O’er many a Bonnie field I wandered
O Jeanne our thrissles flourish’d fresh and fair
And bonie bloom’d our roses;
But auld lang came like a
frost in June,
An wither’d a’ our posies.
A grand St Patrick’s day from Bouquet Boy
They are the worst moments
These mid-March mornings
Musing morbidly cursing my
Taming longing again for the
old purple shades of sin
Flesh wars raging in the warm
Golden morning light
The crow diving over the
Calm red-shoulder hawk
Making a metaphor for me
Sitting atop that pine
While Cat Stevens I guess
Will forever chime
Oh baby it's a wild world.
The morning lights
whiteness that has touched the world
perfectly as air.
In the whitened country
Wendell Berry
Ah, today can we not stop and dream
Of a grand land of emerald green
Where yon lads chase the tide
And lassies the blush they hide
The ole home a welcome scene
The thistle but a flowering thing
Ah today, upon your green I rest
Oh Aiden, land of all the fairest
I sought to make a list
of all the lips I most missed
who left without e’en a kiss
but oh, how long the list.
Her heathy moors and winding vales;
The scenes where wretched Fancy roves,
Pursuing past unhappy loves!
Farewell my friends! farewell my foes!
My peace with these, my love with those-
The bursting tears my heart declare,
Farewell, my bonie banks of Ayr.
The gloomy night is gathering fast
Robert Burns
Johnclarestokes
Who recalls before the days of PC, the story of Little Black Sambo, how the four tigers took Sambo’s clothes and ran around the tree, claiming they were the prettiest, until they turned to ghee, or butter, of which Sambo’s mom made pancakes?
I loved that story!
Photo composite
For this shot I hiked over a mile with heavy lens in tow. When I got to my spot, I waited around for two hours. The day before, seeing 4-5 Osprey continually diving, but from a further vantage point, I thought the longer hike to a closer location would be worth it. Then came two boats of fishermen to stay in the spot. Tiring of listening to their music and profanity, I headed back. About a half mile back, two Osprey circled and it seemed the boats had moved. I returned. The Osprey left too.
All this to point out, a friend of mine, who gets paid good money to take people out on his pontoon boat, to shoot eagles and Osprey, chased an Osprey around on a lake for twenty minutes, taking nearly a 1000 shots, all keepers I’m sure.
My point? I guess one, I feel the chasing around these birds fishing constitutes harassment. Two, you can’t get decent shots from a distance, so a boat or some means are necessary if you are serious. Three, though you can get decent photos from amateur equipment, you really need pro expensive gear to get the “money” shot.
Of course, 'audience reaction' is all dependent on your audience. So you do need to choose your audience wisely. Nonetheless, it is also true in life. We only need to reference Justin Bieber, Kim what's her name and the Housewives of, well any number of cities. A quality which many of us would like, is often hijacked by the masses.
Here is John's post. I'll 'cut and paste' here so more people see it (Facebook does not like links) but I will post the link later in the comments section. And thank you John for the nice mention of me. ( I get embarrassed when people do that )
"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." ~ John Stokes
Like an American Pie do you recall the day
the madness died?
Were you standing on some asphalt court
free throw line?
And did you hurl that ball over that chain
link fence?
Or did you just sit and tear up that office
bracket?
I know it will always be the day we drove
The Chevy to the levee
But the virus wouldn’t die.
