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I like taking pictures... who doesn't? :) And since most of them are digital these days, I'm throwing a little picture gallery together "just because." Hold your cursor over each image for a more detailed description, or click on the picture for a bigger version.

Bucks County

Bucks County has long been of importance in American history. Part of William Penn's "Holy Experiment" that guaranteed freedom of religion for Pennsylvanians, it also contains abundant natural resources and fertile farmland. Today, it is known for its heritage and cultural regions, fostered by national figures such as Henry Mercer and James Michener, both of whom grew up in Bucks. An artistic retreat in a rural setting, Bucks has a vibrant arts culture as well as a rich historic foundation.

Unfortunately, right now, most of my pictures seem to be of wooded areas. I'll try to get more varied shots of Bucks in the coming months. :)

One of my favorite things about fall is the juxtaposition of the crisp blue skies with autumn foliage.
Maple tree in my parents' back yard. 		My brother and I charted our woods into various territories when we were little - this tree was in Archenland, a small strip along the side between our house and our neighbor's.
Same tree, different view.
This area was our capital. Besides the treehouse and playhouse, its regional attractions included a little pond my brother dug and a campfire area.
Off to the left, you can see our old playhouse and treehouse. 		Besides creating territories, my brother and I made many paths as well, lining them with long branches or thin, pole-like trunks of dead trees. These days, only traces remain.
An area towards the back of the forest... one of the many paths that are almost gone now.
Fangorn is unique compared to the rest of the woods. It's mostly closed off by thickets and underbrush, but once you find the opening (and you can miss it if you don't know where to look), it takes you into a different kind of forest world. It's spread between several other houses in the area, and somebody, bless their heart whoever they were, used to take a lawnmower back there to maintain its winding paths, many of which were grass-covered.
The outskirts of the area I called Fangorn Forest after reading Lord of the Rings... it seemed appropriate. 		Which, since they're so close, pretty much makes them the same woods, anyway.
Not my childhood woods, but Peace Valley Park five minutes away.
I definitely missed our park when I was in college... Pittsburgh's Schenley Park can't begin to compare with Peace Valley.
Another area of the park. 		If I'd had one more minute, I would have crossed the street to try to get a clearer view without the trees in the way, but I didn't have one more minute...
Took this at about 6:30am the other day, just as I was leaving for work.
This house is built in a lateral additive style. I did a whole paper on this house in college, but, boiling it all down here - the center part is the oldest, the one on the left was added later as the family became wealthier, and the last addition on the right. You can see how each part differs stylistically from the next as form and decoration became more and more important with each addition. (My paper actually had a bit more depth to it than that...)
The Thompson Neely House, located in Washington Crossing Park, a historical preserve of Revolutionary War attractions. 		This is one of those quiet little attractions that always makes one go, 'You know, I've really got to find out more about that place, sometime...' Of course, the closer one lives to such historical sites, the less likely it is that one ever gets around to actually doing so. But at least I've got a picture!
A tiny, tiny little church on my road, dating from when our area was much less inhabited than now, and complete with a tiny little graveyard in the back.

Breckenridge, Colorado (National Repertory Orchestra, 2005)

I attended the National Repertory Orchestra in 2005, which is located in Breckenridge, Colorado. The air up there is very thin, which makes playing the flute rather challenging at times...

Look, Ma, no guard rails!
Taken from our bus... one of many winding mountain roads we took in traveling to and from the various concert venues. 		Unfortunately a rather blurry shot, but still pretty.
Taken on one of the many hikes we did on our days off.
Since I'm not from a mountainous area, it was something to walk through snow in July on these hikes.
Another rather blurry hike shot... I forget the altitude we're at here. I liked the snow melting down into this mountain lake and its reflection in the water. 		I remember that day had gorgeous fluffy clouds. At that altitude, it feels like you can touch them, they're so low.
Another hiking shot. Okay, so maybe it's a wimpy mountain compared to, say, Everest, but I thought it was cool. :)
More yummy clouds...
Another "Wow, look at that view!" moment. 		I really loved the grass here. The wind was very stong so it was rippling constantly. Maybe not visually quite like amber waves of grain, but the motion was still amazing to watch.
This was taken at a field next to an outdoor concert venue... and yes, we got delayed by the rain that arrived shortly thereafter.
The three chutes were divided according to those who wanted to go easy, medium, or lickety-split. Of course I took the fast one every time - wheeee!!
Who says you can't have fun on a mountain without snow? Here, you ride the ski lift up, and then rocket down the concrete chutes on these little sleds. 		No bears were home.
Our hiking guide said this was a real bear cave.

Qatar

Carnegie Mellon has a campus in Qatar, which, if your geography is hazy, is a tiny country that sticks off of Saudi Arabia into the Persian Gulf. When Carnegie Mellon sent a team of students and faculty to the campus in 2005 for the inaugural celebration of CMUQ, I was lucky enough to attend as one of the musicians. The head of our music school composed a fanfare for the event, and the Carnegie Mellon Flute Quartet, of which I was a member at the time, also got to perform while we were there. It was an amazing experience to be there and see all Qatar has to offer.

I don't have as many pictures as I'd like, such as the souqs (outdoor markets), stores, building architecture, and the like, but many people in Qatar don't like to be in photographs, however inadvertantly, so out of respect, I refrained from taking a lot of photos I really, really wished I could.

This was the first thing we saw when we got there.
This promenade stretches along the waterfront in Doha. 		Doha skyscraper architecture is particularly vibrant. We passed no end of building sites for new skyscrapers. Unlike cities such as NYC, for example, where land is at a premium, Doha has plenty of lots to develop, and developing they are.
A view of Doha, taken from the top of the Sheraton hotel where we stayed.
The top floor of the Sheraton has a fantastic view of the city in all directions. This is where our flute quartet rehearsed, but such scenery was quite distracting for me.
Another window, another view. 		You can see how hazy the air is. Qatar is a desert on the ocean so it's very hot and VERY humid.
More cool buildings.
While we loved seeing the horses, we did feel that we smelled rather horsey for the rest of the day. Any Qatari we later met probably now think that all Americans smell like horses.
We were given a tour of these gorgeous stables. 		He was very inquisitive and friendly and kept hanging his head over the gate to look at us, so naturally I obliged and took a picture of him since he wanted attention so much.
This bright-eyed beauty was my favorite.
On one of our last days there, we had a dune buggy ride way out in the middle of Qatar's desert nowhere. My only regret is that more pictures didn't turn out, but here's the best of the bunch.
Of course, as they drove off, there were plenty of jokes about them abandoning us out there in the desert.
We went over this dune and then the drivers let us out to take "that's what we look like!" pictures as they drove back over it and showed off their seriously mad driving skillz. 		I'm sure this scenery would get old (especially to people like my brother who spent months stationed in the Air Force base nearby), but we weren't in the desert long enough for me to get over the minimalist beauty of the region.
Pure, beautiful dunescapes. You can see our tiretracks over the dune, but other than that, it looks like a scene from another world.
A real Dune Sea! (Star Wars ref.)
That's Saudi Arabia way in the distance. We were on top of a tall rise here, or I'd have liked to have seen the water close up. 		Wheeeee!!
Yes, the dunes are this big! We'd just gone down this one when I took a picture of the vehicle behind us.
Again, you can see the humidity haze. Qatar is so hot in the summer that those who can afford it - and here, pretty much everyone can - go to summer residences elsewhere in Europe.
Doha's right on the water and is a sort of crescent shape, so a lot of the time, you're looking at the rest of the city across the water (the Persian Gulf). 		The hotel was gorgeous - lovely rooms, spectacular views, and great food, too. After I got back, I began going to the Middle Eastern store on my corner to get dates (as in the fruit!) like the ones we had all the time over here.
This is the view from my hotel window.
Not a great picture, but I just got a kick out of that pairing. :)
Although it's hard to make out here, the sign is giving directions to various areas of the complex we were in, including Microsoft, and, right below that, the Al Jazeera Children's Channel. 		View of the dining / audience area. Unbelievably decadent.
Here's the event for the whole reason we went halfway around the world: the inaugural celebration of Carnegie Mellon's Qatar campus.
The Sheikah Mozah was there with all her burly bodyguards, so we had to make sure that they knew in advance that we'd be carrying silver pipes and other oddly shaped pieces of metal up onto the stage. :)
There's the stage where we musicians performed. 		Taking pictures on a highway can be challenging. I have several wonderful images of large trucks superimposed directly on what I was trying to photograph.
Just some interesting homes snapped while on the road.
The palm trees make it look almost like Florida, but the architectural styles definitely do not.
Some more ritzy homes. They were really interesting architecturally, but unfortunately, they're too distant in the picture to see well. 		Doesn't it look like something from Star Wars? I could very easily see this on Coruscant.
Loved this skyscraper set! This was taken on an evening dhow ride / dinner party type of thing.
Misc.
I got up ridiculously early to get plenty of pictures before heading over to my audition, but it was worth it. Look how it reflects the light blue of the early morning sky. People hated this building when it first went up because it was so modern, but its mirror surface reflects its surroundings and the older style buildings around it. In my opinion, it's the most beautiful, pristine skyscraper ever built.
I love the Hancock Building in Boston, and was able to take some pictures of it while I was auditioning for the New England Conservatory for my graduate studies. (Got in, incidentally, but didn't want to give up Carnegie Mellon.) 		Love how you can stand right at the corner without any shrubberies or garden beds in the way - what a view.
Corner of the Hancock Building. At the time, I was doing a research paper on the Hancock, so it worked out really well that I could do my audition and get the pictures I needed for my paper.

 

 
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