Round Robin: Fancy Dress (both kinds)

For the Round Robin Challenge: Dress Up, I asked to see "Any kind of costume ..., any dress, tux and tails, doll clothes, anything worn by anything or anyone as long as it's out of the ordinary." Although I'm feeling pretty wiped out tonight with a bad allergy attack that's gone on for the last 15 hours or so, I can supply examples in several of those categories.

My immediate inspiration was the idea of cosplay - fans making and wearing costumes that represent characters and creatures from their favorite books, movies, tv shows and comics. Over the years I've taken more than a few photos of fans in costume at Gallifrey One, the annual Doctor Who convention in Los Angeles. It's been several years since I made it to Gally, but I recently managed to buy a ticket to the 2015 convention in the 75 minute window before it was sold out. So let's celebrate that victory with memories of costumes past. I'll try to avoid reruns from past postings:

 From 2010: A Clockwork Droid threatens Reinette, 

a.k.a. Madame de Pompadour.

From 2011: Amy Pond in her Kiss-o-gram police uniform, 

with Rory Williams, the Last Centurion.

The last time I saw people in cosplay as Doctor Who characters was last year, at Disneyland of all places.

 

The Tenth Doctor, Captain Jack Harkness, 

and the Eleventh Doctor, Disneyland, May 2013.

In the U.K., "fancy dress" means a masquerade costume. Here in the U.S., it tends to have a more literal meaning.

A young woman poses for photos at Gates Pass, September 2013.

This one is a rerun: a wedding party at Reid Park, 2009. 

That green dress looks like something Tinker Bell would wear. Love it!

But let's go back to Disneyland for a moment. Come to think of it, Disneyland is full of fancy dress, and fancy dresses!

Tiana from The Princess and the Frog, Disneyland, May 2012.

I have many more, but that's enough for tonight. Let's so see what all the Robins came up with for this Challenge!


Linking List
as of Saturday, April 5th, 2014
1:54 AM MST

Karen - Posted!
Outpost Mâvarin
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com

Mande
Simply Learning to Explore and Use My Camera
http://simplyturtlepictures.blogspot.com/

Carly - Posted!
Ellipsis
http://ellipsissuddenlycarly.blogspot.com

If it's still the weekend, it's not too late to play along yourself! Go for it, I say!

Karen

Round Robin Challenge: Families Where We Find Them

I set myself a bit of a Challenge this time. The Round Robin Photo Challenge topic is Family, and how am I meant to photograph that? My dad is in North Carolina, my brother outside Cleveland. I haven't seen either of them in years. My own family is John, who doesn't like having his picture posted, plus the dogs, who have no opinion either way.

But I went to Reid Park, on a chilly day of intermittent rain, to see if there were any families my camera could find. I stalked one family from across the duck pond with my zoom lens:



I like that we can't see their faces. They become a generic family. The adults are both women, but they're still a family.



We don't know who these people are, really, what their actual relationships are and why they came to the park on such a blustery day. I hope they enjoyed the park and each other's company.

Okay, let's go for an even more generic family, albeit an extended one: the bronze people of Cancer Survivors Plaza:





According to my previous post on the subject, the entire sculpture (all the bronze bits) is titled "Cancer...There's Hope." It was the last work of artist Victor Salmones. The five figures at the back - a dad and his Picachu-toting little girl, the grandparents and a young woman - represent cancer patients and their supporters as the patients enter the maze of treatment with fear and determination.

In lieu of families like this, we build our families of choice, people we aren't necessarily related to at all. In my "church family" are two close friends I spend a lot of time with, Kevin and Jan:



So okay, I managed to find some substitute families to photograph. But at bedtime, after a bit of nagging, my own family graciously posed for me:



Now let's check out the families the other Robins photographed!

Linking List
as of 3 AM MST Saturday
December 3rd, 2011

Karen - Posted!
Outpost Mâvarin
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com

Jama - Posted!
Sweet Memories
http://mummyjam.blogspot.com

Freda - Posted!
Day One
http://fredamans.blogspot.com

Dave Richards - Posted!
daves(old short legs)photo blog
http://davesoldshortlegsphotoblog.blogspot.com/

Gattina - Posted!
Keyhole Pictures
http://gattina-keyholepictures.blogspot.com/

And it's not too late to join in yourself!

Karen

EMPS: The Geese on Barnum Hill

This week's Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot was called "A Walk in he Park." The weather has finally cooled enough, and the dogs' shots are current enough, that I was able to take them to Reid Park for the first time in many months. The tricky part was finding the time. Then my Thursday afternoon computer lesson (teaching, not taking) was postponed, so off we went!



After some fun in the dog park area...



...we headed off for a stroll...



...down by the duck ponds.



The geese at the left of the photo here are coming down from an area called Barnum Hill. They acted as if they ran the place. Cayenne was desperate to show them otherwise, and I had to hold the leashes tight to keep her from getting away as she lunged toward them.



The geese headed down to the second duck pond...



...where a cormorant was already hanging out.

Karen

Round Robin: Stealth Photography in the Park

For Round Robin Challenge: In the Park, I asked for photos taken in a park, any kind of park, preferably with people enjoying the place. I have a zillion photos in my archives of Gene C Reid Park and other Tucson area parks, and I figured that in a pinch I could surely find something to post that I hadn't used before.

From Reid at Random

But today when I left work I headed for 22nd Street instead of my usual route, knowing I'd be passing at least two parks between the freeway and home. There were three, actually. At least one of them is frequented by homeless people in the daytime, but I chickened out of trying to photograph evidence of this. Instead, after an agonizing interlude of stop and go traffic with no discernible cause, I made it to Reid Park, site of so many past photo shoots. The dogs weren't with me, but that was okay, because I was in a hurry. After a brief drive around the ballpark, I parked near 22nd Street, jumped out of the car and followed behind this mother and her daughter as they headed for the duck pond.



I felt like a bit of a stalker, but that didn't stop me from taking several pictures of these two people, all from behind. To be honest, I'm too shy to go up to people all the time and ask whether I can photograph them. I very seldom ask, in fact. I'd rather take candid photos from a distance. In a public park, according to my courses in Business Law, one has less of a "reasonable expectation of privacy" than in other places. And by photographing the little girl only from behind and at a distance, with no identifying name, address or facial features, I give potential stalkers, kidnappers, etc. no basis for targeting this particular anonymous child.



But come on! Even from behind, she's pretty cute! And I mean that in the nicest, least predatory way possible!



Of course, the mother and child weren't the only people in that part of the park this afternoon. These two women, for example, were having a chat, apparently oblivious to the birds that surrounded them.



And I snapped this gaggle of youth, again at a distance with no identifying features to speak of.



Still, there was one photographic subject in the park today that I didn't have to sneak up on. This scrap metal elephant is a new addition to the collection of large art installations at Reid Park.

Now let's see what and whom the other Robins found in the park!

Linking List
As of 12:22 PM MST Saturday

Karen - Posted!
Outpost Mâvarin
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com

Jama - Posted!
Sweet Memories
http://mummyjam.blogspot.com

Freda - Posted!
Day One
http://fredamans.blogspot.com

Erin - Posted!
Worth A Thousand Words
http://erin-worthathousandwords.blogspot.com/

Kim - Posted!
My Photography in Focus
http://www.myphotographyinfocus.com

hip chick
hip chick photos
http://hipchickphotos.blogspot.com/

Gattina - Posted!
Keyhole Pictures
http://gattina-keyholepictures.blogspot.com/

JennyO
JennyO's Weblog
http://ostranderblog.wordpress.com/

Karen

EMPS: Where the Birds Live

For EMPS: Birds, I could have gone with archive shots, but instead I took a few minutes to stop at Reid Park, site of many happy rambles with my dogs. I didn't have time to go get Cayenne and Pepper today, so it was just me and my friend Kevin. And the birds of course!

From Birds of Reid Park

I just added a slew of pics to this and I've having trouble weeding out the less-good ones. You see, there are so many kinds of birds at Reid Park. Here, for example, are two cormorants, a couple of ducks and a coot. Cormorants are ocean birds, but these two don't seem to mind this desert oasis.



A flock of doves takes wing.



The line-up: Black-crowned Night Herons hang out.



A mature night heron looking especially handsome.



He's just a Mallard, but I was impressed with how close he let me get. Of course, that's because Cayenne wasn't with me!



Great-tailed grackles and an immature heron.



Doves. Or pigeons, if you prefer.

Karen

EMPS: Garbage Decoration Day?

For the first time ever, I forgot to do the Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot last week! Every time there has been a Monday Photo Shoot, since John Scalzi started it in the days of AOL Journals, I've always, always done it. Until now. Ah, well, the streak is broken. But that won't stop me from doing this week's EMPS!



The theme is Garbage Day, and so I photographed the red trash in the kitchen this afternoon, before and after I emptied it. But that's a little boring, and John would not be pleased to see our trash on display. So instead I've dug into my archives for some photos I took at Reid Park in the summer of 2009.



There was a time, after Tuffy died and I was laid off from Beaudry RV, that I was going to Reid Park every day with Cayenne and Pepper. The dog park was there, of course, but after a while I started rambling all over the main park with the dogs, exploring and taking pictures.



One feature of Reid Park that always fascinated me was the use of painted 50-gallon(?) drums as trash cans, all over the park. In the dog park area, they were used for cleaning up after the dogs, but elsewhere they were positioned by picnic tables, outside the rose garden and so on. They were all labeled Reid Park Zoo, even though these were outside the zoo itself; and they had all been obviously been decorated by children. One wonders whose idea it was to enlist kids at the zoo for this project: "Now, class, today we will be painting garbage cans." Not that I'm knocking this. I actually think these are kind of cool! As you can see, they are all ecologically themed.

Actually, I once decorated a trash, nearly thirty years ago. I photocopied the cover of an LP by The Clash, did some cutting and rearranging so that it said The Trash, and used clear contact paper to attach all this to a green trash basket. We called it the Clash Trash, and had it for quite a few years before it got, well, trashed.

Karen

Round Robin: Beneath These Roots

I half-intended to do something semi-clever and unexpected for the return of the Round Robin Photo Challenges, finding some surprising interpretation of the topic "Roots," as suggested by Vicki of the blog Maraca. Now the time has come to post, and I can't bear to do that. The fact is, I took quite a few pictures last year of the roots of olive trees in Gene C. Reid Park. It would be a shame not to finally present some of the shots I haven't previously posted.




The thing about old olive trees is, pretty much the whole tree looks like tree roots. It's a motif that's carried up the trunk, a mass of twisted limbs joined together. Tonight I came across a nice shot of the olive grove that illustrates this. (You can see it here.) But let's concentrate on the actual roots, shall we?



The other cool thing about this particular stand of olive trees, next to the rose garden in Reid Park, is that Cayenne and Pepper always seem inordinately interested in their roots.




I have lots of pictures, in fact, of the dogs sniffing and nosing and climbing around at the base and roots of these trees. But why? What's so compelling about tree roots for a dog like Cayenne or (especially) Pepper?



I had my suspicions, especially given the number of small holes in the ground I've turned up in various parts of this park, including some right at the roots of the trees that interest Pepper the most. But until this summer I didn't know for sure what the dogs were looking for. I tend to take the dogs to the park in the late afternoon, if at all; lately our attendance has fallen off to almost nothing. At that time of day, whatever critters the dogs are after seem conspicuously absent, aside from certain birds.



But one morning this summer I decided to beat the heat with a morning visit. That's when the dogs and I finally saw what had burrowed all those holes near the roots of olive trees. We never got very close, but I did manage a few shots.

Now let's go see what roots the other Robins have decided to show us:

Linking List



Vicki - Posted!
Maraca
http://mymaracas.blogspot.com/


Karen - Posted!
Outpost Mâvarin
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com


Linda - Posted!
Mommy's Treasures
http://mommystreasures.blogspot.com 


Carly - Posted!
Ellipsis
http://ellipsissuddenlycarly.blogspot.com


Jama - Posted!
Sweet Memories
http://mummyjam.blogspot.com


Monica
Shutterly Happy =)
http://monica-frameofmind.blogspot.com/


Gemma
Little Tiny Pieces
http://www.littletinypieces.co.uk


Suzanne R - Posted!
SuzyQ421's Photo Blog
http://suzyq421sphotoblog.blogspot.com


Sherrie - Posted!
Sherrie's Stuff
http://sherrie-plummer.blogspot.com/


Julie - Posted!
Julie's Web Journal
http://www.barrettmanor.com/julie/journal.aspx


Gattina - Posted!
Keyhole Pictures
http://gattina-keyholepictures.blogspot.com/


Peggy - Posted!
Holmespun Fun Memes and Themes
http://holmespunfunmemesandthemes.blogspot.com

Karen

EMPS: Testing With Trees

In the latest Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot, Carly is asking for pictures of trees. Oh, that's easy. I could do a week's worth of postings just from archived photos of Reid Park - but I won't. It's taken me all week just to put together this one entry!

There are more than a few trees there that I've photographed a lot, because they're photogenic, because they frame a sunset, because they have birds in them, and, well, because I see them rather often, while holding a camera in one hand, the dogs' leashes in the other. But for this shoot I'm going with all new photos, taken late Monday afternoon. As an experiment, I'm not even editing them, except for resize and sharpen lightly, with a few exceptions.

California Pepper Tree(?) in Reid Park,
originally uploaded by Karen Funk Blocher.

This first shot, as best as I can figure out from my research, is of a California Pepper Tree. It stands near the north entrance of Miko's Corner Playground. I've always thought of it as a willow tree, because of the general shape - but I always knew I was probably wrong in that identification.

Now for the learning curve. After years of dragging my heels, I signed up for flickr a day or two ago. I'm testing the "blog this" function, which seems designed to post one photo only, with no provision for saving it to draft. So if you see this in a feed with just one photo, please click through, because I'll be editing it! There are definitely more photos on the way! You can see the full set at here.

Oh, that looks rather nice. Let's try it again, pasting the HTML from the first photo and changing the particulars:

Arizona Sycamore and Friend, Miko's Corner,
originally uploaded by Karen Funk Blocher.

Pretty good. I had to do some fiddling, but it works okay. Anyway, this is also in Miki's Corner. In the past I've photographed it for the leaves, and especially for the bark. I'm pretty sure it's an Arizona Sycamore. And every time I try to type the word "sycamore," my fingers want to turn it into "Syracuse."

The Sunset Tree, Miko's Corner,
originally uploaded by Karen Funk Blocher.

I'm not sure what kind of tree this is, although I have my suspicions. It's been featured in many of my Reid Park sunset and dusk photos.

An Olive Tree near the Rose Garden,
originally uploaded by Karen Funk Blocher.

Here's one of the trees in the olive grove near the rose garden. I'm fascinated by the twisted trunks and roots of them. The olive grove is riddled with the burrows of rock squirrels. I guess they must like olives. Cayenne and Pepper are always sniffing at the base of these trees, trying to figure out where the squirrels are.

Why did I photograph this tree by the northern duck pond?.
Originally uploaded by Karen Funk Blocher.

I photographed several other trees for this, but let's finish off with one that isn't photogenic in itself. If it stood alone it might look rather nice, but it's all tangled up with two other trees, and it's hard to get a handle on its shape. But that's not important. Can you tell from the photo above what is significant about this tree?

How many herons are in this tree?
Originally uploaded by Karen Funk Blocher.

Here's the cropped version. How many black-crowned night herons can you find? This tree is right next to the northern duck pond, and people sometimes go fishing (illegally) and flip their tiny catches onto the sidewalk for the birds to snatch up. So naturally the birds hang out here, waiting for the opportunity.

Update: Carly counts 4 herons, but I swear there were five last night. Perhaps one flew away? Let's try the other picture, one that I saturated a bit to make the herons more visible:

How many herons do you see now?

And now I've found the easier way to do a flickr link!

Be sure to check Carly's blog Ellipsis each month for the Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot!

Karen

F&FFF: The Dogs in the Daytime

For Feline and Furballs with Feathers Friday:

Pepper's pre-grooming shedding and post-grooming sleekness
(and bandanna!)

From Reid at Random

As I mentioned in my previous entry, Pepper was groomed this week. She had been shedding clumps of black fur all over the place; more important, all that fur can't have been comfortable for her in all this 100-degree-plus heat. So I took her to PetSmart on Tuesday for the "Furminator" treatment. Most of her undercoat is gone, her coat is soft and shiny, and she has hardly been shedding at all. She also acquired a bandanna that actually looked semi-decent, before shedding it in the back yard.

It was suggested to me the other day that the problem of taking the dogs out in the Arizona heat might be solved by taking them out early in the morning. I try never to be conscious that time of day, if I can help it; but nevertheless I tried it on Thursday morning.

By 8 AM(?) we were at Miko's Corner. Even at that time, things were heating up. Most of the humans were congregated at the picnic tables under the ramada roof. Even the dogs tended to be in the shade, and did very little running around. All in all, it was no improvement.

There was a definite advantage, though, when we left the dog park itself for the wider romping grounds of Reid Park. The dogs and I finally got to see the critters that have dug so many holes in the ground outside the rose garden. I had thoughts of gophers, or possibly something even more exotic, but the truth was more prosaic. The morning shift at Reid Park featured lots and lots of rock squirrels, the Arizona equivalent of the common gray squirrel. They were popping in and out of holes, some of them freshly dug, peeping and peering warily at the dogs.

And the dogs were peering right back, making noises of their own! I have never felt them tug on the leashes quite this hard. But no, I didn't let go!

One year as a Blocher dog.

**Update: after posting this I went to Steven's newest F and FF entry, and learned that his beloved cat Pickle will probably be put to sleep on Monday at the end of a long illness. Let me take this opportunity to extend my sympathies to Steven in this difficult time. Exactly a year ago, we took our dog Tuffy Toro to the vet for the last time, and felt the gamut of guilt and grief and relief as her evident suffering came to an end. The next day, we adopted a dog called "Ireland," who was soon renamed Cayenne - not a replacement, but a new friend. Tuffy and Cayenne are very different dogs. This isn't necessarily the right answer for everyone who loses a pet, but for us it was. **

Karen