Festival Weekend

It seems if you wanted to see sun this month all you had to do was schedule a festival.  With 22 of 30 days seeing rain in the Portland area, the earlier Old Port Festival and this past weeks Greek, Strawberry and Lobster Festivals all had nice days. Food was the big draw at all three, but each had something extra, from traditional Greek dancing, to crafts and farm animals to Portland's waterfront.  Somewhat different pictures then these appeared in the Northern, Southern and Portland editions of The Forecaster newspapers.

Eve's At The Garden

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Had a great time today shooting food for Earl Anthony Morse, the Executive Chef for the Portland Harbor Hotel and their very good restaurant, Eve's At The Garden.  I met him last week at Taste of the Nation and stopped by yesterday to see how he felt about me shooting in his kitchen and well one thing lead to another.  I went in thinking I'm doing a salad plate for an magazine and found myself laying flat on the ground shooting in the garden, and salmon and desert. This followed on yesterday at the Greek Festival, which I'll post in a couple of days... it runs thru Saturday, so you can still get a Gyro and some Baklava if you hurry.

Portland Pride Day

Portland's  Pride Day Parade & festivities lucked out with the rain as the weather couldn't have been better!  Lots of good images.  This year I shot underneath the banner, which was 600+ feet long (2 years ago I shot from a 2nd floor window in Congress Sq as the banner past by).  Barney Frank was in town for a Democratic Party event.  He's a great standup comic! Go here to see more images from the day:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/doda_foto/   Click on the set and view slide show.

Taste Of The Nation #2

Remember that the great auction is here...http://www.cmarket.com/auction/AuctionHome.action?vhost=strengthportlandme

also more images here:   http://www.flickr.com/photos/doda_foto/

Taste of the Nation

Thursday night Taste of the Nation, Southern Maine Chapter held their gastronomic fund raiser under five tent overlooking Casco Bay on the campus of Soutern Maine Community College, in South Portland.  The benefit of all this over eating and drinking will be several non profits that help reduce hunger in kids across the southern Maine area.  As part of the festivities and STILL GOING ON!!! is an online auction.  Fancy a Thomas Moser chair, a limo ride to see a Red Sox Yankee game or how about a 5 day /4 night getaway to Ecuador!  You have until June 30 to bid on these and about 20 more items.  Times a wasting!   You can see lots more at :   http://www.flickr.com/photos/doda_foto/

June 2009 1st Friday Art Walk

This months 1st Friday Art Walk may have been the best ever, lots of new galleries or new spaces, some decent music, a cirrus & young ladies covered in Frosting as performance Art.  I got a late start unfortunately and could only get to a dozen or so galleries along Congress Street but ended up at Running With Scissors which always runs later.  I have way to many images to put up here but have posted some of the better ones on my flickr page as a set: June2009 1St Friday Art Walk...  http://www.flickr.com/photos/doda_foto/

National Donut Day

In honor of National Donut Day, thought I'd mention how I first became a "Donut Fan".  The first and still the best donuts I ever found came from LaBree's in Old Town, Maine, where I was born and lived for the first 8 years of my life.  Labree's started in the basement of their house on French Island, so called because you know.... actually Treat & Webster Island on the map.  My mother was born on the Island and when I would visit my grandmother, a group of cousins and Island kids would sometimes walk over to the Labree's house and go round back to the cellar entrance where the donuts were made.  One of the women would take a long stick and  fish a donut hot out of the oil, let it cool off for a minute before giving it to us.  Even in a box on a store shelf Labree's kept just a hint of that fresh made taste.  When I move to Presque Isle on my 8th birthday, I soon found Spudnuts, donuts made from potato flower, not bad certainly in my ton 5 list.  But here in Portland we Have Tony's Donuts, # 2 on the list... I'm particularly fond of the Molassas variety.  So today we have a few pictures from Tony's

Buenos Aires / Portland Tango

In the last 8-10 months I have been shooting people at the North Star Cafe during Tango nights ( turns out you can Tango in Portland several nights a week.)  In April on a trip to Buenos Aires I shot Tango as well.  On the last day in BA I stumbled upon  "La Glorietta" an outdoor dance pavilion in the Belgrano area.  I spent 45 minutes as people arrived and started dancing trying to get an image. ( check this link out for a group we saw playing on the street...  http://www.purevolume.com/elmetodotangojazz 

The last cut off this album from 2007 Paranoico Critico is Libertango. I highly recommend a listen.   And Monday night I went to the Gazebo on Portland's Eastern Prom where a few Tangoesta's were dancing.