Journey into obscurity

So what if you do not understand my meaning, my journey into the obscurity? Dust off your living word that spells it in the modern vernacular idiom of the day. That is much,much easier than wondering what King James meant by the obscure, antiquated idiom of the past. Some are prone to tune into a shall we say, the secret chord that was played before the Lord, not the clanging symbol easily heard.
Say what you mean, mean what you say. Speak clearly, your actions are confusing me.
No thanks but thanks. I am one that shuns the white-wall austerity. It is in my bend to filter my words through the stained-glass, bending such blinding light, diffusing it, sending it scattering. Why would you lay beneath a blazing sun and burn? Even you apply the screen.
This life is as through a veil, a depression blue glass at best. Yet you want the unfiltered light. You want
the clear meaning of everything. Nothing a mystery. Nothing of magic. Nothing of poetry. Boring.
I have no words for you. Besides. You would not understand me clearly. Can I say it more plainly? Yes. But I choose not to.


Moving on....

Today in my banality I am relishing being able to print again, even though it cost 83.00 for the Epsom printer.It so far does an adequate job. I have printed, matted and put sleeves on about seven today.
I await the business cards to attach to the back of each, then I will take them to the gallery for everyone to flip through at rapid pace. I was blown away yesterday watching Herb, the retired lawyer photographer, going through the prints quickly, quickly, looking at only a few, then setting them down, never commenting.  I am not sure I could take sitting under a tent at some show and watching this go on all day long. It was as if he was going through legal documents. As Steve Coleman, the Australian photographer said, we want our photographs, our work, to cause one to pause, to connect, to speak. Clearly, mine did not speak.


Or...

Could it be that Herb represents the many, many who simply do not operate upon the secret chord level, but upon the stark, non-obscure surface? I would probably say so. His work does not speak to me. I do not care if he uses film and develops his own. He can afford to. Many are the artists in the gallery, doing it out of hobby or a way to spend retirement or husband's money. A few, I do not claim I am one, hear the secret chord. I would want to be in that company.

In OBSCURITY.

Printer Peace

The day of my 21, 535 and nine months upon earth began with a cup of coffee and cereal and a ten o'clock journey to the Gateway Gallery to work Ginny's shift of 10-2. The previous night I had worked on and off most of the day gathering my 8x10's, 25 of them into mattes and clear sleeves, the rest loose, to take to the gallery for a one day sale of 20.00 each. I placed it on Facebook and it seemed promising as soon Rick Bringger, my best friend arrived and he soon thereafter purchased two.
We sat about some and Ken, who was a woodworker at 84, but not looking it, a retired industrial arts teacher, who was in the gallery to volunteer as well, got out his hand-crafted dulcimer with the birds carved and all. He was rusty but played two hymns, I got out the harmonica, but my key was wrong and it just sounded bad. Rick beat upon a glass jar.  Good  jam session.
Well, that wound up being the only sale of the day. In all, I sold four. Two more to Kim, who is our Art League Events person. I could not print hers until an afternoon of trying again to make the Kodak 3250 work, cleaning the heads again. Melanie said she needed something printed and so I went online and ordered from Wal-Mart for 59.00 an Epson 301. I got to Walmart to pick it up and they had none. The website let me order. I was aggravated. I went to Office Max and they did not have the 301 but the next step up for 79.00. Finally got it set up about dark something and printed out the two for Kim and some others to experiment with the printer.
I still want to get a pro quality printer for around 400.00 but again, on a budget and have to skimp.
Birthday wishes on Facebook were steady. I tried to respond to everyone.
Posted several photographs and still I am getting no responses or shares like the one Suzanne posted on my sight and all the comments. I like comments more than likes, for perhaps sometime in life someone will say something useful beside beautiful or wow or nice.
It was also interesting to see a few folks looking at the photographs I had in the gallery, flipping through them rapidly, stopping at about six in and moving to something else, clearly not interested. And one was a photographer(lawyer), which probably says much....
We are that way though, flip,flip,flippant.....

Printer Profanity

All I wanted to do was print one print. I had matted and sleeved 24 and I was going to print just one. I had purchased the new ink. I installed the new ink in the Kodak all-in-one 3250. I turned on the Print and out came a blank page. Over and over I tried everything. Cursing as each came out blank. Took out the print head and cleaned it was rubbing alcohol and q-tips. Nothing. Emailed trouble shoot to Kodak. 24-48 to reply. New head another 40.00. So the day has been squandered trying to print just one print. I have 50 five by sevens I wanted to print, mostly butterflies, but that will have to go onto hold.
Saw in the interim that Kim, Melanie's sister was going through my SmugMug photographs, asking Devan if she liked a purple photograph I had from April 2012. Nice to know she did not care to contact me. Maybe she will. Probably though just order through SmugMug. I used to have it set up so I could make some money off of prints, but it was costing me 250.00 a year and no one was ordering. Again, a loss. So when I suspend it, what do you know, orders. I could just go into a fit but I will try and suppress the frustration. Enough of that in other areas. Hard times come again no more playing on Pandora. Fitting.

Lime Time

At the age of three, far from me, are you still remembering me, attempting to get a message to me?
Know at fifty-nine, I am trying, not to forget the time, when we would write with the color lime.

Tomorrow my grand-son, I will have another birthday, and it seems, for me, time is slipping
further along, far from your ability to catch up with me
I have tried all I can do to slow the pace, to stay back in the pack, allowing the fleet to take
the prize, knowing greater rewards, I was told, was not to the fast, but the slow.

But no longer do I know, I am weary with the running, the writing, the trying. I could deciper the
scribbling once in time, I knew why the lime was the color, without words we did much speaking,
but now, now, I am just keeping these things within, for it seems such a grim mockery,
to have you taken from me

And someday they say, you shall again come my way. I shall have the lime cut and look forward
to again seeing you pucker, recalling the time, you liked the lime.

Four Bison

It was exactly a year ago that this photograph was taken. It was on Jeffrey Hill's property by his sawmill. I had the privilege of monthly reading the demand meter at the sawmill. There was an old tusked pig that would walk up and inspect me. There were ostriches and the buffalo that kept their distance.
It is the opportunity I had to get into the out of the way and private places that I miss about the meter reading job I had in 2012-13.

Hello Blogin'

Well, well. Outdoors it is a raining and the temperature is dropping from the 60's it began the day with. Sister was here early, like 9 to get mama and take her back to her house for the physical therapy visit and later her bath. She messaged that it went well. They fight like the Bunkers over there so the news was good, other than sister coming in blubbering and crying over a little dog who she had tried to catch was on the road dead today. Melanie said it is the nurse in her. I said, crazy.
Melanie had a crown attaching appointment in Gainesville at 10:30 so I drove her down and waited the hour in the car. About an hour later she woke me and we drove straight back after a stop at the Dollar General in Ellisville for some litter and drinks. She got in just in time for her conference call. I went to the laundry room and kitchen. Woman's work slowly done by a man.
Posted the usual suspects on Facebook, mostly folks not getting the Funny, or maybe they do, they just ain't gonna dare tell me. So far I am outpacing Susan on her post on my wall of her red sunset. I gave up trying so I am joining and wowing hers, maybe some of the silent ones will get a hint, but they won't.
Its back to the arcane and quoted shares from everywhere.
There is a slow process going on with me. I was to be at the Galley today from 1-5 but I switched with Ginney so she could be with her son in surgery Thursday 10-2. I am trying to gather the butterfly shots on the computer and put them in one album. I go through an album, of which there are many, and I see a photo I like that is non-butterfly and I will post it or use it as my profile or something. I have four places to send them so it is a slow process going through and searching out the decent butterfly shots.
Thus, the posted shot is one I came across from last year meter reading, some little tricycle sitting in the backyard next to the steps, no longer used. It spoke to me. Many of them do. Otherwise, I would not take them. Gee whiz. Hello!

The Deal is Rotten

As Leonard says, everybody knows...

that's how it goes.

Today i picked up Pearce from Allison's and took him to Lake DeSoto to train for the upcoming February Olustee Blue-Gray Runnin' Reb fun run. He placed third in his age group last year, and wants to improve upon that. We started out with him distancing me as I jogged along, having to stop after two minutes in and walk. oh the day, the day, i could clip out six minute after six minute mile up to marathon distance. I had his gatorade and the camera's in tow, weighing me down was my excuse. We ran one good lap and played around for two, walking and doing his challenges that all seven year kids like to do.
It was painful again in that I was being a somewhat grandpa for a day. Everything with kids pains me.
Rue the day Landon got himself into this mess.

that's how it goes.

today facebook notified me they approved changing the name of John Stokes Photography to John Stokes Journey. A one time change. I was getting weary of not even getting one hundred views, much, much less likes, hardly ever any comments.  by taking photography off the page, I figured I could just post and gab about a journey and take the onus off people thinking me a photographer. They can now say, gosh, you should be a photographer if they think the photography decent, but they never do.

that's how it goes.

There was talk of me being depressed. I suppose so. Comes with the melancholy nature I have. I thrive it seems under a morose, languishing state of mind. If all was hunky dory and rose colored, I don't think I would be too content. I would look for reasons to return to the inward wrangling.

that's how it goes.

Saw an old bike rider lugging his bike up 41 today. I turned and waited for him. I knew it would be an interesting photograph. As he passed me and he saw me clicking, I called out something. We talked awhile and he was heading to Lakeland he said, from Tennessee. Lake City was misread on the map. What a rig. He spoke of sleeping where ever he wound up. He seemed not a homeless type or down on his luck. I gave him some money anyway, said supper was on me tonight.

that's how it goes.

By that time the sunset was getting good. I had been waiting for it as well on the dock at the Lake. As the sun went off the lake, I hurried out to Old Country Club road. A few more shots. Again, lately manipulating like crazy the settings trying to get the look I am after. Win a few, lose more.
Yesterday at the Watertown Lake was simply awesome and a wonderment. After talking with a Mr Chandler who seemed to have keen insight into birds and creatures, the sun set with these fingers and fire like strands. I know, Steve would say they were Geo-engineered and ugly. I shot til it was dark.  I shot til it was dark today.

That's how it goes. Everybody knows. And ole man cotton got a rotten deal.

in search of frontage

exit the witnesses

we cling tenuously

they serve communion every Sunday

 sounds promising

It's Lantern must of been in a park

before the exit of the witnesses

origins, Williston United Methodist

a sign without a message

a swine and some pearls

The journey of faith these years in Lake City has been wrought in much turmoil and anguish of soul, interspersed with some moments of joy and worship. While we have moved all around in search of frontage, along the way we have left many, many dear friends to this day. We wish that we could have from the get go all remained in one accord, but in the Baptist circles, Accord is something you get to another church in. In the early days I would hear this preacher on the WGRO radio on the Lantern Park Hour, the Rev LE Peterson, greatly loved, the man eventually baptized me into the Baptist faith. Melanie and I were looking for a church other than Methodist at the time and I was intrigued with the preacher with the long,slow southern drawl.
We attended and were welcomed with open arms. We loved the people, but it was the doctrine that did me in. I had of late been talking with Rev Richard Harding of Faith Baptist Tabernacle in Williston where Melanie went to school. He opened my eyes to some of the fallacies of the dispensational doctrine widely held in most Baptist churches. Rev Peterson I soon found was a staunch Dispensationalist, holding the teachings of Cyrus Scofield and his bible. That is when the trouble began when I started sending the deacons brochures against the doctrine. It came to the point where Brother Peterson said from the pulpit there was a person in the church, he would not expose, the poison man, that was spreading false doctrine. If he did not stop, he would expose him before the church. Instead of allowing a confrontation, we quietly stopped attending. It was a sad day for the people to this day we still love dearly. On hindsight, I suppose I could have put up with the doctrine, but I had recently drawn much heat over a letter to the editor against Mormons, with Mormons calling for my job, causing a storm of letters to the editor, so I was not, in my youthful exuberance, one to back down.
We trod soon there after to the Southside where mostly the over seventy presided, mostly kindly ladies not too intent on giving up their seats to the young Lanterns. We attended the young married couples Sunday School and enjoyed it. We even liked the red-headed song leader for his wife worked at JCPenney and played the organ wonderfully. I just do not recall why we left other than Rev Brown and Keith left and I suppose we did too soon after.
I was born into a United Methodist ministers home in Vicco, Kentucky in 1955. We soon moved to Sopchoppy, Florida that same year and I remained a Methodist this entire time up until I met Melanie and we married in 1988 at the Whitehurst Memorial United Methodist Chapel on January 8th by my late father, the Rev. Luther Ray Stokes.
We became Baptists since that was the faith Melanie grew up with and at the time, i was quite dis-allusion ed  with the liberal Methodist politics and their Armenian theology.
We stayed with Southside all the while looking about. Still leaning Wesleyan, we landed at the First Nazarene church run by the Vann family, their son marrying the Pastors daughter. We enjoyed the small congregation and the times at the Vann's after services until the daughter decided she had had enough and left the Vann man for another man. It pretty much did the church in and it hasn't been a Nazarene church since all this, with the Pastor moving on.
We again went out in search, spending time at the Christian Heritage under the then living Wayne Hancock, another unfortunate excellent pastor whose wife left him for another man, then over to Ramona Park for a time, mostly to their sings, the women at the time all wore doilies upon their  heads, there was no one pastor but a group of elders who ministered. The most humble and loving people we have ever had the privilege of knowing. When Melanie was sick in 2009 with H1N1 and we were on the bottom financially and every other way, these great believers came through for us.
For a time we thought perhaps we should support the church nearest the house, that being Hopeful Baptist three miles up the Price Creek Frontage Road. We enjoyed the friends we knew there, having migrated like us there from various other baptist churches. But, the dispensationalism crept into every sermon, along with the accept Jesus theology and we just did not want to undertake another letter writing campaign. We quietly bowed out again.
For a brief time, over to First Christian on the US90 downtown frontage, next to the buffet for first dibs after services. They partook of communion every Sunday and somehow, after the Pastor was later caught down at the lake with some other fellows, well...we cast no stones, but we kind of left quietly again.
Parkview Baptist for a few Sundays, the mother church of Westside. Great cantata's but just a bit too big.
Wesley Methodist. I liked Wesley back before I was married, especially if you want to really know the truth, Carl Brooks daughters. We had a great time on the church softball team, even had Randy Mackey before he became a politician and forgot us. Tom Harkelford, the fellow who drove the little Porsche with his scarlet fever and road rage fits if you pulled up behind him, meekly served coffee before services, totally masking the rage upon the highway. When we attended as a couple, I do think it was either a magician or a motorcyclist pastor, but either way, we just didn't click like I did will Carl and the girls.
Once or twice over to First Methodist, that proud First church upon the frontage of Marion, home of many, many friends from the two years my father was there, before being run out after two years by the staunch pillars who just could not savor his penchant for Goodwill clothing and Fanny Crosby, eschewing the vestal robes and fighting tooth and toenail with the choice of music. It was just more than he could handle. It drove him to retire from the ministry and go into evangelism to small churches.
We had all but given up on the prospect of finding a place when upon passing each week on US90, we said, let's try Westside next Sunday.
The church on the US90 frontage road, the mission church of Parkview Baptist, then called Westside Baptist, then Grace Covenant and sundry other names,  formed not out of schism or protest, so we visited  one Sunday with Elmer Crews the pastor, whom we loved and love dearly with his wife.  We felt this a good fit for our then young two sons. We got involved in Sunday School and Awana, which we helped in at Lantern Park.  The choir was talented with great special music. Elmer and the elders seemed on the same page, off the same page, and one Sunday he blind-sided the congregation at a time they were off the same page. He was immediately resigning and taking the Pastorate of Wellborn Baptist, a nice, new pink brick structure on the same frontage road. A gasp went up. We tried Wellborn once or twice, but no matter, we felt we were betraying by slipping over.
After many in the church followed Elmer, the remnant formed a Pastor search committee and somehow wound up in the panhandle listening to one Russell Taylor, of whom Dwayne and Patti knew. After the trial sermon it was agreed to call him. And so that day as I was about a month or two from getting canned at JCPenney after 19 years, Christina his wife came in looking for a sport coat for her husband and his first Sunday.  It was my last coat sale.
So, with no job but a new pastor, the church carried on, minus many but adding others. At some time in the growing, we merged with the Liberty Baptist Church with their Pastor Milton Smith. With co-pastors, I could sleep every other Sunday for Milton was quite above my head. We grew to the point a well-known church architect and planner was called on, one of our artist ladies drew a grand rendition of this new cathedral and so most voted to sell the frontage property and move, building the first of three phases structure, a nice sanctuary with fellowship hall.
And then amid the moving plans, one of the saddest things ever happened. The wonderful song leader and extremely humble and talented musician, Dan Clark drown in the Gulf, his wife almost drowning trying to rescue him. It was total devastation. It was one of those, how could we ever go on without Dan. I still grieve that. Fortunately his daughter Lani and son Tim took over the reigns of worship.
Despite that, the plans to move continued unabated. I knew from past experience if we were outgrowing the building now, just wait, like most Baptists, it would not be long before a group would up and leave.
Kind of like having children. We think we need to build a huge house so all can have a room, regretting it in later years when the kids leave.
But, on deaf ears. It would be a grand move. We would grow and grow. 
When all the men met in the fellowship hall to put it to a final vote, all the men were required to speak a yea or a nay for moving and why. Of the two nays, I was one. Again, what did I or Tom know?
And so more men became embittered and moved on, leaving even less to carry on. But with the money from the sale of the property and buildings, the new first phase was begun down the road a piece, off the valuable frontage road.
In the meantime, Milton had resigned under scandal and this took a few more with him. He later left his wife, breaking the trend of wives leaving the pastor husbands.
With the new building completed, a youth pastor was bought in after going down to Brooksville to see first hand the funnel program. John came and things went well with a growing youth group. It was about into year two that a group came to visit from Providence Baptist. And then for some reason, after the painful falling out with the home church people, one after another standing up and announcing their loss of confidence, it was the plan to start an eldership training class.
Candidates were put forward and a group was formed, meeting weekly. This went on for awhile and eventually it came to the point it was clear some of the elders in training were progressing faster than others. Elders were assigned to a group of members, each one having a certain number of people they looked over and prayed for, etc. When a survey was put forth to the church to grade the elders, a move we felt unfair, since we did not feel we had the knowledge to grade any elder other than our own,  many came away with bad grades and strange things said about them. It all got out of hand quickly and came to a boiling point at a meeting where the elders who got the bad reports felt things were handled improperly, which they were. It all should never have gotten to this point. More humility should have been shown. When one receives a bad grade, it is prudent to consider it to have some truth and not bristle, but go to the knees in contrition. Not so.
In the fire that ensued, accusing Russell of this and that, accusing Vicky the secretary of this and that, Russell resigning. Cleveland the youth pastor already left. And so, with only two elders, Gary and Brandon being recommended as elders, Brandon became the minister, Gary left to join with Russell and the church changed the name from Grace to Grace Life and went under the leadership of the umbrella church out in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. The radio station Gary worked so tirelessly to obtain finally received a license and went on the air.
And so, thinking Russell to be moving away to the panhandle, at the urging of some members not pleased with the results of all that transpired, asked if he would remain. He thus stayed and began a church called Christ's Fellowship, affiliated with the Beulah Southern Baptist Association, meeting in the green spray foamed garage at his home off County Line Road, about a mile from the frontage road. This small group had a good first service, but never grew. They finally moved out of the dank garage and to the new Columbia County Community Center off Birley Road. It was not the first choice, as the fellow who owned the empty Missionary Baptist Church down on the frontage road, out from Wellborn would not sell or rent. Talk about frontage waste(along with old Westside Baptist). Anyhow, we soon left Grace and went with Russell, troubled with the elder situation. I told Melanie, it was just a matter of time. So sure enough, recently, a matter of time arrived, Russell publicly announced plans to sell the house, move to Navarre and start a church plant.
Today, donations were requested on Facebook for the plant. Melanie and I said, once this phase is over, we are all but done.
We ponder sending our tithes to Mike and Libby Wild in Indonesia, working with the Wano tribe translating the Bible into their language. Landon went to stay a month with them several years ago. We have grown to love them and their boys.  We may send Jordon over, or go ourselves. We may never join another church. I could get used to wearing a hand-painted gourd!
Yet, despite it all, I am again leaning toward returning to some sort of connectional congregation where the pastor is not at the whim of deacons, a search committee, a vote or a pastors own ambitions. One who is appointed and if he moves on, another will come along in his place.  I'd just as soon sit under a lady pastor with a doily on my head at this point than sit wondering when the split or resignation will take place.
But I doubt Melanie will go along. She just doesn't savor the standing up and down, reading responsively,  saying apostle creeds, robes, organs and stained-glass. Too much austere Baptist in her.
Too much Methodist left in me. She wants to sell all and move away. Oh those Baptists!

Its a slow fade

I was in a beside myself state of mind today over trying to print some 5x7's for the Gallery Gift Shop, to try and boost lagging sales. The printer as I related earlier just wouldn't print beyond magenta. From lack of using the printer often, the ink had dried I assumed, or something glitchey.
Got into the PT Cruiser and headed for Office Max, not really wanting to. Got the ink and a new pair of head phones for around 40.oo. Started home but decided instead to visit Robert Jones, whom I hadn't seen in months.
I was taken somewhat aback when he came to the door of the double wide, where at 90, he still lives alone, his nephew Tommy living next door keeping an eye on him.
He was skinnier than I even recall him in the hey day of his running career thirty years ago. Too, his memory was ever more fuzzy than last time. Fortunately he still knew me, even though he had forgotten so many I mentioned. He did not even know his own nephew's wife Glenda Sanders whom he has gone to eat beans with forever on Thursdays. He had to look on a pad to see how old he was.
We sat and talked small talk as he faded in and out, bringing to memory the past growing dim. Not remembering Rick Bringger, I thought perhaps we could drive over to Firehouse Subs and maybe he would be there. We arrived and Rick wasn't. I ordered and Bob just stood there, unable to make up his mind. I finally said, give him what I am having. We ate the steak and cheese subs medium all the way combo in relative silence. I told him it was like the old days when I was always first to finish, waiting on him.
We drove back to his place stacked high with things he has ordered over the years and searched for some old slides I would duplicate for him. He forgot what we were looking for. I did not push it. We sorted through some old running club days photos and I said, that is ok, if you find them, fine. I knew he wouldn't. I knew when he closed the side bedroom door, he would not even remember why he was in the room
I promised him I would try and come see him at least once a week. He said he liked to go out for breakfast around 9 or 10. So do I. I will try and live up to my word and visit Bob again.

Beyond Comprehension

There is a frustration beyond comprehension. Yes, the damn sky is falling. Falling upon me. Of sitting here the last hour simply wanting to print 5x7's. The ink comes out all magenta. Unacceptable. I recalibrate, I clean the heads. Still it persists. I know what it is. These Kodak printers brag that the ink is cheap, which it isn't. If you do not do all your printing while the cartridge is new, if you let it set up awhile between print sessions, it dries out or goes magenta on you. The solution, to Kodak favor is to trudge down to OfficeMax for another cartridge costing nearly 40 bucks.
It is so much more convenient to print at home, rather than going through the tedious steps of saving them to an online printer, paying for them, picking them up or having them mailed. I want them by Tuesday, not next week. Oh I never knew I still had turrets disease until today.

The temperature is nearly 60 at 12:45 finally. It remains overcast. I need some sunshine and a destiny.
I need to get away for awhile from this Kodak magenta printer. Guess a trip to OMax is coming.

It begs a further frustration. Of having to deal with and live with inferior equipment. Of not being able to afford better tools. Camera, lens, paper,printer,frames,mats,the entire process. All bought at a bargain and cheaply as possible. Trying to save a dollar to make a dollar. Not accomplishing either.

Re-setting the D3100 last night, taking it off the Vivid setting to a neutral setting with a minus one in contrast. Setting the Auto focus and other stuff. Trying to learn the camera. One thing that frustrates is the focus hunting. Got to figure out to get instant shooting, I suppose that would be total manual over-ride, which lately I have been reverting to. It begs the question, why do I need a top of the line do it all for me camera when it doesn't do what I want it to do?

One day before I leave earth, I would hope to find myself sitting in a new kayak with the fancy camera and long lens, all the light gear necessary to take me from Fargo to Suwannee, sending the photographs via satellite to the laptop carried along, with the latest in technology and storage, pulling ashore then putting in on the Appalachian trail with the lightest gear on my back and winding up three months later upon Springer Mountain in Maine.

Jim Witt Way

Returned home from the trip to Ocean Pond and Olustee, ate left overs. Saw that the sky was doing interesting things so hopped back in the car and headed south, this time to the large oak in the field at Old Country Club Road. Few shots there, then down Old CC to stop at the high hill field.  Few shots there. Then on to 41 South and turning at Arky Rogers onto Jim Witt Road. Noticed the old red building that was once leaning is now a rubble. I have photographs to remember it. Stopped by the nice barn in front of the pond and shot a few. That was about it. The unnatural sky set and I made it home for the usual Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy.
Struggling of late with the metering on the camera, no matter what I do, the exposure being about the same. I like to underexpose and I have really had to manipulate settings lately more than wanted. Ended up for the most part with spot metering and manual. I have tried A and S priority, having to crank down the exposure compensation to almost minus two at times. I must have auto ISO or something wrong.
Always learning, never able to come to the knowledge of the truth they say.

The top shot has been worked in Picassa with the HDR. The second untouched.

Chasing fire for hire

This time in 2012 i was roaming the countryside reading electric meters for Florida Power and Light. It was a great job. I had thirty routes that went all over the countryside surrounding Lake City. Some routes I drove, some I walked, some a combination. One such route I really enjoyed took me out on Gum Swamp Road and into the Osceola National Forest to read a cell phone tower. Along the way I read all the dwellings along Gum Swamp.
This afternoon, after everyone had left for the week-end at Disney, I was riding over to get the mail and check on my sisters in town when I saw that the Osceola was being controlled burned. So instead of taking the left on 100 I went straight and into the forest via the Still Road and onto Gum Swamp. I wound up at Ocean Pond where I went out on the dock, the cold wind off the lake quite shivery. I then went into Olustee looking for the dwelling of Geech Brown, the old black man I photographed for the Tallahassee Democrat in the 80's. Then, Geech, an Ogeechee black from Savannah, Georgia and a pulpwood worker, claimed to be the oldest living active worker in Florida, in his 80's then. I drove all around and through the black neighborhoods and saw nothing that looked like his shanty. I am sure it has been torn down long ago.
Only one black person was out with a brown paper bag bottle, sitting next to a fire, but I did not stop and ask. He or she, I could not tell for the bundle, looked too young to know of Geech.
And so I came on back and continued on into town to do what I meant to do several hours earlier.
Such was the afternoon chasing fire, of which I actually never found, only the smoke all about.

take a hike

So, my old friend Wolfie wants me to accompany him on a walk of the Appalachian Trail, the entire 2,000, 3 month walk. Sounds enticing. If I were actually retired, wonderful. I can just hear Melanie now, what? While we are barely making ends meet, while I am working twelve hour days and week-ends, and you want to do what? Oh, bucket lists are wonderful for the Jacks and Morgans and Mikes of this world, who have accomplished about everything there is to accomplish, and then need more things to accomplish.
I am just at this point trying to get up the nerve to hike down to some employer and seek a job among the land of the young and stamina filled. I am just trying to keep from sitting at this same Sheldon spot on the couch and contemplating naval lint.
Wolfie, I promise in the next few weeks I will ponder it deeply, go out and daily play the lottery, and if perchance, the numbers roll for me, then yes, I will lace up the Danner's and pack the Kelty full of MRE's and accompany you the entire way.

Alone

Oh its a sign for sure you're grown
When they can leave you all alone
To fend for yourself and survive
Trust you even to drive
While off they go to Disney
For a week-end of happy
The cats and dogs I am told
Are not liking survival mode
And wouldn't it be cold
As out the house they are throw'd
Not gonna share my mre's
With some over fattened kitties
Its a long, long way to Sunday
When we will watch Downton Abbey
Or is it the Walking Dead
Probably, without being spoon fed.

Easy Rider

There we were. March of 2012 heading back from Daytona Beach from my FPL physical fitness test passing through Flagler Beach. Alongside us came the Easy Rider with his easy passenger, bed roll in search of a sandy, secluded spot. And then they were gone. Like ole Chevy Chase on the journey to Wally World, leaving me, in a sweat of journey in a Camry. Open wind and back lit sun trying to get in.
I was just content in the moment to be heading home to finally a job. It was a let down of grand scale when I got the job when David, the supervisor said, it would only be for a year you know....No, somehow I failed to notice that. I will take it. I need a job. Any job.
And so, parenthetically, I am again back in that Camry and the Easy Rider is somewhere in the sand doing what we all wish we could be doing. Goading the blokes who never had a clue in Camry's.

Signs

No fishing between the signs

Would that it was that simple. A place to go and get a sign. But no such place exists. Oh, they said, go to the Bible, it has all the answers. I been reading there daily lately and all I have read lately are the Kings that rebelled and the kings that were slain. Every now and then a sign comes along, but mostly to the virgins and little old ladies in their nineties having babies. A donkey here and there.
It is a toilsome thing to wade through the cliches out there. I am admittedly in a shallow spot run aground lately. This job situation and this life situation. Sandbars are pretty places but not good for journey's when the destination is supposed to be beyond the shore.
It would be such an easier way of living I suppose, to accept the cliche, to live in the sweet now and now, letting the word guide me, taking up swords and killing Kings. Prosperity coming abundantly.

We paddle through a Suwannee Tipsy

Taken several years ago at the Cone Bridge landing after a trip up to the sandbar. It was a good day, the water was low, the roots from the tupelo were impressive. I deliberately turned this upside down.
If you are reading this blog, would you please leave a comment. I have gone for nearly four years posting my heart and soul and have received a few comments out of all that I have posted.
And, if you dare, please tell me why you think this is so and what I could have done differently.
It has been a one way conversation. That leads one toward insanity and narcissism.

Roline

 I recall when she was mine
 time after time
casting her line
pulling me in
time after time
at Roline...


something like that. its at Facebook. one like. post a silly sand hill at at angle and get over twenty likes. but that is how it goes. compare apples to oranges. no one cares about this.
Rick and I talked of taking a full trip down the Suwannee from Fargo or the Sill to the mouth. Kayak i suppose though a canoe would suffice for me and all the gear. perhaps in March. water levels 55 to 60 good. ideal now. but cold.
could take the sea kayak even though hard to get in and out of and take photographs from. would need to figure out how to keep batteries charged, or take a film camera. hmmm.
could be interesting, waiting to see what i got. some sort of solar charger. need to google.

into their light

trying really hard to go into another light and try to understand their darkness. why a life is continually in the dark and unhappy. why they cannot resolve issues that should long since been resolved. issues of the tongue, issues of selfishness, issues of maturity, lessons never learned while young and impressionable. a mother who allowed the issues to fester on without facing them, feeling sorrow for the child and fear at the same time of confrontation. and so the seed of the weed has spread to the daughter and what was something that needed killing long ago has taken root deep and the tentacles have spread to cut off all light from above.
it will take more than man's axe or saw now to break the strong fibers that entangle.
i feel real remorse for such souls, trying to place myself into their lives, to try and understand being them, of what life is like through another frame, another view. and my heart is burdened. and i want to heal. but i cannot. for i have issues just as entangled. issues that i should have resolved long ago. issues that fester on today in me. redemption is an ongoing thing. it comes not easily as it did Paul. trickles of light from above. mercy drops falling. no perfection upon this earth, sorry John Wesley. no overcoming here, sorry, Martin Luther.

NoN

It will eventually drive me to the point of deletion and completion with Facebook. It just is not the forum for photography and poetry or sayings or anything beyond the benign. And so another photograph went up this afternoon and as usual, only Melissa and Sam cared to notice. Melissa my #1 like, Sam from Argentina. No shares. No likes. No comment. Total silence. I post a stupid thing about bird seed and interest is piqued.

"Sometime between the offering and the doxology, the Shekinah did stir; but for a moment, as in a blink, causing dust to dance momentarily, before settling earthly and under foot swept."

And isn't that our condition? In the midst of glory, of something holy, we see it as mere dust to be swept away? Yet, in the very dust the particles of God's presence. I do not know. I know in brief, ever so brief  moments, glimpses, I am transported, transfixed. Like a prick to the heart, a wisp of a faint breeze touching cheek. We know we were in the presence of something beyond this world of dust and ordinary, but we cannot grasp it for any length.
Like the faith we are asked to live by. Not in fullness of light, always lurking in the shadow land, in the dark covering everything. Pinholes occasionally prick and little glimpses of light the other side of the wall emerge.
But the dust covers quickly the hole and into blackness we descend again.

The Gateway Gallery in moving downtown will be a good move. $300 less in rent, double the space. I have ordered 75 matts and acetate covers in 11x14 and 8x10 for 8x10 and 5x7 prints. With these, I can price the work much lower and hopefully generate some sales. I was going to stop after January with the gallery but will give the new location another go. They have asked for my man power to help in the renovation.

And so this blog is no forum or place either, as after four years, I have less than a dozen followers, as I have over and over said. A great journal compared to the old notebooks I suppose, even though I will have the notebooks long after this computer has crashed and gone.

Fence Kill

The ditches were wet and deeply rutted with four-wheel pick-up trails. The grass was trampled by the fence. Other photographers had been here I said. I looked down to the bottom rung of the fence. There, stuck half way out and in was a turtle. I said, I will free him and place him on the other side. Upon freeing him, he was dried out dead. He had gotten stuck at the point where hind legs or front legs were of no use. And so he swam in the fence until he could swim no longer and died.
And such are we. Straddling that fence between going on and going back. Waiting too long upon going through, no return. You cannot return through the square of the fence no matter how hard you may push.
And so we must go on. Leave the little pond and venture on. Most choose to remain in the pond. That is fine. Just know, if you are called to leave, no turning back after a point.
Or, by some providence a photographer comes along in time and tosses you back. In the case of this turtle, too late.

Nice Picture

One of these days I shall find a photograph that is not nice, or beautiful. But until then, I must endure the nice and beautiful photographs. But then it would simply be interesting or ignored. I just do not know. But a nice picture beats a simply liked picture any day. So, I will take nice picture. Thank you.

Last One Out

MLK day, Monday, January20. Ten days from 59. Day after REL birthday. Day before Stonewall. Melanie sleeps. No work today. I went to sisters to take mother, for her doctor appointment in afternoon, now past. 4:30 as I write. Read good article on MLK and how MLK accomplished ending the reign of black terror, the terror blacks had of living among white men who could at a moments notice, go bezerk upon them. That if they stood up collectively to their greatest fear and met it, that once the whooping was over, then things were better. And they were. Almost now to the point of reverse terror now.
Wrote a take off poem from the Association song, Never my love, calling it Navarre my love. Russell announced officially Sunday that he was moving to Navarre on the panhandle to start a church plant church. It will be sometime soon, when the house sells. He said our church, Christ Fellowship will be discussing future plans. I know our future plans will probably involve getting as far from the Baptist system as possible, having been burned once too many times like this.
Melanie said she probably would be done with organized church. Me too perhaps.
The malaise over the job prospects continues. I was going to fill out applications today but the laze of the day got to me.
Tomorrow I volunteer at the gallery, then the monthly meeting. New officers. New location. Got to come up with photographs that will sell. Melanie wants me to invest and get a tent and do shows. So do I.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow.

Navarre My Love

You asked us if there'd come a time
When they grew tired of you
Navarre my love
Navarre my love


You wonder if this heart of theirs
Would lose its respect for you
Navarre my love
Navarre my love

What makes you think love would last
When you know that their whole love depended
on them(on them)

Navarre my love
Navarre my love

You say they fear you'll change your mind
And you won't retire from them
Navarre my love
Navarre my love

How a remnant hate to see your ministry end
When we were willing to spend our whole lives
With you(with you, with you).

Plank Walk

Today is January 17, Friday. One of those days you see coming. Started early with going out in the frost to see if I could get word on Mrs Duncan, the neighbor, in surgery today for cancer, from her son. I missed him as he sped down to Shands in Gainesville. Melanie has been in a bad way lately, stressed over finances and family. I made the mistake of saying I was going to Alligator Lake for awhile. I could tell this would lead to words. I decided to put off going, waiting until I got the dogs from the groomers and the Rx from CVS. Then I went, taking a brisk walk, not getting anything of consequence. I did meet a new fellow photographer with a D40, new in town. I told him of the Art League next Tuesday, of which he looked forward to.
Arriving home, sure enough, Melanie came in and said, I know you don't like to hear this...you need to really step up finding a job, I need someone to lean on, you could have been using your time to re-train, etc.
And so, I walk the plank. Life stinks for me. At the Pet Spot, the groomer spotted my card in the car and said she had a friend with a wedding coming up. I said, take the card with the poem on the back.
And so it is 11PM. Tomorrow we are going down to Williston to eat with Gerald and Billie Earl. I will muddle along in a funk of thought and malaise. I will continue to pray something can open beyond my ability to open it. I am at the end of the plank. The next step is coming.

Sasquatch stole it

Do not think it got across. The pines were as hands taking the moon. Thus I placed it in the Tracking Sasquatch album. I was out at the college entrance road by the airport. I could barely keep my hands out for the cold. I grew impatient waiting for jets. I was unhappy as usual with the sharpness. Though the moon looks crisp in the viewfinder, when I transfer the image to the computer, it looks fuzzy. I do not understand.
Either way, this manual focus, guess the best exposure in the dark is for the birds.
And posting it here, something really did not translate over. Terrible.

Sandhills with Will McLean

Turkey Thursday

Does a day make a difference? Hardly. Today is Thursday, January 16. Am I yet in a state of total don't give much of a damn? Yes. Last evening it was good to laugh along with the two new Duck Dynasty episodes, especially episode two with the references to the comedy movie Nacho Libre. It was good to hear again from Tina Howell, wanting to make one of my photographs into a canvas print. The honor and yet the sadness that I am not being paid for my efforts all at once. But nice to hear from her. Mrs Duncan my neighbor is in a bad condition at Shands in Gainesville with sepsis. I saw her son as he was about to go down this morning, all in tears. That bought on my tears as well. Mrs Duncan and I would meet often out front while she slowly walked Tippy the little weiner dog and we would talk, she mostly of family and all the hardships she and they have undergone. It breaks my heart Mrs Duncan has had such suffering.
Melanie has the biopsy results pending to see the outcome of it, whether the toe is cancerous or benign.
So our current calm could about to be again set adrift. I feel my lack of working or finding a decent type work will bite us eventually, leaving me to have to live with my sister or something, losing the house and all.
I see it.
Started back after a lull in reading the daily read the bible in a year in Psalms 40, which spoke directly to my condition. Then today, I do not read. I am a terrible priority setter. I do not blame the poor souls of the twenty-one days away from Facebook. I find myself as well going to it over and over, checking updates, seeing if anyone has messaged or liked. Quite engrossing. I can only image the pull for someone who has hundreds of such comments and likes to respond to.
Though I am not in the total state of depressed like yesterday, today is like a undercurrent, just a quiet desperation of Thoreau proportions. I check the jobs daily on Indeed and indeed, daily the jobs are in fast food and or jobs way beyond my qualification.
I had a gun debate with Stacy from our church. Things like her saying she hates guns comes out of the blue. Things you never know about people you assume, since her husband is in the military and shoots at the range, would be the last person to hate guns.
Perhaps the people on Facebook will help her to not have such a hatred. To me her argument, that her parents never allowed guns, even toy ones, is silly. I suppose if you approached anything from an early age and spoke in detesting ways of it, you would grow up hating knives,spoons and forks, depending what you threw your hatred toward. Typical liberal parents warping the next generation.
Well, about time to go over to my sisters and help her re-arrange her house some. See ma and how she is, take my mind for awhile off our troubles and sorrows and woes, though trivial, small and mostly unfounded.
It took all of thirty minutes to move the bed from downstairs to upstairs. Then I was off and back to the house. I see that once again blogger is acting up and photographs will not transfer directly from Picasa. Jordon is back from Allison's seeing Carson and Melanie is onto him about his room.
Like Duck Dynasty last night, I think we will have Jordon here into his thirties. 

In a flicker

Unimaginable the depth of down. Down in spirit. Down in mind. Down. What brings such down on?
Combinations. Like daily turning the tumblers. The safe opens. It is empty. The long turning for nothing.
Sameness. Routine. Thoughts. Dreams.Desires.Fears. Futures. Pasts. They come rushing. Walking.
A hollow being. Doing what is always done. Getting the same result. Fuzzy when sharpness is desired. Cannot get the right settings. Do not have the right settings. All a flicker.

You got it. Wednesday, January 15th. The daily walk along the trails of Alligator Lake. There was Brian again. Like a Truman scene. Deja vu. It has been done. A re-run. The same cypress. The same egrets. Coots. Hawks. The same focus. The same out of focus. The same struggle. The same composition. The only variable was in the clouds. Today, all of mans making from jet streams. Under-expose, over-expose, flash on, flash off. Yadda Yadda Yadda.

Back to the computer. Pop in the cord. Download to Picassa. Cheap mans Adobe. Limited manipulation. Lack of raw. Jpeg. Lazy. Unimaginative. Facebook driven. Ten or less likes. Is it any wonder? And so it goes.

Poor flicker was over manipulated as a result. This mostly stems from seeing another photographers work on Facebook, the Russian lady with the photographs of her children with farm animals. Absolutely amazing and beautifully done. The Canon full frame Mark 2 that every photographer of any meddle uses. She with a 135mm. Interesting in that when I first got started in the early 70's(I should be a master by now) that was my first and only lens.

As I have been saying all this year that I turn 59. This is it. It is getting down to the too late. To the wire. To the no turning back. To the do or die. The final act. The about time you do something. And I look for some lottery like salvation to come along and in a moment, in an instant, make all things well, successful, right.
It will never happen. I will die in the process. And the Flicker will fly to another rotten tree.

Croft's hearth

It was the last set of photographs from the long day of January 11th. I was about home on Columbia County Road 241 near the Family Road when I spotted the lone chimney off to my right on Dicks Road. I drove over and a fellow was working with his puppy in his front yard. I asked him if he minded if I took a photograph of the old chimney. He said go ahead. I climbed the gate and took about two dozen quickly, working around the curious black angus cows. I returned and asked the young fellow who lived in it. He said his grandparents, his mothers people, the Crofts. His dad was a Johnson. He said the old house had recently been torn down. I thanked him and started to shake his hand but he said he didn't want to get blood on me. What in the world was he training that puppy for?

Neighborly Emergency

Last evening late, nearly one AM, the Rescue vehicle quietly drove into Mrs Duncan's yard. I waited quietly outside to see if she had passed away. But fortunately, though in much pain, she walked to the porch where they put her on the stretcher. I trust whatever occurred, that she will recover.
She is our neighborhood prayer warrior, saying a prayer for us each morning when she walks the little sausage dog to get the mail.

Crossing Points

Sat down at the Gateway Gallery today from 1 until 5. As a participating gallery member, we are required to volunteer 8 hours per month or 2 four hour shifts. I got no sales but one compliment, a visitor telling me he liked the photograph, Where the Circle Met of the Circle church, the only print I have sold.
But, this past three month span, I have sold zero so I go 45 in the hole, the amount the 4x8 space rents for the time.
I do believe when the end of the month arrives, unless I sell anything, I will not continue this venture.
Like Mrs Zecher said today, anybody can take a photo, you have to do something extra special.
What would that extra special be? Larger size, better frame, different subject matter?
I think the displaying of art and photography is a thing of the past. The only thing on our walls are mostly our own faces and our own family. Even the poorly composed shot will go up before one will purchase a fine print. The images are now the realm of the computer and television. A continous roll.
In the meantime, the Gallery Board of Directors have made the decision to relocate downtown. That is a good move that should have been from the beginning. It should help build the foot traffic which is so lacking now. During the Olustee Festival it was gain great exposure.
And with Olustee upcoming, as I have said over and over, I need a presence there. Large,well-done photographs framed in grand double matted archival type paper.
Which leads to the next bridge. A job. All is fine and well if one can afford it. In my case, I am doing well just to purchase 11x14 frames with 8x10's printed on my own Kodak printer.
Hardly worth it.

Palm Reader

Posted this today, saying, I miss my friends who would laugh while getting me out of my messes. And messes I did get into as a FPL meter reader for a year. The job was only for a year and a month, coming to an end as the Smart meters were finally installed, cutting the meter reading force down to a few of the long timers.
Safety and speed were the oil and vinegar under which we mixed. Often in my haste, I would make rash decisions that proved costly. This was one such incident that took two vehicles to get me out. The fellows were always good natured about it,me being the old guy who needed help, the source of much ribbing.
But, there is ribbing and good ribbing. This ribbing I could take.
It was the ideal job for the time it lasted. Suited my personality to a tee. Out and about, reading a route, seeing countless photo possibilities. Being there when weather changed, when things happened.
After the first few months of total confusion and frustration, like Bill said, things did improve greatly.
It was pure joy in the fall to walk the route downtown and in the neighborhoods, making friends along the way.
Today, January 14th, Melanie is about to go to Gainesville to a dermatologist to get her big toe checked she thinks has a melanoma due to radiation from 2009 H1N1 ordeal. We pray not.
I am to work at the gallery from 1-5, otherwise I would go with her.
We wound up ordering Kens BBQ last evening instead of going out to Longhorn. We were still full from the Shirley's we had at lunch. It is raining steady here and so the gallery will be a slow venture.
Peace out.

A Winsome Proposal

It was Saturday around noon and the wind was blowing in off Newnan's Lake Park in a vicious way.
This couple was off to my right trying to take wedding proposal photographs.

Smitten with Jeanie