Scouting

In a steady rain, we drove over to Raiford for Melanie to interview for a job at the Lake Butler Correctional Center. She said she would take it at last resort: night shift, mental prisoners. In Lake Butler, we stopped at Skip's Deli for lunch. We then drove around town, down by the lake, along the lake, then back to Lake City via the back roads leading to Providence. The water was really rising in the ditches, overflowing the roads in areas. There were many stops I could have made, but due to the weather, drove on. We did stop at the Midway Church and cemetery. I do not know why I never noticed this church before in all the bike rides Roger and I used to take on this road. I will have to return again when the weather clears.
I do not always get a haircut, but when I do, I prefer McLeod's.

Gator Day

It was early sunrise and we were heading down to Williston on Saturday for day of photographing per a request and then on to Cedar Key. It was SEC tournament time and Florida was in the final with Kentucky, the team I root for, having lived in Kentucky and attending school at Asbury College near Lexington. Florida won 61-60. It was a good sign for Florida.
There was a discussion on when one is taking landscape photographs for a person who requested you to take them, do you ask for a fee up front, or do you just take the photographs and trust the person will give you some form of appreciation? As it was, I took nearly 200 shots, did post processing, put them in a smug mug album and sent them to the person. My hindsight told me perhaps I should have handled it somewhat differently. One friend told me to have a price list and be up front. As usual, I broke the rules and payed.
We automatically assume if a lawyer or any other professional does any form of work, there is going to be a fee. Why we consider artists doing their work gratis is beyond me, but that is the way it is.

Eighty for One

The hummers were returning and I sat out on the patio in the lounge chair with the D3100 and manual 180mm and 2x attached. Light was low and I had to up the ISO to 400 in order to maintain a minimum of 125 shutter speed. I was shooting manual, as that is the only way I can shoot with the old legacy lenses.
The hummers were mostly sitting on the rose bush limbs and resting between trips to the feeder. This time, the male hovered long enough in one position to allow one quick shot. None of the photographs I took were sharp by any means, I think that is just the nature of having the 2x attached, but the light was sweet in the background and sharpness was not critical.

Last Shot

I rode the one mile distance from the house on the mountain bike to the Price Creek Cemetery. It was windy and the sun was coming in and out rapidly. I knew the dogwood tree was in full bloom and I wanted to capture it in full sun, with shadow of the old oak framing it. Of the nearly fifty frames I took, from various angles, this was the last frame. Was it the best, the culmination? I would not necessarily say so. Sometimes, we are simply lazy and do not feel like taking the time to study critically the details.
I used the D3100 with the 18-55lens, with two ND graduated filters stacked. One just doesn't darken enough for my liking. But, the gradated point is square in the middle of the frame so some of the nice dogwood was darkened. In this last frame I did not use the graduated filters. I have a set of square graduated filters I forget to take along that would have allowed me to hold the graduated spot higher up above the dogwood. Then, I would have needed to take the tripod along, which I should use, but again, too lazy to carry it on the mountain bike. How much better we would be if we weren't so lazy!

Tush, tush

This is an example of another photograph that no one got. I took it down from FB after only 56 views and one like, no comment.  It begs another question, do people get humor or do they only look quickly at a photo and judge instantly if it is worthy of comment or further thought? I visualized this shot instantly as I was standing next to this lady watching the two men load the huge fishing boat at the pier at Cedar Key.
The man's over-alls were falling and it looked as if the lady was capturing it, as she actually was.
I enjoy street photography, capturing frozen moments in time and creating a story within the constant movement of life. This was one such. It was not beautiful. It failed.

Post Haste

The first photograph was originally presented in black and white with the Holga application. The Holga application blurs the edges, heightens the contrast and gives a look to the photograph I sometimes utilize to either mask poor initial exposure, cover distracting elements or simply give the photograph a sense to detachment. These photographs I took in 2011 when my father was near death in the VA hospital in Lake City. He had lingered for nearly a month in and out of consciousness, never recovering his speech. He would try and communicate with us but it was most difficult. As usual, as in every event, always, I had a camera. It is second nature. I would not know how to manage if I had no camera with me. I am continually thinking in terms of light, composition, expression. My wife can be sitting before me telling me if I do not quit acting the child, get some responsibility, it is over, and my thought is, how the light falls upon the frowning.
The third photograph is of my sister, the first child, the apple of my fathers eye, the spoiled child, if you will. She just happened at the time to be working as a Hospice nurse in the Serenity Ward where my father spent his last days. The photograph is the moment of death. Before that photograph, my father had been lying silent, the breaths further and further apart. Suddenly, he opened his eyes wide in wonderment, looking out toward the window in front of him to his right, then closing them, sinking down in the bed in death. Earlier in his stay there, he had communicated that an angel was standing there by the window.
There were other photographs, but at this point, three years hence, I am too close to the scene. Perhaps further down the road I will post the entire set.

Beautiful

I hold my fathers hand for the last time.

Something I find to be true is people for the most part just want to see something beautiful. And, they do not want to engage beyond viewing, then moving on. This I find to occur often, one example being when I posted a scenic of Cedar Key from long ago. It got around three hundred views. I followed this up with a photograph of the old Sundance bar and a couple and their little dog fishing from the pier at Cedar Key. To me, these two photographs were much more interesting and intriguing. But they both received around fifty views.
I am almost to the point of growing weary of posting photographs that receive the beautiful moniker. I really do not know what I am after, for I too gravitate toward beauty, it is in our redeemed nature. But on a deeper level I desire to go beyond the surface, obvious beauty of a scene to the essence level of portraying pathos, sorrow, hope, joy, anything but beautiful. Steve Coleman the photographer from Australia uses a Mamyia7 film camera capable of producing some of the sharpest photographs imaginable, yet he deliberately chooses to blur his images by hand holding long exposures. He is weary of the arcane, landscape cookie cutter, beautiful scenes so many crank out with their Canon Mark threes.
I would ultimately strive for the photograph to touch people on a deeper level, even to make them squirm, maybe question a reason for something, to cause a reaction, an engaging. And is that not what is at the heart of art? To convey a worldview of the artist? To cause one to view the world on a deeper level beyond the easy beautiful and moving on to the next beautiful.
Ray Stevens said Everything is Beautiful, In its own way,  and he was right. It is also a terrible cliche and each time I receive a beautiful remark, I think of the song and say, whoops,I did it again, stayed upon the surface.
And I will admit, we all are out for recognition. We are busy tooting our horns and screaming for notice.
It is difficult to shun the adulation and dare perhaps offend or challenge by offering photographs or works  that go to another level, even a darker level, for it is sometimes in darkness where light is fully appreciated.
I think of the photojournalist Eugene Smith.  In the seventies I was greatly moved and influenced with his photographs of the children and families in Japan sick from mercury poisoning from a chemical plant in their community. The birth defects were rampant. Smith captured in stark black and white the pathos, the sad humanity, and yet, the boundless love of a mother to hold dearly her deformed child.
Moving stuff. Way beyond the beautiful I am too prone to. Images I hold in my mind to this day. Who holds the beautiful sunset with azaleas I just took? Few.

A series of interpretations

After walking down the trail and viewing the roots that Herb Ellis photographed to win first place in the photography division, I decided to try my hand at some roots. Herbs was done in black and white, and my efforts at his roots were not the same. These vines were further down from his. I think I lean toward the one toned down, number three and four. What do you prefer?

Yeats

I used this photograph to illustrate a Yeats poem at John Clare page. It is about an 8 second time exposure of the tree in Mrs Duncan's yard. It is the same tree I used for thirty days straight. This night the dipper was just over the tree. I enhanced this beyond reality in post processing.

Quick Draw

I rounded the corner of the Willow Pond Trail at the Alligator Lake Park Recreation area.  This Columbia County owned park is made up of a large series of old dredged dikes the Hill family farmers created years ago. They even had the audacity in the old days to run a dike through the main body of water of Alligator Lake, creating fertile fields for crops. Amazing in that it was even allowed. But, today the dikes serve as good hiking trails through the scenic stands of cypress, oak and pine.
One rule of thumb as in hunting, one has to always have the gun loaded, finger on trigger, stopping often to observe and wait. I heard a pileated woodpecker working in a tree deeper off the trail, so I stopped and listened, trying to find him. I took a few shots into the dark shadows to check my exposure. Then, before I even had time to focus, he flew directly at me and lit on a tree about ten yards in front of me. He did not see me. As he peeked around the tree, spotting me, I was only quick enough to get a quick shot of his tail feathers as he flew off, never to be seen again.
I was amused at my shot, while at the same time lamenting I did not capture the peek around the tree at me.

Praise with elation

Well, sometimes titles are driven simply by what is at the time playing on the Pandora radio. I set the Pandora to shuffle through many of the radio stations I have set up. Metallica may be followed by Roy Rogers. Today, Cat Stevens was playing Morning has broken.
Today is Friday. We plan on traveling down to Williston tonight and return Saturday afternoon. I would have liked to stay in town and attend the Wild Azalea in White Springs, hearing my friend Johnny Bullard of White Springs sing, but another time. I hope to get some good early morning photographs of the Dixie Lily Ranch outside Williston on US27 for Diane Webb. We shall see.
Today the weather is crisp and cool. The sky clear and blue. Melanie winds up her home job today. She already has a video interview today and another on Monday. I will apply for a Park Naturalist position at the Olustee Battlefield. It says Civil War knowledge helpful. I have some of that. We shall see. The thought of retail turns me into groaning.
And so we continue to photograph with what we got. The Nikon D3100 sparingly, the Canon S95 and S100 more so. I see where several of the younger types use Instagram. I signed up for that too, just to see what all the buzz is about.

For Thine Is

the kingdom
the power
the glory
forever


amen


after the Dr Randolph's nice technician and his nice young dentist daughter cleaned my teeth, x-ray ed me, told me i had cavities, i returned home only to venture over to Alligator Lake again, to get the contrail shot from the other day right. Today, after taking about two dozen shots from various angles of the lilies, I liked this one, where the lilies were lined up. And no jet streams.
I walked about up and down the trails, in search of barred owls. Heard them, but only in the distance. A nice pileated woodpecker flew right up to me, but I was only quick enough to get his tail before he flew off.
No deer, no turkey, no baby gators, though the mother is still on the bank. They grow fast and are probably nearby but growing quite independent.
Continue to lament the heavy toting of the Nikon and the metal and glass long lens. Would be nice to have a lighter, sharper, faster alternative. Nikon came out with the micro four third V3 today, but at 1200 for just the body, too expensive.
Again, if money was no object, probably would saddle up to the Canon Mark 3 at around 4K for body only. Money is always the object. Lack of.