Yes, an unusual headline to start this entry with, but it shall all become apparently as the photos roll on in.

Here’s the first one:

Yes, this is real.  No, there is no photoshop trickery going on here.  This is a real place, Oak Bluffs, Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, United States, Earth to be exact.  The houses were apparently built as a campground for a Methodist church retreat in the 1800s.  To me, they look like the result of some psychedelic wood working.

And in comes the witch.  I kept thinking “when it is fairytale going to start?”  All of the houses had that look about them.  They all had this weird quality about them.  They are incredibly small as well.  Most of them felt like you could basically stand in them and you head would hit the ceiling.

Walking through that neighborhood, I had this feeling that I kept getting hit by even more unusual visuals.  Once I thought it couldn’t get any stranger, it just kind of would.  I liked that, but I also had to keep rethinking how I shot them.  As with most beautiful and unusual things, really capturing them is hard with a camera.  I’m sure they’d look even better at night, in the snow or at sunrise/sunset.  But here’s what I got, nevertheless:

I’m not trying to imply in any way that the Cirque Du Soleil, seen here above and in the rest of this entry is weird.  They are quite normal and very lovely people from what I saw from their visit to Harvard Square a few days ago.  What I am saying is that Harvard Square to me sometimes feels like Times Square, except kind of different.  Times Square is seen as the center of the world, but Harvard Square seems an unlikely area to be the crossroads of weird, wacky, wonderful and delightful, which it frequently is.

A short explanation about the photos:  
The Cirque de Soleil is performing here in Boston and the performers were around to promote the whole thing.  It was all pretty interesting.  I think the handstand on the Harvard sign might have been slightly intentional.  And that acrobat by the way who did that, he was amazing.  As were his friends:

Last weekend I visited Martha’s Vineyard, in my continuing effort to turn every single weekend into a mini-vacation.

People hear Martha’s Vineyard and they think “elite” or whatever, but I have another memory of the place.  When I was a kid, we visited Martha’s Vineyard in a holiday and well, (before Michael Kors even coined the term) we were underwhelmed, my parents and I.

Now those were the days when we didn’t have a car and we travelled with camping gear on our backs.  We got to Martha’s Vineyard and immediately discovered that a car was pretty much essential in that place.  It was also extremely undeveloped at the time.  I remember we stayed in a camping ground with one pay phone for the whole place.  It was hot and crowded and not exactly the good time any of us were hoping for.

But something else happened on that trip to Martha’s Vineyard.  My parents had gotten a free camera with their subscription to Time Magazine and gave me the camera to play with.  It had all of three settings — clouds, sun and infinity.  And it was with that that my love of photography began, right there on Martha’s Vineyard.  It was really funny to return, armed with a cell phone with a camera, an iPad with a camera, an SLR and a mini camera for other things.  I guess not too much has changed since I last visited.

Well, anyway, Martha’s Vineyard was much more to my liking this time.  The company I went with was splendid and took to the place very heartily.  And Edgar’s Town, or Edgartown as it is known on the Vineyard, well, disappoint it did not in terms of beauty:

Nah, its just the Chestnut Hill water works.  A little fun with my trusty Olympus Tough Camera and the glorious tilt shift setting:

Back to Canada, evil beasts:

You can’t really have a relationship with a road, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say I have had a long standing relationship with the New Jersey Turnpike.  Even reading that sentence sounds weird, but let’s see where this takes us.

I don’t have as distinct memories from any other road like the New Jersey turnpike.  There is a stretch of the turnpike that holds particular significance to me, personally and photographically.  Yeah, I realize how weird all of this sounds.  I remember a great summer’s journey undertaken with some friends down the pike to see some horrible band in Asbury Park.  Later that same summer I would depart for my term abroad from Newark airport and then the pike was the first thing I saw when I returned to United States after what turned out to be a life changing experience.

Recently, I’ve been playing around in my mind with the notion that what we see is affected by our emotions.  How we see a place is affected by the emotional experiences we’ve had there.  A place could be beautiful, but if your memories from there are terrible that can take away from the attractiveness of a place.  Whether I like it or not, the turnpike kind of represents that to me.

Let’s take a look inside my brain and the views from that pike of ours:

Somehow, for some reason, a couple of years ago, links starting popping up in my Facebook feed to mud runs and mud obstacle courses.  I immediately knew I HAD TO participate.  HAD TO.

I tried to get my friends to go along with me, but everyone said “mud, eh, no.”  So I waited.  And waited.

Last weekend, finally, I got to realize one of my life long dreams — being covered head to toe in mud.  And blog reading public, it was as wonderful as I always thought it was going to be.  Well, except for the four showers I had to take to get the mud out of my hair and everywhere else.  I also got mud in my ears.  Oh well.  All for a good cause.  The obstacles were so much fun.  I could do those all day, everyday and be happy with it.

Not to mention, at the end of the thing finishers medals featuring Viking horns are distributed.  And those medals also double as bottle openers.  As an aside, I will show up anywhere, ANYWHERE that gives out finishers medals.  Bobbing for piranha?  Sure.  Do you have a finisher’s medal??

Anyway, let’s celebrate my triumphs on the field of athletic pursuit with a few photos:

DTX edition.

The patron saint of this blog, Mr Bill Cunningham, once said that the best fashion show is definitely on the street.  Always has been, always will be.

I’ve often repeated this quote up here, but I’ll throw in an amendment now.  Downtown Crossing, or the DTX as everyone calls it, is something in addition to being one long runway.  On many mornings, I have just stopped to observe the people quietly going to work and I have observed this rhythm in what they do.  Like they are all in sync with each other, without even knowing it.  A quiet kind of rhythm.

Its different than what I observed in New York.  That was kind of like people being walked to a gallows.  But anyway, not the place, not the time.

OK, enough of that.  Let’s get to the funny photos.  Example number one shows us what happens when you decide to pick something from each family of prints.  And put them together into one insane ensemble:

The second picture is just of a guy yelling.  Just another day in the DTX, rhythm or not:

When she emerged on the other side, she saw this:

And fun was had by all: