Olustee

Tis that time of year again. I am not too certain if this year I will be so wholly involved. On Friday I man the booth for the Art League from 11 til 1. Saturday, I would like to go out to the battlefield, but meme is here and Melanie is going to Williston to see her mother and Kim, her sister from Alabama. So I suppose I will go early Sunday. I saw Faye Bowling in Office Max and thanked her for all her devotion to Olustee over the years. I told her I had some photographs and poetry that I would show her, as a possible use for next year.
Today, after the proverbial trip for magenta xl, I printed out a dozen poem and photo combinations. I will choose two to hang and take the rest down to Olustee somehow. I have run out of mats and frames.
I want to enlarge to 16x20 and above if funds allow, which they don't at this time.
Much by way of want to's. Little by way of can.

It is a raining, cold day this Wednesday. Melanie has given mamma a bath and oriented her. She gets totally confused as to time and day and place. Jordon is in the last stages of his flu, though it hasn't affected his video playing. If the weather permits, I will go over to Alligator Lake to see if the white pelicans are back. I went the other day and about a dozen were in the distance. It would be nice to catch them closer.
Allison has been in the hospital with dehydration and electrolyte imbalance. She came home today around ten where she will need bed rest for several days. That will be tough as she is always such a go getter.
I was to take Pearce Saturday to the Olustee Fun Run but it looks like a nix. At least he said yesterday he didn't want to run. I think he fears not winning. Just like I was back then. Shy and letting things get away because I would not act upon things. Sad.

Landscape Self Portrait

It was simply a whimsy. The late evening long shadow of myself kept getting into the frame. I would try and adjust to the far right in order to cast it out of the frame. A few only my head protrudes, this one I deliberately put myself in. I broke a few rules in the process, horizon line at mid point in frame, shadow of self, turning signature vertically.
It was received as a good photograph on facebook, even so far as to call it an award winner. I am not too certain of that.
Regardless, it was a good late afternoon with the cloud and sun darting in and out.

Today, Monday, I worked downtown at the Gallery from 9 til 2. I mostly scraped and pulled nails. They are shooting for an early April opening and  much is needed. They hope to land some grant money, otherwise, it will be a sparse renovation. Too bad someone with much money could not give an endowment like the Valdosta Gallery did of around a million, freeing them up to go first class.
Tomorrow I work regular volunteer day at the Gallery from 1-5.

Allison is in the hospital with dehydration and flu like symptoms, Jordon is sick with flu, Melanie just today got her sleep pap oxygen gear, Meme is staying over another night due to Allison in hospital and her two boys being kept by my sister.

Saturday Celebrations

After a Kentucky victory yesterday over Mississippi State, a celebration with some Kentucky Bourbon would have been in order. But lo, this was all available, an empty shot off Gabe Road. On the evening drive and shoot em up, stopping along one of the Feagle Roads taking photographs into Arky Rogers fields, late sun and shadow sending me scurrying to capture.
It was a day of small victories, of selling photographs and not being always in a red hole. A day thankful to be out and about, even if the outing produced little by way of keeping or OMg'ing anyone. That is just going to be the course I will take, no Clyde Butcher or David Moyneham, just an obscure one who happens not to find the sound of Limpkins awful.

CV reunion

Today the full circle closed and what occurred thirty-five years ago came to a good conclusion. It began in Williston in the mid-seventies when Mr Thomas Jones, then a chiropractor in Williston, asked if I would paint him a portrait of his father in Trenton for his office. We arranged to drive over one afternoon and take some photographs from which I could work from. Tom, a troubled soul, told me of hardship and tough times as we drove from Williston. Arriving at the old home place, I was somewhat intimidated and not knowing what to expect. I tried to walk about without intrusion and take photographs. We got Mr CV to pull the new Ford Tractor out from the barn. I only took three photographs. Quite bold as I usually took many. I did not want to intrude. Mr CV immediately after the posing disappeared back into the rambling old house with the dog trot separating the eating from the sleeping. I sensed a tension in Tom and his parents and we soon left.
I got busy on the painting while at Florida Southern in college. In the meantime, the sad news came that Tom had been sent to prison. He was convicted of hiring a hit man to have his wife Ellie killed. The hit man he contacted was an informant. With his business closed, the painting went in storage. Further sorrow ensued when several years later, after being released from prison, Tom offered two black men a ride. They got in, beat him to death and stole his truck, leaving him on a country road. And so the painting sat in the shed, under the bed and other places.
It was just last week that Melissa Shelton Lord, who once lived in Trenton, and manages the You know your are from Trenton when...page, posted one of my photographs from the Jones farm. She messaged me that Mr Jones grandson Jamie was inquiring about the photograph and would like a copy. I messaged him and said I would make him a copy, plus I had a painting he may be interested in. We messaged back and forth on Facebook and arranged to meet today at the Gallery. Meantime, I got the painting down from the shed and touched up the cracks and fades, resigning the painting, putting a coat of varnish on it.
It looked almost new, but with the cracks adding character.
Around 9 today Jamie and his wife arrived at the gallery and we exchanged the prints, nearly 30, and the painting. We had a good visit, with him telling me stories of the farm, Mr CV, how he lost his fingers on the left hand, of driving down to Shands in Gainesville with the fingers after touching an electrical wire in the field, etc. It was a good end to the painting, which will now be framed properly and hung in a place of love.
A boy of around ten when the painting was made.
Glad it ended well.

White Balance

In photography there are many, many choices and ways to interpret a scene. Here, by adjusting the white balance to shade, overcast, auto and open shade, I achieved four different looks. One can go further by adjusting the exposure up or down or the shutter fast or slow. Then you could go vivid or neutral or monochrome. Then when you return home make it infrared. So which of these has the most appeal to you?
There is another reason why I take so many photographs:  In order to get the look that I am after, it often involves, like painting, using a raw or a burnt umber, a pathalo or an ultramarine blue, a veridian or a forest green.
The digital era, while short on lasting value, is long on experimental value. In the old days, we were limited to one roll of film at a time. Kodachrome for a warm look, Velvia for vivid, Extachrome for cool, etc. That was our white balance. To achieve a neutral white balance that properly exposed the whites, we would calibrate the meter on an 18% gray card. We would hold the 4x4 card in open shade and take a meter reading. This would give us a starting point to proper exposure. We wouldn't know if we got it right until the film was processed.
Now, on average, I will take nearly 200 shots daily when I am out. That amounts to roughly ten rolls of 24 exposure film daily. In the film days, I was lucky to shoot that much in a month.
And still, I do believe that I come under the 100,000 exposure mark that Thom Hogan says you need on a camera in order to consider yourself having mastered your craft. Even today, there I was, fiddling with the exposure and white balance and focus like trying to play a warped necked guitar out of tune.
It will be a glorious day when I go forth into the field and I am master of the camera, it melting in my hands, not my cursing mouth.

Susie Q

Comtemplative

And what of this Friday, the rapidly moving month of February, into the seventh day? Early cool and painting the wash tubs like watermelons for the sidewalk sale tomorrow at the Gallery. Finishing the printing of Mr Jones photographs and again running low on cyan. Sending him the information on the total cost and him so far purchasing all, but I am cautious. Going into town to take mamma to her hair appointment. Going to the lake while waiting for her and seeing the White Pelicans arriving in two groups. Must get out in the kayak, but they are quite elusive and fly on a whim. Picking mamma up and bringing her to our house. Printing more 5x7's for myself and the sale tomorrow. Hoping for no rain. Allison and Paula bringing ham for supper with Melanie making sides. Carson too. Pearce spending night with a friend. Watching Olympics opening.
Set up prints in living room. Melanie excited I am finally getting something going.
So many others I want to print out on a larger scale. Start small.
Wolfie and I spoke and he wants us to take a trip somewhere by 2015. Got to get busy on that. Looking forward. Up.

Sand Hill Sojourn

The winter is moving onward into February 5th with a cool day, lingering with rain and persisting. Usually another cold spell is in store for North Florida around mid February and into March, when the early buds often get nipped.
Lately I have been hearing a few of the Sand Hill Cranes making their way Northward. A few circle Alligator Lake and make a stop off for the evening, but most move on through.
The Sand Hills are in the distance, with a trail packed down by the alligators that move about.
A dynamic tension ensues. The peaceful passing of the Sand Hills, the disruption below of the alligators. A fight or flight tension.
One of few verticals that I have posted lately. Seems I prefer the horizontal.
If you are one of twelve followers reading this, what are your thoughts?
It would be nice every eon to get some.
Thanks.

Leading nowwhere

It fits the afternoon mood. Been to town to mamma's. Alone as usual. Sister a terrible caretaker. Mamma comes here tomorrow for the weekend. She looks forward to us. Melanie especially. Tables are always turned. Would it were us able to be retired and keeping her full-time, not a sister retired and not having time or wanting time for her.
Painting the washtubs like watermelons for Saturday's Sidewalk Sale at Gallery. Went by the gallery to get schedule. Mold in downtown building I find out from Rex and they will not be working tomorrow.
Vegetable soup on the stove. All the day I have had two coffees, two cokes, two almond joys, one turkey sandwich. Do not like this eating process. Suppose I to be crazy like a sister.

Cry of Coot

There is lake full of Coots. The Coots are vocal. They do not make any bones about it. Cackling and crying. They remind me of myself. Here I am, this crazy Coot always cackling and crying about. Notice me, look at me, like me, say something to me, me, me. And the herons, egrets, cormorants and osprey go about their business, ignoring the cackling coot.
And so the Coot has this disposition not so pleasant. Chasing other Coots about the lake, head lowered in an aggressive manner, chasing off any other Coots in his space. Its not a very happy lake when it's full of Coots, all vying for attention.
No one even likes to eat the Coots, so there is no thinning of the herd. They just multiply and add to the misery of the lake.
We need to make a decree, that the Osprey must take at least one Coot a day away from the herd. If not, I am afraid the Coot will take over the lake and it will grow viral with everyone cackling and no one giving a hoot about it.

Share

Mamma didn't teach many of her children to share it seems. Oh there were one or two who would, I suspect only because bully brother would beat the stew if they didn't. The children grew on into adulthood and had their own, and their own likewise would not share, much less care.
Each generation removed from Grand Mammy grew selfish as the giraffes, those long necks just standing out there in the rain.
My mamma taught me to share. Mrs Mary taught me to share the bread pudding. Angeline taught me to share Mr Langston's candy, Grandma Orander taught me to share the black cherries growing in her front yard, the raspberries off the East River Mountain. Oh, it took a long time. I didn't want any part in sharing what I had worked to pick, to pile upon my plate, or stolen from Langston's store.
But many spankings later it finally took hold and so today I share, if not from the heart, at least from the smart's.

Thursday Here

Melanie, on this sunny and 40 degree Thursday has gone to Grace Life Church to get her hair cut from Jayne, our former elder's wife, Barry. Three hour tour. She took the ink to exchange. Perhaps she will. She has a conference call at noon. Perhaps she won't. She texted to set the frozen chicken out. I fold the three dryer loads. Drink the coffee with the Hazelnut creamer. I copy the painting of CV Jones outside in the diffused light under the patio umbrella. Like to have a record since ole CV has been with us 35 years.
The growth on my right hand needs seeing. Continues to itch. Hit is today and it now looks worse.
And its Thursday. I posted the photograph last night at midnight. Ever Present. 52 views so far and two comments. OMg.
What lies ahead? Sameness. Yard. Fix the bird feeders. Pool. Sweep. Print. Hopefully. Watch. Sky. Dream. Continually. Read. Usually. Clean. Kitchen.
Sent the daily photo to Mrs Duncan. See her son hasn't left yet for Gainesville. Got to be wearing on him as well, the daily riding down, the sitting, the trying to communicate with her, well I know.