My online journal where I share my interests in photography, nature, coffee life, journaling, fountain pens, bicycling, spirituality and asking deep questions.
We arrived late in the afternoon in New Orleans and agreed to meet for a quick sandwhich. so off to our rooms to change and meet in the lobby. I arrived before anyone else and stepped outside to take inthe late evening light. Just as I walked out of the lobby I saw this pattern of the hotel driveway. The late evening light casts some wonderful shadows.
“The chief lesson I have learned in a long life is that the only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him; and the surest way to make him untrustworthy is to distrust him and show your distrust.”
Henry L. Stimson US politician (1867 – 1950)
I encountered these guys in Nashville. Not sure what was going on but one was covering the others eyes and leading him across the street. I’d call that trust or one too many beers.
Why am I blogging? Do I want to be a published writer? What will I gain from it? Will anyone read this blog? Will people comeback to read more, if there is more? A really good question is “who” will read my blog? I do not have answers to those questions but here is how this got started.
A fellow coffee shop patron, Peter McIan, back in Colorado mentioned one day he thought it would be interesting if I blogged about my travels while working as a flight attendant. I had no clue what blogging was about. I floundered around on the internet to try and grasp what it all entailed and just got confused. I checked out the available blogging software and decided I did not want to learn another application. When I get confused I’ve learned to stop and move on to other things then come back to it later. Admittedly, many times in the past I never come back to it, I would just quit. At this time in my life, I seem to be ready and explore this.
One reason for this blog is to have the ability to post my images on the internet. Ego? Possibly. However, I’ve been working on “right-sizing” this ego for the past few years so I feel it has more to do with wanting to share my photography. I know that some people will enjoy my images and others will not. Hopefully my images will show what I have seen through my eyes and where I’ve been.
I also have a few thoughts to share and when those rise to the surface I’ll post them. But, I primarily I hope this is a way to keep in touch with family and friends without filling their email boxes. My current work has me in Columbus, Ohio, so I’m not as close to family and friends. Whoever decides to follow my writing, my photography and my life can check out my blog whenever they feel inclined.
Since I’ve mentioned family, I decided to share an image of my oldest daughter, Christine. I took this image this past September while I was back home. She has blessed my life in ways she will never know nor will I be able to put them in words. I can say, I’m thankful she is a part of my life. She has also giving us all the gift of her own daughter, Abbie!
So, let’s keep in touch!
Count the garden by the flowers, never by the leaves that fall. Count your life with smiles and not the tears that roll.
Author Unknown
A couple of my crew members and I took the train from Long Island, near Rockville Center, into Manhattan and spent most of Sunday afternoon watching people. New York has a few interesting people to watch. One of the interesting resident characters is the Naked Cowboy. He was a strumming his guitar and bellowing out his song, stopping every once in awhile to hug a woman or two and pocket the money. He draws a crowd while on the streets and has reportedly made as much a $1000 in a day. Wonder if he wears any socks.
We took a taxi to downtown Nashville on one of our overnights last week. Dana suggested BBQ so we found a place on Broadway called Jacks Bar-B-Que and put down some ribs, brisket and all the fix’ in. After a few good burps and belches we took to the streets to walk it off. It was my first time in downtown Nashville and found Lower Broadway area to be very interesting. The streets are lined on either side with bars and lounges, souvenir shops, western wear shops and restaurants. Many of the bars had open doors where the live music poured out into the streets, inviting you to come in and enjoy. What else would you expect in Nashville.
Tom had a high school friend named Jim who was playing in place a called the Big Bang, a dueling piano bar. So we made our way over and listened to some pretty good music. Lots of energy in that place. As I had my camera with me I took a few photos to see how the D300 would do with high ISO. I shot with and without flash and was not too pleased with my results, so I converted this image to B/W. This is Jim with his reflection in a mirror as he gets into the music.
It is true in saying that nature is always at work in creating and painting its art for us. It’s also important to remember that nature is painting all around us, a full 360 degrees around us. Too often we focus only in one direction when some of our better photos may be behind us. This image was taken on a cold January morning in 2006 along the Colorado Front Range just east of Fort Collins. I had headed out for morning sunrise photos when I turned to the west and found the moon getting ready to set just above the mountains. Nature as artist.