A Study in Black and White and Tent

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Location Taken: Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada
Time Taken: June 2010

By the waterside in Sault Ste. Marie, there is a boardwalk along the shore. And along that boardwalk, right by the visitor’s parking, is a pavilion. It’s the standard sort of pavilion, with a large covered area able to be set up for concerts or talks or whatever is put in that space. There are bathrooms nearby, and lots of lovely trees.

This particular pavilion is covered by a tall white fabric tent elevated above the area, barely touching the ground at all. And inside that tent, if you look up into the rising cone above your head, is a permanent set of speakers and lights suspended in midair, with cables for positioning and control leading over to the tent and down to the ground.

The dark black of the speaker set contrasts very beautifully against the marvelous white of the tent, which is a thin enough fabric to let light and shadows through. It’s yet another addition to my list of beautiful things found by looking where no one expects you to look.

  

Would anyone believe me if I tried to claim it was “Impressionistic”?

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Location Taken: North Bay, Ontario
Time Taken: June 2010

I tried so hard to get this photo. I must have taken at least twenty shots, adjusting every setting I could. And it still came out blurry.

It’s times like this when I really get to know the limitations of my camera. It really can’t handle night shots too well, even if it has an utterly gorgeous sunset fading in the distance. Any time I try, it gets blurry. Admittedly, it might help if I used a tripod and set it to a very long exposure instead of trying to stabilize it as best I can against whatever is available. Tripods are far more difficult to lug around, though, and I tend to prefer spur-of-the-moment photography.

And carrying the tripod would defeat one of the purposes I bought my specific camera for. Which is portablility. I wanted a camera with as many features as I could that was still small and light enough to carry around in my purse all the time.

Mind you, I don’t carry it all the time. It still takes up space, after all. And it would be nice if my lens cap hadn’t broken. At one point it got caught wrong in my purse and broke open. As far as I can tell I’ve put it back together correctly, but now it doesn’t have quite enough tension to stay on the camera properly. I’ve currently got a shading ring on the front of the camera to protect the lens, but I do have to clean dust off the lens more often and the ring itself adds bulk to the camera. It is by no means an ideal solution.

Still, for what it is, I have a rather good camera. Even if it can’t handle low-light conditions.

  

Snow White Rice Cake Plant, no Dwarves

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Location Taken: Savage, Maryland
Time Taken: April 2010

One of my favorite flowers in my Mom’s garden is this Snow Rice Cake Plant.

Yes, that’s a flower. It only has one giant petal, but it is a flower. Also known as the Japanese Jack-in-the-Pulpit, it’s native to Japan, though it looks and acts a lot like a native North American plant, the Jack-in-the-Pulpit.

It’s called a Rice Cake Plant because that large white bulby-thing on the end of the stalk in the center looks a whole lot like a round cake of mochi, which is a somewhat-sticky cake of rice pounded into a paste. It’s very delicious, actually one of my favorite foods, and can be used in all sorts of dishes from sweets to soups. Sweets are by far the most common use, though. It can be easily flavored and, thanks to its sticky moldable texture, it can easily have delicious treats put in the center. I’m quite fond of Dango, which is sweet mochi with a paste made from the sweet azuki bean in the center, and of Mochi Ice Cream, especially the green tea flavor.

The plant, on the other hand, doesn’t taste sweet. It’s actually mildly toxic, so I really wouldn’t recommend nibbling on it. Still, it is very pretty with the pure white inside the cup.

  

Ice on the Lake

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Location Taken: Shore of Lake Michigan
Time Taken: January 2011

Did you know the Great Lakes freeze?

It shouldn’t be too surprising. They are fresh water, after all. It’ll freeze at 32 degrees just fine. And the temperatures get that low quite often in winter. Still, only the topmost layer and the shallow waters freeze. The vast bulk of the lake is warmer than 32 degrees, still holding on to the heat from warmer days. It heats up any attempts to freeze the whole thing. Most of the ice that forms on the surface melts away fairly quickly.

Near the coastline, though, things are a bit different. There is shallow water there, so ice forms at the edge. Then the waves push the ice onto the shore. The thin layer of ice formed on top of the water also gets pushed towards the shore by the waves. These two sources of ice start combining and piling up and accumulate into small floes of ice jutting into the lake.

It’s quite beautiful, really. Certainly not everyday sights. Still, I see not one tourist on the beach when I go to visit. I suppose most people think of beaches as summertime swimming fun, and don’t even realize that the beach is there in all seasons, not just the one where the water is warm enough to swim. At least this means I get to enjoy the frozen isolation of beaches in winter.

  

Just a Lovely Sunset

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Location Taken: Agewa Bay, Ontario
Time Taken: June 2010

I’m running busy today (I’ll be starting on a 6-hour drive soon, straight through the mess that is New York City. And then I drive the 6 hours back), so I’ll just leave you with a pretty sunset photo. It’s far more pleasant than dealing with the traffic and confusing roads of NYC.