Tag Archives: videos

Places

A mockingbird calls for mates

During the summer of 2008, we had a fairly constant companion in a small tree right outside our building. It was a male mockingbird, who spent most of the month of June calling out for mates. He was loud, insistent, and didn’t scare easily. He sat in that tree day in, day out, exposing himself to danger from passing hawks and other predatory birds, braving all of that in order to propagate his genes.

I recorded his calls one sweltering afternoon, and only now got around to editing the video, 2½ years later.

Enjoy!

Standard
Events

The Christmas tree and ornaments

This is a video montage of our 2007 Christmas tree and ornaments. It sat in my “to-do” queue for over three years… but it’s finally edited!

The quality of my filming back then wasn’t quite up to snuff, but I tried to sweeten things up in editing — let me know how it came out.

Here are photos of some of the ornaments you saw in the video.

Standard
Places

Leaves in the wind

Is there something more representative of autumn than fallen leaves, being blown about by bracing, sprightly breezes? How about branches under the sway of powerful winds, beckoning chilly autumn rainstorms? I captured these scenes on video in the autumn of 2007, in Grosvenor Park, MD, but only now got around to editing and publishing it.

I’m only sorry that I didn’t have a better video camera at the time, but such is life sometimes. Now I do, and next autumn, I’ll be ready.

You might have noticed some wonderfully dramatic storm clouds in the video. Here are a few photos I took around the same time, with a couple taken that same evening, showing those same clouds.

Standard
Places

On the road in Moldova

We traveled to the province of Moldova recently (not the Republic of Moldova, the province of Moldova, which is part of Romania, as was the Republic of Moldova at one time), and while on the road, I recorded these videos.

The first is of the sunrise somewhere between Iasi and Piatra Neamt. I processed this to give it an old-time feel, with film grain, scratches and an appropriate soundtrack.

The second, filmed a little later that same morning, is of an historic piazza in Piatra Neamt.

The third, filmed that same day, is of a mountain brook in Cheile Bicazului, as we crossed the Carpathian Mountains from Moldova into Transilvania.

I hope you enjoy them! (They’re all in HD, so if you can’t see them at full res on my site, click through to YouTube and make sure to select 720p.)

Standard
Thoughts

The kittens in the yard

It was one of the last few beautiful days of autumn, and our kittens were sure enjoying themselves, lazying and frolicking about, playing with each other, making googly eyes for the camera… We’ve got five of them these days — two tomcats (Mushu and Bubu) and three kittens (Sasha, Zuzu and Tira). Felix is gone — he disappeared more than two weeks ago, so if anyone’s seen him, please let us know. My guess is he’s gone off after females, and since he knows how to cozy up to people, he’s probably mooching off someone else’s food. He needs to come home. Enough is enough. We miss him.

I recorded the video with a new camera, a Fujifilm FinePix HS10. Sorry if the video’s a bit shaky at times, I should have used a tripod. I do love the quality of it though. It’s full HD (1080p), downsized to HD (720p) in iMovie.

Standard