Phriday Photo Phun - Phabulous Photographer Phriends

My brain is liberally coated in pink paint this week, as are the walls of Kiddo's bedroom. (One more coat to go up - today! - and then the painting in there is done and we're more than 75% of the way to achieving Kiddo's dream bedroom theme: The Pink Safari. The safari animal photo decals Hubby ordered for her room will have to wait a few weeks until the paint has sufficiently cured before Kiddo can stick them up...) While rose-colored glasses might be a great thing, too many coats of primer, trim and pink paint make one's brain woozy and unable to render a decent photograph. So, I am going to take this opportunity to share some older photographs that are just spectacular with you now, instead.


Like these:


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Aren't they amazing? No, I'm not tooting my own horn here, as I am not the talented photographer who took the above shots. That woman would be my former high school chemistry teacher, Susan M. Neider. I recently reconnected with Sue (hmmm, feels a bit funny to call her anything other than "Miss Neider" even after all these years!) thanks to the wonders of Facebook and discovered that since leaving the high school chem classroom, she has gone on to take many, many wonderful photographs and has several books of her work published. I've been ooohing and aaahing over the different pictures she's been posting to her Facebook page for weeks now (she's doing an incredible series of flowers at the moment) and I decided that I wanted to share her work with you. (And no, by the way, this isn't some sort of 20+ years too late, making-it-up-to-her-for-being-a-less-than-stellar-chem-student thing, either.) (Not that I was a stellar chem student, mind you, because I wasn't, but that had nothing to do with her talents as a teacher - she was one of my favorites! - and more to do with my little, pea brain's utter inability to distinguish between all those pesky electrons and protons and atomic masses and bonds and such. It was much too busy daydreaming and distinguishing between the nuances of the various Duran Duran and aha songs back then, or mooning over lines of poetry...)


So, I asked Miss Neider Sue if she'd mind lending me some of her photographs for my Phriday Photo Phun, and she graciously obliged and lent me pictures like this:


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She also takes really cool close-up shots, like these:


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(That's eucalyptus up there. Isn't that cool?)


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(See the teeny, tiny bird footprint in the middle? How cool is that?)


She also does stunning black and white photographs, like this one of Old Faithful:


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Miss Neider Sue took a black and white picture of me once, too - she did all the "formal" photographs at my junior prom - but I don't think you can use the word "stunning" in the same phrase as "1980s, New Jersey prom fashions" and not be immediately struck by lightning, so I will reserve it for the geyser above and not the geyser that was my bangs in the mid-late 80s. (I think I still might have that picture someplace, but it isn't anywhere I can locate and furthermore, we haven't unpacked the scanner yet anyhow. You'll have to use your imagination and picture the big hair, big make-up, and Gone With the Windesque, pale pink polyester brocade, leg of mutton sleeved dress on your own. Trust me, whatever picture you have in your head right now? Not as bad as my total look was that night...)


I should note that all of the pictures above in this post are copyrighted images and are only being used with the photographer's permission. However, if you want some of them for yourself, you can just click here for a list of all Sue's books currently available on Amazon, where the pictures in this post can be found, along with many others. (They also might be available at your local library; her titles came up in a quick search I just did of ours...)


While I'm on the subject of Phabulous Photographer Phriends, I would also like to direct your attention to this blog right here. This is my friend Donny's blog. Donny is currently at the Naval Academy and will be serving in the Navy when he graduates. He also is a very talented musician, generous and kind soul and all around good guy. (And I'm not just saying this because I had a delightful lunch with his mom yesterday, either. Or because his younger brother was th owner of one of the strong backs and pair of willing arms who helped us move all our stuff out of our old house and into the new one back in May. Or because I sang in the choir with his mom and dad.) Now, Donny's busy doing Naval Academy type things right now (he's teaching sailing to the plebes) (doesn't that sound all cool? I don't think I can quite pull it off, but I got that as a direct quote from his Facebook status, so it's legit whether or not I can pull it off successfully) (and besides, my dad was in the Navy on an aircraft carrier himself back in the day, so I guess that gives me the familial coolness needed to say "plebes" though I would've mispronounced it had I not heard his mom say it out loud yesterday...)(not that you'd be able to tell I was mispronouncing it from reading it anyhow, right?) Annnnnnyhow, one of Donny's many talents is photography, and he started this blog for his pictures. While he doesn't update it often enough for my personal taste (something about, y'know, doing Navy things and teaching plebes and serving his country and such), you guys have likely not seen any of his pictures yet, so they'll all be new to you. Doesn't he have a great eye? My favorite of all the photos on his blog is the one of the elephant from the San Diego Zoo post - I would totally frame that and hang it on my wall, loving elephants the way I do. The other animal shots, like the gator and the camel, are great too - I love how he captures the personality of the animals - or is that animality? Well, you know what I mean. Told you my brain is fried after this past week of major home wall renovations. Oh, and for the record? I really, really hate wallpaper.


Okay, I shall leave you with one last picture. This one is one I actually took, even, back when my brain was only marinating in one layer of primer and several gallons of wallpaper removal solution. An action shot of Kiddo when she was out "scootering" in the neighborhood earlier this week:





She was doing one of her self-styled "Famous Tricks" at the time, and somehow miraculously still didn't end up with bloody knees or palms. Whew. That was my favorite part of the trick!


Okay, back to painting the Pink Safari I go! TGIF and for more Phriday Photo Phun, be sure to swing by Candid Carrie's!