Jim Carchidi’s Florida Visions

So, the Orlando Museum of Art is putting together an exhibition of Florida photography called “Picturing My Florida: A Grassroots Portrait of the Sunshine State” and they’ve posted the entries under consideration on Facebook.

Three of my friend Jim Carchidi‘s photos are in the running, and all of them remind me of some of the things I have missed from time to time since leaving central Florida in 1999.

Not only that, but I think Jim’s entries all include aspects which are particularly Central Florida-centric and tap into the region’s history and identity – they’re not just fantastic eye-catching shots of things which happen to be in Florida. To sum up: I think Jim’s art deserves inclusion in the exhibit, and the more Facebook “likes” his photos get, the better the chance that will happen. So:

Clicking on any of the photos below will take you to that picture’s entry within the OMA’s Facebook “Made in Florida” gallery, where you can provide the all-powerful “Like.”

You can also peruse the entire gallery of Made in Florida Entries.

I also love that Jim’s entries also push some geek buttons: NASA space shuttle launches, Space Mountain at Walt Disney World, and giant monsters echoing a faded age (of sorts).

Final Discovery, 2011 - by Jim Carchidi

Spire, 2011 - by Jim Carchidi

The Dangers of Tourism, 2011 by Jim Carchidi

Science, ice, toys and space: Some snapshots from the North Coast

Kelsey and I went up to Cleveland on Tuesday for a screening of the new IMAX movie Hubble – our review is over at GeekDad – at the Great Lakes Science Center.

Yes, I shot THROUGH the Great Lakes Science Center windows. It was sunny but cold enough that I didn't want to take the long way around outside. Click the photo for a bigger version.

Tuesday had one of those late-winter afternoons that practically defines the way Northeast Ohio bridges the seasons this time of year: Blazingly sunny, so that driving in the car is definitely a no-jacket affair, but chilly enough that even with a coat, you didn’t want to be walking around outside for very long at a time, especially in the shade.

Lots of ice still out there on Lake Erie, though, and I’d be surprised if there’s not still one more half-decent snow coming. (Every year since I’ve been back in Ohio, I think, we’ve had at least one early spring snowstorm, most memorably back in 2005, when Jim and I were on our way back from Star Wars Celebration III on April 24 – it was the first snow he’d seen in years.)

I shot a couple pictures from the science center’s atrium just because I liked the way the Rock Hall looked next to the ice chunks and the sky, and even though I also managed to capture the streaks on the glass, I thought the way the giant windows framed the scene was cool, too:

Larger version is here for the clickin'.

The grid pattern on the Rock Hall came out nifty on this one, I think. Click for the bigger versions.

Just waiting for someone to come along for a tongue-on-the-chain Triple Dog Dare.

And even though we’ve been up to the science center before, I noticed this for the first time:

Hm. Wonder where this goes?

Check it out – those are Galoob Micro Machines!

Ifitdoesn'tsayMicroMachinesit'snottherealthing! (Click to make the Micros bigger.)

On the way home, among other things, we talked about Hubble, which includes an amazing trip into the heart of the Orion Nebula.

Last night, the sky was clear enough for me to set up the library telescope again, and familiar as that blue-white wisp was through the eyepiece, there was still just a bit more wonder in there.

Off to fight the space zombies.

Pepper – named, in part, for Tobias Buckell’s Sly Mongoose hero – launches. (Audio of the Apollo 10 liftoff – forty years ago this month, as it happens -  from this collection of sound and video celebrating NASA’s Fortieth Anniversary back in 1998.)

Florida revisited (again)

I wanted to save some of these until after the GeekDad post was up, but this is (probably) the last batch of the Florida wildlife and NASA snapshots and video, since I’ve got other things from the trip to write about. Jim Carchidi shot the pictures.

So here are the before-and-after images of the anole I mentioned in my “critters” post:

It changed color so fast that for a minute, I wasn’t even sure we had the same anole. That little piece of skin molting off its back leg was the giveaway.

Jim got some great pictures of the alligator on Merritt Island, and I think I like this one the best because the angle and the sunlight reveal what’s beneath the water in nice detail. (Cue “The Old Man” from “A Christmas Story”: “It’s … uh … smiling at me…”)

(Here’s the large version, if you want to get closer.)

Seeing Atlantis on the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center, even from a distance was awesome:

(It’s absolutely worth it to look at the large versions of this one and the close up of Atlantis.) Though you can’t quite make it out in the photos, I love that the giant red lettering on those spherical tanks warns: “LIQUID OXYGEN – NO SMOKING.” It makes me wonder who would need to be reminded of that.

For kicks, I used my little Flip video camera to shoot the launch pads and the Vehicle Assembly Building through one of the lenses of a set of binoculars. It’s a partial success, I think:

Finally, here’s me in training for my next flight, courtesy of the downtown Orlando Publix supermarket:

Couldn’t resist.

GeekDad post: Florida again – alligators and space shuttles.

I’ve got another guest post on Wired.com’s GeekDad blog today: “Sometimes the Happiest Place on Earth is the One with No Lines.” Clicks and Diggs are appreciated!