Not only in Canada

I was kinda stuck on body copy for this when my good friend Laurie Shoulter Karall posted a poem within the comment section. I think I need say no more. Enjoy. I love the image and will add it to the stock offerings.

The Happy and Sad...

I hope you don't mind if I indulge myself a bit but three years ago today my Dad passed away and there's hardly a day goes by that I don't think about him. I thought maybe he was up there helping the Cubs out this year but I guess he doesn't have enough seniority yet.

Three months ago Emma was born and since then there's hardly been a moment gone by that she doesn't insist that we think about her.

It's with Mixed Emotions

It's getting to be that time of the year. I love the fall, the clean crisp air, the lower, warmer sun angle, it is however dampened by the unfortunate prospect of winter just around the corner. Don't get me wrong, I also love the first month of winter, the first snow and the fires in the fireplace that are nearly as welcome as the first sounds of the peepers in the spring. After the first of the year though, I am so done with the whole gray monochrome thing. There have been One Million Trillion (slightly less than the national debt) autumn color photographs taken, so I dare not try to compete with many of those. I'm not one to find much motivation in shooting the cliche image. If I put my camera to my eye and see the same shot that I've seen so many times before I'll back off and reconsider it or at least give some thought how to make it different. I will not dally though, because I rather just stand there and absorb the moment for future remembrances. I do however, have many many stock images taken for the season.

Did you know that the color of the leaves is there all summer only hidden by the chloralfill that dissipates in the fall? (or so I heard on NPR earlier this week)

Eyes and Hands and now Ribs

Several posts ago I ran a quick pick of Mike "Smokey" Emerson called the Godfather of Pork. Now that I've sorted through the remains, I found this image, which will probably become a PR picture for Pappy's Smokehouse. I rejected it originally because the rib didn't read very well but with a little tweaking, I think it works. I'm also helping him develop a Kosher BBQ sauce called, ...here it comes... Orthodox Juice for Pork.

http://www.pappyssmokehouse.com

Expanding the Neighborhood

Well, I've gone on about the neighborhood and my love of rural architecture, so now I range a bit out of the hood and find roughly simple architecture within a long stones throw of my studio. It has the same simplicity but with the time worn and weathered look that comes from an era of disrespect and ruin. I've been eying this location off and on for some time. By the same token, I've been dabbling in a technique called HDR. This may be the first time I've gotten close to it's full potential. As I look at the proof of this page, I can see it is another image that can only truly be appreciated at one hundred percent of the original file.

Shooozzz

Good Luck Katie

Hmmm.

When I visited my friend up north over this last week end, the first thing I noticed when I walked into his house was this GIZMO. I could see what it was but what a strange conglomeration for modern society. It struck me as almost pop art.

BTW, I hate those new bulbs. I truly believe that incandescent bulbs provide a warmth and romance that these weird looking replacements could only hope to duplicate.

King of Corn (not porn)

Over the past several years my Father In Law has asked me a number of times, 73,323 times to be exact, how many ears of corn are there on a stalk. I confessed that I didn't know but that I was pretty sure there had to be more than one. What a waste if each stalk only had one. Over the week-end I visited a friend in Ottawa Illinois and on the way back I decided to get the answer once and for all. Well, I'm here to tell you, most stalks, probably 99 per cent, only had one ear. I did find one that had two and it's the close up image. For the sake of art, the cropping kind of disguises the second ear but there it was, 2 ears on one stalk. Makes me wanna find out why there hasn't been more research done on growing more ears per stalk. The yield per acre could very easily triple. I ramble but I miss the days when I shot a lot more for an agency that specialized in AG products. I loved that work.