2015 May 19: Artsy Fartsy....Or, Supper at Lords

We ate at Lords again last night. I know I have said it before, but I am going to say it again: The food there is some of the best I have ever eaten. Maybe even the best. Elanor had her favourite...large rotini served plain with a bowl of cheese sauce for dipping. 'Don't play with your food' has no meaning here for the kid's meals are interactive! Steve and I both had the mushroom and corn burger. You know it's good when Steve has the opportunity to order meat (which I don't cook because I am vegetarian) and he chooses the veggie burger instead! Stuffed with mushroom, corn, cashew, onion, and curry leaves, it's the best burger I have ever eaten.

Lords also serves as an art gallery for local artists, and while most of the artwork is for sale, some pieces are part of the decor.

Sometimes I just like to take pictures of stuff that other people might find weird. Sometimes it is weird. But sometimes I get beautiful shots that I adore.

Steve asked, "WHY are you taking pictures of water?" Well, because it's not a picture of water.

"[T]here are three types of photographers. There is the technical photographer. He is all about the equipment and the formulas. He can give you millimeters and focal lengths. There is the subject photographer. He takes photographs to study the object itself. He knows breeding habits, plumage differences, longitude and latitude. Then there is the artist. The artist has no idea what she just photographed or how she photographed it, yet somehow creates the most pleasing pictures." 
http://www.steves-digicams.com/knowledge-center/becoming-a-great-photographer.html#b

I repeat.... It's not about the water. It's about these shots of my water glass, with the art installation lights shining through.

It's about these shots of my water bottle with an oil bowl burning behind it, with the camera turned sideways, one without flash, one with flash.

And it's about this shot of my drink, a dreamy concoction of ginger beer and coconut cream and pineapple, also sideways. It wasn't really purple, but it turned out that way because of the lighting.

Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it. -Confucius

2015 May 20: Poser

I love geckos. We usually have a few around the house. Nothing like our friend Tekla's house, though, where she has counted 22 geckos in one small room! But, we have them nonetheless.

A couple of nights ago I was washing my feet before bedtime, when a newly hatched gecko made its way up the shower wall beside me. They are only about an inch or inch and a half long at this point. It was so newly hatched that it still had not gotten the hang of climbing, and I watched it for a few moments as it worked out the intricacies of coordinating its leg movements while climbing a slippery tile.

Last night I was on my way to bed when I saw the little gecko outside my changing room door. Of course, I grabbed my camera, hoping to get a photo of this little creature, as I had already gotten a great shot of a full-grown gecko when we returned from dining out.

Nope, this photo is not upside down. Geckos can use their claws and the sticky pads on their feet to seemingly defy gravity!

My little gecko was very cooperative. As soon as I snapped one photo, it would move to a new position until I snapped another. I almost felt like I was at a professional photo shoot! Not to mention that I am in love with the macro feature on my camera. Check out my little poser!

2015 May 14: You Never Know What You'll Find in the Toilet

On May 14 we visited with our friends Krishan and Tekla for supper. They live in a nice house in...well...some small village that takes a while to get to, especially when it is dark and you don't know where you are going! Not that we mind - we, or I, at least, enjoy seeing every little community and going for rides.

We had a lively time visiting with them, their toddler and Tekla's mother. Tekla is a wonderful cook, and she made an outstanding meal. She once again made the deep-fried eggplant that I love, and we all thought that the curried pumpkin was fantastic.

As we were getting ready to leave, Elanor decided to use the restroom. She came running out and said, "Mom! Bring your camera! There's something in the bathroom you probably should see!"

I cannot tell you how much trepidation I felt at these words - you would not believe the number of times I hear myself saying, "Can we please stop talking about bodily functions?!?!" So, being told there is something in the bathroom I need to see was something I reluctantly agreed to.

Turns out this little guy was hiding under the toilet tank.

Tekla then told us that there are actually two of these little frogs that live in her bathroom - one under each side of the toilet tank. One day she decided she was going to get rid of them, so she caught them and took them far out into the garden and let them go. But, in some bizarre rendition of the Cat Came Back, the frogs came back...if not the very next day, then within a few days. And again took up residence under the toilet tank!

Krishan has also been learning to use the macro feature on his camera, a professional quality one with more bells and whistles than you can dream of. A few nights before we visited, he couldn't sleep, so he scrounged around their house until he found a box, a broomstick handle, some tape, some tin foil, a light bulb, some wires and a few other odds and ends...and made himself a flash! He used his new flash to take this picture of our little bathroom buddy. 

Photo by Krishan Alexsander

2015 April 16: I am Nikon

Oh, the woes of wanting to take pictures and not being able to!

While here in Sri Lanka I have been using my daughter's camera that she received for Christmas in 2008. It is a great camera, with a good enough zoom for most of the pictures that I want to take, but no easy way to do macro shots for close-ups. However, all of the latches for the battery door broke last month. I had a camera repairer here in Negombo look at it, and he came up with quite an ingenious solution which worked great as long as I did not take more than a few shots without readjusting the batteries, but the batteries drained faster than you would believe, and who wants to be readjusting the batteries every thirty seconds anyhow?

So, I dug out my back-up camera that I bought for Elanor's dance recital a few years ago. While it takes great video, and great point-and-shoot shots, the quality of the zoom is terrible. Out of over 400 pictures that I took in Bundala and Yala National Parks last month, only about 60 were decent, and only 5 pictures in one park were what I imagined they should be. I cried. It was so disheartening.

So, Steve and I discussed the problem, and decided that we would take the old camera to a camera repair place in Colombo, which he did yesterday afternoon when he and Elanor went there to run some errands. (And to eat at Burger King. Well, for Elanor to eat at Burger King.) The good news is...it can be fixed. The bad news is...it probably cannot be fixed anywhere in Sri Lanka.

This was the news that Steve brought back to me yesterday evening when they returned home.

And then he passed me a bag. A bag containing a new camera. I was more than surprised and quite pleased with the gift. After all, my backup camera still takes nice shots, as long as you don't use the zoom. I can't take flora and fauna shots with it, but it's okay for scenic shots and video.

And so last night, I spent several hours trying it out and reading the owner's manual. (Yes, I am one of those people!) And here is what I found.

It takes great close-up portraits, even if the subject is being a little goofy!

It takes pretty good shots through the mosquito netting, which neither of my other cameras is very good at doing.

Night shots with no flash are pretty good. This is our chandelier hanging from a three story vaulted wood ceiling.

The camera picked up the individual threads in the weave of my house dress that was drying on the stair rail six feet away using the zoom.

It is pretty good at fine details without zoom - here is our dining room lamp.

It has an auto smile feature. When you set use this setting, the picture will not be taken until a smile is detected. To test it, I said to Steve, "Frown....frown...frown....smile!" He did, and this was the result.

It has a cool feature where it will take up to ten shots of the same subject and then automatically choose the best one of the lot. I was watching the LED screen as it took pictures of this gecko, and from what I could see, it did just that! Some of the others were off centre or not quite in focus. 

And the zoom is twice as good as my other two cameras. Here is the gecko at 5x zoom from 8 feet away. 

Here is the gecko at 10x zoom from 8 feet away. This is supposed to be the maximum zoom for crystal clear shots.

And here is 20x zoom, which loses image quality, but still gets you so close you can see the gecko's nostrils, the spots on his wrists, the pattern of its iris, and the nails on his toes!

So, needless to say, I am very pleased. It has lots of other great features, too, that I am planning on checking out this weekend before we head off on our next adventure into the central plains of the island. What a great surprise from my hubby!

And in the meantime....