Rites of Spring

First lawn-cutting of the year this afternoon. It sucked just as much as the last one of 2008. Some things never change…. Tomorrow is kind of a big day for me. We have a local spring festival at my daughter’s school every year. It’s called Trails and Trilliums, and there are hikes, talks, art, games and fun for kids, etc. It’s a fun weekend. And this year I’m the featured artist. My photos are on the publicity posters and I’ll be giving a talk on macro photography tomorrow afternoon. I also hope to be selling my photos. Should be lots of fun. For the locals among you, if you’re in the area, stop by and say hello.

A Couple of Photos

So, here are a couple of the photos I’ve taken in the past few days.  There’s a small hollow near where we live — it’s actually called Shakerag Hollow, because once upon a time you could go down there in the evening, wave a small white cloth, and thus signal to local moonshiners that you were in the market for their wares.  Alas, this is no longer an option….

Shakerag Hollow is filled with wildflowers every spring, and spring is creeping into the hills of Tennessee even as we speak.  I use a Canon 40D digital SLR camera with a 24-105mm lens mounted with both extension tubes and a Canon 500D close-up filter.  These attachments allow me to get extreme close-ups without sacrificing clarity.  I mount the whole set-up on a Bogen 3001 tripod with a Kirk BH-3 ball head.

The first photo is of a Rue Anemone (Thalictrum thalictroides) growing out of the skeleton of an old downed tree branch.  Everything was covered with dew that morning, so you can see water droplets on the flower and leaves.

This second picture was taken that same morning.  These are simply dew drops on the leaves of Dutchman’s Breeches (Dicentra cucullaria), but somehow the angle of the early morning sun has refracted the light, giving the water that incredible color.  It looks like I spilled juice on these leaves, but I swear, it’s just water.  And in fact, I didn’t realize what I had until I got home and looked at the pictures.  But I love the effect.

Nothin’ to See Here; Move On….

I really ought to have something to say, but I don’t.  I watched Obama’s presser and thought he did great, but I don’t feel like blogging about it because, frankly, I don’t have the energy for a political fight with my friends on the right. 

I’ve spent the last few days taking and processing pictures, and that’s been great.  I have some gems from the small hollow I hike in.  Wildflowers are blooming here and the place looks gorgeous.  But there’s not much I can add to that. 

I’m waiting for word on the new book.  Not much more to say about that, either.

I feel boring as hell, and I apologize.  I’ll try to offer more tomorrow.

Play Time!

First day of my post book vacation. My older daughter is on break from school and Nancy started her break today, too. Daughter number two is the only one of us not on vacation yet. Poor kid.

Anyway, spent some time working on photos today (after doing my first shoot of the spring yesterday — mostly macro work. The Hepatica and Bloodroot are in bloom….). Processing, cropping, etc. I’m to be the featured artist for a spring festival at a local school next month, so it’s time for me to get some work printed, matted, and (some of it) framed. Should be a fun couple of weeks actually. Guilt-free focus on my passion rather than my job.

The Lesson of a Good Day

Following up on my promise to myself to get out and do more birdwatching this year, I went to a place called Woods Reservoir today.  It’s a large reservoir about twenty miles from here that is maintained jointly by the U.S. Air Force (Arnold Air Force Base abuts part of the reserve) and the Tennessee Wildlife Management Agency.  It has a good sized nesting population of Bald Eagles and is a wintering ground for a wide variety of duck species.  And so it shouldn’t be tto surprising that in addition to seeing an eagle, I also saw Northern Pintail, Lesser Scaup, Common Goldeneye, Bufflehead, Northern Shoveler, and many pairs of Hooded Merganser, which may be the most beautiful duck in North America.  Here, check out a picture.  Of course, Pintails are beautiful, too.

Anyway, it was a great morning.  I came back energized and wrote seven pages this afternoon.  So often I don’t do something for myself because “I can’t take the time out from my work.”  But I almost always find that after taking the time out to look at birds or take pictures or just go for a walk, I work better, faster, more efficiently.  There’s a lesson there, if only I’m smart enough to take it to heart.

I’ve Got Some Talent, But Not That Much….

No BOW Award today.  I really didn’t pay much attention to the news this week, and frankly I need a BOW break.

But I did have a funny experience this afternoon:  I was wearing my “photography-guy” hat today instead of my “author-guy” hat.  This weekend is the arts and crafts studio tour here in town, and I did a shift handling sales at the gallery where I display my photography.  The gallery includes not only my photos, but heaps of other art and craftwork by a large number of local artists:  oil paintings and bronze castings and sculptures, textile work and hand-done bookbinding, lots of ceramics — vases, bowls, plates, etc. — as well as a host of other artistic creations.  The gallery offers a remarkable variety of items, representing the work of at least a dozen different people.

Well, one gentleman came in accompanied by his wife, and after looking around at all this stuff, turned to me and asked if I was the artist who had done all this fine work….

A Post About Seeing the World in a Fresh Light

Today’s post, “Changes in the Light,” can be found at http://magicalwords.net.  Hope you’ll visit the site, and as always, enjoy!

Swim Meet Time

Kids have a swim meet today, so I’m cutting out early.  I did manage to get my 2000 words for the day, but I still haven’t had enough quality time with the new camera. 

It’s an away meet, so we have a bit of a drive ahead of us.  The team is undefeated, and though both of my daughters are at the lower end of their competitive age groups, both have managed one blue ribbon and several second and third place finishes.  Pretty good.  They get it from their mother — I can barely get across the pool….

We’ve been doing this for several summers now, and the kids love it.  So do we.  We never worry about them being around water now.  They have a great coach who teaches them the fundamentals of each stroke and stresses personal improvement and teamwork rather than individual achievement.  The team is incredibly close knit (18 year-olds rooting for 6 year-olds and the young ones then returning the favor) and so are the swim parents.  We all volunteer to help out with meets, and after the meet tonight bunches of us will probably wind up getting dinner together.  Fun stuff.

Catch ya’ll tomorrow.  Go Tigersharks!!

New Toy!

Well, I was going to post about something writing related.  Hadn’t decided what yet, but I’m sure it would have been nuanced and amusing and incredibly insightful.  But as you all might remember from a recent post, I’m a material guy, and my new camera just arrived!!!  Canon 40D!  10.2 megapixels, 3 inch LCD monitor, burst rate of 6.5 frames per second, and a integrated sensor cleaning system.  I get all hot and bothered just thinking about it.

So I’ll catch you tomorrow.

Bye.

New Friends

It’s late (at least it is for me; I’m getting old…) and I had hoped to post much earlier today.  We had friends over for dinner tonight.  New friends, actually.  They’ve just moved here and they’ve coming to our town so that he can take over as headmaster at the school my older daughter attends.  We wanted to welcome them and give them a break from unpacking, so we ordered some pizzas and asked them over.

You never really know what to expect in a situation like this.  They seem like great people.  They have two kids, 13 and 9, just like we do, but we weren’t certain how much more we’d have in common with them.  

They pulled into the driveway, she got out of their car and glanced at my “Obama ‘08″ bumper stickers.  And I thought, “Uh oh….”  She looked at me, smiled, and said, “Love the bumper stickers.  I saw him speak four years ago and I’ve been a huge supporter ever since.”  We offered them some of my wife’s home-brewed beer (which is very, very, very good).  Turns out he brews, too.  I told them that I run the organic food buying organization here in town; they’re big into organics and local foods.  He plays golf and loves photography, just like I do.

The whole evening was like that.  So much common ground.  New friends.  I guess you’re never too old to find them, which is a pretty cool thought to carry me off to bed.