The 29th day of the first

NEW STUFF ALL THE TIME!

If you gotten this far, you've noticed that I have added a slide show.  Whoooopeeeeeeee!  That ought to keep you here at least a good thirty seconds or so. If you place your cursor on a photo in the slide show and click it should take you to FAA for that photo.  God, I love things I can't understand. Oh and did I say I also love spellcheck....I don't understand that either.

  Also added a couple of crass commercial advertising links here on the right side for what has become my primary retail sight, Fine Art America.  There you can find all my good stuff for sale any way you want it.

  Also please check the art contests there.  Because they are fun.  AND there is a lot of fine art entered in those contests.  And you can vote, participate and even be entertained.  Some 67,000 artists are on board.  It's hard to stand out because the quality of the art and the presentation of the final product is so good.

So far, I have won.....WON.  Won, I say....four contest this year.  That's first place for those of you who don't understand.  So I'm no lightweight.  He says with tongue in cheek and in the style of Mohamed Ali............"I am the greatest". 

If you haven't read this blog before...I am kidding, do have a bit of sarcastic humor in me somewhere, and welcome aboard.  Tell your friends!   If you've been around this site before, just smile 'cause you know that's just the way I am.

Oh, and I am a capitalist so buy and get over it!

There will be a prize for anyone who can stay on this blog longer than thirty seconds and  is able to prove it.

The 27th day of the first

EAST BRANCH IN THE NORTH

As some of my readers will remember, for some forty years five of us went to NH fishing in the spring.  Well, the spring of our lives are over and the fall has set in and the trip is now a pleasant memory. 

That having said, the memories I have made on film are still in the can so to speak.  The snow and the ice has set in on the big lake in the past two weeks.  Lake Winnepasaukee that is.  I just posted an image on FAA showing a wild river in the White Mountains along the Kancamangus Highway.

Kancamangus is hard to pronounce, but try the East Branch of the Pemigewasset River.  That's a mouthful and I still have to look up the spelling every time I write about it or title a photograph.

I remember the day well.  It was pretty bad fishing all week on the big lake and we all looked for something else to do and take a break to get off the water.  I decided to take a ride with the cameras and venture  up through the mountains. 

Route 112 or the Kancamangus runs west from Conway, New Hampshire to Lincoln which is on Interstate 93 almost on the border with Vermont.  The road travels through many elevations and that day was cool at the lake but snowing and icing in the mountains.  This image was at a lower level where rain, fog and mist made photographing all the better.

There were some clear spots where the mist and fog didn't penetrate.  This little stream reminds one of what the wilderness must have looked like a hundred years ago.  The water looks as though you could just take a glass full and have a long drink.

At another time this is one of my favorite hidden ponds.  Not even sure today the name of the pond, might have been the Greeley Ponds area, but the walk in was a couple of miles through big woods.  Crystal clear and all alone.

Same feeling here.  And the ride across the state leads you to such places as Crawford Notch, Loon Mountain, Lincoln and Swiftwater.  What a neat place!  What great names for places.  Next time maybe I can get further north to places with names like Magalloway Mountain or Lake Umbagog. 

Jan. 26, 2012

Bittersweet!

We lost one of our followers and a best friend this morning.  It is always bitter two lose someone who has been a part of your life for over 40 years, but sweet knowing that we celebrate her life in our memories.

Rest in Peace and God bless the family.

THE 23RD OF THE FIRST

I GUESS I WILL JUST NEVER UNDERSTAND

God has a plan.  He has never really shared it with me personally, but I guess that's coming. 

Personally, I have enough stupid in me to make some pretty serious mistakes in this life.  Just enough smarts to know better, but not enough common sense to make the difference work.  At least to the level that I thought it should.

We all know that He is always there overlooking that which he made in his own image, but sometimes I gotta wonder why I often never see it.

People who have done wondrous things in life pass away too quickly although they have lived a long and meaningful life.  And yet there seem to be sufficient haters out there that would publicly damn them them to purgatory.

On the other hand.....

There are those who seem destined to suffer prematurely for long periods of time, waiting till the body finally gives up.  Nice people who have caused more good in this life with just a simple "Hello how are ya"?  And it is amazing to me the amount of beating the body can take before they slip back into God's hands. And why the suffering?  Or is that just part of the healing process for those of us who love and remain?  I guess so.

And then there are the Evil, who just seem to hang on forever.  What's up with that?

Suffice to say, I guess that we all just have to wait to find out the "What" and must just let go of the "Why".

The 19th of the 1st

PHOTOGRAPH BANNED AT BWI

I guess the airport is now called the Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport just to be totally, politically correct.  It's in Maryland which right there is enough of an explanation about "Political correctness".  It used to be called simply BWI.  Then they had to change it to assuage  some group just to show the rest of us how ignorant we were and how good they were.  Which of course is what PC is all about....the elite telling we, the less elite, what it's all about to be elite.

 Confused? Don't be it is all part of some diabolical long term  plan on the part of somebody up there on the ladder to somebody else's success or perception thereof.  Called self aggrandizement! But I'm not cynical.

I have written here in the past about how commercial fisherman on the Chesapeake Bay are, for the most part, called "Watermen".  Still are, and have been for generations.  In fact, the first waterman was probably a native American who picked up an oyster along the shore and traded it to one of the invading evil white men from Europe for three beads and a hank of red cloth.  But that is another story altogether.

Watermen fish the bay all year round despite the weather.  The fish for anything that can be sold to the buyers and in turn the general public.  Eels go to Europe.  Crabs and oyster are shipped all over the country, as are the fish fish caught.  Catfish go to catfish ponds in the Midwest and south and strippers go on my plate.  That is when I can get the wild kind.  Soft shell clams are shipped to New England for processing into clam "Chodaw".  The clams are probably the largest portion of the seafood harvest in the Chesapeake.  At least dollar wise. 

The watermen spend thousands of dollars on boats and clam rigs jut to maintain a fiercely independent lifestyle.

The work from early dawn to about mid afternoon, generally about a 12 hour day on the water and another five or six at port cleaning and maintaining equipment.  Not a ride in the park as job descriptions go.  And you gotta make a living in the winter as well.

Tough to get out of port just to work all day in freezing weather.

And the commute is a little hairy at times as well.

After all that preamble.  Yes, one of my photographs has been officially banned at BWI airport.  A few year back, I submitted an image to the add agency in New York that was redecorating the ticket area in the airport.  They chose one of my prints and with the aid of mirrors and other trickery made it into a 4 foot by 16 foot mural.  It looked good and was nice money.

However!

  One lady wrote a letter of complaint to the authorities at the airport claiming that my photo was obscene.  One person mind you.  Being politically correct, it had to come down, and down it came.  I had to replace it with some sunset scene of a marina.  I wanted a press release....which I didn't get.  Knew I wouldn't but also knew it was fun to tweak them.  This was the image, now remember 4x16 feet of something that was the biggest commercial dollar harvest on the bay.

My only reaction to all of this was my comment to the ad agency ..... "Well, obviously that lady has never seen an aroused clam"!

The 18th of the first

Minding the Roots at Tavern Creek - 18

CRAB, CRABS, BACK FIN, BLUE CRAB.....DELICACY!

OK, I haven't even finished my first Pikes Place cup of caffeine and I am thinking of something to eat.  Something I haven't had in a long while.  At this hour of the morning why do I think of steamed crabs.  Lord knows and he ain't talking, but that's where I'm at.  

We used to take the little wooden boat and search the flats around the mouth of the Tavern or take a half hour ride south to the flats at Eastern Neck Island on the mouth of the Chester River.  Two ideal spots to wade the shallow with a dip net.  We'd tie a bushel basket to our waist and put it in an old inner tube and drag this arrangement around to hold the crusty crustaceans that were unlucky enough to succumb to our efforts.

All we had to do was to jump of the boat and wade with the dip net just grazing the sandy bottom of the bay and disturb the crabs hiding in the grasses.  What fun.  Bare feet would encounter all sorts of debris which could cut normal feet.  But ours of course were well callused by normal daily use.  We would remove our shoes as soon as it got warm in the spring and not put them on till we got new ones for school in the fall.  

Often when a hard crab (that's what we called them) would get up and run before us, it would be holding on to a buster (a crab losing its shell which they do in order to grow a new one) or a soft crab (one that has lost it's shell).  Buster and soft crabs were premium crabs to us.  Both made great bait used to fish for the wonderful strippers and other fish we caught.  Soft shell were a dining delicacy tho.

For us, and we were kids, the wholesale pricing of the crabs was the important part.  Soft shell crabs commanded the highest price at the market, busters next and finally hard crabs.  No we had no license the the fish house just looked the other way when we showed up looking like starving little urchins trying to feed our families.  But that was the way it was growing up.  A bushel of crabs could grub stake us for a week.  What fun! 

The 17th of the first

Certainly not a paid advertisement!

I have been spending most of my time on Fine Art America and creating some of the best results I have found for selling art on the web in the last ten years.  A friend of mine asked my opinion them other day and I hope he joins me and the other 89,000 or so artists trying to sell something there.

http://skip-willits.artistwebsites.com/

Here is a portion of my response to him.

"Hey and how u doin? As they say say on the "Jersey Shore".  The FAA site it a wonder to me. I have been trying to establish something on line for years. Mostly to no avail. This site however is the best I have found.  Means, yep I actually sell some stuff. Have won two contests this month, and Saturday had over 400 hits alone. But there's 89,000 artists on the site.......so it's hard to compete. And they take about two months to pay. But if you can get a flow going, then that's ok. My fear is that some major framing company will buy them out and mess it all up. But while it's working is ok.

 Jeff, I have had my own websites, my own contributions to web sites for years and nothing has worked. It's all about getting your face out there or name that is. I saw one guy who sold 30 something prints of one image in one day from this site. But he is an accomplished artist well and beyond the web stuff. I have a Facebook page as you know, a Twitter page, and a Stumble upon page. A this page and a that page.  Key words, key titles, key paragraphs, key blog and all that stuff.  They all have to be worked on a daily basis. I took the day off on Sunday and had only 50 hits. I write a blog as well and try to keep that fresh each day or three and that is work. I have no idea how those that write for a living produce the stuff they do. It's like the duck carvers, how do they do that stuff anyway....lol.

The beauty here is that we don't have to carry an inventory. They do it all and of course in addition to charging us a fee, both annual (tiny) and per piece (is ok), they charge the buyer for the matting and framing. We get a little piece of that too, charged back. You will need a paypal account to make the money work but that ok as long as you don't maintain a huge balance that some hacker in his mother's basement can steal. I dont' participate in their chat rooms or blogs (no time) but the contests are easy and great exposure. Every time I do something on FAA, I also hit it FB and twitter. You can automatically hook up each listing with your facebook page, so that is very easy. I do, and this is the golden rule, contact people who leave comments, kudos, and the like. As well as the buyers. I try to keep it all personal as possible.

I never make a bad comment about anyone even though some of the people on any sight need to put down others in the misguided thought that it somehow elevates themselves. I just delete them and go on. They have no significance to me. I am not online to massage my ego. 21 years showing at the Easton Waterfowl Festival took care of any delusional, self engrandisement I might have entertained. I retired there last year and understand but heard it wasn't so good anyway. I am doing no more art shows. It started out as not doing any outside shows, but then was easy to say screw it and try to do it all sitting on my butt at the computer." 

This is one of my contest entrants and is a totally different topic for me.  Kinda fun to see how it competes.



Now I find that this too is work.  Funny about that there still seems to be no free lunch out there.  So to all my photographer friends who think that they have the next "Mad Bluebird", take a look at this site.  By the way, the Mad Bluebird image made in excess of two million way before the internet.

 Work it and you just may end up selling a lot more stuff that you expected.

OK, spell check isn't working so you'll just have to deal with it today.

Here is another fun site with good work I encountered on Twitter, so take a look.

http://wildlifeencounters.photoshelter.com/

The 16th day of the first

MINDING THE ROOTS AT TAVERN CREEK - 17

The ground seven or eight miles inshore, that would be east, of Gratitude is primarily farmland, marsh, and hardwoods.

  For background to terminology and places, dear reader, you must go back to earlier posts.  Gratitude is on Swan Creek and just a skipping stones throw east of the Tavern.  All of this is on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.  Eastern Shore that is, of the Chesapeake Bay.  It's called the "Shore" for the uninitiated

The farmland is devoted mostly to corn and soybeans, with a little winter wheat thrown in to feed the geese in the early spring.  In fact most farmers leave some corn stand each winter, just to feed the geese and deer.  The ground that is not farmland is mostly there for the wildlife.  Geese, ducks, songbirds, deer, rabbits and raccoons mostly.  And of course those suburban invaders along the water called new developers.

As a photographer, it is the hardwoods and marsh that have most interested most me in the past.

 Early morning seems to emote the most curiosity.  Things are waking up to a new day.  The sun moving through the hardwoods is waking up a new day and God's warmth begins to take over the night's chill.  An early fog is dissipated.  Shapes in the marsh begin to take form as the light of the magic hour gradually develops. Ducks are on the  move through the marsh in seek of food.  Geese and swan are flying from open water to the fields of grain for breakfast.  Nocturnal critters are in search of a place to sleep during the daylight hours.  And the "Krank, krank" of a blue heron distrubed from his haunts resounds through the submerged grasses.  The slap of a beaver's tail announces that he is on the move. 

Another day begins.

The 15th of the 1st month.

MINDING THE ROOTS AT TAVERN CREEK-16

~

"RETURNING TO THE ROOTS"

It's something about the journey.  Not the result, which we have known all along but choose to ignore!

It's something about the way we compose that journey.  Whether we know it or not.

 

That's what we do...Compose!

And we have help!  And always will!

It's something about the impact we have.  Even if we aren't particularly trying!

It's something about the impressions we make.  Even when impressing is not the objective!

It's something about being true to ourselves.  Even when everyone around us is being otherwise!

It's something about being there for others.  Even when it's not popular!

It's something about friendship.  Sometimes it's hard...but when it's true, it's not!

It's something about love.  Not easy, but always there!

It's something simply about returning......

  With our heads held high, still ready to kick butt and take names!

Because that's... the way...we do it!

The 13th day of the first

GAZEBO SUNSET

I have said it many times....what a blessing to be a photographer.  We can always revisit a spot, a mood, an event, old friends through reflection, and a reinforcement of the reason we are all here.

I am always a sucker for sites with great names....."Toad Hollow"  Well alright!  And great photography too.

http://www.toadhollowphotography.com/

The 12th day of the first month

OF CAMERAS AND ANCHORS

Well all the politicians, hangers ons, promoters, liars, and whatever left New Hampshire just in time yesterday.

New Hampshire is doing what it does best at this time of year, other than primaries that is,........Snowing.  Here is a cam shot of the big lake, Winnepasaukee just a few minutes ago.

Proof that the rascals all left the state either yesterday morning or the night before can be seen here at a Mitt rally, with Gov. Niki Halley and hisself last night in Columbia, SC.

Oh I know you will all call me one of those right wing, bible reading, gun toting whackos just for attending.  Well, I don't have thousands or rounds of ammunition, maybe a couple of hundred, but I did want to see what a political rally was all about.  Never been to one before.  Took about two and a half hours and he talked for maybe ten minutes.  Kinda fun people watching. 

This is the "Anchor" part of the title.  I think there were almost more media than normal people.  Not that cameramen aren't normal, but I would like to have had 1% of the value of all the cameras in the room.  Not to mention the print media at a long table with their laptops.  Ice tea was served, nobody asked for a donation, and the occupiers were someplace else doing whatever it is they do.  All I can say is the man has a nice firm handshake.

Oh, and we went over 10,000 page views on the blog today.  First time, let's shoot for double that in 12.  Thanks everyone!

The 11th of the first

PEMAQUID

This is just for fun.  I love sepia and I love good color.  So why not?  The original of course is in full color displaying the reflection pool on the rocks below the light.  A little tom foolery in photoshop and here you go!

This is of course Pemaquid Point Lighthouse in Maine.  I must admit that I was looking for the reflection pool when I first arrived and didn't even have to haul water to fill the thing.  I guess that the tides take care of that.  This is a spectacular place to visit and is the epidemy of the term "Rocky coast of Maine". 

Pines, rock, and ocean are the classic location for a lighthouse such as Pemaquid Point. John Quincy Adams commissioned the original light and dwellings in 1827. The rock outcroppings offer visitors a chance to sit and watch the ocean and dream about the hard life the keepers endured to protect the early mariners from desolate outcroppings such as this. High tides leave pockets of water from which reflections can be seen.

An interesting aspect of the conical tower was the way they capped it just below the light room. A large circular slab of soapstone was laid on top of the tower and a large hole was cut in the center to allow access to the light itself. The original tower had problems and had to be rebuilt in 1835 and is the one we see today.  For a photographer, one of the problems in shooting such tourist destinations is just that.  Too many people to get a clear shot.  Just to the right of this image as a young lady reading a book and an instant before I took the picture someone had just gone in the door of the keeper's house.  Just got to wait it out.

Here's a link to a gallery in New Mexico with some interesting artists listed.

http://www.waxlander.com/artists-santa-fe-art-gallery

The tenth day of the first month

MINDING THE ROOTS AT TAVERN CREEK-15

While the little fourteen footer was not enough boat to get us down below the Bay Bridge from Gratitude, as the years past the boats got larger and my childhood drive to roam sparked visits to exotic places like Annapolis, Maryland.  If this sentence is confusing, you must go back to last year's entries regarding "Tavern Creek", my childhood, and a little boat.

Recently I have been using some sepia tones for a few of the lighthouse images I have made over the years.  More regression to my childhood perhaps.  But this way, when they repaint them a different color .... no one will know.  Lazy huh?  But sepia, to me, represents a time gone by which is what the functionality of the lights has become.  A tourist destination now and not so much a maritime necessity.  But then that's progress.  Or maybe it isn't.  Even as a day mark, these lights lend a certain sense of relief to the mariner.  I've been there and it's true.  And the lights are still a special part of the maritime history in most countries.

THOMAS POINT SHOAL LIGHTHOUSE

The only screw pile lighthouse left in Chesapeake Bay waters is the Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse, built on November 20, 1875. This in fact may be the only screw pile platform for an octagonal house left in the water.  Thomas Point was also the last manned lighthouse on the Chesapeake Bay, and is on the National Register of Historic Places. The light is located off the mouth of the South River at Annapolis, Maryland.

The original light at this location was built on a seven-acre parcel of land on Thomas Point. The land was sold to the government for $530 in 1824, and the following year the first light was built by John Donohoo on that point of land. This was the first lighthouse constructed by Donohoo, who went on to build several more around the bay including Concord Point at Havre De Grace. This first light was doomed because of Donohoo’s relative inexperience and by 1838, it had to be rebuilt. The total cost of the original light surpassed $5,600.

Remember to click on the photos for better resolutions.

In 1882 it became apparent to the Lighthouse Board that the light, in its original location, was of little use because it was so removed from the expanding shoal. A new and less expensive screw pile light was constructed and remains today.  The "Screws" were twisted into the bottom of the bay or river and a platform was constructed to hold the keeper's house and light tower.  The land on the point where the original house was built was sold to private interests for $426, one hundred dollars less than the original purchase price.  While this type of construction was deemed less expensive in the short run.....in the long run it was more costly because annual ice flows would cut the spindly legs and virtually dismember the entire structure.  This one has been protected by the rip rap (stones) around the base and has lasted all these years.

Here is the wikipedia link for the lighthouse.

http://en.wikipedia.o/rg/wiki/Thomas_Point_Shoal_Light

And some interesting photography at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/violinconcertono3/

The ninth of the first

THE SONG OF THE OLD HOBO

The clack, clack, clack of a train of railroad cars going over a bridge is an early morning fog holds for some the same feeling as the call of a loon across a lonely northern lake.

 The whine of a train whistle approaching a crossing can stir an inner feeling of loneliness perhaps.  Or optimistic pessimism.  Maybe it's pessimistic optimism.  Conjure!

  A foggy morning can elicit those types of feelings.  Even with nothing else going on other than the sound of perpetual rusting of the metal in the bridge. 

Can we actually hear the deterioration of that metal if we stop long enough to let the inner mind wander.

  God it's often good to be a photographer, we can always go back there on a moment's notice.

By the way, do they still call them Hobos?  Are have they lost all the romance and now just called homeless persons.  It seems to me that there is a difference.

Oh and for you ladies, and maybe even for some of you weird men out there like me.  Don't forget Aubrey's site.

http://www.high-heeledlove.com/2012/01/shoe-lust-saturday-1712.html

The 8th of the 1st

Bath day is NOT fun!

Check out the BirdGal
http://networkedblogs.com/st1LY

The seventh of the first

CAT TAILS

It's all in the perception!

Here's another great photography website.

http://www.lesleychalmers.com/#img-517_show

The sixth of the first

Some new listings on FAA

http://skip-willits.artistwebsites.com/

In the general scenics section

Some interesting photographs at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ashey84/


 

The fifth of the first

Just felt a little patriotic this morning. 

Just a reminder that we live in the greatest country in the world.

The fourth of the first

Of course it's a bird feeder........Duh?  Where else would a cat go?

Twenty two here this morning and feels like minus seven on the big lake in New Hampshire.  Ice coming in soon up there.  Here's a cam shot just for fun.

http://www.sunsetcliff.com/cam/01.jpg

THE THIRD OF THE FIRST

It's ain't over till the garbage man cometh!

Does it all boil down to this?

A Christmas tree that once held all the inspiration and anticipation that a small child's mind could conjure.

Trash barrels full of left overs.

The seamier side of some wonderful memories of family, fun, good food and love.

  Just wait for Valentine's day!

The 2nd of Jan 2012

PREPARATION

The First of January 2012

JUXTAPOSITION

1-1-12