quackquack

The DiMeo farming family owns and operates several of the largest blueberry farms in the world, in the “blueberry capital of the world” Hammonton, New Jersey.

Check out the new site I helped them launch at Dimeoblueberryfarms.com. I also profiled them over on MartinKelley.com.

Finally, some real Facebook organizing:

Some 18,000 students accepted the invitation posted last month on Facebook, the social media site better known for publicizing parties and sporting events. And on Tuesday many of them — and many others — walked out of class in one of the largest grass-roots demonstrations to hit New Jersey in years.

The mass walkouts were inspired by Michelle Ryan Lauto, an 18-year-old aspiring actress and a college freshman… until now, Ms. Lauto said, she has used Facebook only to keep in touch with friends and let them know when she is performing in shows. She alerted those 600 Facebook friends to her message calling for a student walkout and asked them to pass it on.

New site from MartinKelley.com Design:

Elisabeth is a painter and artist who specializes in original acrylic paintings and giclee prints of nature and South Jersey beach scenes. Her existing site was attractive, but it didn’t have online ordering and she wasn’t able to update it herself.

We put together a features list and then went through a round of concept screenshots which I built in Adobe Fireworks and Photoshop (you can see our work here!). Design in hand, I built a customized Movable Type site. A specialized template allows her to enter information about the each piece: medium, theme, price and the URL to it’s image (most of which are hosted on Flickr). Movable Type pulls these together into various category and individual art pages, with automatically-generated Paypal “Buy” buttons for available pieces. We stressed search-engine visibility so there are many categories and they all cross-link with each painting.

Visit: Elisabeth Olver

Italian Tribune: ‘Labor of Love’ in 1922, St. Mary’s Slated for Closing.

My wife’s Julie’s church was a feature article in the Italian Tribune. I pretty sure the pictures come from the Save St Mary’s campaign and it’s Diocese of Camden watchdog site (eagle-eyed fans will spot Theo at the bottom!).

No one has a devotion to the Catholic faith like Italians. When the first immigrants came to the United States, they brought with them their religious dedication. Churches were built by Italians so they could have their own parishes where they could congregate and worship as a group. St. Mary’s Church in Malaga, New Jersey is one of these churches, built by its devoted Italian founders. However, Bishop Joseph Galante of Camden Diocese wants to close the church, and parishioners are trying to keep it open.

My state assemblyman is one of the NJ politicians in the news! I’m just learning now—it’s a very gerrymandered district and his office is two counties and an hour’s drive from here (so much for local representation). That’s him on the left. Must be a blustery day. Source.

“PREPARE TO MEET GOD”: Nineteenth Century Quaker graffiti on the benches. The benches aren’t original to the meetinghouse. Terry Wallace is pretty sure these originally came from Salem, New Jersey. An easier-to-read picture of this bench’s inscription from a few years ago can be seen here.

See the full set from the Conservative Friends Gathering 2009.

Some Days Video: Who is the Quaker audience?

Quickie video, really just poses the question than give any sort of answer. This video is mostly prep for next month’s Conservative Friends Gathering, thinking about Thomas Clarkson again and wondering who the QuakerQuaker.org target audience might be.

NYTimes | Video Director talks about their videos: bit.ly/ND3e1
NYTimes | The only Oscar video brought to you from a basement in New Jersey: bit.ly/NCB8N

QuakerRanter | My Thomas Clarkson posts: quakerranter.org/tag/clarkson

QuakerQuaker | Alice M Yaxley on Friends & Community: bit.ly/2XvMrx
QuakerQuaker | Conservative Friends Gathering: bit.ly/as5B3

A Flickr user name Oceanpeg just left a comment on one of my recent pictures to let me know that the Pinelands Preservation Alliance is holding a photo contest! I’m a big fan of the PPA and try to get to a few of their events every year but didn’t see this in part because the announcement is only a PDF on their site. Here’s the relevant information about the contest, download the PDF for full rules. The three pictures here are the ones I just submitted.

——————-

Pinelands Preservation Alliance 20th Anniversary Pinelands Photo Contest

Pinelands Preservations Alliance (PPA) is the only non-profit organization whose sole mission is to preserve and protect the natural resources of the New Jersey Pinelands. PPA is 20 years old this year and you can help us celebrate!

Have you ever paddled your way through cedar-colored water, hunted or fished, hiked on sugar sand, helped clean up the woods, waters or roadways, in the Pine Barrens? If so you probably have captured these moments in a photograph. We want you to enter them in our 20th Anniversary Pinelands Photo Contest.

Who can enter?

• Anyone 18 years or older (no contest judges or PPA staff or their families)
• Under the age of 18 all submissions must be made by a parent or guardian

What to enter:
One photograph, taken within the last two years, in any or all, of the categories below:

• Enjoying the New Jersey Pinelands (hiking, picnicking, watching the world go by, etc)
• Protecting the New Jersey Pinelands (clean-ups, trail projects, etc)
• Nature & Wildlife of the New Jersey Pinelands (deer, birds, orchids, frogs, etc)

How to enter:
You can submit photos from May 15th to June 15th.

1. All images must be submitted electronically in JPG format and no larger than 1024x1024 pixel and 2MB in JPG format.
2. Please only submit one image per email.
3. Email your submission to photocontest@pinelandsalliance.org
4. Include the category you are entering in the subject line.
5. Include your name, address, phone number and email address with each submission.
6. Tell us when and where the picture was taken and feel free to include up to 3 sentences about the photograph.
7. You can enter scans of negatives, transparencies, or photographic prints; the picture need not be taken with a digital camera.
8. We can’t accept CDs or prints.

Get the full rules in this two-page contest PDF flyer and find out more about the good work of the Pinelands Preservation Alliance through their website.

Ann Derry answers readers questions as part of the “Talk to the Newsroom” series, and gives links to NYTimes videos from unlikely videographers, including a print journalist who carried a video camera into an Afghan firefight, a photographer shooting video about Somali pirates and The Daily Baggage,  “the only Oscar video brought to you from a basement in New Jersey.”

Questions include:

What lessons can other media organizations learn from The New York Times’s video experiments and experience? How big is your staff and do they have a photo/video journalism background or did they need to switch from print and learn on the job? How long, on average, does it take to produce a video for a newspaper Web site. Is it worth the effort for a smaller paper?

Tiltshifing works best in hilly areas where you can get up high and get a rolling landscape with good foreground and background. Which is to say it’s damn hard to find something interesting to shoot in South Jersey.

Nonetheless, here’s my favorite picture so far, of a mill race in the long-abandoned Ninteenth Century Weymouth factory. Note this was made with Tiltshiftmaker website, not with this new Adobe Air App, which I’m just trying out now. Via Lifehacker.

Johnson Ferry House: “Circa 1740”. New Jersey State History Fair at Washington Crossing State Park.

Bridge Views: The roadbed for cars was a echoey grill. New Jersey State History Fair at Washington Crossing State Park.

Bridge Views: A very narrow bridge over the Delaware, the mega-SUVs were all skimming the rails by an inch. New Jersey State History Fair at Washington Crossing State Park.

Marching orders: New Jersey State History Fair at Washington Crossing State Park.

Snacking: New Jersey State History Fair at Washington Crossing State Park.