Might tunnel vision give us just a glimpse of the larger world?
Just looking helps a lot.
Author Archives: Barry Lively
Columbus, Indiana
Photo Venture Camera Club went to Columbus, IN last Saturday to shoot architecture but it was raining. Are cell phones waterproof?
We had met at The Commons, home of Chaos, a piece designed by Swiss sculptor Jean Tinguel. I didn’t get any shots of Chaos as a whole, there were too many interesting details. You can see it at the link to The Commons above. Given that it was raining, we stayed there for a couple hours which encouraged shooting details.
Including a boot that is part of it.
The water fountains are not part of it.
This hook isn’t either.
Still raining.
It did eventually clear up and we wandered around outside.
Nice interaction of water drops, granite and a leaf.
I wasn’t going to have time to get around to see the buildings designed by the likes of Eero Saarinen, I. M. Pei and others. With a population of just 39000, Columbus is ranked sixth in terms of architectural interest behind Chicago, New York, Boston, San Francisco and Washington. Not bad, not bad at all.
So I just stayed in the neighborhood.
Shooting through a window can add interest.
Philip Roth wrote ‘Goodbye Columbus’. Many photographers and other visitors say ‘Hello Columbus’. Some of us will go back in a few weeks.
Kaleidoscope images? Sure, why not?
The other evening a friend mentioned that someone was doing kaleidoscope images with photographs. This sounded interesting and in this day and age, the first thing to do would be to check for software that does that. There is such software and it does an interesting job. Here are some examples:
Some are clearly better than others but I’m learning more and I hope the next batch will be better. I don’t know how creative this is, but it’s fun.
Once upon a time
Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess in the flower of her youth.
As she matured, it became clear that she was going to be a tomato.
A red hot tomato.
The princess, aware of her beauty, decided to go to the big city where the pickings ought to be good. There, she had four suitors, all named Basil.
The Basils, really quite crude if attractive and smelling good, couldn’t agree on who should have her so they cut her up. All would marry their piece and so they called the parson.
The parson had never married vegetables before and since he was hungry, he ate them all. The moral of the story is that it is not wise to leave home if you have the sense of a vegetable, you might become an ingredient in someone’s salad. Which will happen at home too but at least you won’t have to travel so far.Special thanks to Edward Gorey.
Shows what I know
I posted about shooting flowers a few minutes ago and my wife reminds me that those aren’t iris, they are day lilies. I knew that but not at the right time.
Letting go
I was out in the front yard yesterday morning shooting some small yellow iris that have been blooming lately.
I was fairly pleased with what I was getting.
The light was diffuse and that saturated the colors.
Then the light changed and that was the end of it at least until later.
I didn’t get back out until this morning and I really wanted to do better with those iris. I knew I had missed something but didn’t know what it was.
The light was different and even though I didn’t know what it was, I was farther from what I wanted than I was yesterday.
I headed back to the house and near the back door was this cleome (I think that is what it is).
The iris yesterday were nice. The iris this morning were OK but the real gem was this flower.
I think I have part of the lesson now – going out with a tight agenda (I need better iris shots than I got yesterday) isn’t going to work if the conditions aren’t there. Sometimes it’s better to let go and just look without any agenda at all. The lesson yet to be learned is when is it time to give up one and go to the other?
A morning at the zoo
Becky and I went to the zoo this morning. It wasn’t unpleasantly hot and I didn’t need the headband I’ve been carrying around. It was overcast which helped saturate the outdoor images.
How many parent have ever resisted this expression when feeding their kids?
I guess blowing bubbles is one of the chief occupations of a sea lion in the zoo.
What is it about penguins?
At the shark petting tank (these are young dogfish) one of them kept sticking its head out of the water. I guess this is how it sees what’s on the other side of the surface of the water. This one appears curious about the rest of the world.
In contrast to the curious dogfish, this gibbon seems more intent on an inward meditative journey.
Stealing a kiss while feeding the giraffe. Lucky giraffe.
There were two giraffes especially interested in the vegetables. The one on the left is only a year and a half old.
A lot of the kids enjoyed feeding the giraffes. Even if Dad was a little firm in helping make the decision.
We have a new addition among the elephants. Mom is very patient. She has her own stick and so does the baby.
That’s pretty fancy footwork, getting a front and back leg up a bit at the same time.
I look at the animals in the zoo and wince that they are all captive. Is that Right? But I still had a good time and will be going back again.
Glow night at the Indiana State Fair!
My friend Becky and I went to the state fair last night for lots of reasons, among them to see the images some of our friends had entered in the photography contests but mainly to see the balloons. There was a balloon race this morning and last night the balloons were all lined up to glow. It was dusk and the fun was about to begin.
At 8:45 they were firing them up.
As you can see, one young fellow riding on his father’s shoulders had a balloon of his own.
The darker it got the more impressive it was.
The notion of putting fire inside a bag made of what seems to be a delicate fabric eludes me as a real possibility. But then again, there was an engineer who proved that a bumblebee can’t fly.
Are we at the state fair? Yes, we’re at the state fair, complete with Ferris wheels. And lots of people.
I was very glad that we could get up close to these flying machines.
This magic couldn’t last forever and the balloons were eventually brought down.
And then it was off to the midway.
The pattern of lights on this Ferris wheel kept changing. It was beautiful.
The idea of paying money to hang upside down in space is a little uncomfortable. Although I suppose I would if asked. Then again, maybe not.
The memory of those balloons will be with me for a long time. At least until next year at this time.
Good day to be out
My friend Eileen and I went to the EcoLab at Marian University yesterday morning. It was in the low 70’s and I didn’t need to use the sweatband I had brought along. The sweatband was an essential part of spending much time outside the last month or so.
The waterlilies are getting ready to bloom.
And there were plenty of other flowers.
There were plenty of birds but we could only hear them, they were in the woods. But there was a muskrat.
And plenty of dragonflies.
I wanted this one to face the camera but he would have none of it. Reminds me of when I was a kid. Some of the waterlilies were looking the other way too.
Good day to be out. We’ll hope for more.
A morning with Mom
I needed to go out and shoot this morning and I asked Mom if she wanted to join me. She was enthusiastic and ready to go. She was much lighter now and feeling much, much better. We went down to Fall Creek this morning.
Mom was an observer rather than a participant today. She never had much luck with a camera and it was more enjoyable for her to just be out than it was to take pictures. I didn’t argue because I remember the history of Mom’s battles with the camera. Here is one example taken during World War II. This is my younger brother and me. Our Dad was off in the Pacific with the Navy and Mom wanted to send him a picture of his boys. We were decked out in our winter gear and facing the camera. Mom fidgeted with that infernal machine and after a few minutes Rob and I got more interested in what was behind us. Mom meanwhile was either so intent on the mechanics of picture taking that she didn’t notice which way we were facing or she just gave up.
Over the years her skill at cooking, raising two boys, participating in community life, playing the piano and many other things all improved but her picture taking didn’t. So I was happy for her to just be along for the experience this morning. So was she.
We were out before it was too hot but I still needed a headband. Good thing to have in this weather. So the water looked especially inviting.
I have to tell you that Mom died in body if not in spirit this morning at 3:00. She was 95 years old and her body had been shutting down over the last few weeks. She was not ambulatory for the last week or so. So last night her body finished its task and closed down. I was called at 3:15 and I went over. She was at peace. The last thing to go was her smile. This was her trademark. Before she was so ill I would take her for rides in a wheelchair around Westminster Village North where she lived. It is a sizable facility and there are lots of people. But just about everyone knew Clara Lively because as I wheeled her around she gave everyone a cheery wave and a ‘Hello, dear!’ People would light up when they saw her coming. And the smile lasted to the end.
My way of coping includes going out to shoot. Before I set out this morning I thought I would love to have Mom go with me in spirit if by no other means. And I got the feeling that she would have loved to go too. So she was with me. Walking along Fall Creek we came to the I465 bridge over the creek. It is a substantial bridge and large enough that the light under it is quite diffuse and often interesting. There was a strip of rocks which would guide rain water away from the base of the bridge and usually there are leaves and other random objects there and they can be interesting to photograph. I looked all along the strip of rocks and there was nothing else there but the feather above. Nothing particularly remarkable about a feather being there. Except that there was nothing else of interest. And Mom’s nickname since she was small was Bird.
I think Mom and I will go shooting again. Maybe tomorrow.
Spirit and Seeing 