It Half-Way Felt Like Old Times, Today

 When the weather broke, it was my signal to start walking again. The first outing was just one mile. The second outing was two. Today, the final total from the walk was four mile. The side pack held my battery charger for my phone. In addition, is the inside pack that held hand sanitizer and an extra face mask. 

As I started out, there was uncertainty if the neighborhood wold be the target or would the bus or train be better. Or would a combo of both, be more exciting? The final mental answer would find me in the neighborhood. Not in the residential portion, but in the commercial part. 

Several years ago, I started a watch on where my best sales came from. The answer was within 8-miles of my house. That circle produced the highest sales. It has never been about dollars for me. It's always been about the mission, freelancing in a total urban area. Being aggressive was not in the plan either. In fact, that is for me, the worse attitude for a photographer. Just last year about this time, I ran across a photographer that was just plain rude. She overstepped people that had been waiting for there turn to go out on a specific dock and shoot and then relinquish their spot to another. This babe just stormed onto the dock and was just plain nasty. As it turned out, I ended up shooting for the other side of the lake and got some shots of nature that continue to sell well to this date. That type of aggression displayed to all of us waiting our turn, is not the same type of aggression where people stand your ground in a major situation where fees are paid for a spot. To overstep a common area is the worst kind of aggression.

I have also been reading a lot of quotes from famous people lately and this week it was George Washington Carver,1864-1943. Having come from a family where my dad's uncle founded a radio station,that station is now a part of the Clear Channel Empire. Growing up, I hung around radio stations a lot and it was another one of those things that gets into you blood. My mom was part of a group that sang on that station on Saturday nights.  So, when I read this quote from George Washington Carver; the quote: "I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in.".  It spoke to me, so to speak. And, yes, I do talk to animals (especially squirrels) when out in nature  (see the image of the Chic-fil-A cup and a squirrel fabricating that cup into a piece of insulation for his nest). We had a great conversation that day.

So, being always mindful of that, it has been my method of operation to respect people in general and not be so up tight about such matters. It's payed off in the long run and will be my position to the last day that I push the final shutter button.  Having said that, I looked across the street and saw my neighbor sitting at the bus stop.I would never have thought I would see one of my neighbors at that stop. But it could have been a specific route she was taken. We had a quick catch up on both our health conditions. She had a limb amputated and seems to be doing well. She expressed such in our chat. I continued on and sure enough, keeping with sales, I found two, then three items within a mile of my house. Pure urban material! All from an Asian Shopping Center just down the street. 

Upon completing my walk. I was not tired.Stopped along the way to sip cold water from my trusty metal water bottle that fits into an insulate bag. It has served me well over the years. When I got home, it was time to watch a bit of the final round of the 120th US Open Golf Tournament from along Long Island Sound, in New York. Funny thing! It was as nice here in Dallas as it was 1200 miles to the North East.. Fifty-nine here this morning. That's F° not C°. In other words, it was N-i-c-e for both Long Island Sound and Dallas!!!! What a great day!

 

 

Photographers Really Do See The World Differently

 

Photographers See The World Differently T-Shirt
by sam6372

Came Across Some Old Photography Equipment Being Used.

It's always interesting to see old equipment and relating to this equipment.It took me back to a photography of my maternal grandfather that was taken when he was 4 years old in 1888. My grandmother carried that original in the bottom of her suitcase when she would go visit my mom's sisters and brother. It was about 12-inches across the top and 18-24 inches long printed on a thick poster board type material.  The detail was black and while but I look at it several times a day. Mom had taken the  original to a road show type photography company that was at a local J.C. Penny's in a strip mall in Ohio where we had moved when my dad changed jobs. The original was taken by grand mother to one of the kids as she aged and her traveling days were near the end. Luckily, mom had that original duplicated nearing 60 years ago. But thanks to cameras like these back in the day, I have an amazing image of my grandfather at 4 years old in knickers with wide white velvet trim to the outfit he was wearing. He was standing next to a period chair with one arm  on the arm of the chair. The shadows are perfect and the facial features  are sharp and remarkable.

Two old cameras that still work I suppose. The guys were setting up for a shoot and I didn't stop to talk to them. I would have liked to have chatted a few minutes.

Two Months of Rain in 3 Days

 Yesterday, for the first time in sometime, I was able to be out with the big camera for a bit and regardless of where I was, it rained enough to have the camera stay on the front seat of the car. I do have some rain gear to protect the camera from rain but somehow, it's just not me. Freelance with a rain coat on the camera doesn't sound like the tone of just saying freelance and ending it there. The weight of the extra words just does not sing like the lesser.

Today is also heavy with a 60 percent chance of rain. The one thing that I did notice was that the grasses have turned that lust green of Springtime again. However, there are plenty signs of fall showing up as I wrote about a couple of weeks back. The weathermen, as well as the models where they get their information, are forecasting already another cold front due to move in next week. It will keep the temps back down in the below normal category again.This coming Friday, the 17th, is when our average high temps drop a degree and then drop off more rapidly during the next 45 days. It is a welcomed relief. It has been a long hot summer this year, for sure.

Never-the-less, photography is about timing. Sometimes, the timing is good and sometimes it just is an empty box. Ansel Adams said that a being a good photographer is about where you stand. He has a point there and if you are not standing where the timing is right, then you are in the wrong place. I've had good days. I've have had bad. Over the course of the year, looking back, it boils down to about 1-3 percent of all shots are when the timing is right. There are those that will tell you that I'm wrong. On the flip side of that coin, I can say that they are wrong, too. It isn't about who is right or wrong. It's not about the flip side of the coin. It's about 1-3 percent of all shots are keepers. Technique can only do certain things. Wind can mess up a shot in a hot second. Just like it can bring down a jet liner at DFW, and did, before there was wind shear equipment. It's all relative in some manner.

With this writing, there are now over 7K images on line today under the Dallaspaparazzo tag. Those are with agents from coast to coast, the UK and Germany. And, their agents span markets from China to Australia to Eastern Slavic nations (Russia, Belarus and Ukraine), Western (Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia) and Southern (Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia and Bulgaria). 

With that said, helping these images find a useful place in someones blog, their web page, their newsletters or advertising piece or just an image you find something special about that is dear to your heart has become a growing challenge with so many cameras out there today. Yet, there are things that over the years have become embedded in my subject matter that is selling more and more each year. 

If, from a business standpoint every cost factor was weighed in, I am loosing money. But how much weight do you place on a hobby vs. a business. From a business standpoint, the IRS says that I must count it as a business. From a personal standpoint, I'm officially retired and consider it a hobby. But, the bottom line is it cost money to either.  Just to have a camera cleaned professionally today cost $50.00. Any adjustments made are extra. So, take the came in for a cleaning and you can walk out of the camera store with a bill of $150.00 on a good day. 

I have stayed away from advertising. I really don't want to get into that game at this late stage in life. Or, with the haters on social media out there doing their destructive thing to society as a whole. There is no place in my life for those things, today. Absolutely none.

The passion that I have for photography in an urban setting is tops. I love this city, I love the momentum it generates, and I love to see a city that is alive culturally, and still keep nature and  green spaces running like veins throughout itself. Already, looking back at a lot of my shots, those things do not exist today. They are gone, destroyed, lost, decayed, and a lots have been reduced to sawdust or firewood.

Yet, I have seen a couple of species of Raptors excel in their magnificence. I have watched cornfields become homes to not just hundreds, but thousands of individuals in less than 20 years. I want to continue to shoot urban settings. They are the heartbeat of one area of humanity called Dallas, Texas. Growing up watching the Thanksgiving Day parades from Dallas or seeing the Cotton Bowl Football game is part of who I am. Now, being here in Dallas watching the next great adventure take place---the transformation of  Fair Park with its many museums, the Cotton Bowl and Starplex ,the Midway, aquarium, Pan American Arena and the largest collection of Art Decco Buildings assembled in one place in the nation, into the daily park that it should have been years ago, is like an adrenal rush of excitement.  It's like a kid's excitement of something new and exciting. The potential for photography to show off Dallas is at hand. 

The bottom line is that to get those shots--to log a piece of history--is going to take money to keep this blog, these images, etc going. Plus keeping pace with vectors and videos, I must explore a way to do that which will make those creative visions possible.The old clock is ticking faster each and every day. I'm coming to the end of the first ten years of this pacemaker. While the technology is smaller and better for the upcoming number 2 maker or battery change (which every the electrician determines necessary) so, I got to get running (pardon the pun).

This is a writing to let you know that the upcoming changes to this blog and even the website, is rooted in staying on line if at all possible. When changes begin to occur, it will have been the best choice in which to continue this project, to grow it and to enhance it to those what follow us online. 
We thank you for your support. We appreciate your comments when we see you out and about. We believe that with God's help, this project will have opened hearts, minds and spirit through a lens on a camera that has benefited you in some small way; thanks be to God.  

The Horse

The Cows

 

 

The Cowboy, in Dallas

Sometimes Cost Gets In The Way---

But, other times, that cost getting in the way opens new doors. Welcome to our new home!

Over the years, I have not been shy to accepting change. In fact, I have always embraced change. Sometimes, more than at others admittedly, but all-in-all, change is a good thing.

It's been a very long summer for me. It's been one of the hardest summers in nearly a decade and a half. My goal this year was to not only become more creative with new material, but to also increase the number of images that get published. Those that chat with me daily on the road have often heard me say: " Once you created the beast now you must feed it."

 Some 57 years ago, when I pushed down that first shutter button, That beast was created. It  grew over time. Then, one day, when retirement set in, that beast finally reared its head and was more hungry than I had ever anticipated. My instincts should have known because I am a numbers kind of guy. If my goal was to sell 100 acorns this year. I didn't stop until I finally did. Then what ever that number was--next year, I was going to top it. And the following year, I was going to top that number. Over all when I retired, I paced myself for the first couple of year, but then, that Irish-Scottish blood running in my veins began to re-energize me again. Just as it was beginning to stir that need to not sit in a rocking chair anymore, I had a set back with a health issue, then I lost mom.That sidelined me for a bit but it gave me time to think---to focus---(I hate that word in how it is being used today). By the time that I was back to a more normal routine, doing what I loved all along was my guiding light and I picked back up that camera that I had set aside after loosing mom and began to take on that love of photography more seriously than ever before.

The joy. The satisfaction. The love of life. The beauty of nature. The evolution of urban engines continues to drive me until the bitter-sweet end of this life. When ever that may be.But know this: Life is worth every second on this old planet. Faith tells me that it will be even better afterwords. But for now, I look back at my portfolio of some 6,000 published images and I see the world in a much different light. A light of hope. A light of challenges. A light of giving. A light of sharing. A light of eternal salvation. Every single light beams from me when I pick up that camera and a glimpse from the corner of my eye draws me to a setting where the camera takes over and captures that image in the click of a shutter. I still find things in images that I took 16 years ago that I never saw the first time. A picture isn't just an image to look at and awe at. It's a story that is read over and over again and one that you learn life's lessons from. I often think what the bible would be like today if it were a collection of images that covered Genesis to Revelations. Changing how we look at things if we can look back and see things that we never saw the first time would be technology to the max.

So, explore the new pages and know that the taste of discovery is delicious. I'm in the early hours of doing that my self. I still have to relearn how to publish this thing!!

Check Out The Boat Cover

Oftentimes, I have mentioned that I enjoy the edit as much as securing the image. As in photography, light always plays a critical part of the image and sometimes that shift in light at the split second a shutter clicks shut will yield added bonus that give that image the same thing that gives an old piece of furniture that je nes se quois. One of the images presented me with one of those experiences on Saturday. It was rather small, but still, my eye caught it when I scanned at 100%. Nearly missing it then, also, it just struck me as one of nature's  wonderment. When putting that in perspective with life in general, we humans, are not as special among the animal kingdom as we would like to believe. I love finding those moments.When we are casually put in our place by nature. Some humans still don't get it, but for those who do, it is a humbling moment.  I'll point out the specifics of this on the following image so be sure to click on the image to enlarge so you can see what I writing about here.

See the Covered Rowing Crew Boat on the left? Look just left of center at what is sitting there. High, Dry and Very Happy Birds!

And of course, with the release of the coach's rankings for week 10 of college football, Michigan remains in No. 2. Would you look at this......it s Maze and Blue!! How ironic! Oh, it's a rowing crew boat on the top tier of a transport trailer. Top tier-- I could not make that up!

The State of the Macaroni

Creative ideals come from the strangest places. Ever since macaroni in the shape of the state of  Texas was found, the uniqueness of it started the creative thought process. What can be done with this stuff? It has been in a zip-lock bag in my camera bag for over a week now. When at last the opportunity came around were it would be a good day to shoot, it didn't totally turn out that way. It seems what when the macaroni was set up on the felt sheet, and the camera was placed to focus in on the shot, a gust of wind would hit the felt and upset the design. It became frustrating. Even more frustrating is the fact that one of my basic tenets is never do work twice. Do it right the first time and never work twice on the same project. Well, it wasn't in the cards that day. Finally, on day two, the wind died down and a second problem developed. It seems that the macaroni is not the best material to place on felt and there were no tweezers in my bag to set the pieces in the planned layout. Finally, it was more work than the outcome would bring. Cut your losses and move on. Yet, being more stong willed than that, working with the stuff finally made a rather crude take but it was enough to get the point across and to use the ideal in yet another project that would benefit more. So, with two samples after the edits, the fun that was had was worth more than any monetary reward had it all come out the way planned. But, that just proves than money isn't everything by any means and the reward was even more rewarding from a creative process.

356-1F270521 The State of the Macaroni

A sketch artist was having the same creative process. 

Hang On To Your Hat

Each July, and when saying that I mean the entire month, instead of taking physical inventory of property, I take personal inventory. This involves mental inventory, financial inventory, religious inventory, professional inventory, marketing strategies inventory, health inventory. This year a new inventory was added to the annual check-up. Days left inventory. The reason why that was added is because now, there seems to be a more sense of urgency to accomplish a couple of things than ever before. But, to keep better tabs on my progress, having them in the annual personal inventory matters very much. Having said  that, it was the main reason why there were only two post for the entire month of July.

Out of this years inventory came a more refined focus of photography. It does take a creative mind to shoot urban photography, but not in the creative sense  that there are Oohs and Aah from the graphic arts context, but a more subtle,"that's nice, I like that" kind of response. Actually, a more accurate meaning of perspective  in the first place is what I mean. A true point of view without all the white noise. A focus more on the heart of the image than on the image itself. When you go to a museum you look at a painting for several minutes, even several hours, for some. The focus isn't always on the subject matter but rather the matter of the subject.

For example: I have a copy of a Claude Monet painting that I look at almost daily and sometimes several times the morning before I go out on a shoot. The Monet is Regates A Argenteuil. Since I am a sailboat freak anyway, especially the type that just ran the Chicago Yacht Club's 107th Race to Mackinac 2015. For those that might be unfamiliar, it is not only the longest freshwater race in the world at 289.4 nautical miles,but the oldest fresh water race. And for those that don't have sea legs, well, that is a mere 333 miles of open water from 300 W Belmont  for 300 plus boats to have-at-it from Chicago to the Straights of Mackinac.

In the Monet, the sails, the choppy water, the Frenchman setting high on a stool above his lady in the little skiff, the sky of uncertainty, the roof tops along the shoreline make you think.  Monet painted the image in 1867.  Boating had become fashionable c.1830. To me, the thinking point is of the high fashion of the day. In a little skiff on rough choppy waters with threatening sky and boats at full sail so close to shoreline, it tells me that high fashion fads really don't mean much in life when life is tallied up, but at the moment, it may seem that they mean everything. And I keep that in mind as I go out the door. In short, when not one, not two, not even three, but four people tried to ruin a successful career that was rising shy of it peak, and in the mist, a great tragedy strikes, you learn how to be the most humble person on the planet. When I look at that painting and then go out into this mad world of today, and its even moreso today than forty years ago, my humbleness frames the images that I shoot. It molds me as to what is important in life and what foolish beliefs I had been indoctrinated  into believing that in a career climb team work was for the good of the company and all the idiot ideals that went with that foolish and deceptive falsehood, especially that famous office saying,"take one for the team".

So, July being that PIM that it is, I really don't get much done beyond the inventory itself. It works out usually because the heat here in Texas during July and August is the worst time of the year. And, especially if you like to be in- side of the suns angle of 10 to 2. Here, its about 10 until it sets!

Notice that I left the comment open for you to think about this one.

 

Diagnosis: Moment in Maine

It was an October morning, on the coast of Maine in 1975, when I first noticed the symptoms. Two weeks later, the symptoms returned.  Over the next thirty years there were moments that came and went and I continued to ignore the symptoms until 2005. By then, it was a full blown disease.  I live with it every day, now. I can still recall that fateful morning sitting on a cliff before sunrise in the mist and fog hearing lobster boats put,put,put as they went about their daily trips of putting out lobster traps. The sun's glow began to light the morning sky before  that beautiful ring  of nuclear  fire crested in that rainbow-like arch and I could feel the heat on my face.I know now that it was then, that the disease had entered my bloodstream.

In 2005, the time had come to acknowledge the disease. It was a difficult thing to do. But someone had already made the statement that I was feeling. Although it was an Anonymous statement, it said exactly what I already knew about that Moment in Maine. So I can use that Anonymous statement :

"Once photography enters your bloodstream, it is like a disease." --Anonymous

Yes, the disease is photography and I work at it daily to keep my eyes sharp. With that said, I will begin to post on the side bar a column from some of the best photographers that have this disease, also. It is to be hoped that you will enjoy reading their quotes.

A Man Takes Time on a Hot Roof to Smile for the Camera

Under the Pink Umbrella--Life is Good.

Holidays Can Flip Reality

There are few things in this world that amaze me anymore to the extent that I jump up out of the chair and say,"WOW!,No Way". I just did that! Some guest on a local television channel took a cut-out gingerbread man, turned it upside down and started to decorate it with icing. When finished it was the neatest reindeer cookie that I have ever seen. Yep! from Gingerbread boy to Reindeer simply by looking at something from a different angle and some creative frosting and cake decorating tricks.

That's the key to photography. Take something and improve on it. Change the light. Shoot from a whole different angle (i.e., above, ground level, blur foreground, blur background) but to take something as simple as a blank piece of gingerbread dough cut-out and turned upside down really did almost crash land my brain for a few seconds. Amazing. It really was. The legs became the antlers and the upside down head because the face of Rudolph, complete with a red gum drop as the nose.

From there, it was off to the drugstore to pick up a refill, then on to see the cardiologist, who  has  been leaking melanin ever since I've known him.  He has more white hair than someone with a head full of white hair. That's a bad leak. If you only had a little leak, you get silver hair and still have a lot of brown or black or red hair remaining. For a long time. So the moral of this story as well as the long and the short of it is this: if you don't like a melanin leak, you can always run to your Clairol Professional. Don't you see? You could even use a Clairol Hair color chart and find a Clairol Gray. I'm just glad that I see silver rather than white on my head. Always did like silver! Well, that is when I was no longer a teenager. Mom wouldn't peroxide my roots and that beautiful head of blond hair was growing out fast.This mop of brown with a little Gaelic red from who knows how many generations back in history would just have to get me through the next 40 years or so. That was 45-years ago!

While getting my EKG, it struck me that I could have been having lunch with my brother. What else struck me was a new cartoon on the doctor's wall. It wasn't as funny as the old one of an old man saying to his postman that the squirrels must be harvesting nuts again. He hadn't seen three of his neighbors in days.Funny what you think about while waiting to see the out-come of a test.

Tomorrow, as it gets colder outside, I need to make a fast trip to the drugstore to pick-up yet another prescription that was changed up today at the doctor's. After leaving the doctor's I went back to the pharmacy only to find that the pharmacist would have to order the meds. That means I'll have to go back out tomorrow, then I can  spend the rest of the day listening to the sounds of the season and   working in the kitchen. I'm going to cook the ham  a day early.

 Hopefully, I can listen to the BBC's annual broadcast of the Nine Lessons and Carols live from King's College, Cambridge. It's a beautiful service and for me has long kicked off the true Christmas season as it does in England. If not, I'll catch the re-broad cast on Christmas Day. About an hour and one-half  service some 5,000 miles away does more good for my heart than all the pills and implanted wires that I walk around with today. Which reminds me, I have to go on line and check the time, find the PBS or NPR station that will carry it this year, so I'm ready to plug in and listen live.

Having shared a little bit of my day here's hoping y'all have a great holiday season regardless of where you are and regardless of how much melanin you might be loosing------

Happy Holidays

New Boats at the Mandalay Dock

New pedal boats with red canvas top covers (retractable)are now docked on Lake Carolyn at Las Colinas. You rent by the hour and can pedal into the canals and follow the canals under the bridges and come back out on the lake.Or,you can come back the way you came into the canals. The disturbing thing about all of this is that there is a sign posted that requires you to get a license from Dallas County Water Reclamation for "commercial" photos. Just so happens, there is a little photography business at the beginning of the canals on the west side of Las Colinas Blvd. Hum! Sounds a bit like a money-grabbing scheme if there ever was one.And here is the kicker. It's a permit--not a license fee--good only for the day that you are shooting pictures and the one-time use permit cost a whopping $50.00!

  Paul, the Administration Manager at Dallas County Utility and Reclamation District was still out to lunch at 2:10 PM and not available for additional information.

 I'd like to post a picture of the new boats but I am a senior citizen and I've been warned by the AARP not to fall for schemes such as this against senior citizens. In lieu of the boats, I took a picture of the sign posted by the DURD!