Today I went kayaking for the first time with my sister and some of my girlie pals. We went on the Kinnickinnic River, departing from River Falls, WI. It was a little on the brutal side. The river is quite low so we hit lots of rocks and spent lots of time emptying kayaks full of water. The worst thing, though, is no cameras! That’s the second time in two weeks that I’ve had great photo ops that I couldn’t photograph. Earlier, my sister’s fiance graduated from the prison guard training program at Lino Lakes Minnesota Correctional Facility and we got to attend the graduation and take a tour of the prison campus. But sometimes mental photos just have to suffice, I guess. (Seriously, the image of the proximity of prison toilet to prison bed and prison roommate is permanently burned into my mind.)

In any case, in the meantime, here are some various works of art from the Fourth of July party we had in our backyard.

(That’s me!)

These type of photos aren’t hard to do if you have a camera with manual settings. You’ll want to wait until it’s pretty dark because you’ll need to do a long exposure. For these photos, I varied between 5sec and 30sec exposures, depending on what people wanted to draw. You may want to keep your aperture pretty stopped down if you’re getting in too much light. I think I did most of these at 9.0? And you’ll probably want a tripod, although I did these by setting the camera on my lap. And a super secret hint…the artists don’t have to draw their name backwards…you can flip it later in Photoshop. :)

Lots of destinations with good photo ops tomorrow, here’s hoping I can walk! And that the bed doesn’t rock ALL night long.

My friend Paul/Preflash Gordon, the one who got me started on Roller Derby, also happens to be the photographer for the St. Paul Saints. Always one eager to share his enthusiasm for anything, he’d been trying to lure me to a game with promises of a media pass. I kept meaning to go but never setting an actual date but when he mentioned that Thursday night’s game would be followed by fireworks, I jumped.

The “Ushertainer,” The Nerd and Mascot Mudonna.

Before the game, they honored women who have served in the military, from Afghanistan and Iraq, all the way back to WWII. These are all women who have served at some time or another.

The woman on the left (the one holding the ball, not to be confused with Paul who is walking into my shot ;) ) was an Air Force pilot in WWII. The crowd applause when they announced that was amazing. The names of the other women and the wars that they served in can be found here.

WWII fighter planes in missing man formation, or missing woman formation as they declared it for the game. The plane breaking away symbolizes all the women who have lost their lives while serving.

The colorguard during the singing of the National Anthem.

This photo makes me laugh a little because what exactly is going on?

Afterwards, there were fireworks just beyond centerfield. They let fans come down and sit in the outfield to view them. I have to say, there’s something a bit more patriotic about seeing fireworks over a baseball field.

And now I am off to prepare for my own Fourth of July celebration – a cookout and bonfire in my backyard. Have a happy holiday, everyone!