Archive for the 'Travel' Category

Notes of the Urban Blues

January 23, 2008 | General, Travel

cross posted to Marketing Roadmaps

I haven’t been posting here too much because I have been jamming to bring up two new client blogs, a podcast and doing media & blogger outreach for Electrified: The Story of the Maxwell Street Urban Blues. Hopefully after Sundance, things will settle down a little bit and I can get back to posting more regularly. I may even have some cool pictures from Sundance to share with you all.

In the meantime, if you’d like to follow the action at Sundance and the big Electrifed party at Harry O’s on Friday with Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Hubert Sumlin, you’ll find me over at the film’s new blog, Notes of the Urban Blues. Friday, I’ll be interviewing Phil Ranstrom, writer/director/producer of Electrified at the HP Broadcast Studio, and during the party Friday night (and into the wee hours Saturday morning), we’ll try to get some clips up in near real-time. I’ll also be live-tweeting so please feel free to follow me at twitter.com/sgetgood. And don’t worry, I won’t be hurt if you follow me just for the weekend and then unfollow

Notes of the Urban Blues was designed by the very talented Leslie Doherty of Swank Web Style.

Tags: Sundance, urban blues, Maxwell Street, Phil Ranstrom, Electrified

Applefest, Fall photo tips and pumpkins

October 15, 2007 | Douglas, Photo Contests, Photo Walks, Projects, Travel

Yesterday we went to the AppleFest at Mount Wachusett. The highlight was the chair lift ride to the top of the mountain. It was a gorgeous, cold fall day — clear enough to see Boston in the distance.

Here are some pictures I took on the ride back down the mountain. More on Flickr.

More fall photo fun:

Great fall photo tips from the folks at Photojojo

Jack-o-lantern carving stencils and a pumpkin photo contest from HP and the World Wildlife Fund. The carving stencils feature endangered species and wildlife scenes, and are available at www.worldwildlife.org/pumpkins and the HP Activity Center.

To enter the contest, upload a photo of your carved pumpkin to www.snapfish.com/goingwildwithpumpkins by October 29.

(Disclosure: HP is a client, although I did not work on this project.)

Doug’s View on Vermont

September 9, 2007 | Animals, Douglas Says, Travel, Vermont

Douglas is developing quite a photographic eye. Some of his pictures, I wonder, but others, I think wow, only 7 years old.

He loves his HP digital camera. It is easy to use and brand new when he got it — not a hand-me-down from mum or dad. That makes a difference, and I urge parents to consider that when getting their kids started with photography. I think it is better to get your child his or her own really simple, inexpensive camera, versus giving them one of your old ones which may have more options and buttons than they are ready for. Plus, all kids like it when they get it new, not hand-me-down.

The camera he has, courtesy of my client HP, the HP Photosmart M537, retails for about $130, and uses AA batteries. No need to even fuss about charging, just make sure you have a spare pair of batteries in your pocket or purse for when your kid says “my camera is out of juice.” Happened to us and I had to let him use mine for a few shots of poisonous frogs.

Here are some of the pictures he took during our stay in Vermont last month:

At Shelburne Museum

The boiler of the Ticonderoga

Statuary

At the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller mansion and gardens. He has quite an eye for flowers.

And finally a video of some fish at VINS

Home again, home again, jiggity jig

September 5, 2007 | Photo Contests, Travel, Vermont

So, we are back from two weeks in Vermont, school has started and there is a decidedly fall-ish nip in the air in the evenings. I ended up working a wee bit more than I wanted, but at least I wasn’t paying some outrageous hotel bill for the privilege.

Before I forget, I want to once again thank the great folks at Photojojo for their prize donations for A Little Perspective. We wanted a little something extra for our second prizes and Photojojo donated mailable photo frames. So, if you haven’t already checked out Photojojo, do it today. They have neat photo accessories and a great newsletter.

I won’t bore you with every single detail of our vacation. You can see all 200 or so photos I took on Flickr if you are so inclined.

But here are some of the highlights.

The Annual Scottish Festival in Quechee.

You can’t be Scottish and not tear up a bit when you hear the pipes. Especially Scotland the Brave.

Shelburne Museum, just outside Burlington. Be sure to check out the new green exhibit.

VINS, the Vermont Institute for Natural Science. Don’t miss the live raptor shows. Here, Doug is experiencing how hard it is to fly.

Billings Farm, one of Doug’s favorites, but I suspect it is for the picnic lunch of cheese, crackers and apples that you can buy as much as for the exhibits. Here, he is helping build a split rail fence.

Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park. Especially the tour of the house and the walk to the Pogue from Prosper Road.

The “house”

The Pogue

Cheese and maple syrup tasting at Sugarbush Farm in Woodstock.

The views from Mount Peg and Mount Tom. Here the view from the top of Mount Peg, a short hike that Dave and I did with two of our scotties, Reva and Sabrina.

The Alpine Slide at Pico, but don’t feel bad if you don’t feel like going down the slide. I didn’t and neither did my mom. Instead we rode the chairlift back down and got a most interesting perspective on the view.

Tags: A Little Perspective, Vermont, Billings Farm, Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park, Pico, VINS, Sugarbush, Scotland, Scottish Festival, bagpipes,

If this is Tuesday, it must be….

August 20, 2007 | Photo Contests, Travel, Vermont

In the last week, I have been in Massachusetts, Vermont, and California, with two one-hour layovers in Cleveland Ohio and multiple drive-throughs of New Hampshire. How does the joke go? “I just flew in from the Coast, and boy, are my arms tired.”

We are back in Vermont until Labor Day. Douglas is enrolled in day camp at the Vermont Institute for Natural Science this week, and next week my mom joins us and I will be taking some time off.

Some good opportunities for photos though. Check out my Flickr sets to see Douglas swimming at Silver Lake in Barnard VT near our house, some views of San Francisco, Sausalito and Petaluma California that I took on last week’s business trip and the Billings Farm Antique Tractor Parade last Sunday, my perspective and Doug’s.

The winners of A Little Perspective, the photo contest I am doing with Tracey Clark and Sheri Reed, will be announced on the 24th. Stay tuned to hear who has won the neat PhotoJojo camera cases, HP ballcaps, pens and notebooks, Fruity Cheerios and ClubMom water bottles.

Green Mountain State of Mind

August 10, 2007 | Douglas, Travel

We are up at our house just outside Woodstock, Vermont. Two adults, who are trying to work at least part of the day (God bless the satellite dish in the backyard), one Nintendo-addicted 7-year old, four adult Scotties and two nine-week old puppies, one of whom goes to her new home Monday when we get back to Mass. Next week I am in California to visit a client, but come the 18th we will be up here until Labor Day. Same cast of characters, minus one puppy, and for the last week, plus my mom.

I’ll try to post some pictures of the view from our backyard. In the meantime, you’ll have to settle for the record of our dinner at the Japanese hibachi restaurant in Lebanon, NH:

Don’t forget –we are in the final few hours for submissions to A Little Perspective, the photo contest for kids that I am doing with Tracey Clark and Sheri Reed. Get those entries in!!

Doug’s visit with Grandmum

August 2, 2007 | Douglas, Photo Walks, Travel

Douglas had a great time visiting with his grandmother in Andover. They visited Strawbery Banke in Portsmouth NH, where this picture was taken, and the coastal town of Newburyport MA.

He also had plenty of time to play computer games with his uncle. And care for his WebKinz. Funny, he had two when he left, a pug and a chihuahua, and somehow a little gorilla came home with him

More on WebKinz and how kids interact with social networks later this summer, but my experience is not that different from Jeneane’s so far.

More of Doug’s pics here.

Doug’s Lobster Dinner

July 15, 2007 | Douglas, Travel

So yesterday, I said I didn’t think I’d use Scrapblog much. Figures that today Doug would reach an important milestone that merited the Scrapblog treatment: his first lobster dinner of his very own in a restaurant. We went into Boston today, popped in quickly to the NE Aquarium, and then took a Harbor Cruise to Charlestown where we briefly toured a destroyer and the USS Constitution. Afterward, we went to Legal Seafoods for a late lunch, early dinner:

Scrapblog link: http://www.scrapblog.com/sgetgood/6B7BE503-ACD3

The weird thing about Scrapblog was that today I could not find a simple direction to “generate embed code.” Instead I had to muck around with the different publish options until I found one that would work with my Wordpress blog.

On another note, Doug and I both took our new HP cameras today. I was a bit disconcerted at not having a viewfinder, even though we really don’t use them that much with snapshot cameras, but overall, pleased with the quality of the photos. You can see the whole set from the day on Flickr.

Doug’s principal goal was to get a good picture of a jelly fish. Which he did.

Tags: Boston, Scrapblog

Finding Hope in Photos: Children and Uganda

June 26, 2007 | Charity, Photo Contests, Travel

cross-posted to Marketing Roadmaps

This spring, as I wrote in May, I did some blogger outreach to mom bloggers about HP’s Capture Your Ever After photo contest. This post is a direct result of that project.

The background: Part of friendship is to say thank you. We decided to thank the bloggers who wrote about the contest  by making a donation of an HP digital camera, compact photo printer and some supplies to a charity of their choice.We also decided to send the gear directly to the women, so they could have the pleasure of donating it personally to their favorite local charities.

Because the donation aspect was not promoted in advance, it was a bit of a surprise to the bloggers when they got the email offering them the gear, but  none of them had any trouble thinking of a cause that meant something to them personally. They also all took the time to let us know what they planned to do with it, even though we didn’t make it a requirement that they do so.

Tracey Clark’s donation is going to war-torn Northern Uganda next month with Katie Gardner of San Diego.

Katie is part of a group connected with Children of the Nations. They will be spending three weeks working with children and families in the IDP (internally displaced people) camps.  Some of the folks going will be doing counseling, but Katie and small group of four or five others will be doing photo projects with the children.

She told me that working with third-world children, giving them a chance to use photography as a creative outlet has been a dream of hers ever since she saw the documentary Born into Brothels which documents the lives of children who live in Calcutta’s red-light district.  

“When kids take pictures, they have a unique view.  I’m really looking forward to helping these children experience the world in new ways through photography. I hope it gives them hope for the future.”

Including the camera and compact printer donated by HP, Katie has two brand new digital cameras, two printers, a handful of used polaroid cameras and cash donations from friends and family to purchase supplies. They still need a scanner so they can scan in the polaroids and leave the originals with the children. If  you’d like to help, drop Katie a note at katieann10@gmail.com.

Katie thinks it’s important that we hear and see the smaller stories from Africa and other third world nations, not just the larger than life efforts of celebrities like Madonna and Bono so she is developing a blog to document her Uganda trip. You’ll also be reading more about Katie’s project here and on Tracey’s blog, Picture This.

Over the summer, Katie’s kids in Uganda, Tracey’s daughter Julia (age 9) in California,  Douglas (age 7) here in Massachusetts and two friends of Katie’s in San Diego, ages 7 and 9, will take pictures using some simple themes, including laughter, friends, sunshine and where I live. When Katie returns in August, we’ll do a series of posts showing their worlds through their eyes. It should be interesting to see  the differences and similarities between the American and Ugandan children.

Katie says she hopes these pictures will help Americans better understand what is happening in Uganda:

“Not only do I want the kids in Uganda to have a creative outlet to think about their lives in a new way, I want people back home to be transformed by seeing the world though these kids’ eyes. And I want both sides to really see the potential for hope in places where people have been suffering for so many years. I want people back home to be moved to see how they can make a difference; and even if not in Africa, then how can we make a difference in our own backyard? I’m lucky enough to go overseas, but it’s so easy to be the catalyst for change in our own families and neighborhoods when we allow ourselves to open our eyes to what’s going on around the world.”

Bon voyage, Katie.

*****************

Check out Invisible Children, another group that helps the children of Uganda.

Update, 27 June: Tracey’s post Picture Hope

Tags: children of the nations, invisible children, HP, Tracey Clark, Katie Gardner, charity, digital pictures

World in Focus Travel Photo Contest

June 24, 2007 | Photo Contests, Travel

Actually, it’s two contests – one for amateurs sponsored by National Geographic Traveler and one for professionals sponsored by Photo District News.

Categories: Wilderness Photography; The Human Condition; Extreme Exploration; Urban Landscapes; Snapshots; Open Series.

Entry fee for amateurs is $12 per entry, for professionals, $35. Deadline is August 21, 2007.

Tags: travel, photo contest