A random assortment this week with an office being remodeled, a trek out to Pandapas on a dreary day, and some scuba diving in the very cold New River near Radford, Virginia. Enjoy the photos below!
Hang Loose
1/60 sec @ f/3.5
Pandapas Swamp
1/200 sec @ f/3.5
Cold Diving
1/170 sec @ f/5.6
Trying something slightly different with this week’s photos. I usually take a ton of photos, but I don’t put them all in my gallery. So instead of posting just the gallery photos, I’ll post photos that aren’t always as good as the gallery images, but pretty good nonetheless. This will allow me to keep posting photos every week, but also let you see some of the other photos I don’t post anywhere else.
Dance Practice
1/2 sec @ f/16.0 w/ 29mm
March of Nations
Virginia Tech Street Fair/March of Nations
1/250 sec @ f/10 w/ 18mm
Elika
Blacksburg, VA - Virgina Tech Street Fair
1/250 sec @ f/9.0 w/ 46mm
Jump
Blackburg, VA - Virginia Tech International Street Fair
1/200 sec @ f/5.0 w/ 50mm
Mana
Blacksburg, VA - International Street Fair
1/125 sec f/7.1 w/ 250mm
So I figured it was time for the Scuba Club at Virginia Tech to do some scuba diving and luckily I wasn’t the only one who thought the idea wasn’t crazy. With 54F (13C) degree water, but low 70s in the sun, we jumped in.
The first dive lasted for only 12 minutes as we quickly lost the other two divers in the murky water. We came back up to look for them and got caught in the current that carried us under the bridge. In 53F water, it really wears you out. We continued that dive to about 45 feet for 24 more minutes before surfacing. The only thing to note on this dive was that I found two bottles of Vitamin Water at the bottom of the river, unopened. Visibility was only a meter or two, if you had a light.
The second dive was a lot better as we stayed down for 41 minutes to a max depth of 46 feet. It might as well have been a night dive since it was almost pitch black. There was an eery green glow from above as the sun shown through the water, but I lost my dive buddy several times since he only had to swim 2 meters away for me to lose him. However we quickly found each other by shining our lights like a light house until we saw each other’s lights.
We ran into at least three catfish of varying sizes. One was a about 150cm (~5ft) in length and that’s not exaggerating. He literally scared me as he came right at me appearing within arms length from my face out of the darkness after my dive buddy flushed him out from the other side of a large entanglement of tree roots on the bottom. He swam right by me until I tried to grab him and then he disappeared faster than I knew he was gone. We saw two other smaller, but at least a meter long, cat fish who we stumbled upon. If you want to catch those catfish, I hope you have a lurer that glows in the dark, because otherwise, they’d never see it.
Near the end of this dive I was starting to get cold from fatigue, but that 7mm wet suit from K2 Scuba was definitely worth the investment.
Everyone definitely had a lot of fun, despite the cold, but we all love diving so no one complained about the cold. We’re putting together classes for the summer in Blacksburg if anyone is interested in learning to dive. More details will follow as we hash out those details, but if you’re interested, let me know so I know how many people to expect. You know how to find me.
This was the first time in two years that the Virginia Tech Street Fair was held out doors. Coincidentally, that is also the last time we danced.
Our booth this year was right next to the stage, so we had no problem with people coming by our booth. There was also no shortage of people at the fair, so it really didn’t matter except we got to watch all the performances without leaving the comfort of our booth and our food.
The best dances were the Persian dance with my friends Rana, Elika and Mana and the Indian dance, which won first prize in a competition in Washington D.C. Elika danced in our dance as well so you can see from the photos below that she’s dressed in traditional Hungarian attire. Also, my other Persian friend Golnaz is wearing a blouse that is strikingly similar to a Hungarian blouse, but she assures me its Persian. Glad to see the Kingdom of Hungary’s influence on the Persian Empire.
After the street fair, the Persians and the Hungarians had an awesome after party at my place. We purchased $150 worth of alcohol and people brought even more. Vintage Cellar was closed or else it would have been more!
The dance we performed at the Street Fair this year is called a Csárdás. It’s a typical Hungarian folk dance and our dance instructor, Tünde, has added her own special moves into it. As you can see from the pictures below, not all of our members are Hungarian. We adopted a girl from Barbados, a girl and guy from Latvia, a guy from China, another guy from India, and a girl from Iran. It was great dancing with them!
Enjoy the pictures below from one of our dance practices!
