Images: Film rewind II

While doing a bit of housekeeping on my computer yesterday, I came across a handful of frames from a springtime trip to Acadia National Park more than a dozen years ago.

Really, they're nothing more than snapshots grabbed during leisurely hikes. And back then the medium was film, of course. They preserve some good memories, though, and I've judged a few worth sharing.

Zachariah's Red-Eye Reunion XII

A week has passed since the 2012 edition of Zachariah's Red-Eye Reunion. Again I had the privilege of photographing the event, and despite having a rash of camera problems toward the end of the show, the Reunion remains a musical and photographic highlight.

This may have been the best one yet. Enjoy the images.

Wallpaper: McGuffey Lane

Here's a page torn from my sketchpad -- a simple image, massaged a bit in Photoshop, becomes an appealing desktop background.

My sketchpad

My wife and I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to drop in on the annual Reynoldsburg Tomato Festival last night. It was no coincidence that McGuffey Lane occupied the main stage when we arrived, making this the second straight weekend that we've caught their act.

This time I wasn't there to photograph the performance. I left my pro gear at home but, as I often do, I brought along my digital pocket camera and snapped about a dozen images of the show.
A little silver PhD* camera naturally is less capable than a big black SLR with interchangeable lenses. It works well for documenting events and preserving memories, but even its best work should be passed through the filter of lower expectations.

Then again, because it's much smaller it's more likely to be carried. (That should sound familiar, by the way.) And "getting the shot" requires actually having something to shoot with.

Put another way -- if Jeff Cooper, quoted in Friday's post, had been a photographer instead of the Father of Modern Pistolcraft, he might well have said,

"Remember the first rule of photography: Have a camera."

So a point-and-shoot camera is, potentially, an EDC item. For the committed photographer, however, a high-quality PhD* has other, less obvious applications.

Photography's components -- composition, exposure, highlight and shadow, color, etc. -- are fundamental. Different equipment may render a given subject in different ways, but I've found that spending time with a pocket camera and then transferring lessons learned to a like-branded SLR (I choose Canon) to be extraordinarily helpful.

Most often I use the smaller camera to play around with composition. I bring the results of those tests back to my PC, looking for promising angles worth exploring with my SLR.

Essentially, it's equivalent to the artist's sketchpad.

That's what I did two years ago with the barns. I do it whenever I shoot a knife, a morning's harvest or other subject to accompany a post on KintlaLake Blog. It was my mission last night, too, as I captured McGuffey Lane's show from a band's-eye perspective.
The images I've posted here today document a scene but by no means are they great photos. That's ok by me -- the goal of the exercise was to create sketches, continuing my exploration of the medium.

*PhD = "push here, dummy"

Forty-eight hours (illustrated)

In yesterday's much-ballyhooed (but patently inconsequential) Ames Straw Poll, Rep. Michele Bachmann won a squeaker over Rep. Ron Paul. Stealing a piece of their thunder, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas announced that he, too, wants to be President.

Never mind what you hear from giddy conservatives -- neither development heralds the defeat of Pres. Barack Obama. So far Bachmann and Paul have polled poorly in a hypothetical matchup with the incumbent, and Perry will show that he's incapable of shedding the perception that he's nothing more (or less) than George W. Bush II.

Worse, and despite thumping the "Liberty!" tub, all three of these GOP hopefuls pander shamelessly to (so-called) "social conservatives" -- white evangelical Christians, mostly, whose ideology couldn't be more antithetical to Liberty.

Barely a week before declaring his candidacy, Perry led 30,000 in a "Prayer-Palooza" at a stadium in Houston -- a sitting governor keynoting a camp meeting. Even Paul, arguably dean of the small-government movement, has been sucked into the anti-libertarian abyss on abortion and other issues.

Considering the weak Republican field, this is not good.


"I may not be the gearhead I used to be, but I'm still plenty redneck."

Those aren't my words -- they came from my smiling wife as we sat along a curb in nearby Reynoldsburg last night, joining thousands of others to watch the annual Mopar Nationals "Brice Road Cruise."

The air was thick with tire smoke. Some of the onlookers, many of them children, laid down patches of water on the pavement, hoping to lure a good burnout. Drivers were more than willing to oblige, a token police presence having little effect.

Either you get this sort of thing or you don't. We had a ball, and besides, dropping by the Brice Road Cruise was Mrs. KintlaLake's idea.

I married a redneck gearhead. Somebody pinch me.


Ohio's state flag appears on a new postage stamp, released on Friday. It's part of the "Flags of Our Nation" series and, since I'm a born-and-bred Buckeye, it's a source of pride.

Yet another harvest shot, this haul from midday today -- nine large cukes, five peppers, two Romas and five yellow pear tomatoes.

I'll end this roundup with the way our weekend began -- at the Huntington Park Hoedown, a benefit concert held Friday evening at the home ballpark of the Columbus Clippers.

We arrived at the will-call window just before the gates opened, fetched my media badge and my wife's field pass and made our way to the visitors' dugout to deposit my photo gear. Local solo artist Chris Logsdon took the stage first, followed by Jonalee White and her band. Both treated the crowd to typically great performances.

McGuffey Lane, by far our favorite local band (and the source of our comp passes, by the way), was next on the bill and didn't disappoint. My wife and I adjourned to the parking lot for a smoke after their set.

When we returned, the reunited Exile was onstage. Of all the acts, we figured, this was the lone take-or-leave proposition.

Boy, were we wrong.

I don't remember the last time I was as blown away by a performance. I mean, here was an '80s pop-turned-country band showing chops that had the show's other musicians gathering, awestruck, behind the stage. Exile's a capella rendition of "People Get Ready," the Curtis Mayfield classic, had the ballpark so quiet I swear I heard the outfield grass growing.

Seriously, people -- if you have a chance to catch Exile live, with all five of its founding members, do it. I promise you won't regret it.

Hoedown headliner Pure Prairie League, over five hours after their sound check, closed the show with a high-energy set, including three of my favorites: "Early Morning Riser," "Two-Lane Highway" and, of course, "Amie."

Photographically the night had me wishing for faster glass and steadier hands. But incomparable music performed in a great venue, on a clear summer evening that saw a full moon rise over the Columbus skyline behind the stage -- it doesn't get better than that.

Early wake-up call

Scout was thrilled when I rolled out of bed today at 4am. My wife, well, not so much -- ordinarily she doesn't get up 'til 5am.

By that time I was on the road, headed for our county airport to shoot a hot-air balloon launch. It'd been quite a while, maybe 15 years, since I'd photographed balloons, and I'd forgotten how much I enjoy it.

Bright colors and early-morning light make for a rewarding shoot, for sure, but it's the people I've missed. They're always so accommodating, so warm, so real -- and that makes it fun. I really need to do this more often.

A sad sight

When I launched KintlaLake Blog, my family and I lived across from an abandoned farm -- a big frame house and dilapidated outbuildings surrounded by fields and woodland. After dinner my wife and I often retired to our front porch, sat silently and drew peace from the scene.

Today, on an impulse, we drove by our old place. Glancing over at the farm on the other side of the road, we gasped -- it's gone.

The ground was roughed-up and leveled where barns used to stand. A bulldozer sat idle on a trailer behind a demolition company truck, parked about where the foundation of the house had been. There was no trace of an enormous oak that once cast its shadows on the lawn.

This forsaken family farm always was, to me, a sad sight. Now it's sadder still, eased a bit by my wife's perspective on the razing.

"It's ok," she said, "That was our place, our landscape. It's ok now."

She's right, of course. For my part, I'm glad that I took the time to capture some purposeful images of those barns.

Accidents happen

It took me longer than I'd expected to wade through the images from Saturday night's Zachariah's Red-Eye Reunion. I'm not sure why.

I managed to pull and tweak 65 decent photographs, roughly one of every ten frames that I shot. I won't post them all on KintlaLake Blog, of course, but it's a pretty respectable ratio.

A few of the best were unplanned, anything but deliberate, arguably even accidental. Here's an example, previously posted on Sunday.

(McGuffey Lane)

I grabbed that image as I dashed from one wing to the other while headliner McGuffey Lane paused between songs. Something about the shadows caught my eye, so I turned off the flash, raised the camera to my chest (I didn't take the time to sight through the viewfinder), banged off two shots and moved on. For a what-the-hell photo, the result surprised me.

I love the challenges of concert photography -- moving subjects and rapidly changing lighting, to name just two. I'll close this post with a pair of images illustrating what can happen when the curse of unpredictability becomes a photographic blessing.

(Guest artist Delyn Christian performing "Long-Haired Country Boy")

(Molly Pauken of McGuffey Lane & the Jonalee White band)

Zachariah's Red-Eye Reunion XI

Last night I photographed Zachariah's Red-Eye Reunion 2011, the third time I've had the privilege of shooting this annual concert.

I clicked off 650 frames, give or take, 500 of which I kept. Now comes the task of earnestly previewing the lot, culling the bad and editing the best. Little of that will happen today, though.

The music echoes yet this morning and the afterglow of friendship still warms me, but I'm flat exhausted.

I'll hold my place with these two images. More later, I believe.


(Previous years' Reunions: Reunion recap, an epilogue; Reunion recap, part two; Reunion recap, part one; Satisfaction; Backstage past; An uncompensated plug)

'The Journey Continues...'

This music-slideshow just hit YouTube:



What a treasure -- those images of McGuffey Lane, from roots to present day, collect vivid memories, special moments.

A good day, indeed.

Catch that?

A number of KintlaLake Blog readers looked closely at an image in one of yesterday's posts, past those old pocketknives to the words on the page of my 1967 BSA Fieldbook.


To satisfy expressed curiosity, then, here's the paragraph appearing behind the knives (emphasis mine):

"Quality in a knife, an ax, or a saw--or any other tool--has to be judged on proper design, suitable material, and honest workmanship. To the expert, just 'hefting' a tool--trying its weight and balance--and running an eye along its edge tells him a lot. The maker's name may influence his opinion--some--but the test will be in the using: will the knife take and hold a keen edge, does the ax hang right and swing true, can a saw bite deep and smooth and not chatter or run out of the cut?"

The guidance is simple, practical, correct. I used that page quite intentionally, of course -- thanks for noticing.

Watch & learn
Last week my exasperated younger spawn came to me and said,

"I'll sure be glad when the election is over."

Like the rest of us, he's tired of being bombarded with political ads at every commercial break. This 15-year-old even acknowledged that the candidates' pitches are laced with half-truths and outright lies, and that they're not very helpful. (A budding critical thinker, that one.)

Before the conversation ended, I reminded him that what he's discovered isn't unique to political ads. Come November 3rd, when the television starts telling him what he craves for Christmas this year, I want him to notice that commercial ads do the same thing.

We'll wait to see if that sticks. Color me cautiously optimistic.

Affinity redux
Josh Mandel, a 33-year-old Republican from the Cleveland suburb of Lyndhurst, wants to be our next State Treasurer. Mandel's bio, like every one of his campaign ads, leads with this factoid:

"Josh Mandel is a Marine intelligence veteran who served two tours in Iraq..."

I honor his military service, of course, but it doesn't qualify him to manage Ohio's $50 billion budget -- in fact, it's wholly irrelevant.

What's more, even though I'm not a veteran myself, I recoil from anyone who uses their military service as a gambit -- whether in politics, in business or in everyday conversation. Many vets see the tactic as diminishing their collective honor, and I agree.

Let's tell the truth about this -- Mandel is exploiting military service (as well as resorting to bigotry and Islamophobia) because it works.

Affinity politics, closely related to the identity politics typified by Christine O'Donnell's "I'm you" strategy, relies on voters to make decisions based on irrational fears, superficial personal qualities and insignificant biographical bits. Sadly, that's how most American citizens choose elected officials, so Josh Mandel will win.

He just won't be getting my vote.

Hump Day roundup

Every so often I collect a few topics worthy of comment but resisting a single theme. This is one of those times.

Esperanza y acción
If you're not moved by what's going on right now at the San Jose mine complex in Chile, have someone check you for a pulse. As I post this, 17 of 33 trapped miners have been hauled to the surface.

It's absolutely riveting stuff.

After rescuers established contact with the miners some weeks ago, Jorge Galeguillos sent a letter up to his brother, a fellow miner. He wrote this account of the August 5th collapse:

"We had been up to the workshop and as we were driving back down, a slab of rock caved in just behind us. It crashed down only a few seconds after we drove past. Just ahead I saw a white butterfly. After that, we were caught in an avalanche of dirt and dust. I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. The tunnel was collapsing..."

In a culture as superstitiously Catholic as the Atacama region of Chile, that "white butterfly" is bound to become the next BVM-on-toast -- that is, people all over the world will see an angel in an insect.

Whatever.

Oh, don't get me wrong -- the tale of a butterfly flitting about deep underground is a real head-scratcher and, if it's true, it's pretty damned cool. I just don't feel the need to concoct divine explanations.

I'd rather marvel at the triumph of hope and, more important, the actions of men.

Perspectives on employment
Yesterday I ran across a couple of briefing papers from the Economic Policy Institute. EPI may be a left-leaning think-tank -- "Government must play an active role in protecting the economically vulnerable, ensuring equal opportunity, and improving the well-being of all Americans" -- but numbers don't take sides.


According to an analysis of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau, since the beginning of the recession the U.S. economy needed to add 3.4 million jobs simply to keep pace with population growth. Instead, we lost 8.1 million jobs -- which means that there's a gap of 11.5 million jobs.

Put another way, the U.S. economy would have to add 11.5 million jobs just to get back to December 2007 employment levels.

No one truly believes that those jobs will be coming back any time soon. I say that most won't come back at all.

We also could look at the ratio of job-seekers to available jobs -- currently 4.6-to-1, by EPI's estimate -- and other fascinating stats, but I'm going to toss three numbers into a context that's a bit easier to wrap our brains around.

Coming up with 11.5 million jobs (to achieve pre-recession payrolls, as noted above) is equivalent to employing the entire population of Ohio.

6.1 million American workers -- roughly equal to the population of Indiana, our 14th-largest state -- have been unemployed longer than six months.

26.3 million Americans are either unemployed or under-employed. Only one state's population (California, 33.9 million) exceeds that number, which is greater than the combined populations of Pennsylvania and Illinois.

That sure puts things into perspective, doesn't it?

Macro economy vs. Mike Rowe economy
Mike Rowe, like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, is an entertainer. Unlike those talk-radio blowhards, however, Rowe has a useful agenda, one that could actually benefit this country.

A couple of years ago, the likable host of Dirty Jobs conceived mikeroweWORKS.com. Rather than trying to describe his vision for the project, I'll encourage you to take ten minutes out of your life to watch Mike’s Mission Video -- it's well worth your time.

I happened to catch an interview with Rowe on CNN yesterday afternoon, which is how I found out what (besides Dirty Jobs and Ford spots) he's up to. Here are a few snips.

"I don't know that we've lost the jobs so dramatically as we have lost touch with the people who do the jobs. But of course that's always the first step in marginalizing something. ... A growing skills gap, a crumbling infrastructure. And just a general dysfunctional relationship with dirt. There really are a couple of different pieces of this country that are not connected."

"...if we don't do something soon, we really are going to be dealing with fewer steam fitters and pipe fitters and electricians and plumbers and carpenters. And that's going to be a real, real problem."

"We've got this idea that a four-year degree is basically the only ticket to happiness and success. And when you celebrate one form of education at the expense of all the other ones, you really do the whole country a disservice. ... So many of the things we define as problems -- infrastructure, manufacturing, the skills gap, I think they're really symptoms of this larger problem that so many of us are just disconnected from the people who haul our water."

That's good stuff there, coming from a good guy. And it's not a bunch of ideological, anti-elitist bullshit, either -- it's pro-work.

Mike Rowe has a grip. I'm going to spend some more time over at mikeroweWORKS.com and see what else I can learn.

Backyard wallpaper
Walking out into this morning's cool air and brilliant sunshine, I looked up through the canopy of our ash tree. I dashed back inside, grabbed a camera and managed to capture what I saw before the light changed on me. The image, below, is now the wallpaper on my PC.

Parallels & intersections

I don't remember exactly when I first heard these lyrics, but I do remember how I felt:

He got up every mornin'
While I was still asleep
And I remember the sound of him shufflin' around
Right before the crack of dawn
Is when I heard him turn the motor on
But when I got up they were gone

Down the road in the rain and snow
The man and his machine would go
Oh, the secrets that old car would know
Sometimes I hear him sayin'

Don'tcha gimme no Buick
Son, you must take my word
If there's a god in heaven
He's got a silver Thunderbird
You can keep your Eldorado
And the foreign car's absurd
Me, I wanna go down
In a silver Thunderbird

As Marc Cohn sang of his childhood he sang of mine, of growing up in northeast Ohio in the late 1950s and early 1960s. I walked through my youth 50 miles south of Cohn, who's two years (almost to the day) younger than me. For what it's worth, my dad drove an Olds.

Sometimes we follow music. Sometimes the music follows us.

* * *
In closing, if you'll permit me, I'll offer a recommendation.

Regular readers of KintlaLake Blog will recall that the music of McGuffey Lane has had my attention for nearly 35 years now. The band's tenth album -- appropriately titled "10" -- has been out for less than a month and it's a bona fide winner. With all due respect to McGuffey Lane's considerable body of work, "10" may be the best yet.

(The photograph on the art accompanying the CD isn't bad, either.)

If your musical tastes run similar to mine, I believe you'll enjoy it.

Reunion recap, an epilogue

Ah, the much-touted "basic eight" -- I actually got a full night's sleep last night, closing my eyes just after 9pm. When the alarm buzzed at 5am this morning I awoke refreshed. I needed that.

Trumping the digital images of Saturday night are two mental images, memories that I cherish.

Behind the curtains in the left wing, a father and son occupied a pair of folding chairs set against the stage wall. It was clear that the boy suffers from some sort of disabling condition, his small body frail and his limbs twisted.

His spindly hands gripped a kid-sized Epiphone electric guitar, and throughout the concert -- I mean without stopping -- he "played" along with the show. He seemed to know every song, every lick and every break, jamming and dancing with unbounded joy, a broad grin on his young face.

I stopped shooting the on-stage performances several times to photograph him, which only made his grin bigger and his strumming more energetic. I still don't know who he is.

Now, as then, the thought of this boy brings a smile and a tear.

Toward the end of the Reunion, headliner McGuffey Lane and friends performed arguably the band's biggest hit, "Long Time Lovin' You." I heard the familiar opening strains while crouching between the drum and keyboard risers, framing a shot of lead singer John Schwab approaching his microphone.

Instead of pressing the shutter button, I turned the camera off, lowered it to my chest and quickly made my way off the stage. I hustled down the ramp, through the crowd and to the table where my wife and spawns were sitting.

I extended my hand to Mrs. KintlaLake. She smiled, stood and wrapped her arms around me. We slow-danced to "Long Time Lovin' You," just as we do every time we hear it.

The rest of the world could wait -- it's our song.

Placing a kiss on her cheek as the music faded and the audience cheered, I turned my camera on again and went back to work.

Yes, I love my photography and all of the heady behind-the-scenes stuff, but I love that woman a whole lot more.

Reunion recap, part two

The amplifiers growled, the lights came up and the soul of Zachariah's Red-Eye Saloon stepped out from the wings to greet its extended family. The assembled jumped to their feet and the celebration began.

Like Brigadoon emerging from the misty moors, it was as if no time had passed. Unlike the mythical Scottish hamlet, however, this Reunion was real, present and undeniably alive.

KintlaLake Blog can't, of course, convey the sounds of that night. And rather than resorting to a dry account of the performances in the style of a music critic, I'll offer what I can -- images that I had the pleasure of capturing.




Photographs preserve what words could not -- instants of focus, joy, enduring friendship and the spirit that unites players and audience.

In a spontaneous burst of laughter, we see the ecstasy of a daughter sharing the stage with her father. Harmonizing at a shared microphone, two grown men display a bond nurtured over three decades.



The music was spectacular, by the way. You'll just have to take my word for that.

As I write this, it's been 60 hours since the Reunion stage went silent. After an unseasonably warm weekend, winter has returned to central Ohio and light snow is falling outside my window. The Zachariah's family has gone back to everyday jobs and everyday lives.

Until next year, then.

Reunion recap, part one

One of the best parts of shooting a concert is getting there ahead of the crowd, before the show begins. When I walked through the stage door at The LC Saturday evening, several of the players were doing sound checks.

Dave carefully set up stands for his sax and flute. Molly strummed her mandolin, then put it down in favor of her electric bass. A few minutes later, Terry sat down at his pedal-steel guitar, adjusted the bench to his liking and twanged a whimsically mournful tune to an empty house.

The arena's lighting and audio crews clambered and fiddled and fussed, chasing persistent bugs.

In the green room, Steve changed out of his cap and hoodie, donning his trademark straw hat and a black buttoned shirt. He pulled a well-loved Fender bass from its case. While he plucked and tuned we spoke of growing old, wishing aloud for friends who aren't here to grow old with us.

As showtime drew closer, one by one the rest of the performers arrived. Dozens of personal reunions took place before the musical Reunion took the stage. I was treated like a member of the family.

There was laughter and warm hugs, some tears, much quiet conversation and at least one enthusiastic chest-bump.

(Ouch.)

Backstage moments like these are unknown to most concertgoers, but this is where magic lives, where music begins.

Being a part of it is a singular privilege. I consider myself truly fortunate.

Satisfaction

I'll have more to say later about last night's Zachariah's Red-Eye Reunion. For now, I'll just tell you that it was, as expected, a musical and personal high point.

In less than five exhausting hours of photography I captured more than 600 frames. I'll be thrilled if 20 of them are keepers.

But that's not the point, really.

This annual gathering again reminded me that the heart of the Zachariah's family beats strong on both sides of the footlights. As good as the music is, the smiles and embraces are better.

Love flowed in torrents last night and into the wee hours. That's what I'll remember.

That's what remains. That's what sustains.

Morning scramble

As I sipped my first cup of coffee early this morning, I clicked the send-receive button to check e-mail. There were several messages related to my new job and a couple of slices of fresh spam, plus a note from McGuffey Lane's publicist.

The band wants me to photograph Zachariah's Red-Eye Reunion again this year -- and that's tonight.

I charged every camera and flash battery I could find and cleaned my lenses, all while taking business phone calls and answering e-mails. I soothed my wife's disappointment (and conveyed my own) that we won't be enjoying the entire concert together at the table we've reserved. The spawns will be there, so that's good.

Since my own batteries needed charging, too, I knocked off around 1pm for a quick nap. In a few minutes I'll grab a shower and get ready to head downtown, intending to arrive early to block my shots.

Just like last year, it's gonna be a great night -- and a very long one. Photos to follow.

The strong pull of Home

One of Mrs. KintlaLake's friends e-mailed her a link to a video yesterday. Because we'd spent our afternoon and early-evening hours at the emergency room (our older spawn cut his finger in auto shop and required stitches), she didn't get to it until just before bedtime.

She was at her desk in our basement office and I was across the room at my computer. I heard music and asked her what it was.

"Come watch," she said with a catch in her voice. I walked over and stood next to her. This is what unfolded on the screen.



When the slide show had finished playing, I saw that my wife was crying. I put my hand on her shoulder.

"You ok?" I asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine...wasn't that beautiful?"

We made our way upstairs and got ready for bed. Tears continued to roll down her face.

"What is it, hon'?"

She paused for a moment, then spoke through the emotions welling up inside her. "I guess I miss it more than I thought I did."

"Of course you do," I said, knowing what she was feeling. "It's home."

Neither of us is truly home these days. We live in someone else's house, in a town we've adopted out of circumstance and necessity.

My own hometown is a hundred miles to the north and east, but at least I can say that I live in the state in which I was born. My wife's childhood home -- Morgantown, West Virginia -- is a few hours away, and we don't get over that direction very often.

We need to fix that. After watching her reaction to those images and that music, it's clear that Mrs. KintlaLake is feeling the strong pull of Home -- memories of places and people and moments that created her, sustain her, ground her.

Soon, I think, we'll pile into the truck and head east toward her touchstone -- Home.

This old world is a mystery,
But there's one thing I know:
This is my Home. (Larry Groce)

Delightful

In the interest of full disclosure, I didn't take yesterday's morning walk in our nearby common space. It happened at a local wildlife refuge, the site of my "Sunrise Sojourn" last spring.

Since the area is part of Central Ohio's Metro Parks system, my leisurely trek hardly qualifies me for a bushcraft merit badge. All the same, it's a wilder place.

At one point, five whitetails burst from the tall grass scarcely 20 yards in front of me. Later, just ten feet to my right, a red fox pounced, missed, saw me and disappeared.

Herons glided overhead without making a sound. Migrating geese and ascending KC-135s, on the other hand, were less reserved.

A friend and former colleague of mine, a helluva photographer who left Ohio recently for a warmer clime, saw my images and commented that he prefers to watch our changing seasons from afar. I get that.

Since he's a shooter himself, however, he also appreciates the challenge of entering a landscape of tall, dry grass, seemingly devoid of color, and the rewards of getting close.

He knows that delight is in the details.

Enjoy the beach, old friend, because it was damned chilly out on the marshes yesterday. I'll stay put, thanks -- I love this time of year.