Category: Art

Video Wallpaper

Posted on by Markman
new phone wallpaper

i downloaded what I think is this cool animated wallpaper for my Samsung Galaxy phone. It’s free and I thought it looked pretty cool so I wanted to share in case anyone else was interested. Grab it here. (This link only works with Samsung mobile phones).

Currently Reading: Unmasked: My Life Solving America’s Cold Cases. We’ll see if this is any good. The book I just finished about the “other Dr. Gilmore” was a great read. You can find the links on my goodreads page over on the right sidebar or way at the bottom of this page is you’re using mobile right now.

There’s a bunch of gas guys out front ripping up the street apparently putting in new gas mains. They’ll need to come into the house tomorrow to hook it up to the residence but as of right now, they’re jackhammering the middle of the street to get access to the lines. Kind of a pain in the ass actually.

AWD is back!

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Well, when I started up the car this morning, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the AWD was back and working normally. I had googled about it yesterday and a bunch of folks said it can be caused by a bunch of things, but one thing you should try is checking the gas cap. So that’s what I did yesterday and the message still showed but this morning it was gone. I suppose it takes a little time for the sensors or whatever to “catch up.” Anyways, I’m pleased about this outcome. Let’s hope it stays this way! I also spent part of the afternoon filling up my tires using this portable USB air compressor I bought awhile ago. It works like a charm and saves me a trip to a air filling station.

Hanging out at the Yacht Club!
The framed photo that’s in the calendar.
A couple more pictures from the other day.

I also forgot to mention that we paid a visit to Like No Udder down in Providence RI on Friday night. We hadn’t gotten anything from there since the time of LD’s big party bash. It was delicious. It’s amazing the things they can make all vegan – you would not no the difference, they are that good. So just a plus for those guys. They are going on hiatus till February now so if you can, check them out in the spring.

Watched a beautiful flock of cardinals in the back yard frolicking around this morning. Makes me want to start photographing birds again. I’d never seen so many red birds all together all at once like that before.

Not sure why I’m all over this Amy Robach/TJ Holmes story. Maybe I should get a life? For some reason though I feel drawn to the drama. Now I heard they’ve been put on “hiatus.” I never actually watched their show, I’m just interested in all the media buzz about it, Also RIP to Kirstie Alley.

New Product Alert! For the Love of Sunsets has been added to the store! This one looks really great either as a framed print or a metal print.

I Was a Photo Contest Award Winner

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Under the Powder Point Bridge

Today was the Big Day!

We got dressed up for this! A while back we had entered some of my photos from Duxbury Beach on over to the Duxbury Beach Reservation Committee and low and behold they actually chose one of the three that we submitted! I was notified that I’d be included in their upcoming calendar why back in the late spring. Imagine my surprise when months later, I was invited by them to participate in a thank you and reception to be held at the Duxbury Bay Maritime School! We arrived and were greeted by the trustees of the Reservation and lead upstairs to the Chart Room where all the winning photographs were on display, printed out and framed around the room! Very cool! After a brief talk and meet and greet with the other folks we all got our gift bags filled with goodies from the Reservation even and got to keep our winning photo, frame and all! They really do look pretty amazing all framed out.

The photo that was selected.

After looking through the gorgeous calendar my shot appears in the month of September. Why did I pick this shot to take? I had just happened to be walking around by the bridge and I saw that most of the water had receded at that time so I wandered underneath. I think at first I was taken with the woodwork underneath the bridge road surface. I thought the texture looked pretty cool, and then the more I looked I thought the ripples in the sand and even the shadows created by the sun underneath was also pretty cool. It’s also something really related to Duxbury Beach as the bridge is a big part of it and I wanted something representative of the area. I also took “regular” beach shots but I felt those could be from any beach, with this, I felt it was something that only exists here and is instantly recognizable to the folks who frequent here.

I also took a very cool shot of a Xmas tree on a pier at sunset that I’ll be posting tomorrow!

At the reception

Dedication to the Ladydoc

None of any of this would have been possible without the love and support of the Ladydoc. From getting me here to sharing ideas and looking for opportunities for me. Hell, she even bought me the “real” camera that I used to take these shots way back when! I wanted to give her the credit that she deserves and for making me better in every way. All these shots that I take really couldn’t have happened without her in my life. So thank you LD, from the bottom of my heart.

Shop My Work for Small Business Saturday!

Posted on by Markman
Just a sampling of my works currently available!

Small Business Saturday is here! If you’re looking for a great gift for your home or office, why not consider checking out some of the photos that I have available?

Mark Bethoney Photography to check out some of my artwork for sale. Thank you in advance for considering! You know I don’t like to be all spammy and such but it really, really, really helps out.

P.S. You might see some of my business cards floating around local establishments soon! (Special thanks to LD for that!)

Small Things that Kept Me Busy / New Ai Header

Posted on by Markman

I was playing around with some new header images, which you might have noticed. These images were completely created by AI just by giving it some keywords and this is what popped out. For some reason the header images look huge on the desktop to me, but I really liked how they fit on tablet and mobile. Anyways, ultimately I didn’t go with any of them although it was kind of fun to play around with the AI. I was using Midjourney this time around, at least until my little free trial ran out. You can click on each one to see the whole picture. I’m still not really satisfied with my header image but I’ll keep trying.

cosmic lighthouse
camera in nature
peaceful vista
photographer
Fibonacci seashells in green

Game time: Color Portal. Beat it, not too hard but I did find it pretty fun for a while.

“Beach, Please!”

Posted on by Markman
Skaket Sunset

Went down to the Chatham Fish Pier tonight and was greeted to quite a show as a bunch of seals including a harbor seal swam around on their backs and made us feel lucky to see them. I’ll upload a pic of them in a few days as they were captured on my DSLR and I cannot easily upload them to the site until I get back. Got some dinner in Orleans and caught a sunset at Skaket. Saw some cool whale art installation in Chatham center as well where you could also bid on the artwork. We also got to see a large heron fly over our heads which was really cool.

Whale for Sale
Sun going down
At the Pier

From Here to Tanglewood

Posted on by Markman
Visiting Symphony Park in East Somerville, MA

From the sculptor: “‘We Are Still Listening,’ was created from a magnificent regal tree which once stood in front of the Hadley-Conant home, a family of musicians of the 1880s. I wish to dedicate this sculpture to the honor of the Hadley-Conant family, the residents of East Somerville, and those musicians who will continue this tradition through musical performances and events in Symphony Park.”

I wanted to check this thing out after hearing it mentioned about a week ago as they did an unveiling. I also did a little lookup on Henry Hadley, I had no idea. That’s what learning is all about! He would later go on to create Tanglewood, and to think it all started right here in East Somerville!

Cool Dewd

Posted on by Markman

Anyone who knows me well enough would know that I am always trying out new and artsy type things. Here’s a computerized drawing of myself that I had been playing around with. Reminds me of a baseball card so here’s mine. Collect them all! And yes, I am wearing a hoodie that says Claw & Order: Boston Lobster Unit.

Today was sort of a busy day as after shift I had to take a drive over to Earth-1 because one of my mom’s cats was due for his yearly exam and shots and things of that nature. I’m glad to say that everything checked out fine. Strangely cool and windy today but it would appear that today is the last day of that crap and the weekend looks to be pretty good. I have a bunch of things planned that I want to get done over the weekend so we’ll see if I can push myself to do them all.

The driver’s side window on my mom’s 2003 Toyota Camry LE won’t go down anymore. It appears to probably need a new regulator and possibly the motor to go with that but she’s been having a hell of a time tracking one down, probably because the car is pretty old by this point. We’ve tried all the usual routes but if anybody has any ideas, let me know. It would only be a problem in the summer because it would get sweltering in there, but she doesn’t drive all that much anyway. And she can still roll down the other windows. Just don’t get pulled over because the window doesn’t go down, would have to open the door!

Spring Brings Blossoms and Grill Marks Make Me Smile

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Spring blooms in Boston

While I was working out in the gardens today I couldn’t help but notice that the lilac trees were starting to bud and bloom, so naturally I had to whip out my camera because that’s what we photographers do, and the result is the picture you see above. Check out the little fuzz on the buds.

Started out the morning after shift by heading to HQ for a team meeting. We’re having a team dinner in a couple of weeks at a function hall in town so that’s something to look forward to. Anyways, the meeting has basically just hashing out some details of things that are coming up, most of which I had already knew. It had been a while since we had a meeting though, so it was kind of cool to see everybody.

As our first grilling session of the season, I fired up the grill late this afternoon and fired up some strip steaks. Normally, I like to conduct a deep clean before starting the season, but I skipped that for now. Because the propane tank in the grill was nearly empty, I replaced it for the one in the outdoor heater. On Wednesday, when I replace the door screens, I’ll probably go get that one refilled again. That’s my current plan anyway.

I might do this overlapping column thing on LD’s website later this weekend. I need to study to code and then implement it. I think it might look cool but we’ll see. I also need to add some more graphics for more visual appeal.

Preparing a List for Spring Break

Posted on by Markman
The man. The mystique.
The man. The mystique.

After work, I did a bunch of things today that I wanted to complete today and over the next few days, just in case you’ve been wondering what I’ve been up to.

  1. Cleared off the back deck in preparation for us pressure washing it clean. I’ve been doing some research on how best to tackle the job on the composite.
  2. I did some research on how I’m going to implement some of the things on LD’s website.
  3. Because the previous flowers had faded, I purchased an Easter bunch of flowers for the vase. There are some stunning blue hydrangeas in the mix that attracted my eye. Perhaps a photo will be forthcoming.
  4. The lavender seedlings on the windowsill are starting to sprout. Pretty exciting!
  5. Played around a bit with my social media accounts and made this “drawing” of myself.
  6. Disassembled an old dehumidifier for ease of disposal. Also preparing to replace the glass panes with screens on the house doors and to bring out the grill from storage. I have a feeling we’ll be doing a lot of grilling this year, as we did last year.
  7. Cleaned up some leaf/yard waste for the town pick up tomorrow.
  8. As I was cleaning up some stuff out front, I noticed a tiny bunny scurrying about. When it heard me poking around, it raced to safety, but I left it alone and am delighted that they seem to be doing fine. We were so distraught last week when we disturbed their nest unknowingly but they’ve all left now to live their lives.
  9. The town is starting to dig up all the streets in the neighborhood around here to reline all the sewers I believe. It makes getting around pretty annoying and I have to plan my route accordingly every morning so I’m not late. Going to be wonderful I’m sure once they start working on the entire street in front of the house. Not.
  10. I’ve been trying out a new knee brace for my right knee. So far I’m liking the way this one feels. It’s more or less to stop me from overextending the tendons that hurt when I bend it too far. Ah, the joys of aging. Like they say, “I really don’t mind getting older, but my body is taking it badly.”

Duxbury Chose Me!

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I’ve just received word that one of my photos has been selected as winner for the Duxbury Beach Reservation! In addition to being featured in their 2023 calendar I’ll be getting some prizes. (although now that I think about it, 2023 is a year away, so it’s going to be a while!) Still, this is fantastic news and I’m pleased that the vision I had for this particular photo resonated with the judges!

Thank you for everyone who has supported me in this endeavor!

Kindness Submitted

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Carson warmth on a cold Saturday in February

Ended up being a rather productive Saturday as we did a little reorganizing of the home office here and cleaned up a bit. To relax we ended up watching the story of The Tinder Swindler on Netflix. In between all that I happened to notice Carson just hanging around on his cat tree and was lucky enough to grab this picture. Such a handsome, sweet and cute boy. He really saved us during this pandemic.

Making Kindness the Norm. LD found out about this thing where you color this image and then submit it and you get a sticker and maybe some other things if you’re lucky. Seemed like a good thing to do on a crappy weather day. My particular entry is on the left here using colored pencils. You still have time to get your own in if you’re interested and let’s face it, kindness should be the norm in this world of ours. Last night we also binged watched just about every episode of “Unbelievable” on Netflix. It’s really good, definitely recommend.

Think I’m going to attempt to make an Irish Beef Stew tonight. Perhaps I’ll update this entry as to how it all turns out.

Ready for Mad Magazine

Posted on by Markman
What Me Worry?

For some reason I feel the art style of this caricature of me would fit right in with the art style of the Mad Magazine issues of the 1970s of which I used to own a few. I distantly remember having one that came with a record that you could place on a player and depending on where you placed the needle would have 6 or 7 different endings to the song. It was some paper thin like vellum kind of a thing. I remember you had to be careful not to bend it because then it was pretty much ruined. I even remember the name, It’s a Super Spectacular Day. It’s amazing what our minds can remember. I can remember that but can’t remember my schedule from last week.

Well, what do you know? Thanks to the magic of the Internet it still exists!

American Gothic and Boardwalk Love

Posted on by Markman
Return to American Gothic

Sending Love from Greys is now available on the online shop. I’ve been playing around with the idea of having physical media of my best photos with me all framed and such to sell at live venues. I still need to figure out a bunch of logistics and cost but this may be a better way to get some of my work noticed better. I’m also working on some other side gigs for the fall, so we’ll see.

Click to see more of product

Kind of too hot to much of anything today although I did do a Wegman’s grocery run in the morning and took some calls. I have figured out that I want to also watch the movie The Lighthouse, in addition to what I mentioned yesterday.

Ospreys looking

at eachother

I forgot to mention we saw a lot of osprey’s on the last trip. Here’s a photo of two of them just looking at eachother.

A Day in the Ville

Posted on by Markman

So artsy.

Woke up at the crack of dawn to get ready to drive over to the Ville to take my mom to get her 2nd COVID shot. Arrived a bit earlier than her appointment time but nobody was really there so they took her right away and now it’s done. Hopefully she’ll only have none to mild symptoms. She didn’t have any after the first shot but I hear the second one is a little tougher. In the early afternoon she heard of some food giveaway that a guy running for mayor is involved in just outside of Union Square so we took a drive down there and she got a box behind the Holiday Inn, loaded right into the back of the car ala contactless pickup. I was actually impressed by what was inside. Gallon of milk, bag of apples, bag of onions, some large carrots, two tubs of cream cheese, a large tub of yogurt, a package of hot dogs, some chicken in a marinade, some other things I can’t remember now and some masks. It was a better haul then I was expecting – it reminded me a little bit of those Imperfect Foods boxes we sometimes get, but for free. She said she’d probably only do it this one time and leave it for people that might be more needy, but it is a weekly thing if one so wishes to keep going proving that there is help out there if you know where to look. God, I hadn’t been in that part of the city in forever. It’s amazing how different some of it looks with these big developments taking over. There’s this huge one right next to the old Buddy’s Diner, which to me looked a bit comical with these big pricey looking living spaces right next to this tiny little diner car building. (I’ve never actually ate or been inside Buddy’s but I hear it’s an iconic site).

Can’t wait for the weather to get just a little bit warmer as I want to fire up the firepit and enjoy the nice smell of burning embers. Speaking of that, the Choc Sparrow had these cool wood pellet burning towers to keep folks warm waiting outside and had the loveliest aroma. Makes one want to look into getting one, although I suspect they are pretty pricey and probably pretty hard to find in stock.

Illuminations 2020

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Somerville residents homes all lit up. This one has a working Ferris wheel on the porch over to the right by the Santa head!

Took a ride tonight around Somerville to check out some of the homes decked out for the holidays. Here are some of them that we visited. Very impressive displays! Perfect weather for checking them out tonight!

  • All lit up
  • Frosty
  • Lots of lights
  • Grinch
  • Stained glass lanterns
  • More lights

Autumnal Chill in the Air / Real Women Have Curves

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Red Colored Leaves and Gourds are signs of Autumn in New England
Red Colored Leaves and Gourds are signs of Autumn in New England

The get together yesterday afternoon was really fun. We even burned some logs that our guest brought over from downed trees in her area and we learned how to burn them successfully. In fact, we think this was the best fire that we ever had. Good lessons to learn moving forward. She also said she’d help us with our gardening and landscaping in the future (hobbies of hers and she’s really good at it). Also love her bohemianism and seemingly free-spiritedness!

This afternoon’s movie watch was Real Women Have Curves. Not a movie I would generally see but I thought it was actually pretty good. While I was sautéing up some tofu for LD (with peppers, onion, zucchini and spinach – trust me, it’s good!) I googled around and learned that in 2019, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” so that’s a big deal.

I noticed today that according to my records, our jukebox is 10 years old today (meaning we bought it and have enjoyed it for 10 years so far. Where did the time go?)

I’m also a little crinkled up today from the way I slept last night. I didn’t want to disturb Carson, the cat, from where is was sleeping toward the bottom of my legs. So for hours it felt like I stayed crumpled up so as not to bother his sleep! #LifeofCatOwners.

Best Beach Find Treasure Ever!

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Image of a heart shaped rock at the beach.
Finding this amazing heart shaped rock at the beach today was a high point.

Went to the beach this afternoon just to get some fresh air and some new surroundings for a little while. Walking along the shoreline looking for rocks I came upon this heart shaped rock and thought it was amazing. The little groove in the top was just perfect. I was so lucky to have seen it lying there in the sand among all the other rocks. As a plus it also looks like a whale if you tip it sideways. It was a great beach day, a little cloudy but not too cool, and the beach wasn’t busy at all. I thought taking a picture of it with the waves crashing in the background might make a cool shot and here it is.

Maybe this could be a sign, who knows, but even if not, I’m definitely keeping this one. For the longest time I told LD I could never find any decent heart shaped rocks at the beach, but then I find this!

What the Fluff? The Time I Met Cindy Brady

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Meeting Susan Olsen, aka Cindy Brady

The story behind the photo: A few years ago, we went to the Fluffernutter Festival in my hometown of Somerville, MA. It’s a yearly celebration now honoring the invention of the product Fluffernutter, which was invented by a door to door salesman in town, Eventually he sold it to the company that still makes it today with their factory in Lynn but originally it all started right here. Anyways, this one particular year they somehow got Susan Olsen to come down and check it out, How could I not go? I grew up watching the Brady Bunch. I would get out from school and go home and put on Channel 56 which reran them everyday. I think it was a couple of cartoons, and then the Bradys and then the Monkees – amazing how TV has shaped me. In fact, I believe everything about life can be explained in various Brady Bunch episodes but that’s a discussion for another time. (Perhaps one day I will write a thesis about it but I digress.) Anyways, she was amazing. Kind of makes me want to meet the rest of the “Bradys”. As a side note, Florence Henderson visited the local hospital here a few years back and had I known this at the time I probably would have met Mrs. Brady, but it was sadly not to be. Also Peter Brady has visited Dedham a few times at Kings in Legacy Place so there was a possibility of seeing him as well. We missed Jan once in NYC, she apparently was downstairs from a restaurant we were frequenting at at the time but another miss. I figure Greg and Marcia would be the hardest to get to meet. I have no desire to meet Bobby (sorry!)

Sunlight on the Horizon

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Paine’s Creek

If you want to cast a vote for me for the cover of the town calendar then head on over here on facebook and like the image. I’m not expecting to get the cover since it’s a winter image but share some love anyway and boost my ego a little bit. The picture shows the luminary night where one night in December the town common is lit with bags that have candles inside them.

Impressions I Created That People Like and Share

Posted on by Markman
Facebook post going viral (available for purchase)

This is amazing. My photo on FB so far has become pretty well liked (for me anyway) but I was really blown away by the number of shares of this image so far, and climbing. Pemaquid Light is probably my favorite lighthouse out of the many I’ve visited. I enjoyed clambering along the cliffs just behind it. I can remember when I took this, we were leaving for the night when LD did one final pass and I just shot it from out the car window (ah, miss that old Saturn – many adventures in that automobile). I think what makes this one must be the cloudy sky and I also like that I got it just as the lighthouse flashed. So I feel a lot of my shots are just lucky and are taken right off the cuff. I’m just pleased they come out so well. This was also time we witnessed two skunks frolicking around the area and being amorous (and hopefully not malodorous) .

I downloaded the Star Trek Console Watch face for my Versa 2. I’m sharing it here in case you want to download it as well (it’s free) and you’re into Trek. I’ll use it for a little while before reverting back. The nice thing about the Versa is you can have up to 5 different watch faces. For those that care my current stats all time so far for the year are: 1,604,234 steps, 2140 floors, 679.37 miles and 793,033 calories burned.

I got an email back from those town calendar people. They seem to like what I sent them but we’ll see if they actually end up using it. There’s no monetary prize or anything like that, but I figure it’s just another way to get my name and work out there.

We appear to be having some small pumpkins growing, although not in the pumpkin patch we set up but rather in one of the raised boxes where I put some leftover seeds just to see what would happen if anything. These would be the 3rd generation of the “Sean the Pumpkin” that we had two years ago now – actually seeds from his “son”. LD has named this little pumpkin Penelope Pandemic. An apt description for the times I’d say.