It is 29 degrees this morning in Cumming, GA. All I can say about this past month is "When the lights go out in Georgia..." it gets cold. Fortunately, the temperature will rise into the fifties later on today.
Continuing on the bright side, in 29 days Gibbs Garden will be open for the Daffodil Festival. We have season passes and the gardens are 12 miles from our home. We enjoy going there, even if we only have a couple hours; to take in this spectacular venue, take some pictures, and have a light lunch at the Arbor Cafe which is in the gardens.
These pictures were from last Spring, at which time I did post them to the blog, however, they brighten my day. Remember to click on a picture to enlarge it.
There is an infinite amount of articles on photography on the Internet ranging from the technical, to equipment, to the "how to" take a picture or process in on your software, and even motivational.
The latter often centers on having a project. A quote that has stuck with me for years is, "If you aim at nothing, you will hit it!" (unknown source). One of the 'go to' projects often mentioned is the 365 project, which is to take a picture each day of the year. The list of suggestions is long and can be most worthwhile. Landscape Photography can be limiting during certain times of the year and your location, thus a project can fill the void.
This leads me to my thoughts of having a project or projects on which to direct my attention. One such thought is born out of something that is often said in articles and that is, a picture should tell a story. It is probably one of the "rules" that pervade the thinking of many. They will go on to say that "rules are made to be broken." My antithesis to a picture should tell a story is tell me a story about this picture.
So, here is a 'long-term' project about which I am thinking. This is a Mission Impossible type of assignment. "If you decide to accept this mission..." You will write a story ( around 1500 words) using the picture which follows as the motivation for the story. The story could be a mystery, an historical story, an adventure, a documentary, and the list go on... even an 'Harlequin' story.
If you do decide.. this blog will not go up in smoke, but I would want to publish a few finalists, with your permission, and have you select the winner.
Hemingway wrote short stories that were long and some that were short. The short short stories averaged just under 1500 words, which will be the benchmark.
Send your stories to the following Email address: raycarrollpix@yahoo.com
Go for it!
For a better view and to help in thinking about a story, click on the picture.
I went for a short drive on some back roads in Cumming, GA and came across a herd of bovines. It reminded me of a pithy poem by Bennett Cerf. Oooops! Make that Ogden Nash, with many thanks to Jim Edgerton for the correction. "The cow is of bovine ilk... One end is moo, the other end is milk."
Why is it that I can remember this from my days in high school, but when I go to the grocery store I have to make a list of the two things that I need?
Oh, and by the way, if I were to put a caption on this photo, it would be, "This is my smile!"
The scene of this picture is of a stone arch bridge on Route 9 in Stoddard, NH and I posted a photo of this previously in October. I mentioned that the stone in the bridge is 'dry stacked" and that there is no mortar used in the construction of the bridge. There is much in formation to be found on Goggle regarding this type of bridge.
I was practicing various functions of a post-processing software and this is the result of adventure. It is an adventure trying to unlock what the software has to offer. This software is ON1 Photo RAW 2018. I have five post-processing software that I use and this one is my favorite, for now.
The first photos of the bridge is straight out of the camera; it has not been touched. The remaining photos have been cropped to present a completely different effect. To me, it elicits a few things, such as, looking at the photo critically and the color version gives my thoughts completely different to the black and white version.
Noting the black and white copies, the first one is what I did and the second one is from a preset. Most software have preset, which one can click on and all the processing step are done for you. This preset is what one would could be envision if Ansel Adams processed the photo.
You probably have heard of the idiom, "... warmed the cockles of my heart." I like the warming part, but what is a cockle? I know that there are valves, aortas, but cockles???
Actually, a cockle is a heart shaped mollusk shell and I cannot grasp how that reflects my innermost feelings. Oh, well, these photos "warm the cockles of my heart" with all this cold weather that has gripped the country. They were taken in Destin, Florida in 2012.
The time it took to shoot the first photo to the sixth photo was 6 minutes. The earth's rotation waits for no one. I said it this way for those who would say that the sun does not set... ;-} Mind you, I am not naming names.
If you click on the first one and then use the right arrow key, tapping it in a staccato manner, it will be as though you are watching a video.
It is January 13 and these are the first pictures that I have taken this year. it was 28 degrees outside and with the wind, it felt like 20 degrees, although I could not tell the difference.
The pictures are of the Cumming Methodist Church, which happens to be in Cumming, GA. Go figure! Some were taken from Tower Road that goes up Sawnee Mountain.
