Friday Shootout -- Patterns

I'm late this morning and don't really have time to figure out some humorous patternish thing.  Well, I really am late...but  I also can't find my muse...

BAGMAN:  "I'm right over here, Mark!!  Open your eyes!  Let's have a Friday Shootout Party."

Didn't I just say that, in addition to having no good ideas, I also didn't have time.

BAGMAN:  "You give up too easy.   Besides, you have some photographs."

But I hate to just put them in without some kind of zippy caption. But Barclay is due in anytime and Karen left me a short list about watering the plants and I don't have time to...

BAGMAN:  "AAAAARRRRRGH!!!!!""

BUTLER:  "Calm down, Baggie, old chap.  Don't you see what Mark is doing?  He is cleverly exploiting his 'Pattern' of self-depreciation and creative whining."

Oh.  Was that what I was doing?   Maybe that is a pattern.  I do tend to whine and apologise a lot.  So I guess I'll shut up and leave Bagman sitting with a confused expression on his face and post the pictures. 

Boy, am I tired now!

BAGMAN:  "Hooray!  At least you put in one pun!"

BUTLER:  "Tread lightly, Baggie.  Mark isn't really with it this morning."

Bagman giggles at the fact that strait-laced Butler actually made a pun himself.  I decide to push the post button and go look at other people's posts while I wait for Barclay to show up.  

Hometown Shootout -- what am I?

It has been a busy week but fortunately, this shoot is really a one shot shoot.  I suppose I could do a lot of what am I's.   I do, after all wonder what I am more often than not.  Talking heads singing in my brain again, "This is not my beautiful house?  This is not my beautiful wife?  How did I get here?" 

Probably not quite the right lyrics but rather than look it up, I'm taking the lazy way out and just posting the picture I took this week.  I kept thinking about close-ups or details and then just decided to go with something unique about my hometown. 

I'm not sure if I should give the answer at the bottom of the post...I guess not because then people would know before they left comments.

Besides, I really have to do a little bit of research to make the answer more than just "a batch of..." Woops!  Almost gave it away. 

I think I'll go play around with other people's puzzle shots.   I may not get the answer done until Sunday.   I could say that I'm waiting until Sunday so the suspense will build but actually I'm just buying time for myself. 

Friday Photo Shoot - Things I like to Touch

Much as I tried, I couldn't be discourteous enough to not post when the topic was originally chosen by me.  When Ginger mentioned it earlier in the week, I truly did not remember suggesting it.  She probably thought I'd lost my mind.  She might be right.

Of course, "things I like to touch" came from Bagman.  And I'm pretty sure what he had in mind and it probably would have caused him to be banned from Blogspot forever.  Fortunately, it's been so long that he's given up and I can't even remember suggesting it.  And, unfortunately, it was a huge challenge to come up with something. 

The challenge was finding the willingness to be brutally honest with myself and show my bloggy friends the hard truth...

BAGMAN:  "AAArgh!! No! I can't stand it!   I don't even know you any more!!"

BUTLER:  "Well, it does have a bit of a flare in a nice, cyberistic sort of way."

BAGMAN:  "If this is your favorite thing to touch, I'm in the wrong body!"

Well, of course there is also this:

BAGMAN: "Have you turned into a robot?!!  Have you sold your soul to Bill Gates!!"

BUTLER:  "It could be worse, you know.  Bill Gates is a bit of a philanthropist.  He given so much money away that he's no longer the richest man in the world."

BAGMAN:  "That's not the point!  Mark 's gone all mental on us.  What happened to smelling the roses then rolling in them?  He's addicted to thinking!"

Well, I do like touching the soft fur of Diamond Bill...

BAGMAN:  "A little better..."

And Karen's hair...it's a bit longer now.

BAGMAN:  "Better..."

And, I like touching myself.

BAGMAN:  "ALL RIGHT!  WE'RE COOKING NOW!!!"

I'm sorry to disappoint Bagman but this is embarassing enough.  I've got a couple of things I discovered as a little kid -- kind of touch illusions.   For instance:

If you get your fingers aligned perfectly straight across on both hands and tap them together, it almost feels like they are not separate fingers, or like there is a rular between them.

BAGMAN:  "It just gets worse and worse!!  Senility must have set in!"

And if you put your palms perfectly flat against each other and rub them back and forth, it also feels kind of weird.

BAGMAN:  "Because it IS kind of weird!"

And this is more of an optical illusion than a touch one, but if you hold your fingers like this in front of your eyes and let your eyes focus on the horizon -- the reverse of crossing them -- it will look like a little hot dog appears between the gap.  

There is the crashing sound of a door .   "Where'd Bagman go?"

BUTLER: "What do you think?  He gave up on you.  Although I thought the last one was a bit interesting."

Oh yes, doors. 

I like touching door knobs because they open doors

and doors always lead from one place

to another.

And I like the feel of G-forces just before

the rear-end starts to fishtail

And the heat of a car engine

And cool water in a pool.

And, of course, touching skin is always the best,  but I'd get in huge amounts of trouble if I posted a picture of my lovely wife...

BUTLER: "And you'd get in even more trouble if you posted a picture of any one else!"

Friday Hometown Shoot-Out - Things that make me smile

I thought I might have time to write something cute or even to find a few more pictures.  But alas.  The real world continues to get in the way of blogging.   I guess that's how it is for the moment.  But here are a few pictures -- I may have even posted a few before. 

I hope I will have some time tomorrow to look at everyone else's shots. 

From 1968

San Diego

Lunch Break

Awwww

Hi

Awwww

And this is the only one I took this week

I had to do at least one to keep up the illusion that I'm a photographer

Okay.  Time to drift back to the real world.  I don't know what Bagman and Butler have been doing lately.  The last time I stopped in the office for a moment they were not there but had moved my desk and computer into the corner of the room, covered it with a dropcloth, and installed a ping pong table where it used to be.  They probably think I'll never return.   I didn't appreciate their humor and super-glued the ping pong balls to the table. 

Friday Shootout -- Wrought Iron

Please forgive the brevity of this post but I don't have much time.  Bagman and Butler have locked me out of my computer because they think I've been whining too much about not having time to blog.  So I am hiding in the bathroom from them and trying to post this through my cellphone. 

I'm afraid I don't have many wrought iron shots anyway...wait a minute.  Did that sound like whining?  I don't know any more. 

This one is actually fairly recent.

This is even newer...but I'm not sure it's "wraught" iron. 

I may have to look up "wraught."  

This one is an optical illusion.

This one I've posted before...I may have even posted it twice. 

I'm really sorry to keep repeating it and...

Wait! Someone is banging on the bathroom door.

BAGMAN (Voice muffled from behind door): "Hey!  I hear whining in there!  You aren't using your cellphone to post another whiny shootout, are you!!!???"

Okay.  I have to hurry up even more now. 

...and this one and...

Optical illusion resolved

Does aluminum count?  Gracie will probably kill me for posting this one

She is much older now.

I'm sorry that I don' have more...  Wait!  Gotta Go.  The door's being kicked in!! 

Hometown Shootout - Places of Worship

Today's theme was chosen by Rebecca. 

I've attended many different churches, but I don't seem to have taken pictures of them.  So this will probably be a somewhat odd shootout. 

BUTLER:  "What else is new."

Actually, the first thing I thought about was a verse from Thessalonians (yes, I had to look it up), that suggests -- "admonishes us" is probably more Biblically sounding -- to pray without ceasing or pray continually.  I've given that some thought over the years.  Pretty quickly, I decided that I couldn't do that if it meant formal prayer.  I don't think I do formal prayer very well anyhow, let alone continually.  But maybe it is more of an attitude.  Don't think I do that very well either.  But the 12-Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous has helped over the years.

Until a couple of weeks ago when my A.A. Homegroup moved, this was the place where we met.   We always end the group by standing in a circle and saying the Lords Prayer, but just as important is the sharing and support that goes on during the meeting.

While I don't pray continually, I do throw out little blurts to God from time to time.  Sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on my state of mind.  Almost always when I'm driving and pass those little wooden crosses that some family has placed at the scene of a past accident.  "Dear God, bless that family. Amen." 

I talk to God in bullet points -- which is strange for someone who writes such long wordy blogs. 

Another place of worship, believe it or not is:

I don't know when I started this habit.  When someone would cut me off in traffic, I used to always lean on the horn and flip them the bird and scream at them.  But quite a while ago, I made a decision and developed a habit that is now pretty deeply ingrained.  Whenever someone cuts me off, my first thought is...

BAGMAN :  "Come on, Mark!  Be honest!"

Okay, my first thought is:  YOU STUPID FREAKING IDIOT DUMBASS DRIVER!

But within moments, my next thought is "Dear God, give that person a better day.  Amen."

Probably the most regular and constant place of worship for me is:

Karen, my wife, almost always leaves for work an hour before I do.  But whichever one of  us leaves first we are usually hurrying.  But once we, mostly she gets in the car she calls back on her cell phone (Yes, I know, I know...at least she isn't texting and she uses an earpiece.) and I'll read a daily reading from the book above.  Then each of us says a prayer -- whatever is on our minds.   It is one of the rituals we really enjoy.

Well, that's about it.  A fairly short shootout for me.  I can't resist, however, posting the photo below from a trip we once took to Italy -- from the roof of St. Peters.  I know that I've posted it before.  But it is one of my favorite photos and fits the theme so I can't help but post it again. 

Amen.

Friday Shootout -- Parks

Okay, okay...sucked back in on a Friday.  I was really prepared to miss my first Friday shootout in awhile.  I didn't have any shots of parks anyhow.  Blah blah blah. 

Then, drinking coffee and getting ready for work, the insistant call kept singing like a Halloween ghost in my subconscious..."Oooooo.  Friday Shootout.  Ooooo.  Friday shootout."   

"But I have to go to work!" 

"Ooooo.  Shootout.   Do the shootout.  Ooooo."  

Haunted.  Cursed to perform, I called in late and dug up a couple.

This is the entrance to Sweatt Park in Wrentham, Massachusetts, where I grew up.   My grandfather, Joseph G. Cowell designed it and did the bas relief at the top of King Philip of the Wampanoags selling the land to the settlers for beads.  I've been meaning to do a three part blog on my grandfather and his artwork sometime at the end of November...in fact, no matter what the theme is on the last Friday, I was planning on doing "Artwork" anyhow since I have lots of his work on slides.  And Bagman was going to write about his lusty side -- he was, after all, a Bohemian artist in Paris in the 1920's. 

What do you think, ladies?

Oh yes...this is about parks.  I think.  And whether it is or not, I'm getting later and later for work.  This Friday Shootout obsession is going to cost me my job one of these days. 

GREENVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA

I guess this qualifies as a park.  The river was here long before Greenville.  When I discovered it on a morning walk before a long business meeting which had brought me to the upstate...people were feeding ducks and stuff.  So I guess it is a park.  

I could probably get through this rushed Friday obsession faster if I wasn't also addicted to digressions...But.  The shot above was one I took, copying an angle from a Greenville photographer whose work I saw in the Hyatt Regency where there meeting was taking place.  During a break, I walked into a lobby area and was stunned by the work of Ray Mosteller.  Although he is not one of our Friday ShooterOuters, his site is worth a look.  But the images are small (because he is selling them, duh) and you can't really see his incredible technique.  In the Hyatt the prints are huge -- maybe four feet by five feet.  He prints on canvas.  At first I thought they were super-realistic paintings.  Then I got mesmerized trying to see how he had photoshopped them.  Delicate, subdued, but incredibly toned.  He adjusts the tones in various parts of each photo so they absolutely glow.  I couldn't figure out all he does...but it is kind of magical.  End of digression.  And no, he didn't pay me for the advertisement.

Boone Hall Plantation, Mount Pleasant, SC

Boone Hall Plantation is right next door to the subdivision I live in.  Does a "plantation" qualify as a "park"?  There are gardens and a mansion, but these are the slave cabins.  

And these are the good ole boys re-enacting a battle from the War of Northern Aggression -- or as history books call it, the Civil War.  Boone Hall is close enough to my house so that the cannon blasts rattle my windows.  The South wins this battler, incidentally; the Battle of Secessionville.  Although the South eventually loses the war according to the history books.  I'm not sure everyone in Charleston believes that.  I should post some of the other shots I took during the re-enactment.

I should to a lot of things. 

But I should be fair -- Boone Hall is actually a very healing place.  They also have an annual family reunion that brings hundreds of people from all over who are related to the original families that lived there.  Heirs of both the plantation owners and the slave families come together and have formed lasting relationships..  It is kind of the opposite of the battle re-enactment. 

And you know...I really should go to work. 

Friday Hometown Shootout -- Silhouettes

Silhouettes!  I don't have many from regular shooting.  In fact I only have one that comes to mind.

I shot this a while ago when I stepped out of my comfort zone to shoot my neice's wedding as a wedding gift...

BAGMAN:  "Because you were too cheap to actually buy anything!"

...and anyway, during the ceremony, I caught site of this guy, one of the groom's friends and I started moving around the church trying to get the right angle, tripping over people and trying unsuccessfully to be unintrusive.  I shot this just as the groom was placing the ring on the bride's finger so I completely missed that one and heard about it later:  "What were you thinking?!!  Missing the ring part??!!"  Which is why I don't like shooting weddings.

HERE ENDETH PART ONE

PART TWO:

"Ten Easy Steps to a Christmas Present your friends will love"

Silhouettes!  A couple of years ago, I started playing with making silhouette portraits as Christmas gifts and today you are all in luck because I'm going to give you the recipe for Christmas presents guaranteed to make mothers cry that good kind of cry that makes you know you did good.

Step One: take pictures of their children in profile against a bright sky or any flat blackground:

  In this case, I was shooting Barclay, who I have written about before and his brother, Will, adult children of my wife's best friend.

Step two: because you eventually want two framed photos facing each other you have to flip one...(or you could tell one of them to turn around when you first shoot, of course. Duh.

Step Three: using any digital photo program...it's not so sophisticated that you need Photoshop...most will do it...you cut out the sky part leaving just the head-area.  And you fill the entire area with black color.  (Or maybe blacking it out is really Step Four)

Step Five (or Four): Clean up the silhouette and copy and paste it over the background you want.

With Barclay and Will I started with a sunset because I had liked that effect before but hated it now and tried clouds instead.

Blah.  Also, I forgot to mention that first (Step one-half?) you need to have your frame in mind.

This can be fun, running around antique shops and yard sales trying to find a matching set of frames...preferably with oval mattes.  So I did have something I needed to match and the dorky sky stuff wasn't cutting it.  Here is the frame.

So I was looking for something greenish or goldish for a background.  So I guess that STEP THREE AND A HALF OR FOUR AND A HALF is: Find a background.  So I went around shooting gold bases of lamps, trees, even a gold shirt of Karen's.

This wasn't working out too well.  For awhile I thought about the green trees and considered that a black silhouette wouldn't have enough contrast but...HEY!...who says a silhouette has to be black.  I could match the gold in the frame with a gold silhouette. I felt really creative and out of the box and

AAARGH!  Worse and worse!  This was definitely going in the wrong direction!   So I lay down on the leather couch which is my favorite place to do almost anything and looked up to the heavens for inspiration...and noticed my ceiling fan.

SERENDIPITY!

And STEP SOMETHING OR OTHER:  Paste it, print it, frame it...I guess that was more than one step but I'm sure you've got it figured out. 

And the final result is below.  Actually I never shot both final framed prints.  The only pseudo-real shot I have is of Barclay and it is actually made up of photoshop layers I was using to get an idea of what it would look like before I blew a bundle on paper and ink.  But it is close to what the final product looked like.  And, yes, Barclay and Will's mom got teary when she saw it. 

This Christmas I am working on one for my neighbors, Steve and Nancy.  They are always doing stuff for us, lending their truck, etc.  And last spring I noticed a rare moment when both their sons were home at the same time and I called them over and shot them against the sky and swore them to secrecy.  I have the frames but not the mattes.  More yard sale fun.  Or I'll have to learn to cut oval mattes which scares me. 

But there is no copyright on this and despite my inability to count steps it is pretty easy.  I thought briefly about submitting this to Good Housekeeping's Holiday Craft issue but realized I need technical assistance to figure out how many easy steps there were.  And I'd rather share it with y'all instead anyway.