iPhone 15

Lens-Artists Challenge #408 — Over the Top

~ MaryG ~ 40 Comments

Posting for Egidio’s Lens-Artists Challenge: “Over the Top” 🤩

Nature was showing off last night as my oldest friend and I dined at The Boat House restaurant in Tiverton, Rhode Island. (And by oldest, I mean that we’ve been friends since junior high.) This was the view from the window at our table, as captured by my iPhone 15 through a pane of glass.

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Does anyone else have this problem: you take multiple photos of the same scene and can’t decide which one is the best? Opinions welcomed. If you were me, would you share photo 1, 2, 3 or 4?

I am also very moved by Egidio’s recent post “Walls that Need no Wall” on his blog Through Brazilian Eyes. It’s about the heartbreaking effects of the massive border wall construction project on nature in “one of the last places in Texas where wildlife still moves freely along the river corridor.” Combined with his great photography, it’s a powerful post.

The indignity of falling

~ MaryG ~ 17 Comments

I was determined to close all three rings on my Apple Watch yesterday, so I went out for a walk in the rain. I wore a baseball hat and a large LL Bean raincoat with the hood up. My peripheral vision may have been slightly impaired.

I was listening to music from my phone in my pocket, when I briefly looked at my watch to see how far I’d walked. I must have stepped on a piece of loose asphalt and turned my ankle.

I went down. All the way down. I landed on my left side and caught myself with both wrists. I was briefly laying on my side in the wet street (a quiet cul de sac).

My watch started beeping and tapping my wrist telling me that I’d fallen and asking if it should call for help. That part was actually nice. Someone cared! But I didn’t think anything was broken, so I hit the little X to decline.

What the fuck ankle! You can’t handle stepping on a little bump?? (This ankle has let me down before.) How many times have I implored my mother and others “watch your step, don’t fall”? Falling is the worst. It’s sudden. It’s stupid. You weren’t watching. Dumb.

A few days ago I voluntarily got down on the ground to take this photo of a mushroom along the side of the rail trail where I typically walk, which has no loose asphalt.

Cellpic Sunday—tiny old things

~ MaryG ~ 5 Comments

A tiny silver turtle, a fish, a bird, a duck and a frog—60-year old birthday candle holders.

A gift from a dear friend of my mother—a 3x “boy mom” who so loved little girls—on the occasion of my first birthday (we think).

Passed by my mother to me, I used them when I remembered. (The candle holes are narrow, so candles must be shaved to fit.)

Now they are polished and ready to go to my daughter.

We pass things on.

They use what they wish.

I first took a picture of them on a silver coaster, but they were hard to see. Lesson learned: use a contrasting background when photographing still objects.

Posted for John’s Cellpic Sunday

Cellpic Sunday – ultra wide lens

~ MaryG ~ 10 Comments

I no longer own a 35mm camera, so all my pics are cell pics these days, but it’s fun to join in a creative group activity like John’s Cellpic Sunday.

Goosewing Beach Preserve, Little Compton, Rhode Island, USA, August 2025

I took this with the ultra wide lens (0.5x) on my iPhone 15. I like it because it captures lots of beach & sky and my legs look very long and tan and no cellulite is visible at that angle. They almost look like my old legs from my lifeguard days.