28 AUGUST 2013

UH-OH

Guess what day it is!

Mike, Mike, Mike.....what day is it?

OK, it's getting trite already.

  I truly thought it was Monday.  Last weekend we actually went on a road trip and acted like semi tourists right here in South Carolina.  We started out with a car show in Irmo, a small town a bit north west of here.  There must have been 200 cars there and I did get some postable images which was just fine.  BYW spell check says there is no such word as postable.  Sure there is, I just used it!

This was my first car in 1958.  OK, you do the math...I was 17!

A '51 Ford coupe I bought for $200 and it looks almost the same.  Except mine was metallic green.  A hot color for the time.  This one is for sale....$60,000 !!!

What the Heck was I thinking.  All those cars we had along the line and today they are worth more than some new cars.

Boy those were the days.  You could take the engine apart without a PHD in computer science and all you did was get a little dirty.  I can't begin to tell you the amount of money in that parking lot that day.  It just boggles the mind.  

Then we saw this as we headed out of town on our way along one of the back roads to a little town called Newbury.

I owned three of these!  If I had two cents and any sense, I should go back and buy that thing and rebuild it.  Alas, I got the sense by not the cents.

Newbury's claim to fame is the Opera House!  They get some top of the line shows there and it really is a quaint town.  As far as down town was concerned on a Saturday after noon------Not so much.  We saw one or two antique shops open and one restaurant, which was good.  I actually ate something called Dill Pickle soup.  I know it sounds strange and was.  But it was really good.  Most of the rest of the stores were closed.  Huh?  Saturday?

Stay tuned!  I'll write if I get work!

22 AUGUST 2013

I fear we are in for another invasion of the local stray cat chronicles!

The last time this happened we had a black cat take up residence in our garage for about a month and could not find him anywhere out there except when he was hungry.

This morning I see a Siamese wandering around the neighborhood.  My better half has a distinct affliction to the Siamese breed, so here we go again.

Course, I would choose to befriend one of these.  But then again it probably wouldn't be too practical.  And the last one of the larger cats I played with wanted me for lunch.

So maybe I should just stick with the strays that like free handouts.

And if the end of the world ever comes, at least we can eat these things instead of the other way around.

8 21 2013

Creek's up again!

We have been having enough rain each day to keep the river levels high, and then they open the gates on the Lake Murray Dam and up it goes another notch.  The actually had to close the upper gate to the Riverwalk at the West Columbia end.

I walked the new section of the RW on Monday around noon and found that I still had my hunting instincts from a hundred years ago.  I was purposely quiet because there were no people on the walk and I knew I would see something.  Sure enough there was a doe and her two fawn on a small ridge above the walk.  Momma stood and watched me for a few minutes then melted into the brush.  Babies stood wondering what was happening watch me for a minute more and then joined the doe in retreat.  

You all have a great hump day! 

20 AUGUST 2013

Calling somebody a "Turkey" is a pretty popular remark when you feel someone is acting foolishly. I imagine the remark stemmed from the way domestic turkeys behave and yes they are pretty dumb. Well yesterday I probably earned the name but fortunately there were very few people around to see the act.

You see as the old saying goes..."A turkey is so dumb he would drown in a rain storm".  The presumption is that he stands with his head and bill up looking to see where the rain is coming from and drowns in the process.  Well, I wasn't that bad.  But I wanted to make a specific image and I needed to get outside to exercise and clear all the mud from my thought processes. 

I had reached my destination and took a couple of pictures when the above happened.  Now there are not too many places on the Riverwalk to hide from the rain.  I do stop and get one or two of those doggy stuff removal bags that dog owners are supposed to carry for pickup.  In my case I used them to cover the camera....just a light plastic bag to keep it dry.  Well, they fit the camera but don't fit over my head.  No that's just poor planning on the part of the bureaucrat that invented the idea, sitting in his lonely geek cubicle devising ways to be a PITA to the rest of us.  So rethink it Wilbur!

I did luck out in as much as I found myself under the Rte. I126 bridge.  Me and the rest of the trolls resided under there for a half hour.

Another term I wonder the origin of.  "Like a drowned rat".  I guess it refers to the old sailing days when the rats would move from land to the merchant ships and back in all the ports around the world.  

Now I know what they feel like.  

Note to self.  Rain gear in the walking, hiking, biking survival kit!

  Take rain gear Turkey!

18 August 2013

When returning the cat food to my neighbor for whom I was "Cat sitting" last week, he mentioned that there were some really neat fungi growing at the base of one of his trees and I might be interested in photographing them.  Well, does a chicken have lips?  Of course I would.  Expecting the usual brown, grey and white mushroom type structures I was not thinking color.  Boy was I wrong.

Thank you John for the lead.  There are other images on the web site and they are all full of color accentuated by all the rain we have had.  You will notice that there is a new website associated with Fine Art America, the newest is Pixels.com.  That makes three that have all the same galleries and images.  This newest one is going to have things like IPhone cases, already available, and hopefully cups, mugs, water bottles, Elvis blankets and neon sports jackets with matching tee-shirts and thongs.  Who knows?

I have listed a new and I think important image in the lighthouse gallery.  This one is of Nobska light on Cape Cod at Woods Hole.  A pretty impressive sky and different angle on the house should make it appealing, but ya never know.

You all have a great Sunday, and thank you Lord for feet on the floor this morning.

17 AUGUST 2013

Good Saturday morning all.

  It's still raining and the temperatures are in the mid sixties here.  Whatever happened to the week, I mean it was Monday an hour and a half ago.  At this rate I'll be in my mid nineties by next Tuesday......or so it seems.  It's that old time bridge I guess.

No sooner do we get on it than it seems we're at the other end and the older we get the faster the darn thing goes.  I have had some nice comments on some of the new stuff I have been listing and that is gratifying, but the work is grinding on.  I still have 1800 images in the general populations to edit and post for the most part.  Almost five hundred lighthouse images scanned with a third more to finish in that category and probably another thousand or so of the waterman category to scan, edit and post.

Next month I'll be on the road for a few days traveling to the upper Jersey Shore for a hundred and fifty fifth high school reunion.  Going with mixed emotions but it will be fun to see some of you there.  Then again to NJ in mid October with Sheri to the Lighthouse Challenge at Hereford Inlet Lighthouse.  I'll probably make some images on each trip.  In the mean time it's more computer work, a few local shoots and the big prep for the October show.

My newest lighthouse scam on the site is an image of the West Quoddy Lighthouse in Maine.  I can just feel the atmosphere changing in this image.  I made this photograph in early May and the temperatures were somewhere in the mid forties with about zero humidity.  Great New England weather and almost breath taking when you get the first whiff in the morning of that bracing air.  The offshore front coming in started to quickly raise the humidity level, but not the temperature.

West Quoddy is a very distinct candy striped light on the easternmost mainland point of the United States.  This lighthouse was built in 1858 and is a cast-iron structure overlaid with brick.  The first structure here was built in 1808 was was a rubble masonry tower.  The second light was built in 1850 and quickly became unstable and was replaced with the current tower. A visit here is a must and lighthouse aficionados can find an added benefit in some spectacular ocean views.  Truly the main coast with a long pathway extending along the cliff like stone escarpments on the left of this image.  

I need to get back up into that part of the country again before I take my dirt nap.  Maine is rugged on the coast and just as rugged inland.  And when one gets north of all the population centers it is just plain wilderness.  Good stuff!  Have a great weekend all.

16 AUGUST 2013

Getting some rain again this morning and the temps are still strangely low for August, but who am I to complain about that.  Normally in August we're over a hundred most of the time and even my thin blood is "Happy, happy, happy".   And yes I did watch the first show of Duck Dynasty on Wednesday and I am clinging to my guns and Bible too.

I have spent most of the week editing and posting new stuff to the web site and some of it is getting nice reviews and that's a good thing.  The above is Montauk Point Lighthouse in black and white.  There are two of this image on the site now, full color and sepia tone.  I also like the BnW, so will probably list is as well.

I have this fear that I am becoming the neighborhood go-to curmudgeon.  I am collecting mail for my next door bud who travels most of the week in his job.  I mean it's no big thing.  But I have picked up the responsibility of feeding another neighbor's cat while they are away for the week.  

Kiki, I mean how original is that?

  It's a nice cat but if I could train it to chase squirrels maybe it might contribute something worthwhile to society and earn it's keep.  As it is, it just comes over when I am grilling looking for handouts.  Lays on its back and purrs.  Of course who can resist that?  He/she prefers chicken and will turn it's nose up to steak or fish.

  Cats!  The dogs will eat corncob if they can get close enough, but a cat......well they're a different matter.  So off in the rain with my bumper shoot (that's umbrella for those uneducated amongst us) to feed this thing this morning.  In the middle of writing this creative piece of art... out in the rain, feed the cat, feed the dogs yell shut up at the birds and that's my morning so far.  Second cup of Pike Place just adds some more juice to my already stoked up blood.

The umbrella and the rain reminded me of a time in another century, in another world when I actually had a job that paid a salary.  New York City in the rain is huge umbrella bumper cars olympics.  You remember bumper cars don't you?  People there do power walks from place to place.  Hurrying from meeting to meeting where not much gets done but the face time is great.  Then back to the little cubicle to plan the next political attack on some rung of the ladder just above. But seeing all those black mushrooms scrambling about is just a trip.  I wish I had the opportunity to do a photographic study of that banging about.  And that brings to mind the street vendors.  It doesn't take twelve teen drops of rain to fall and these characters have brought out the umbrellas to sell.  Where do they get them so fast?  Talk about hustle!  Those guys adapt faster than catfish in the mud.

  Yeah, I know I am complaining but hey what else can I do at this hour.  Gives me something to write about.  Actually, I guess I do enjoy taking care of the animals but don't tell Missy.  She's enough of a suck up already.

On top of everything else, they tell me the spell check does'nt work......so suffer!

15 AUGUST 2013

Sixty seven degrees this morning here in the south side of the sun and some rain so I just might go walk the walk a little later.  Really do enjoy walking in a light rain.  I guess it goes back to playing in mud puddles when I was in high school and college.  Well, maybe a little earlier than that but you get the point.

Sales have picked up some and that's a good things to see.  About 11% of the last hundred images sold were of the sepia tone type and I find that interesting.

This is the Chatham, Mass lighthouse on Cape Cod.  Interestingly its in the town of the same name.  Originally there were two lights at this spot but the one that was on the right in this image was moved, I think to become the Nauset Beach light.  Of those sepia sold all were lighthouses, so my thoughts of making the image look vintage was pretty close to the mark.  The Chatham light will be listed for sale later today, so here's another despicable push supporting the profit center.  And just remember for those of my age who are not online geeks, you can click on the highlighted spots on the blog to go to related places.  

I have not sold any of the new Chesapeake Waterman images.  There the concept is the same as with the sepia tone lighthouses.  Antiquity is a part of my interest in both categories.  The waterman images are black and white as well as the sepia toned.  I am not so sure that much of that stuff will sell heavily, but it is an area in which I do have some modicum of expertise and certainly interest.  

When I, as a mere child of 14, first started to live on the Eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay fishing was the only industry other than farming.  Today farming is still strong, but the waterman's life has been greatly reduced by the usual threats to nature.  Government intervention into the business has reduced takes in some instances to the point where they just can't make a living.  Water pollution has always been a threat to the waterman's lifestyle.  And just all around over use of the water system as a whole with boating, new shoreline construction, shipping and recreation. All of the above have stressed the environment to the point where there is just not the quantity of catch available to support a large fishery.  So, I think as time passes these images will become the historic documents I intend them.

If any of you have an interest in the Bay and it's Watermen, I strongly suggest a book written by Captain Lawrence William Simns, published by Schiffer Publishing, Ltd. in 2012.  I knew Larry from my photographic work on the bay and this was released about a year before his death.  He was the long time president of the Maryland Waterman's Association and as such did huge work for helping to clean up the bay.  He was an active waterman in the true and old sense of the title.  He was also named the Commodore of the Chesapeake bay by Gov. O'Malley.  One of the only things that O'Malley ever did that was right.  The book is very readable and talks in length of some of the characters that worked the bay.  Good read!

12 August 2013

Why do?

People always call a wrong number a half hour before you're scheduled to get up anyway?

  I mean, is God so happy to show you that you made it through another night that he has some fool that can barely speak English mumble "Sorry got the wrong number".

Then the dogs want to go out...."It's too early dummies!"

Then of course they want to eat......Still too early!

Then this one thinks it's time to play!  Crap, you're a hundred and ten in human years and you want to pee, play and eat at 6:30 in the morning.  You're old-------enjoy it!

I'll give it to Missy though.  She just looks at him and shakes her head and flops back down on the floor as if to say..."Stop it, he's not going to feed you just because you think you look cute!"  "You're too old for cute!"

Thank you Lord.......at least the birds are quiet.  Yep, that's right......I live in a zoo!

I hope you all have a good week.  It's bright and sunny here in Shangra La South!

Starbucks!

9 August 2013

I took this photograph when the creative hands shown were in their early 80's.  A year or so later God took this lady home but not before she finished this quilt and saw it hang on a wall of her home.  Those hands were busy over the years, nurturing a husband and teaching two kids how they should live their lives.  Some of those lessons didn't sink into the thick skulled children so those hands also had to wield some switches in the early going.  She had lost her husband some eight years before this image was made and fought depression every day until a stroke took her at the age of 83.  Working on a quilt or some other craft was her way of fighting that depression and give her some satisfaction or sense of accomplishment.  That woman actually existed on coffee and two packs of Chesterfield cigarettes a day.  

8 AUG 2013

OK!

So, I'm not the brightest Christmas light in the string!  I missed posting to the blog yesterday, that yesterday was National Lighthouse Day.  I did catch it later and did some obscene commercial advertising for "The Galleries", but I blew it.  Will I play catch up today....probably.  I know that I drive my Face Book friends nuts with my advertisements but that's just something I think they will have to put up with.  BTW, has anyone noticed that FB seems to be getting more commercial with their own advertisements and less person to person that way it started?  Just my opinion but I guess I contribute to that trend.

  And I just got two spots in that paragraph pushing the web site, pretty slick huh?  My friend Nancy Tidy, that's the Tidy's of New Jersey, did attend the affair at the Hereford Inlet Lighthouse and you can find some of her photos on her FB page.  She is an author, painter and photographer extraordinaire!  So it's worth a shot clicking on the link.  You might even buy one of her Children's books.  Ya never know!

I am in the process of filling a wholesale order of floating frames, scanning lighthouse slides, editing photos, posting to the web site and of course trying to sell this stuff.  There is a webinar tonight that is supposed to tell me how to write, run and market a blog so I'll be attending that.  Next Wednesday the new season of "Duck Dynasty" starts so you'll know where I'll be then.  In the meantime I'll leave you with this thought.

In every day a little rain must fall....even if it is man made!  I think Will Rodgers said that or maybe it was Greg Gutfeld! 

7 AUG 2013

Good Morning Hump Day!

Prayers for a friend of my who just lost her mother.  That's a tough time.  Hi to my kids and grands when something like that happens and you think of your own.

On a lighter tone, we had the opportunity to eat a Birthday dinner at Ruths Crist steak house last night.  A big thank you to my kids for the gift cards.  And another candle on the cake of my better half.  I honestly did not think that two people could eat two hundred fifty dollars worth of food at one sitting.  A week's worth of groceries maybe, but one sitting.  I will say that the food was outstanding and the service perfect.

We had our usual weekend guest last weekend and partook of the time to go to some things we normally would not partake in.  Like a Gun and Knife show for instance.  I was stunned to see how prices have risen for all that stuff in the last three years.  Kinda glad that we are fully weaponized at this point.  Although I think that I would like a light long rifle such as a twenty two, but we'll wait and see.  Ammunition prices are through the roof or I'm just old and can only remember the good old days.  Yep, that must be it.  But $35 plus dollars for 38 caliber bullets is steep.  Judging by the number of people standing shoulder to shoulder to buy all that stuff, the law of supply and demand rules.

Last Sunday we strolled the RW in the West Columbia stretch.  What I call the top section of the walk.  Just to show you the size and power of this river, at this point the Saluda, I include this photograph.  A few hundred yards down river it joins the Broad River to form the Congaree.

These guys somehow, some way got sideways to what was happening and turned their little John Boat over earlier in the morning.  We passed by just in time to see them trying to sort out their belongings.  I guess they were trying to turn the thing back over, but that is one powerful creek when it wants to get angry.  Moral to the story again is don't mess with mom nature.  She wins every time.  At least that's what my Mom use to say.

The river was still up and we seem to be getting enough afternoon rains to keep it there.  Yesterday it rained most of the afternoon.  Not in buckets, but more like pint sized cans.  I was actually able to keep the window next to my desk open, so it was rather enjoyable.

Business continues to crank along with July being about average or maybe a little above.  A couple of wholesale orders helped out, but now it's August and you know what that means.  Yeah, we start all over again.  Sold Thomas Point last night and that helps.

Happier than a "Camel on Hump Day"!

1 AUG 2013

August one?  God the way time flies, I'm going to be ninety before September one.  Yesterday I took a half day off from the computer and home chores.  Did some photographic free styling.  That is went out and took pictures of anything that popped up or struck my fancy.  I love doing things this way.  Get in the car and go.  Or on the RW and go.

If you every want to get some fog in your photos, simply take the camera out of the AC and go outside.  The lens fogs up instantly.  When will I ever learn?

I decided to hit the new River Walk section first and I guess it was about a mile out and back, maybe three quarters.  The camera finally warmed up enough to keep the lens clear.

A little better.

The new walk ends at a boat ramp and huge parking lot.  Never have seen many cars or trucks there but the ramp is pretty good and when there is enough water it's a piece of cake putting in a boat.

It's pretty heavily wood along this stretch and I actually did a couple of tree knocks, just to hedge my bet.  I mean you just never know where you're going to find a Sasquatch, do ya?  

Nope, none responded but I did hear something over a little ridge off the walk that seemed to be following me.  Honest!  For the time being all bets are off and I will continue to keep an open mind!  Hope that series comes back on TV.

After putting my legs and feet to the test along this walk I went back to the original and put in another couple of hours.  But along the way, I had to stop and make an image of this door.

OK, the cool things about this antiquity is that nothing is level for the most part.  First rule of photography.....get your horizons level to the eye.  It is just amazing to me when I look at a professional sight such as FAA that so many photographers, or painters for that matter, never seem to get the horizon level.  Well, we all can't be as perfect as I.  And when I become King.....look out!

Anyway, look at the curb Vs. the door jam.  Door jam is level.  Curb isn't.  What do you go for?  And then look at the canopy.  Man that thing is all askew!  I guess you do what I did and make the largest object, the door, appear level.  Windows then become level as well. 

Back on the main walk I came across a section of the river where small eddies against the bank were causing little whirl pools.  Pretty cool and I managed to actually get one that was in focus.  Small wonders never cease to amaze me.  Geez, today is Thursday to boot.  That camel never came by my desk yesterday!  So happy post Hump Day!