23 posts tagged “maine”

A few weeks ago, the St. John's Bazaar comes to town, as it does every June.  It's a weekend festival of the scary, quickly-assembled type.  I haven't gone to it since I was quite young, but I did take some pictures of the ferris wheel this year:

I'm taking a break from packing up my stuff to post a couple more brick pictures.  These ones seem quite ominous to me, and are of an enormous church on State Street.

Though Portland has a great many beautiful brick buildings, there are of course many that are far more prosaic.  This is one of them:

I took this picture probably a month ago... I just haven't shared it yet.  This is a wall next to a playground in downtown Portland:

Ever felt the urge to jazz up your photos beyond a simple levels adjustment?  I know I have.  I don't have the know-how to do awesome effects in Photoshop Elements, though, and I don't have any of those cool novelty cameras (e.g. Lomo or Holga) that do them for you.  That's why I was so happy to learn about Picnik, a website that mimics their effects.  And it's free!  (Well, there is a "Premium" option with even MORE cool stuff, but the free part is certainly good enough for my purposes.)  Here's an example of what it does:

It's a photo of the Clapp House, the former MECA admissions building recently donated to the Portland Museum of Art (to which it is adjacent).  The original of this photo was very blue.  I altered it using a mix of Picnik's "1960's" and "Cross Process" functions.  In the future, I'll tag any Picnik-edited photos with "picnik."  If it doesn't have the tag, it was most likely edited in Photoshop, if at all.

No, not the movie (though it was excellent)... I mean the building material.  Boring ol' brick, in use for over nine thousand years.  Brick buildings became common in New England around the time of the Industrial Revolution, and the region still contains many beautiful old mills, factories, and warehouses.  Portland has an extremely high number of brick buildings, due to an 1866 fire that destroyed most of the city.  Here are a couple:

Today I discovered a strange tradition that happens in Portland (dating to the late 1970's, according to the Phoenix).  On Valentine's Day, these red hearts show up everywhere:

Today is Blog Action Day!  Take action by posting about the environment in your own way

Blog Action Day

I don't have anything prepared specifically for Blog Action Day -- if you follow East of the Sun, you probably already know my feelings on the environment -- but I wanted to make sure to take advantage of the chance to advocate for one of my favorite causes.

I can't say I have any recent photos that fit the theme, so here are some from a beach trip this summer:

I can finally update again!  I have lots of photos, but the updates may be a bit sporadic until I have a chance to coordinate my schedule.  You see, the internet connection in my apartment is too slow to upload pictures, so I have to do it from the library or computer lab, both in this building:

The Porteous building was converted from a department store in the early 1990's.  It now houses all MECA departments except Photo, Graphic Design, and New Media (those are in the Baxter building, about three blocks away).  Many of the school's administrative offices are also in Porteous.

The building closes to the public at 8:00pm most nights, but is open to students 24 hours -- we have a key!

We just had the weirdest thunderstorm!  It came and went quickly, but not without giving us a short blackout and a yard full of hail.  I don't have pictures.

Instead, here's a picture of what used to be the junior high baseball field, and is now a lovely diamond-shaped flowerbed (photo taken a couple weeks ago):