Spring Forward Sunday

It was a wonderful Spring-like day, breezy and warm. I took a five o'clock journey out to Alligator Lake. With the new time, the park would stay open until seven. I strolled along the dike, stopped and talked to Rita, an old friend from Reporter days, along with her husband Steve. She said Steve may have need from time to time for my photography, so I left a card.
Took the D3100 with the 18-200 and a film days polarizing filter, the canon s100 with the film canister flash diffuser. Light as possible. Turns out, seven came quickly and I had to hurry back to the car.
I am continuing to work on the exposure and metering of the D3100, usually reverting to manual exposure to get the proper saturation's. Otherwise, I find the exposure is too light. It could be my use of spot metering. One camera that has no problem with the exposure is the Canon S100. It usually gives pleasing results, the only thing necessary is often to balance the flash with the daylight.
There were not many keepers,but days out a Alligator are more therapy and practice.

You will never outgrow grace

We were leaving Charlies Restaurant in Crystal River when the three people bowed and held hands in prayer over their meal. I had the Canon S100 out and took a quick snap blind as I walked past. It was a good testimony on their part as to public prayer. It was the only photograph I published this Sunday.
It is also a deeper metaphor for we are never too old to experience a flood of God's grace in our lives. Many instances in the Bible of God visiting and extending grace to the elderly. So I take hope in the coming days.

Quixote swords

Took the mountain bike out of the shed where it has rested for three months at least, rusting chain. Oiled it up and took off for Rossi Road, with no intention, other than to see where the moon was. I found it returning home directly overhead. I stopped and took photographs of the violets in the ditch, lately blooming due to all the rain, which was still streaming in the ditches. Just cool enough yet for a sweat shirt, I rode out to 100 where I made the previous blog photograph of the wonderful, beautiful end of the line.

Beautiful, wonderful end of the line

Well, not every concept or photograph is a success. After no likes and only 48 views, I deleted this photograph. It was a deliberate taking of a mundane photograph and going way over with the saturation and color to achieve what I was attempting to convey, the beauty of coming to the end of the line. That point in our lives where our attempts at trying to gain favor with God and man come to an end. We cannot buy our way into heaven. We are going there on the basis of grace alone. There are times I deeply feel I am not of the chosen, so fraught in sin and failure spiritually, continually. I have flickers of faith but mostly, lately I have been a very dark moon orbiting.

Christ in the Camp

It was Chaplain Joey Young's first service in the authentic confederate camp as a chaplain. There were less than a dozen men gathered about the fire waiting. He had his Chaplin straw hat with cross insignia, his KJV bible, his bell, pocket watch and black tails. About the nine o'clock hour for service, he reached down, checking the time again before picking up the hat, then the bible and bell to toll the service. I was ready with one shot. Moments occur like this and are never again to be repeated, sometimes re-created.
This was around 2009. Each year since, I try and attend Chaplin Young's service, which grew this year to over three dozen or more. Even though he uses the Armenian way of raising the hand at the end of the service, I still like to listen to him. There are other Chaplains in camps, some better than others, some worse.
It is one of the things I look forward to on each Sunday morning during Olustee.
This print is available at the gallery in 11x14.
I recently sold a 5x7 version.

between a dream

as i rounded the corner of 250 and Country Club for home, the sun setting to my right, i pointed the camera and shot as the large oak came into view between the two roadside trees. It blurred the large black tree nicely, keeping the background relatively sharp. I doctored it up in post processing by adding HDR affect slightly, warming, brilliance, about anything I could do to give it a dreamy affect. I even took out the black light wire between the two trees. So in a way, it is more of a painting than a photograph, at least, a representation, impression. It goes to show, one does not always need a stationary platform in which to make photographs. Many of my photographs are from moving vehicles. I have no qualms about it. It adds the element of mystery, of surprise. Sometimes it works, other times it falls flat. Part of the fun.

Pray,Maiden,Pray

Not the song I wanted to play. Bobby Horton's song, Pray,Maiden,Pray in his volume 4 CSA Songs, is much more appropriate. I will try and download it to the computer and place it here eventually. I think the photograph is from the 2009 Olustee. Fortunately, I have Smug Mug, and I have at least saved several years from Olustee there. Other years lost to computer crashes.
I was really drawn to the little maiden with her mother, or granny, in the petticoats. One shot, just as good, has her looking up at her granny. I deliberately toned it down to evoke more of a nostalgic feel to it.

Take me out

Take me out coach...set me on the bench..between the blackness... take me from the ball hogging...my vain dribbling...just so Kenny...or Penny...or Calvin...can throw it up...the gym isn't even the same...not even the game...all shook and jive...each man for himself...no limit they say...to the me...me....me....take me way, way back...when I was a cub in Kentucky...the boys rotated through the options....waiting for the open man...at the end of the play...not the first pass...after crossing center court....to Orville and the JV...a West Virginia protege...of West and how to play....telling me...you could go far....far....and then the blackness came....and I was no longer the answer from Kentucky...just another spastic white boy....out of place...in this place....of such blackness....

Oh March

Oh March, come not again...we have yet to recover from the taking...of two-eleven...eight-thirty...Luther Ray...daddy....preacher...too large in life to die...Oh March...come not again...I have written...to Japan...and...nothing...over there...is a grandson...who loved me...more than his own....gone....a year since seeing him...this March....Oh March...coming for Melanie...taking the job...perfect for her...making her...return to the fields...the highways...the hedges...leaving us again....wondering....from whence comes the groceries...Oh March...we are in lock step with you...boots laced and breeches tucked....goose stepping....saluting....obeying....parading...tears hiding...prisoners of March....march...march.

In A Gallery It Sold

In a Circle they met sold today for $65 plus tax. I had planned on selling it for $97 since I did valued the frame higher than the print. But, the fellow said I told him $49, which I meant if it was in a black frame, so we compromised. Frame cost me nothing anyhow, since it was copped from sister.
Anyway, printed another to take down. Nice just to sell anything and make up for the rental and club dues.
Yet to see commission check though from Mike. Must mention it tonight.
In a circle they met seems to be about the only thing I can sell lately. Oh well, at least something is selling.
Took another poem down from John Clare facebook page and re-posted it at Poetry of Image blog. Miffs me to no end to post stuff only to have it ignored. I think it is all in the friend mix. Most are probably out working and aren't always checking Facebook like I am. Not all as addicted.
Tonight is the Spring Reception at the college. I do not hold out much hope of winning. I do think the ladies hands sewing in black and white will win overall or first in photography.

The Azalea Gala

It did not look as if the sunset was going to appear. Most of the late afternoon was gray overcast. I was inside and as I looked out the back door, noticed a redder sky opposite the sun. I thought that unusual. I went out back with the Canon S100 and took several shots, nothing of note. Turning, I was amazed. Over the pool and house a brilliant red appeared seemingly from the gray suddenly. I took a few shots and rushed inside, telling Melanie on my way to the front yard to look at the spectacular sunset. I went out to the azalea's by the road and tried to get a good shot balancing the flash with the sky. Usually, I over-expose the flowers. I got two correct before the brilliant sky faded. It came quickly and was over as fast.
The photograph was then placed on Facebook without little if any work. The comments were slow to come. Johnny Bullard was most kind, saying I need to make note cards and enlarge it. And yet, as nice a shot as it turned out, it has so far come no where near the shot of 170th Avenue lane. It depends greatly on who shares and sees. Friends of friends see and it grows. I cannot emphasize this enough to my friends.

of wind and rain

Wallace Stevens stopped by today and left two poems for me. Gerald, Melanie's step father in law stopped by to say hello, in town selling toilet paper to fire stations and jails. Things we need, poetry and paper.
And so Melanie types out her resume, while Frank, the Vietnam vet pool man puts a new mother board in the salt generator. Needs 40 pounds of salt, yellow stuff and chlorine. Always in need of something, that pool. Do not buy a home with a pool. You will grow old and tired of its demands.
It is eternally interesting to me the things that reverberate. The photograph of 170th Avenue was not particularly a grand shot. It was not even the main reason I told Gerald suddenly to stop! It was the fruit upon the Japanese plum beside the old oak that did. I offered to pick some, but they said it was on private property. I said, looks to me no one even lives there. And so, in the getting back in, I took this and two other lane shots. And that is the way it went. The three occupants in a particular hurry to get somewhere, with me, not. But, as I posted already, I resigned myself to the speed and tried to snap as we flew past places I once walked upon slowly.
And we never made it to the cemetery, detouring instead left at the intersection of the trees to go up toward Blue Grotto. I told Melanie that next time we come, it probably will be just me coming. No one else could stand my slow driving.