(#6) of 10 places I want to see before I die.

Kenya

I don't particularly have interesting facts or specific reasons even for wanting to visit Kenya. And really I'm not necessarily dead set on KENYA as much as Africa in general. You could just as easily replace the savannahs of Kenya with the plains of Tanzania (or Kilimanjaro) or with the Okavango Delta in Botswana. Africa seems to me to be one of the most geographically diverse and culturally rich place on earth. So in all realty just take me there and leave me for a while to wander the (rather large) continent and let's see how much ground I can cover and how many African wonders I can see before they drag me home again.

*I must also note that a previous post showed my wish to travel along the Nile. So pretty much I want to cover a lot of this continent. Maybe I could make one very extended trip of it.

(#5) of 10 places I want to see before I die.

The Redwood Forest.

This destination is possibly the most easily obtained that I've mentioned this far. I was hoping to see it this year, but there is so much uncertainty for me right now because I graduate in May that I decided to not plan a big trip. I have a friend who will go with me and I hope to draft a few more and go camping in the forest. I don't want to just get a nearby hotel and drive in and drive past the trees. I want to take a pack and a hike through them, spend a week around them. I want to experience the forest. So that's the plan. It's of course easy to see the draw to this place. The trees dwarf  any person and the landscape is green and beautiful. The National Redwood Forest is in California along the coast. Coastal Redwoods are the tallest species on earth often reaching 200 and 300 feet tall, with the tallest standing a proud 379 feet. (Hyperion) Often the bark alone is a foot thick. So this will hopefully be on my "been to" list in the not-so-distant future. Let me know if your up for some camping and I'll keep you informed on the travel plans. Prepare for some serious walking though.

(1 - 4 of) 10 places I want to see before I die:

The title of this blog really says it all. This is the first post in a series about places I'm throwing in my bucket list. Take time to read and maybe you can come along and help me carry my camera gear...

Antarctica:

This may seem like a strange and lonely land to want to visit but that’s precisely the allure. The people who can claim they’ve walked on the icy flats of Antarctica are members of an exclusive club. It’s unarguably the most alien land mass on Earth and the creatures that survive there are some of the toughest and most savage. I’ve always enjoyed photographs of this continent and having the opportunity to capture a few of my own would be a highlight in my book. Sure it’s the coldest desert on the planet with temperatures reaching -130 degrees Fahrenheit, winds gusting up to 200 mph and more than 99% of its landmass covered in ice. But membership into one of the world’s most exclusive clubs is not without its share of sacrifices (think frostbite) and a picture is worth a thousand words. Antarctica could fill encyclopedias.

Istanbul:

Formerly Constantinople, formerly Byzantium, currently the 5th largest city in the world with a population of 12.8 million. This great city has served as capitol to the Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire, Latin Empire and Ottoman Empire. Well, you get the idea and I would love to get the pictures. I’ve been fascinated with this city since I read the book, “1453” about the fall of Constantinople from Constantine XI to Mehmed II. (Great book if you are interested in history) Anyways, this city’s history is as rich as it comes and its glory days boasted architectural wonders that shamed Rome. Also, because the muslims didn’t get a kick out of the whole burning and pillaging scene many of the buildings survived the transition from Christian to Islamic cultures. Most of the Christian murals and statues were destroyed and much of the architecture had Ottoman spires added but the previous culture survived with new equally compelling layers added. So this landscape of cultural jewels most assuredly makes my list.


The Nile:

This particular destination is an unusual request because the “place” is not confined to a city, country, or cultural cluster. The Nile is 4,132 miles long and 5 miles wide at its furthest spread. The river flows North  passing through Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt to the Mediterranean Sea. The river’s two grandest tributaries are the Blue Nile from Ethiopia and the White NIle from Uganda/Kenya which join in Khartoum—which also happens to be the setting of the semi-historical movie of the same name staring Laurence Olivier and Charlton Heston. The Nile’s riverbanks are the breeding ground to many cultures and populations, most notably the Egyptian Empire. However, it is not merely the pyramids of the ancient pharaohs I wish to see but the fertile banks of the Nile and the other indigenous populations, man and animal. Things to invest in beforehand: a kayak and telephoto lens.


Machu Picchu, Peru

This pre-Columbian Incan site is located 7,970 feet above sea level on a mountain ridge above the Urubamba Valley in Peru, 50 miles northwest of Cusco. (llama, llama, llama) The settlement began in 1400 AD and was relatively unknown to the Spanish Conquistadors, thus preserving its Incan culture. The settlement was abandoned in 1572 and it's speculated that most of its inhabitants died from smallpox introduced by the Spaniards in surrounding areas. From my research on the local climate it has two seasons: wet and dry. The summer months reach temperatures in the low 80s while the winter months plummet to a wet and mild 50 degrees. A little more bearable than Antarctica I suppose. My words on WHY I want to visit this site are limited because... well you saw the picture right? Who wouldn’t want to fill up a few memory cards with that mountain range, add some fascinating history about an ancient culture and you’ve just spotted a great photo-taking opportunity.

wanderlust & laundry

I've been reading a lot of good blogs lately. Not necessarily "famous" blogs, but writings from friends and others that have really been lovely to read. Its really made me wish that I kept up with my own a little more. Unfortunately, while on winter "break" I've been working overtime at my job. I personally find little joy in blogging about web development, thus the reason for the scarcity of my posts. But in the spirit of actually conveying what I've been doing recently here are a few of the sites I've been working on. I didn't design these, I developed them:

live:
http://www.humboldttnchamber.org

still in development:
http://www.milanalumni.org/test/
http://www.younger-associates.com/~magchamb/
This one has been the most time consuming, Realtor websites are no fun:
http://younger-associates.com/~ricktrav/rets/open-realty/

(On a web development side note, I think I may switch my blog to Wordpress. I recently created a template for a client using WP and it was beautifully efficient. When I tried to customize this blog via html/css it was in-eloquent to say the least)

Working so much has really caused the wanderlust to set in though. It's pretty normal for me to feel the travel itch this time of year, however, the last two years I have found somewhere else to be in January. This year I'm not so lucky. However, today I was reading a blog and the author made a New Years resolution to be content where he was at. A good resolution. Of course I love travel and I will continue to love travel. But it's miserable when the wanderlust sets in and I'm incapable of satiating it. My mind is never present, my thoughts are always elsewhere. I literally will sit on my computer in my spare moments and look up the price of plane tickets online, just so I can imagine going to different destinations. ugh. miserable.

So, I've decided to make my best effort to not let my desire to travel cause me to be unhappy where I'm at. They key I think is photography. The less time I have to take pictures, the more unsettled I become. Taking pictures causes me to step back and see things in a new light. I appreciate things more and often find interesting aspects in the most mundane scenarios.

So, I'm going to try to take more pictures. My little point and shoot will stay in my purse and when I see something, it will be handy.

So in honor of my new venture I decided to take pictures of what occupied a lot of my evening tonight: laundry. Enjoy.

Inadequate.

Sometimes life is so overwhelming. I do so much, move so fast, and get hit in such waves that to deal with it all I stop experiencing life. I was reminded tonight while talking with my dear friend Sarah that life is worth feeling. Ironically enough earlier today I told another friend to go take pictures and remember why photography is so wonderful and restorative. I decided to take my own advice.

I made a detour on my way home to a cotton field in the country. I parked my car on the side of the road, grabbed my camera from the passenger seat and head off across the field. Even harvested cotton fields turn out to be difficult to navigate in the dark.

After a bit of walking when my car was a small spot in the distance I laid down and trained my camera toward the moon. It was beautiful. The jovial man was smiling down on me. I hadn't come prepared for a night time photo shoot. No tripod, fill light or flashlights were employed. It was my camera and shaky hands. But I preferred it that way. Not having to worry about equipment allowed me to enjoy the scenery myself and once again appreciate the simplicity of pressing the shutter button and stealing a moment of time. A single moment completely unique. No other place or time on earth has quite the lighting, smells, or sounds of that breath I caught on camera.

The leftover cotton smelled earthy and sweet. The ground was hard and dry. The light cool and crisp.

I began to hear movement across the field. I stopped for awhile and peered into the dark treeline. I couldn't see anything. I trained my camera in that direction and pulled up the exposure. It saw nothing either. So I moved deeper across the field. My car shrunk smaller behind me. I reached an ocean of Kudzu on the other end of the field. The light fell dramatically over the rolling waves of leaves and a tree that from the other side of the field had seemed big now seemed monstrous. It stood lonely and tall in the kudzu, saved from the smothering vine's blanket by its immense size. The top branches still reaching the light. I wish my camera could have shown the way the light spilled over the land or the way the tree stood nobly and dark in the night. But alas! those were for my eyes only and the inadequacies of my camera could not fit the pieces together.

I struggled to take a few more pictures and pull a little more of time through my lens. Wails and howls broke through the silence as I worked. It sounded as though something were dying in the woods beyond my vision. I was reminded of another friend who claims an irrational fear of werewolves (of the gory violent sort, not the muscle-bound Taylor Lautner sort). It was an interesting thought for sure but only begged me to capture the sounds and mystic mood of the moment that much more. I was unsuccessful. My skill and my camera fell horribly and tragically short. But where's the fun in the easily attained? I'll try again and again. More likely than not I will never be successful but I enjoy the moment and the hyper-awareness the effort brings. The moment is mine and while I can not produce a picture to post that truly shows the moment there is one in my mind: full of textures, smells, sounds and sights.

As I walked back across the field to my car I noticed that the moon seemed to shine brighter at my back, lighting the way before me. The trip back to my car was easier and I gave a silent wave to the jovial man for his help.

If Walls Could Talk. . .

My blogging routine is all out of sorts now that I am home. My hope is to update this from time to time when something that triggers my photographic curiosity presents itself.

This particular story begins a few months back when a friend of mine took me out to her grandparents property a little south of Jackson. They live on a small farm with a horse, some goats, and chickens. The small farmhouse is charming and the goats are funny, but it was their land across from the house that most interested me. It was heavily wooded and an old barn and dilapidated house rest their creaky bones among the trees. The stories behind such structures always fascinate me. On the first visit to this area I was without my camera. Obviously, if you've read the posts preceding this one, my summer has been a little busy and I only got an opportunity to return with my camera last weekend.


I'm not really sure what the picture above is of. If anyone has any ideas, let me know.

Inside the main room of the house, clothes covered the floor and shoes were left by the door. The shoes sat there as if Mr. Homeowner had walked into the door and out of consideration for Mrs. Homeowner's clean floor slipped off his shoes before entering. But then the house had been abandoned; shoes still considerately placed by the door, waiting for the wearer to put them on again.

I tried not to touch anything. The house was a museum of stories and I didn't move a single article for fear of erasing the words.
This fireplace was in an adjoining room to the previous pictures. It was on the corner of the house with a porch off one side. I could see the warm flames that filled the hearth where now bricks laid.



After I took these pictures I felt the need to try some portraiture here, so I called Savannah and borrowed her for awhile. Here's a couple favorites, more are posted on my facebook.


On another note, my camera is dying. It has been acting finicky for the past 6 months or so, but since I've been back from my trip it is much worse. I need to send it off to be repaired (incidentally there is a recall on it, unrelated to my problems with it) Since I'm in photography class yet again this semester and have several portrait sessions lined up, sending my camera to Nikon is more than a little inconvenient. I'm interested in buying a new one anyways because my photography has progressed to the point where my amateur DSLR is. . . limiting. I say this to say that if anyone knows of someone selling a Nikon (I'm loyal) D700 or better (dream camera D3s). . . wait let me revise that statement: if anyone knows of someone practically giving away a full frame Nikon camera, let me know. My budget is limited.

Also, I've got my website up for anyone interested in checking it out. Let me know what you think please! nicolermccoy.com

Judith Point again. . .

Well, an update for everyone: I'm home.

I have a few pictures to post from the wedding but I was so busy in FL that I really didn't get a chance to do much picture taking.

However, I did piece together a panoramic image from Judith Point. I was going to upload it to facebook but discovered it won;t let me. Pooey on facebook. Anyways, here it is, and hope you enjoy.


I'm not entirely satisfied with it. It seems a little sloppy to me but this was my first attempt at stitching together multiple images like this. I might try to redo it and see what happens.

Also, I've noticed that all the images look a little lo-rez on this blog but if you click on them they open in a separate window with better resolution.

Another down...

Another day of travel complete.

I broke my previous record going to Connecticut of six states in one day. Today I drove through seven: Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina. For the most part traffic was good. I originally planned on avoiding NYC but when I consulted the traffic on my trusty Droid it looked good. And it was. Traffic moved well through NYC. Washington D.C. is another story. It was stop and go for several hours and I lost time. Oh well though. I stopped for the night in Fayetteville, NC.

I've noticed a trend in hotels having crazy carpet:

Also, Today in Baltimore, MD I drove through this ridiculously long tunnel. I videoed about the last third of the tunnel. Truthfully, I went to take a picture and realized it was in video mode, so I just went with it.



So, my internet in this Hotel isn't running fast and I'm not going to upload any more pictures. I of course have many more to show you.

I am, however, going to make a list of things I have done for the first time on this trip. I was counting them up earlier and there is quite a few.
1. Drove through 7 states in one day.
2. Taken an extended roadtrip my myself.
3. Worked at a newspaper.
4. Ate Vegan brownies.
5. Photographed Sports
(Okay, one more photo...)
6. Rode/drove a Motocross bike.
7. Went to NYC
8. First time being in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island,
and Delaware
9. Rode on a commuter train
10. Ate kosher Pizza. :)
I'm sure there's more but that is all that comes to mind right now. :) I'll post more pictures later, but now it is time for me to go to bed so that I can get up early and hit the road again tomorrow.

A Long Tale

Before I go into any details from the week I want to post a couple pictures of the the kids I've been living with for nearly two weeks now. They are so fun to watch and they've kept me entertained.

Katie: the biker chick.



Noah: the funny guy.

Sarah: the drama QUEEN.

Sunday I went to THE BIG APPLE! Bob, Katie, Noah and I drove to New Haven, CT and got a train into Grand Central Station.

To say that the city was everything I expected and more is an injustice to my sense of. . .not really sure what. There were things that were exactly as I had figured, and other things I had never even considered. (Like the 5-story American Eagle, Forever 21, etc.) We were in the city for about 7 hours and barely saw anything. New York is so busy with so much to see that a few hours covers nothing.


Grand Central Station is immense and beautiful. I found myself fascinated by the restaurants and people and the signs. It's a people-watcher's paradise. Even the small signs displaying the cost of a months fare or the lavish armchairs around the buffets interested me. (I realize that for "big city" people this seems strange, but I loved the details)

One particular highlight for the kids and, I admit, for me was the M&M factory in Times Square. It was so busy and they had every color M&M you could imagine. (Like Central Park grass-colored)

Haha. I got a kick out of this t-shirt.
We also took the subway to Chinatown. I think I probably took more pictures in the subway than I did anywhere else. I loved snapping candid photos of people waiting. fascinating.
Loved the sign:

Yesterday I was assigned to take Metro Wild Art pictures. Basically, the Rep-Am needs pictures to fill up space in the paper so they send a photographer out to roam the assigned area (in this case the city of Waterbury and the very near surrounding cities) to find. . . something picture worthy. This was not my first time being assigned to Wild Art and I had previously found it very hard to generate pictures. Its especially hot this summer for CT (not by TN standards) and people just don't come outside as much. Not to mention that kids would rather be inside playing Xbox 360 and watching TV than entertaining themselves outside. Anyways, I got in my car and using my trusty Droid located the nearest large park. (I'm also at a disadvantage because I don't know the area well) I headed to Fulton Park, which was as I could tell by the map, an inner city park located in the poorer area of town.

I found Fulton and began to drive through the park. I saw a few people here and there but nothing exciting and nothing I really could take pictures of. Then my luck changed as I rounded a corner and saw a street FULL of kids. I mean FULL. I pulled my car over, gathered my gear, briefly contemplated the wisdom of walking around a ghetto park with my expensive camera by myself, and then got out and approached the nearest group.

I began to introduce myself and tell them I was going to be hanging out taking pictures. They were all in bathing suits because they were waiting for the pool to reopen so they all could continue swimming. The first girls I talked to were quiet enough but excited to have their pictures taken. So I began to snap a few frames. Then I began to talk with the girls and loosen up around them.

The boys were over a ways performing flips (some of them rather impressively I should add) so after I took pictures of the girls laying in the sun I headed over to the guys. A short story even shorter, they all were very willing to have their pictures taken and even did special flips for me. I got their names which most of them had to spell for me, and ages, most of them looked 16 or 17 but turned out to be 13-16, and they were all instant friends. They talked freely, enjoyed the attention I was giving them and kept asking what paper they would need to get so they could see themselves.

When the pool reopened I followed them in and took pictures there as well. They did as many cannonballs as they could for me and then I would have a group of ten crowding around me trying to look on my little camera screen to see their stunts. Needless to say I became rather wet from them pushing around me. It was a lot of fun and they were all so wonderful. I was glad I didn't let me initial trepidation stop me from approaching them and considered that these were the kids that rarely got this sort of attention and that they needed it that much more. Besides the excitement I felt from them, I also felt their gratitude. Most of them were very polite and several of them thanked me MULTIPLE times for taking their picture.


During one instance of way too many dripping wet kids crowding around me and my camera one of the boys looked up and pointed at another boy and started laughing, "Dude, you have spit on your face." The unfortunate victim of the loogie looked up shocked and tried wiping it off, succeeding only in smearing it across his brow. The heckler laughed and continued pointing. The spit-boy just looked confused standing next to me. So I just reached over and wiped the spit off with my hand and then wiped it on my skirt. No big deal. . . for me anyways. The laughing stopped and we continued viewing pictures. The boy whose forehead I had wiped however thought it was a big deal and thanked me at least four times. It was a sweet reminder for me that the smallest kindness can carry so much weight to people and that things I take for granted mean a great deal to others. I vowed to try and continue showing small kindnesses to people because it's one of the basics Christ has asked of us, but one that gets overlooked more often than not.

I was glad that the picture I had taken of one of the boys, Khyle Droughn, doing flips made the front of the Metro local section. When I picked up the paper this morning and saw it I smiled and thought about Khyle and his friends' reactions when they saw that they had made front and center: an 8" x 8" colored photo.

On a side note, I was driving to north Connecticut for wild art up there even earlier this week and was following the GPS on my phone. I learned that the GPS doesn't distinguish between roads and non-navigable roads. I ended up on a country gravel road, which is not unusual for CT but as I traveled further up the mountain on this road it got more and more uneven. I really needed a four wheel drive to be driving on it. I stopped at one point and took a picture but this by no means is the worst section. I didn't dare stop on the bad parts because I was afraid that if I halted there would be no gathering momentum to start again.
Interestingly enough there were homes off of this road in several spots: beautiful quaint homes that I thought existed only in movies. Several were colonial style homes with shutters and vines crawling up the side. Their windows looked out over lush mountains and wildflowers grew right up to the house and spilled over paths leading to gardens, sheds, and rustic barns. It was a glorious drive. I would have stopped more but by this point in my journey I was on my way to an interview in Winsted, CT.

That's the condensed version of this week's events. Many of these photos are extremely rough edits as well. I will go through and fine tune many of them and post them on facebook.

Tomorrow I am going to take pictures of a man who installed solar panels on his barn to provide electricity. Should be fun. Pictures will follow. . .eventually.

These are two pictures from last week when I was at a farm. I didn't get a chance to post any of those pictures and I have lots more, but these are two of my favorites. So I'll leave you with them.