I don't get art.

Should be a crime to have anything other than sun on Sunday. Apparently, it isn't& so on that note my island is rainy& miserable. Word on the street is it's hot& sunny in Vegas though.

At 10PM last night, the boyfriend& I headed downtown to see Lumiere. It was ..interesting, I suppose is a good word. I really, really wanted to love it. And in truth, I did love some of them. There was a black light painting that was very cool.

Talent.

I want to try!

There were lots of different exhibits& it was all placed randomly in shop windows& alleyways. The restaurants were open until the exhibits closed (12:57AM ..odd time, I know) and there were lots of people out& about to take in the scene despite the drizzly weather. It was actually incredibly mild, which is a rare pleasure for Oct. 1st.

Along with the black light painting, someone had created little animals out of strips of wood (or something ..like I said, I don't get art) and given them glowing eyes. They were so neat! There was a racoon, a fox& 3 crows randomly on a corner street. Hilarious story to this: when we were parking to walk the streets, I said to Garret 'Look, there's a homeless woman. With a crow?'. Turns out she wasn't homeless but I was right about the crow!

A fox.

Cool, hey?

I'm saving the best exhibit for last. I think my boyfriend managed to get a video of it ..my camera doesn't take videos& I didn't think to take out the cellphone. For now, though, I have a task to ask of my readers. Do you think you can all do me a huge favor& help me figure out what the sweet lord the following exhibits meant? I am at 100% loss. I'll number the photos so you can let me know in the comments what exactly you think they mean/ represent/ ect.

   <-1  |  2->

    <-3   |   4->

<-5   |   6->

 Okay so after all that stuff that is completely incomprehensible to my mind, I will provide a photo of the, hands down, best exhibit ever. I don't know the actual name of it but this is what best describes it- a woman shadow dancing to songs the audience requested in a store window made to look like a jukebox! Honestly, this was so cool.

So much fun. I am actually thinking they need to do this event again because even though I didn't understand 90% of the exhibits, it was all worth it for this one thing. So much fun. Not to mention she danced to Electric Avenue ..which I love. So while not exactly what I expected, it was an interesting experience that reminded me a lot of artists smoke a lot of weed. I am pretty sure that means their world will always be a little strange to me.

 I am super excited to see your responses to the 'Guess the art meaning'.. even if they are total shots in the dark. By the time we left the exhibit, we were pretty sure that we had 0 concept of 'art' ourselves, so don't feel bad!

Hier soir

Last night for those of you who don't speak French ;) I spent last night with my boyfriend ..which was nice because it feels like it's been awhile since we've done more than both complain about how exhausted we are. We had a gift certificate for Boston Pizza (thanks, dad!) so we enjoyed a delicious meal ..I had penne pasta with Alfredo baked in cheese. If you should know anything about me it should be that that is my absolute hands down most favorite meal ever. Seriously. It is so heavenly. I also forgot to order a half serving and so instead I got to eat 75% of a whole dish. I couldn't finish it all off and am currently regretting not having them wrap it so I could take it home.

It was after our meal, however, that things got fun! First, we went for a drive downtown and got greeted with a cruise ship that was in. So we took some photos and amazed over the sheer size of it. I tried to get a good photo but that wasn't really happening. I made Garret pose to try to give some example of the size of it ..but again, I failed miserably at that. So instead, I present you with the following;

Yes. I had to use words& symbols to get the point across ..but that fiddle is massive. As the sun set and we enjoyed watching the ship pull away (of which I got a photo which is sort of cool and I'll post it in a bit), we also decided to play with the fiddle. Or, Garret decided to pose in front of it like he was playing it. I didn't quite get the concept at first but because he is a patient guy, we eventually figured it out between the two of us. Only took four shots to get it right. I have a very fast learning curve ;) I won't post the failed attempts because really ..who wants to see failure?! Allow me to focus your attention on my successes! I have titled this piece 'Fiddler on the dock'

Just some practice so when we finally end up in Italy, I'll be able to take a really rockin' photo of him& the leaning tower! The photo isn't the best because it was getting late so I had to jack the ISO wayyy up in order to not have just a glowing fiddle and a boyfriend lost in the dark. It makes me laugh& turned out pretty good, all things considered! It was such a beautiful evening. Nice to see the giant cruise ship& the people who arrived on it ..we waved while they were leaving the dock (because it's not like we constantly get cruise ships or anything `insert rolling eye face here`) and one of them kept snapping photos of Garret& I. Which was kind of creepy ..but funny at the same time. Maybe he wants to leave all his millions to us when he dies?! A girl can dream, right?

So after we got bored of watching the ship leave, we left. Funny thing happened as we were leaving. There were tons of cars stopped and everyone was out looking at something. Being the curious people that we are, we decided to find out. LUCKY FOR US. There were three foxes .. they were so cute and friendly. My boyfriend is convinced that the friendliest one was just trying to get close enough to gnaw my arm or off something. I, however, remain firm in my belief that I am an animal whisperer and the fox loved me more than anything. He tried to get super close until the other people scared him away! How rude. At this point, the night was really dark but I still managed to get a good shot of my future pet.

I love this shot. He doesn't even look real. Also anytime someone mentions the word fox, I instantly think of Fredyrk Phox. 'Cute cuddly little baby foxxx' is all that I will quote for now but if you're interested in seeing something that I find completely hilarious and 100% not politically correct, click here! Fair warning? It's not for the following-

• Small children
• Easily offended
• Refined sense of humor

If you don't fall into those categories, go have a look& tell me if it makes you laugh nearly as much as it makes me laugh. I've watched just about every video this guy has made& one evening my girlfriends& I made some hilarious videos of them. I may, someday, post them. When I don't need people to ever take me seriously again or require someone to employ me. Yes, they are that embarrassing! Now I'm off to watch a documentary on Warren Jeffs (who I always want to call Warren Gordon ..the name of a local photographer who I'm pretty sure isn't the leader of a polygamist cult). Hope you enjoyed my recap of date night!

Disqus

So I made the move ..I switched my comments over to Disqus. I don't know if it's just only sort of working or what but sometimes I get the disqus comment section& sometimes I get the blogger comment. I'm hoping that it will sort itself out with time. For now I'll sit here& wish the rain would stop while watching Say Yes to the Dress. This time the little sister is really mean and talks like she's on hard drugs. She looks about 14. I'd punch her ..but that's just me!

Aside from being completely unproductive I really have nothing to say. I am going through horse withdrawals& the lady who owns Shyann will not email me back. I got called into work this weekend at the store ..and yes, I did quit in April. Interesting how that works, isn't it? Not that I mind because I do love the store& it's super easy work. The boyfriend& I are heading to Halifax on Sunday so should end up being a good weekend. The kind of weekend where there probably won't be much blogging from me due to not having an internet connection/ being off the island! How are you guys spending your post-Labor-day-weekend weekend?

This was my last night attempt at a landscape shot. It's crooked and I did absolutely zero post-processing. I think that means I don't really like landscape shots! Kidding, kidding. It's just more that I am getting frustrated with not being able to make this work out. I will get there ..sheer determination will get me at least one fabulous shot- especially with the autumn colors arriving soon on Cape Breton island! What do you think ..is there any improvement?! Eventually I'll create some kind of slide show from my first crappy attempts at landscapes up to the day I finally get my stunning photo ;) I have a feeling that slide show is still a long way off! Although I am taking the advice you guys gave me. This photo was shot with the following settings;

1. ISO- 400
2. F-stop- 39
3. Exposure- 15s

Obviously, I lugged out the tripod for this. I also took some photos of the beach earlier in the day ..I think I mentioned that? Well they got uploaded last night& I spent some time trying to save them from their fate of ending up in the recycle bin. I couldn't manage to make them worth anything ..other than a cautionary tale of how easy it is to take horrible photos! I did, however, manage to get one shot of a piece of sand grass. Or sand wheat. Or something. Bonus points to the reader who can tell me what the heck it is called!
Enjoy your Thursday everyone :)

Landscapes

I keep trying. Really, really hard. It does. not. work. I want to be good at landscapes. I really do. I like landscape photos. I don't LOVE them but I do wish I could get a good shot every now& then. Tonight we had a pretty beautiful sunset. I have a pretty beautiful backyard and the sun sets over the pond ..so I went to try to capture this. I failed. I failed miserably, actually. I have photos to show you guys of how bad they are ..I think I should probably stick to people and animals. And whatever can fit in the light box. I love the light box.

So back to things I can't do.. landscape photos. I didn't even bother to edit or watermark these. You wanna steal some seriously lackluster shots of a sunset? Feel free. Does anyone have tips or any websites to learn from? If the answer is I need a special lens -I'm out. I do not like landscapes enough to want to fork out some serious cash for a new lens ..although it would be good to know if a special lens was needed so that I stop trying. Actually, that would be fabulous. Just lie and tell me I need a new lens so I don't feel like such a failure.

Yeah. It's not even 'alright'. It's barely decent. I wonder if I should have shot with my tripod? I'm not sure ..I know I definitely forgot to change the aperture from 4 ..oopsy. Thankfully, the sun sets& rises every day so I have another 2 chances tomorrow. At which point I will try again, only more prepped than ever for my looming failure. Oh my. Do you shoot landscapes? Do you find any joy in it? Were you good from the start? I'm finding the more I try& the less I succeed that it's becoming like having my teeth pulled. Which isn't fun. So now I'm off to watch Hoarders because hey. I can't take a landscape shot but at least my house isn't being condemned either. You can't have everything, eh?

Road trip

The boyfriend& I did a road trip today& it was fabulous. We went to Hey Dad, GO KARTS!. We played Mini-putt& drove Go Karts. It was pretty sweet. I have some photos from it. He beat me at both events but in my defense, I have a bum shoulder so he had a serious advantage. He beat me by 9 at golf and lapped me 4 times in 11 laps with the go kart. No, seriously, remember my shoulder. Otherwise this much defeat so quickly would be devastating to my competitive ego.

The boyfriend won.

But I took the nice photo ;)

It was a sad day for my winning abilities. When you consider that even typing this blog post hurts my shoulder, I'd say I am a trooper. Most people would let searing pain slow them down ..wimps! We also stopped a spot where there's an old rock wall& trees and stuff. I don't really know how to describe it. I couldn't get down because of my shoulder, so I stayed up and let Garret take the camera down. That was brave of me but the boy did manage to get some photos. He told me not to put my watermark on them because he was going to put his own on (insert photo of me rolling my eyes here)! I did, however, edit them and as per his request left off my hpw.

Very cool, hey?

Wish I had of been able to go down!

So after that we kept driving until we got to the Bras d'Or look off, where we stopped to take a photo. If you google Seal Island Bridge (or just click those words, since I googled it for you! I'm so kind) then you'll see all kinds of photos. Why so many exist, I have no idea. I figured it was high time that I add my own photo of the bridge to the google hits though and so I took a photo. It basically looks like every other photo taken from that look off. It's not very unique. If you clicked the google link, how does my photo stack up?

My attempt.

Nothing too spectacular.

So then we drove to the next look off (why yes, there are a lot of places to view the wonderful Cape Breton) and decided to write on the guardrail! It started off that we were going to write both our names but we didn't come prepared. We only had a Sharpie that we found in the Jeep ..and it was dried out. Garret did manage to get his own name written before it died. So at least someone will know one half of us was there! I may have to go back later& add my name just so it doesn't seem like Garret traveled solo ;)

Where is Yvonne?

So sad it didn't make it on the rail.

So that is basically our day. Lots of things didn't get photographed because I was busy participating and losing. Grrr .. it's a good thing I have become better at losing over the years. It took a long time because I rarely lose! How did you guys spend your Sunday? Any gorgeous scenery shots from your cameras make it to your blogs today? Enjoy the last evening of the weekend& I hope none of you got hit too hard by Irene!