So much for my peace and quiet

Since it's finally warmed up I've been spending some time each morning sitting on the front step to our house soaking up the sunlight and fresh air. This morning however there's a tractor sitting across the street and a couple of people measuring things and talking about where gas lines are and such. Sigh... I think this means it's gonna get noisy around here pretty soon.

The Big Apple

Here are some of the photos from my day in NYC a couple of weeks ago. I shot about about 85% of the day intentionally without the viewfinder.



my cousin Katie...




Katie & my aunt Pat








my sister...


ground zero


taken in the window of the train while underground

Near Death Experience

Yesterday, I bought a real, working camera! No more manual focus! No more removing dust from every picture in post! No more freezing up at the most inopportune moments! No more "Card Error, Reformat?" messages! That's right, I'm officially open for business now. I'll be posting lots of pictures as soon as I take them.

On my way home from picking up the camera in Providence I noticed this huge wall of black hovering over the Rhode Island - Connecticut line. The base was swirling clouds and lightning flashed every few seconds. As I was watching in amazement and trying to decide whether or not there are tornados in this part of the world, a car passed me with it's lights flashing rapidly. "That's odd", I thought and kept driving. As I crossed over into CT it went black, debris was flying in the air and all of a sudden I couldn't see anything because my car was hit as if I was driving through a waterfall. I freaked out and pulled off the road. Then I freaked out because I was afraid of a tree falling on me. So I got back on the road very slowly and immediately freaked out again and got off the road which caused me to freak out about the whole tree crashing into my car possibility. After repeating this procedure a few times I came upon a line of cars stopped because of a tree blocking the road. At this point I called Matthew on the verge of tears because I only know of one way home, and there was a tree in my way and I'm from Southern California and if it starts to sprinkle the news goes to full time "storm watch". I finally found a church with a nice open parking lot and waited the worst of the storm out before following the new directions Matthew gave me. There were a few more trees down on the rest of the drive, but the worst was over.

In California you have fire season and rainy season. Rainy season is a few weeks of a constant rainfall. It can have it's moments, but NOTHING like this. So in conclusion, can anyone tell me what the "smart" way to handle storms like this?

Also, I can't get Photoshop CS to open the raw files for the Canon. I downloaded the plugin and followed all the instructions but it's not working. I know I had this problem in the past with the Minolta, but I can't remember how I fixed it. Does anyone have any suggestions?

One more section of my temporary site is up and functioning.
KIDS!!!
http://www.aravirstudios.com/kids.html

Here's one that didn't make the cut. What parent doesn't want to see their kid as an American Mussolini?

And there was much rejoicing

Somewhere in the US Postal System an envelope containing the layout for Naomi Terranella's cd is FINALLY making it's way to California. I had planned on having it wrapped up before moving to New England and getting married. That was the end of September. Delays of various sorts (music, scheduling, computer issues, etc) put it off until today. I would feel guilty about mopping the floors because it wasn't done. I would skip out on going places because it wasn't done. I haven't finished updating my website because it wasn't done. But those days are over now. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and I am free!


This woman was waliking around NYC wearing a kissing booth. I was being sneaky and shot this from my hip so I couldn't get close enough to find out why. Any guesses?

5/10/07

Norwich State Hospital, Newport RI, Kelsie, & Katie















more to come...

All technology has turned against me today. My phone is dying and I can't find the charger. My ipod keeps freezing and now it's got a little disk icon with a magnifying glass flashing. I think it's a bad sign. I was just editing some new photos when, for no reason whatsoever, and with no warning, my computer turned off. Oh yeah, I still haven't resolved my camera issues. It froze up on me again while I was in NYC this past weekend. I'd go make myself an english muffin, but I'm afraid of the toaster.

NYC?!? That's right, I'll be posting some new photos as soon I resolve the computer issues.