While we were up North visiting family for Thanksgiving, we took time out to visit La Salette in Attleboro, MA, one night. This was a monastery that, as I was told, gets decked out in Christmas lights every year. It turned out to be a pretty impressive sight. The myriad lights were set up around a small pond and made for some neat photos.

The lights weren’t the only eye-popping thing about La Salette. It also had a huge gift shop, which struck me as kind of strange, especially for a place of worship.

The workshop, run by nature photographers Vinny Colucci and Melissa Southern, took the dozen attendees around the zoo, taking pictures and getting tips from the two pros. The highlight of the day was a becoming-part-of-the-scene tour of the prairie exhibit in the North American section of the zoo. Two zookeepers put us in the back of a big truck and drove us into the prairie exhibit, giving us a chance to get up close and personal with the bison and elks. The elks stayed away at a distance, but the herd of bison came within a few feet of the truck, which they associate with the arrival of food, and one of them came right up to the side of the truck and started sniffing and even munched someone’s shoelaces at one point. When the truck started moving, the whole herd followed with a moderate trot. Being this close to the bison gave us a new perspective on these animals, who pretty much all looked alike and didn’t seem all that interesting from a distance. The weather cooperated as well, with a swath of clouds rolling in just as we were pulling into the exhibit, blocking out the bright sun and giving us a softer light under which to photograph the herd.

After the prairie tour, we also got to go to the back of the grizzly bear exhibit, where we were introduced to the bear that wasn’t on display that day. One of the zookeepers showed us some of the tricks they taught the bear to do as part of the training to help them keep him healthy, such as getting him to keep his mouth open and pressed up against the cage so they can brush his teeth. She said bears are pretty easy to train because they are very food-oriented. We stood a mere couple feet away from the bear (on the other of the fence, of course), and its claws, which were easily at least six inches long, were something to behold.

During the rest of the day, we also got to see a couple of the zoo’s newest arrivals — an albino alligator in the African Pavilion exhibit and the baby chimp named Nori who was born last August. We got about a 60-second glimpse of the adorable baby chimp, who was clinging to her mother as she walked from one end of the exhibit to the other and disappeared over the ridge, not to be seen again for the rest of the afternoon. I think next time we go to the zoo, we’ll have to stake out the chimp exhibit for few hours to get a better look at Nori.

As for the workshop, it was a terrific experience and definitely worth the $50. Aside from getting the chance to go into the prairie exhibit, we also picked up some good tips from Vinny and Melissa, who were very friendly, approachable, and entertaining. It was also funny to have people ask what’s going on and mistake us for a professional wildlife photography crew when they saw a dozen people walk by with a bunch of big lenses and a few tripods in tow.

If you are interested in animal photography, I would definitely recommend the workshop, if you can get in. It is the most popular event that the zoo society puts on, and the workshop we attended was filled up just a few minutes after registration opened. The only reason we got into this session was because it had to be pushed back a week due to weather and some people who were signed up couldn’t make the new date, so we got moved up from the waiting list. Vinny and Melissa told us that they are planning another zoo workshop in October that will take the participants into the African savanna exhibit to get near the rhinos and antelopes. We’ll most likely try to get into that one as well.

Also, here’s a short video of one of the performances:

We went to the N.C. State Fairgrounds on Saturday for two of Courtney’s favorite things: cats and books. There was a cat show at the fairgrounds, and the Wake County Book Fair was there as well. At the cat show, we wanted to shark every kitten that was there, while at the book show, we wanted to gobble up every travel book. The only difference was we could actually afford the latter.

Incredibly, the line to the book fair went from the entrance to around the building. Once we got inside, we saw what the fuss was about. This was a ginormous book sale, and it actually had a lot of relatively recent books instead of just dusty old novels from the 1970s. We looked around for a little bit but soon converged on and stayed at the travel books section, where we loaded up on Rick Steves’ guides to various European destinations and as many of the Eyewitness Travel books as we could find.

Here are some pictures from the day:

I also got a chance to play around with the camera on the new iPod Touch I got for my birthday. Here’s a short video clip of the judging at the cat show:

The snow didn’t get to Durham until the night of Christmas, but we got a good six inches or so, which can be called a full-blown, panic-inducing snowstorm around these parts. Anyway, here are some pictures from the day after Christmas.

Courtney playing in the early January snow

Kids with their sleds after the January snow

Wickham shows off his teeth

Hummingbird at the North Carolina Zoo

Adorable girl with painted face at the Chinese New Year Festival in Raleigh

Dancers at the Chinese New Year Festival in Raleigh

Grooving to the beat at the Turkish Festival in Raleigh

Syd gets into a grooming mood while in Courtney’s arms.

Inverted Mona Lisa made of thread spindles at the new N.C. Museum of Art

Courtney fends off a refreshing glass of corporate brainwashing at the World of Coca Cola in Atlanta.

Giant bee Hummingbird moth at the North Carolina Zoo (thanks to Jim’s comment below for the correct ID)

Butterfly resting on a flower at the North Carolina Zoo

A crucified duck hanging in our bathroom as part of the preparations for making Peking duck

The hauntingly quiet and beautiful grounds of Tintern Abbbey in South Wales, UK.

Courtney and me in Regency-period attire at the Jane Austen Festival in Bath, UK

Courtney at Stonehenge at sunrise. The 4:30 a.m. wakeup call was well worth it.

Panoramic view of England from Glastonbury Tor, one of the unexpected highlights of our UK trip (click to see full size).

One of innumerable picturesque spots in the Cotswolds

The Globe Theater in London before the start of a performance of The Merry Wives of Windsor

An ad painted on the side of a building on the banks of the Thames in London

We hadn’t been to the North Carolina State Fair in a couple years. I’ve never been too enthusiastic about the state fair ever since a nightmarish ride on the swinging pirate ship at the fair back in my childhood, and the traffic had always seemed too much of a hassle. However, after looking at the list of new foods at the fair this year, we were tempted into making the trek over to Raleigh this afternoon.

You can read about our culinary experience at the fair on our food blog. In short, we enjoyed most of the things we tried. The major exception was the much-talked-about Krispy Kreme burger, which turned out to be a total FAIL not because of the sweet-and-savory combination of doughnuts and beef, but rather because the hamburger patty was a small, dry, and cold piece of junk. In any case, that little disappointment didn’t spoil our experience. We had a good time sampling the food, walking around the grounds, and petting the animals. We would have liked to have seen the pig races, just out of curiosity. But 10 minutes before each of the two race sessions that were held while we were at the fair, the small track was completely enveloped by people packed several layers deep and we couldn’t see a thing. Who knew pig racing would be such a popular pastime? A fair number of people were already waiting in the bleachers by the track when we walked past it an hour before the race, and by the size of the crowd five minutes before the race, you would think they were eating the loser afterward. So here’s a tip for fair goers: If you want to see pig racing, go early to secure a seat, or at least a line of sight.

Here are the pictures our afternoon and evening at the fair:

I haven’t posted anything to the blog since we got back from Atlanta, and part of the reason is that I’m still wading my way through the approximately 800 photos I took on the trip (plus another memory card from Courtney), toning them, and uploading them to Flickr. I was kind of concerned about running out of memory cards when I ran through an 8 GB card (which holds about 370 photos) before the end of our first day in Atlanta. Fortunately, my pace slowed somewhat the following two days. Still, after spending a couple hours on this every night for the past week, I’m only about halfway through my photos.

I did, however, find enough time to throw together an “If You Go …” guide for Atlanta for those who might be interested in visiting the city, with pointers on lodging, attractions, dining, and transportation. Also check out Courtney’s post on our food blog about our dining experience in Atlanta, which was, for the most part, fabulous.

Here’s a slideshow of our photos, which is sure to get longer and longer in the coming week(s). Maybe I’ll actually get done sometime in mid-July.

I’d be the first to say that techniques and knowledge have a lot more to do with taking good pictures than expensive equipment, but I had my eyes set on a wide-angle lens for a while, especially since we have a pending trip to England that we hope will offer plenty of views of the beautiful English countryside. After saving up some money and deliberating and researching for months, I finally pulled the trigger on a Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM lens last week when I saw it on sale for $45 less than the sticker price. The lens had gotten strong reviews from both the reviewers on Amazon.com and the Digital Photography School website as a good, not-too-expensive option for a wide-angle lens (it’s actually classified as an extra wide angle lens because it goes under 20 mm).

The lens arrived yesterday, well ahead of schedule, and I couldn’t wait to try it out, so I snapped a few pictures in and around the house. At a focal length of 10 mm, lines do start to look distorted, but that’s to be expected. The maximum focal length of 20mm is a bit on the short end, and I found that I had to stand pretty close to the subject. But hey, it’s a wide-angle lens, after all. Overall, I’m very satisfied with the lens after my brief experience with it so far, and the image looks pretty sharp. I’m looking forward to taking it out for a real field test this weekend.

Some samples:

Living room, shot at 10 mm. So that’s why those houses in real estate listings look so spacious.

Rabbit lawn figurine at 20 mm.

Rabbit lawn figurine at 10 mm.

Courtney in the kitchen, shot at 10 mm with me standing a foot away.

Bingley, right before he took a swat at my new lens as I was getting up in his face.

And finally … our two stuffed primates.

We arrived at the zoo around mid-afternoon so as to take in some regular sightseeing before the night event. We were eager to see the latest addition to the zoo — two species of lemurs, ring-tailed and red-ruffed. The ring-tailed lemurs did not disappoint, as they were just lounging inside a log most of the time (but the log was half open, so we got to see them clearly). The red-ruffed lemurs, however, were more elusive, hiding behind a rock formation for most of the time. We couldn’t see them at all when we first got to the exhibit. Later, with closing time drawing near, we swung by Lemur Island again. This time, the red-ruffed lemurs obliged us as they leaped out from their hiding place and climbed up a tall tree.

Aside from the lemurs, we also took in other parts of the zoo’s African exhibits. We discovered a nice little gazebo at one end of the trail that goes by the elephant exhibit. Because it sat at the opposite end of the elephants, there wasn’t much traffic there. We found three species of antelopes grazing and resting in the shade. They probably haven’t seen a whole lot of visitors up close, as they seemed a tad startled when we first walked up to the gazebo. However, they soon determined that we’re no threat and went back to their business.

We had about three hours to kill between when the zoo closed and when the Starlight Safari started. We went out for a quick bite, and then whiled away the rest of the time at a local mall, where we found a pet store with two tiny, adorable black kittens who were fast asleep. If we hadn’t already reached the maximum number of  cats our house can hold (three, all black, by the way), we would’ve probably taken them home.

Upon returning to the zoo around 8:30 p.m., the sky had dimmed, and the zoo staff had put out luminaries on the trail leading to the lions exhibit. The festivities started with the lion keepers tossing a few papier-mâché balls into the exhibit, which the lions quickly pounced on and ripped open to get at the treats inside. Next, a few cardboard boxes went into the exhibit. The male lion showed some interest in them, but the female really did a number on the boxes, shredding them in a matter of minutes.

By this time, the sky had gotten so dark that it was getting difficult to see the lions without the keepers shining a flashlight on them. I had my camera with me and snapped almost a hundred shots during the event, but with almost no light and with flash photography prohibited, most of them did not come out. Of course, we were standing next to the zoo’s officially sanctioned photographer for the event, and he was setting off his flash every 30 seconds or so throughout the one-hour event, so obviously the flash can’t really bother the lions too much. Nearing the end of the event, with the zoo photographer flashing away, I said the heck with it and turned on my flash for my final four or five shots, coming out with slightly better results. The event wasn’t exactly lions and Christians in the coliseum, but still interesting nonetheless (it was amazing how much the lions acted like our cats), and the money for the tickets went to a project to rescue chimpanzees.

A short video of the lions:

More pictures:

Though we only stayed a couple hours, we had enough time to sample some Turkish food and drink, take some pictures, and enjoy the stage performance, which featured some nice dancing and drumming, accented by vividly colorful costumes.

We started today at an old favorite — the Cotton Exchange in Wilmington, where Courtney went to the bead shop to load up on her beading supplies while I checked out the pottery store and then walked along the waterfront to take some pictures. After lunch, we were on our way to the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher when we drove past what seemed like a small lake on the side of the road where people were paddling boats around. On a whim, we decided to scrap the trip to the aquarium — which we’ve been to several times before anyway — and take a boat out on the lake.

Moments after we parked and started walking along the lake shore toward the boat rental shack, we noticed a couple people stopping on the side of the trail and snapping pictures. As we got closer, we saw the source of the excitement — an alligator lurking in the algae and pollen-covered waters just off the shore. As few more steps up the path, and we spotted another gator swimming into the shallows. When we got to the boat shack, there was a long line waiting for available boats, so we decided to walk around the lake instead, which was just as well, since I wasn’t too excited at the idea of getting into the water with the alligators swimming around.

The day was sunny and breezy, and the lake offered up plenty of interesting sights — ducks, geese, and several other types of waterfowls gathered in flocks close to shore, while turtles congregated in large colonies here and there, basking in the sun and feeding on bread crumbs from passing visitors. At one spot on the trail, we came across a couple of tiny, newly hatched turtles trying to make their way across the trail and to the lake. In a gazebo standing over shallow water, we heard a raucous chorus of frogs and spotted many of them lounging amid the plants and algae nearby, including a couple that was in the act of ensuring the continuing survival of the species. The frogs, in fact, weren’t the only frisky creatures on the lake, as we caught a couple of large waterfowls in the act as well.

After the first quarter of the trail, the path veered off from the lake shore, and we found ourselves walking through some relatively quiet neighborhoods lined with cypress and magnolia trees. The trail just seemed to keep going and going, and the lake turned out to be deceptively large, as it took us more than two hours to walk around it. By the time we got back to the car, we were quite ready to be off our feet.

Some pictures:

We went to a Chinese New Year festival in Raleigh over the weekend. Yes, I know Chinese New Year was more than a month ago. The event, organized by the Triangle Area Chinese American Society of North Carolina, was originally scheduled for before the Chinese New Year but got pushed back thanks to the rare deluge of snow we received.

We spent about five hours at the festival, and I spent much of that time peering through my camera’s viewfinder. The event was a perfect place for a photographer looking for interesting things to shoot: Lots of vibrant colors, lots of activity on and off stage, and lots of cute kids. I came home with almost 700 pictures, and I’m still only about halfway through editing and uploading them.

There were lots and lots of dancing on stage. For me, the highlights were the lion dance, dragon dance, and a couple of the folk dances where the performers wielded large fans. The highlight for Courtney might’ve been when we sneaked out for a little while and stumbled upon a bead shop while exploring the flea market outside. That and all the adorable little munchkins running all over the place. The talent competition was hilarious just for the fact that nothing says “Chinese New Year” more than break dancing, hip hop karaoke (but with the singing on the original track at full volume), and a guy playing harmonica to a tune straight out of Back Porch Music. Harmonica guy won, by the way. I’ll post some video clips when I get done with my photos.

The otters didn’t spend a whole lot of time in the water, but did a lot of posing for the camera on land. We also came across a chimp who just camped out right in front of the glass for a long time, giving us the chance to wait for the crowd to move on and then get in up close for a few nice shots. We even got some decent shots of the cacomistle and the coati, nocturnal creatures who usually stay concealed on the high perches in their dark exhibits but were down on the ground and very active on this day. At our last exhibit of the day — the lions — the male lion was just flopping on the ground when we got there, but as I was snapping a couple pictures, he perked up. At that same moment, the sun pierced through the clouds and cast a golden glow on his mane, making for a pretty nice image.

We also took some video of the snow, including a couple clips of our cats tentatively venturing to the edge of the snow:

A clip of our yard covered in snow and a giant icicle that formed on our gutter:

On the last day of our Christmas stay in New England, we braved the damp weather and hopped on the subway into Boston to visit the Museum of Science. Since it was just a couple days after Christmas, the place was packed. There were munchkins running around everywhere you turned, followed by their parents trying to keep up. One of the reasons we went was because Courtney wanted to see the special Harry Potter props and costumes exhibit. There were so many people there that, by the time we got to the museum just after noon, the earliest available admittance to that exhibit was 5:25 p.m. Having so much time to kill before then, we went for some lunch at a nearby mall — and got caught in the rain en route — before heading back to see the other parts of the museum.

As an amateur photographer, I was quickly drawn to the view through the wall of glass in the back of the lobby. Since the museum actually sits elevated on top of the Charles River, the giant window offers a magnificent view of the river — which was partially frozen at the time — and part of the Boston skyline in the distance, set against a cloudy sky tinted crimson by the setting sun. As if this didn’t already strike you as a picture-worthy view, the edges of the window panes even frame the scene nicely for you. If you visit the museum, be sure to turn away from the exhibits for a while and take in this beautiful view.

The museum has a large collection of exhibits on a wide range of sciences. Its main intended audience is obviously kids, as one can tell from the exhibits and shows, but there are some interesting stuff here for adults as well. We watched one of the shows — a 15-minute live presentation about electricity. The presenter talked for a while and gave some interesting facts about electricity, but as she herself admitted aloud, the audience didn’t come to listen to her talk; they came to watch lightning bolts. The show didn’t disappoint on that account, as the giant Van de Graaff generator were powered up and let loose one lightning bolt after another, complemented by small tesla coils on both sides of the stage. A clip of the show:

See my YouTube channel for more clips from the Museum of Science.

Another highlight of the day was the tamarins exhibit. The museum has three cotton-topped tamarins on display, and we spent half an hour in front of their Plexiglass enclosure oohing and aahing with the other visitors at how cute these critters were. I spent much of the time trying to get a good shot of them, no easy task since they were constantly on the move, jumping from one branch to another. Interesting piece of insignificance: The tree in the exhibit is fake, but the branches are real.

A few other exhibits that piqued my interest:

• The exhibit about the evolution of computing. You know how you always joke about how a … umm … classic computer model should be a museum piece? Well, here, they actually are. Right there in the glass case was an Apple II, complete with the giant disk drive and the monitor display that’s basically a black-and-white TV set. There was also a modem unit from the 1970s where you had to literally dial another computer with a rotary phone, listen for the connection tone, and then hang up the handset. I wonder if we’ll be seeing an iMac or a Dell in that exhibit in 30 years.
• There was a small display about things that people collect, and right in the middle of it was a set of PEZ dispensers in the likenesses of the characters from the original Star Trek series. The funny thing is that it’s not like those are hard to find. In fact, we found a bunch of these sets on sale for $20 at World Market earlier this year.
• Ever wonder what a deer smells like? How about black bears? Or a moose? You can find out at the animal panoramas at the museum, where each display comes with a “smell” button. Push it and sniff, and you’ll catch a whiff of that animal’s scent. Basically every scent had a woodsy hint to it, and I suspect they probably toned down the animals’ actual scent so as not to stink up the area. Alas, there was no skunk exhibit.

As much as I love science, I must admit: There was definitely an air of nerdiness in the museum, not in a bad way, just in a slightly comical fashion. For instance, in the section titled Mathematica (enough said), there was a pretty cool giant timeline of the history of math on the back wall, culminating in a “Wall of Fame” of mathematicians. In another part of the museum, we wandered into a small stage designed to look like a cute little old neighborhood. It turned out to be a recorded presentation, and we decided to take a seat, rest a bit, and listen. The presentation is basically a recorded voice telling a story — a story about the narrator’s quest to figure out the age of a big tree in the neighborhood. The nerdiness spikes when the narrator decided to ask a scientist friend — Flori — for help, and from there it basically sounded like Flori became a lot more enthusiastic about the project than the narrator. I never found out how the story ended, as we got up and walked out midway through.

Finally, 5:25 p.m. rolled around, and we headed to the Harry Potter exhibit, joining a throng of other people with the same admittance time. The line moved slowly, in part because some people were spending extra time at each display and listening to the audio tour they purchased. The exhibit included many costumes, sets, and props from the movies. My impression of it all is that it’s probably pretty cool for Harry Potter enthusiasts (which I’m not). Too predictably, however, the tour ended in a Harry  Potter-themed gift shop, where they were selling plastic magic wands for $45 (and the stand on which it sits is another $20). Talk about highway robbery!

Which one of Marge Simpson’s sisters is she supposed to be?

The museum is a more interesting attraction. It has several exhibits that demonstrate steps in tobacco farming and processing scenes with mannequins. The most striking one was a scene where two factory workers were packing cigarettes. The expressions on their faces, particularly the woman’s (right), look so droll and tired. Ironically, this exhibit probably works better as an anti-tobacco display.

The museum has some displays showing historical statements against using tobacco, but at the same time, it never delves into the harmful effects of tobacco use. Instead, it’s filled with old advertisements for tobacco products. There is even an old TV set rigged to play cigarette commercials, including one in which a “tobaccoland reporter” goes to interview a tobacco farmer for his expert take on the quality of tobacco used in a certain brand of cigarettes. There is also a photo gallery of tobacco farming, with a statement from the artist talking about how this is a rapidly vanishing way of life, and an exhibit displaying all the good causes that the tobacco industry has given money to, such as hospitals, schools, etc.

All in all, the museum feels a bit heavy on propaganda. It’s not necessarily promoting tobacco use, but it certainly stays clear of any real criticism of the industry and the ill effects of using tobacco. It’s still an interesting sight nonetheless and worth a trip (especially since it’s free) to see the Patty and Selma-like mannequins.