaded by Lady’s Thumbs. They grow in all the places that can’t be reached by the lawn mower. Here’s what they look like as you come up our driveway:

But if you pick them and squinch them up next to each other, they are so much prettier!

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July 30, 2015

Attaining Warp Speeds on Long Hill Road in Guilford

My friend EJ asked me how it went finding a drummer for the Acoustic Open Mic at the Country Tavern last night, and I was inspired to give him the blow-by-blow:

10:51 Text Rob to see if he’s still available to be house drummer that evening
12:03 Rob texts that he’s preparing for a baby shower and wants to switch with someone
12:04 Post a cry for help on Facebook
12:05 Tony Cafiero says I can borrow his shaker eggs
12:12 I can’t wait any longer, and I can’t do anything else until this is resolved.
12:12 I resort to sending emails begging Pete or Joe to please switch months with Rob.
12:36 Pete writes that he can. “7:00?”
12:44 Joe says he can’t
12:45 Me to Pete “Yes! Excellent! 7:00!”
12:46 I breathe a sigh of relief and go about my day.
6:40 I get to the CT in time to greet three acts who are already there waiting to sign up.
7:00 More people are arriving and signing up. “You got a drum kit?” “It’s on it’s way!”
7:10 No sign of Pete.
7:11 The house is getting VERY FULL!
7:12 That’s weird. Pete is an on-time kinda guy.
7:13 I start wringing my hands.
7:15 Pete walks in all bright-eyed and says, “You got any sticks?”
7:15 Me: Hmmm… well… hey! Mark Cascio! You got some sticks Pete can use? Mark: “Yep!”
7:15 Me to Pete: You need help unloading your car?
7:15 Pete: What?! I thought you were bringing your kit.
7:15 OOHHHHHH NOOOOOOO!!!!
7:15 Pete: I’ll go back and get mine.
7:15 Me: Where is your house?
7:15 P: Branford.
7:15 Me: NO!!! GET IN MY CAR RIGHT NOW AND HELP ME GET MY KIT!!!!
7:16 Attain warp speeds up Long Hill Road to my house
7:23 Arrive at my house and throw entire kit in tact in PT Cruiser
7:25 Attain warp speeds down Long Hill Road back to the CT
7:26 Everyone descends on the Cruiser
7:32 Drum kit set up
7:33 Breathe a sigh of relief
7:34 Sling on the guitar, slip behind the drum kit
7:35 Play opening tune like everything is running just fine, thank you.
7:38 OMG!!!

July 29, 2015July 29, 2015

Music I’m Listening To #2

I’m very curious: can I post this “embed code,” and then you would be able to listen to these songs within my site?

Lemme know if it works. Seems like you would all have to have Spotify accounts or something.

If it works, this could be really cool! I’d post more music this way.

July 26, 2015July 27, 2015

Are You Paying Close Attention to Your Bee Balm?

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I love our bee balm; it brings the hummingbirds. Seems like an awful lot of trouble for a being to get his dinner… sticking his beak into each one of those flowers (or whatever those individual petal thingies are) while flying at the same time.

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July 24, 2015July 26, 2015

Dinner Conversation with Rachel & Abigail

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Rachel: What kind of flowers are those?

Me: Here! Here’s the [wildflower idenfication] guide. Take it out there. Is it Wintercress? Golden Alexanders? Yellow Milkwort? Go look at it!

Rachel: My life is hard.

*********

Abigail: I’m feeling really poopy… literally… I just pooped a lot.

*********

Me: I LOVE GOOGLE CALENDAR! You can just make up all kinds of crazy events [that you want to have happen], fill in all the blanks, and invite whomever you want! Press send, and VOILA! Stuff happens.

Rachel: That’s too much power for you to have.

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July 9, 2015July 26, 2015

Collecting in Maine on a Four-Wheeler

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Can you tell which ones are rushes, which ones are sedges, and which ones are grasses?

My stepdad, Carl Johnson, lets me use his four-wheeler to explore the logging roads across the road from where he lives in Waltham, Maine. Today was a beautiful day, and I had a great time by myself driving a little too fast and finding cool additions to my collection. (I think I owe you an entire tank of gas, Carl!)

Here are my findings. Some day I will be able to tell you what they’re all called.

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May 26, 2015July 26, 2015

Obsessing Over Test Strips

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I don’t know. They’re just not as pretty as the one in the book, so I’ll have to get over it. I did two new test strips today in usual fashion: at the same time as I was making Ina Garten’s Provencial Potato Salad to take to John and Irene’s for their impromptu Memorial Day Party. Do not, I repeat, do not try this at home: fooling with cyanotypes at the same time as doing laundry or making food.

I thought I would add a variable today: two coats of chemicals as opposed to one. Here they are along with yesterday’s test strips (the top one is one coat from today, the middle one is two coats from today, and the bottom on is one coat from yesterday):

I’m becoming frustrated with my inability to coat the paper evenly, but the results seem to all be the same: the greatest exposure is achieved after 12 minutes. It doesn’t look much different after that.

But I DO like the color of the two coats better, much richer and more even.

Tomorrow, I’ll be on to greyscale tablets. (Did I say that yesterday?)

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May 25, 2015

Revisiting Cyanotypes

I have declared to myself that no matter what my children decide to do with their summer, I have my summer project all set to go: revisiting the photographic process of making cyanotypes. Why, in this age of digital photography, I would go back to such an archaic method of creating photographic prints, I really don’t know, but sometimes there’s no resisting it. I know you are all sitting on the edge of your seats.

That said, talk to me tomorrow and I’ll be onto molecular biology, but I’m on a roll here armed with several new books one of which was one that my sister sent me (Thanks, Poupie!):

And I ordered another book awhile ago called Digital Negatives by Ron Reeder and Brad Hinkel. For awhile, I thought I was a goner, it looked way too technical, but Poupie’s book helped me fill in a few gaps.

I have actually spent a great deal of time already in the darkroom making all the t-shirts to fulfill my Kickstarter campaign rewards. They were all cyanotypes, and I thought I would die before I finished all of them. (I think I still owe Trevor Hartman one!) In fact, creating all of those shirts from the same artwork almost wrecked it for me, but now I’m back.

Two things have eluded me all this time: the ability to make a negative that will result in a great-looking print and the toning process. I mean, nothing against Prussian blue, but after awhile, you really just want something else.

Today is a big day since I finally dragged out all my chemicals and supplies from all those summers ago to see if I had everything I needed. Then, I dove in, mixed up some chemicals, and coated some paper. Note: I am very bad at putting my chemicals in the same area as my food and clothes. Do not do this at home. (Yes, those are S’more Mallows right there next to the ferric ammonium citrate and the potassium ferracyanid:

The first item on the list is to know exactly how long it takes to get a good exposure. Up until, I’ve just been winging it. So I coated the above paper, dried it with the hair dryer cuz I’m impatient, cut a strip, and taped a piece of the transparency film I’m using to it:

Then I went outside and exposed each section for the number of minutes marked. Fortunately, I had a bright, sunny day:

I’m not as satisfied with my results as I had hoped. They’re not as tidy as the ones in the book:

Looks to me like, on a May day at 3:00 in the afternoon using that paper and one coat of chemicals, my exposure time should be 10 minutes.

I know you’re all relieved to know that.

Now I’m onto creating a custom tone curve in Photoshop for all these particulars.

April 20, 2015July 27, 2015

It’s Spring, & I’m Taking Pictures of Dead Things

"Beads" of the Bead Fern Onoclea sensibilis

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A miracle happened today: I actually raked out some of the beds in our yard today before it became an impossible task with all the plants coming in. This has never happened once in my life.

I started out thinking I would take pictures of the beautiful bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis), which, by the way, I think is a far superior flower to the non-native crocuses, daffodils, and bluebells. (Am I wrong? Aren’t all of those flowers non-native?) Those other flowers are such a slap in the face compared to the gradual awakening inspired by the bloodroot.

I did take pictures of the bloodroot. I love how they’re like, “We’re busting through this leaf floor NO MATTER WHAT!” and I find it very humorous that they don’t even bother growing around the leaves, they just grow right through the middle.

Anyway, as I was packing up to go back inside, I was taken with the fertile fronds of the sensitive fern left over from last year. My sister, I call her Poupie, takes very cool photos of lots of dead things (ha! Go visit her blog and see for yourself!), so I wanted to take some photos for her.

But then I got to wishing for the sensitive fern and knowing that they didn’t have nearly the chutzpah of the bloodroot, I thought I better rescue them from all the leaves that had piled up over them. It turned into a two-hour raking session. That’ll probably be the extent of my gardening for the year.

I learned that the fern is also called Bead Fern, and the fertile fronds on these are also called beads. These are for you, Poupie! I decided that different processing brought out different cool qualities of them, so here are six different processes on the same photo:

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March 29, 2015July 26, 2015

More Pointe Shoes

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You might say I’m obsessed with this topic, but when you’re driving to the outer reaches of the planet to drop $100 on a pair of pink, satin shoes every three months, you start to get very interested in the process. All Abigail wanted for her birthday this year was for me to take her to Beam & Barre in Greenwich, an hour away, to shop for Russian Pointe shoes. (One thing I learned is that Russian Pointe is a brand, not a kind.) I decided to do it.

I am very grateful to Marissa Behuniak for going down with us to help! She even brought her delightful Jeffrey. As you can see, I had a fun time photographing him as well. Toward the end of our visit, he became very interested with the dressing rooms and learning how to open and close the doors and what it felt like to stand inside of each one by himself.

Our fitter that day was Gretchen, and she was incredibly helpful and patient, pulling out what seemed like 50 pairs of shoes, taking them out of the boxes, and discussing the good and bad characteristics of each shoe for Abigail’s foot.

Between Marissa and Gretchen, I felt very confident that Abigail would leave the best fit for her!

Happy dancing, my little lovely one, and happy 13th birthday.
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