Tag: photography

A week in Cannes

May 2nd, 2022

For nearly two years, I’ve worked with teammates I’ve never shared space with in real life. We’ve “met” through video calls, and we know each other well via our constant text chatter at work, through longer-form internal blog posts, and most importantly, through an ongoing banter of GIFs, memes, and emoji reactions in our team Slack channel.

We are 11 teammates across seven countries, six time zones, and three continents. Last week, we finally got to meet in real life. On the first day, when we each gave a 3-4 minute flash talk on a topic of our choosing, I laughed until my face hurt. We drank wine, we ate cheese, we walked for croissants, baguettes, French meals, and fresh oysters. We worked on a terrace overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. We talked together, strategized together, listened to music together, made coffee and lunch and dinner together. We shopped at the Cannes market for a team-made dinner on our last night together. A cyclist took our photo on the Cannes film festival red carpet. We bonded.

I am so grateful for my team and for Automattic.

Our home and work base for the week

Roses at the Cannes market

Our lunchtime view at the villa

Garden across from our villa

Beach at Cannes

From the top terrace where we worked every day

The market florist stripping leaves and thorns before wrapping flowers

Hilltop view of Cannes

Our neighbors

We did not go hungry.
24 Hours in England

May 1st, 2022

One week ago, I left home to travel for work for the first time since I rejoined Automattic in November of 2019. We are a fully distributed company, meaning we are distributed around the world, with no central offices — we all work from our homes and co-working spaces. The way we get quality in-person time together is by traveling 2-3 times a year for meetups.

When I returned to the company, I was excited I’d get to see people again who I’d become friends with through work, but who live in different states, countries, and continents from me. Then, of course, Covid happened.

Last weekend, on my way to my first meetup since I came back to Automattic, I traveled to France via a 24 hour layover in England. Despite using two different London airports for the journey, I did not see London at all. Instead, a friend from Automattic who I haven’t seen in six years picked me up from Heathrow and drove me to his cottage in Hammerwich, where I finally got to meet his wife and children. When we got out of the car after the two-hour drive, I was amazed by how fresh and clean the air was. I’ve never smelled anything like it, even in autumn in the mountains where I live.

I’d never been to England before, and when Ben asked me if there was anything I wanted to do while I was there, I told him I wanted to hang out in their garden, chat with them all, and go for a walk and enjoy spring. We did all of that, and we drank tea, and we all looked for flowers and tried to identify them. We walked through the countryside where properties are lined with hedges of holly or hawthorn or various other plants, and the hedges are gentle and a part of the landscape. They’re green and full of birds and wildlife, and I now think everyone should adopt hedges instead of fences. We ate a proper Sunday roast with roasted veggies, and Becky showed me how to make Yorkshire pudding. We talked about books, the kids showed me their flower press and then pressed flowers from the garden, we played laser tag, and their smallest even let me read him a bedtime story.

I had a short visit, but a lovely one.

Becky’s tulips

Forget-me-nots

Bluebells

Wildflowers in the cemetery

Apple blossoms
Spring wildflower hike

April 17th, 2022

We drove along redbud-lined roads under a brilliant blue sky to hike not to the top of a mountain, but lower down, in a valley, where we hoped it’d be green and protected from wind. In spots where the sun shone on the trail, the air smelled like warm, golden pine needles. I heard bumblebees buzz in the quiet and saw yellow swallowtail butterflies flutter above the trail.

In February 2020, our son asked if we could go to Iceland. We told him if he still wanted to go in two years, then yes, we can go to Iceland. It’s two years later, and he still wants to go. We’re taking him at the end of May for his high school graduation gift. And after this hike, I want a new lens to take on that trip.

I brought my 35mm* lens on the hike and had fun photographing flowers and unfurling ferns. But when we stumbled on a waterfall that I had a hard time framing, I realized that my current lens is fine for the photography I typically do around here — everything I photograph is fairly close up. In Iceland, I’ll be photographing landscapes, and I want a wider, 23mm lens.

For today, though, here are some spring shots from an Appalachian forest, at Bottom Creek Gorge Preserve.

Bronze mushrooms

Fern fiddlehead

I love spring chartreuse

I can’t remember what these are called

Trilium

Fringed Polygala (also known as Gaywings)

Spring Beauty

Waterfall

*I bought a used Fujifilm X-T30 about a year ago. It is my first experience with a mirrorless camera, and the 35mm lens I have for it is the equivalent of a 50mm lens for a 35mm camera; a 23mm lens will be the equivalent of a 35mm lens on the cameras I’m used to.
Mountain top in cold and wind

March 27th, 2022

Today’s the last day of my at-home vacation. Since it’s too cold to sit outside and watch the garden grow, I opted to use my final day off to go hiking with my husband. When he asked this morning, from under the covers, before the sun came up, “Do you still want to go?”, I felt the house shake as cold mountain air buffeted it. I nestled lower under the down comforter, and said, “It’s so windy.”

In the end, I got up. I looked out the window and saw the water in the bird bath was frozen. I pulled on running tights and wool socks under my hiking pants, and I layered on top with a long sleeved running shirt, a fleece, a hooded windbreaker, gloves, and a slouchy hat. We drove an hour to the Blue Ridge Parkway soon after sunrise, and we were only the second car in the Sharp Top Mountain lot. It’s a fairly popular hike, so we wanted to go before it got crowded.

The wind was very cold. It blew hard enough even in the shelter of the forest that it whipped my hair and froze my nose. But that was nothing compared to at the top of the mountain, where we were higher than anything else around, where we had 360 degree views, where we could see for miles over the mountains, and where nothing between us and the horizon obstructed the wind. The gusts were strong enough that they stuttered my footing.

I didn’t get swept off the mountain. Luckily. My photos don’t do the day justice, though; everything looks washed out. I need to figure out how to get the exposure right to show the blue of the sky, the white and grey of the clouds, and the colors on the earth, all in the same photograph.

I’m glad I got out from under the covers. The air and views and boulders were worth it. And the ice that got pushed up out of the earth along the trail. That was worth it too.

Ice extrusions from moisture in the soil that freezes, then expands up out of the earth in filaments

From the shadow of a cloud

Boulders and view from Buzzard’s Roost

Cool balancing rock and view of mountains and valley

Ice puddle at the top of Sharp Top Mountain

Brian at the top of the mountain

From the top of Sharp Top Mountain

Stone from Washington Monument came from this mountain

From inside a shelter on Sharp Top

Stairway to the top

Mountains, valleys, and cloud shadows
Like a fairy forest

March 24th, 2022

My upper body can’t shovel another crumb of dirt. I tried to clean up the rest of the mulch today and my left shoulder pretty much said, No, No more of that. I put the pitchfork and wheelbarrow away.

I’m curious what the gardens look like of people who actually know what they’re doing. There’s a horticulture garden on the Virginia Tech campus, just a couple miles away from our house. I have a Fitbit again, and after four days of it gushing how great I am with all the gardening exercise, I couldn’t stand to have a day without it buzzing to tell me I’ve broken yet another record. So I grabbed my camera and went for a walk.

The cherries and Bradford pears are blooming, so there are soft pink and white petals everywhere. The light was a little flat today and I didn’t get great photos of them along the way to the horticulture garden. But once I arrived, everything I wanted to photograph was close to the ground and didn’t require shooting the sky, and all the flowers are adorable, and I felt like I was in a fairy forest.

Hellebore I think? Also known as Lenten Rose?

I don’t know what these purple flowers are, but I love them

Grape hyacinth

Again with the purple flowers, I love them

I don’t know what these star flowers are either but they’re super cute

See the robin on the right? Robins are funny. The hop hop hop along.

Cherry blossoms (I think? I always think the pink ones are cherries, but I don’t really know anything)

These trees with cascades of pink petals are everywhere on campus, and they are gorgeous

Little white violet by the duck pond

Hellebore bud

Tiny grape hyacinth trees

Purple flowers on a leafy floor

Cherry blossoms

Forget me nots?

Cherry blossoms and Canada geese

Cute blue flowers
Pre-snow flowers around the neighborhood

March 12th, 2022

Yesterday, I knew snow was coming. It was Friday afternoon, and the sun shone bright and warm on the flowers that have already started blooming. After work I grabbed my camera, and I went for a walk; I didn’t even need a jacket. As I type this, the world outside is cold and grey, and snow swirls down the street in gusts of wind.

I think this is a Taiwan flowering cherry tree (Prunus campanulata) but I’m not sure; aside from the star magnolia and witch hazel, it’s the only tree with anything on its branches — no other trees have leaves or flowers, and certainly none are pink.

Star magnolia. I love the fuzzy buds.

The Taiwan cherry again; this is in a neighbor’s yard.

Our daffodils and forsythia