Through the front window in afternoon light

They pause and look back before they move into the trees. I'm looking back often, now. This week I took a watercolor journal class in the mornings with one other student. We painted and wrote a few short childhood memories. We had a fine time. Today, after the last class, I came home and S. turned to the satellite radio opera channel for me. Sirius has the Metropolitan Opera station, which is much inferior to the Vox channel on the subsumed XM Radio. Still, it has its moments, and today's recording of Die Valkyre as performed on December 6, 1941 has to count as one of them. Helen Traubel and Lauritz Melchior in full monaural sound, including a little tape or disc hiss! For the memory thread, look at the date, a Saturday in late 1941. Sunday, December 7, 1941 is the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. I was six years old then, and I remember the adults were paying unusual, focused attention to the radio. I knew something was up, but I didn't really get it at all.
When my son called me early on September 11, 2001 and told me to turn on the the television, I did so and watched the Towers fall, and fall and fall . . . I knew then that my world had changed forever, once again. I think about Traubel and Melchior going to bed that Saturday night and waking up to a day when everything would be forever changed in a short space of time. It was a long time ago, and really not so long at all.

Ice Cream no more and time passing . . .

Along the Crooked River, boats could stop for ice cream. We used to bring our grandsons here, mostly by land. I favored the black cherry, which I suppose is a classic Michigan flavor. That was before they painted the building yellow and green, creating these superb reflection possibilities. The building has been vacant now for a couple of years; the dock we used to feed swans and mallards is beginning to crumble. We had lovely, lovely times here!

Late summer weeds

I was noodling along coming home from my watercolor journaling class, and enjoying the woodsy beauty; a truck was coughing up my exhaust, so I turned into Amon Meadows, a partly developed group of housing estates on the shores of Crooked Lake. And coasted slowly to a stop and opened the car window and took some pictures of a Mama browsing with this fawn. In this one, the fawn is attractively framed by grasses and Queen Anne's Lace, with color splashes from Canada Goldenrod. I couldn't have staged it any better myself. The fawn's ears were rimmed by backlight, which also pinkened the ears, showing the blood inside. It pretty much made my day!

The Humongous Swan

At the Alanson Riverfest Storytelling Contest last Saturday, this lovely person told a tall tale about a swan and fishing with her grandfather. I love the way the green of her shirt blends with the lit green foliage behind her. At the Riverfest Flea Market, I bought not one, but two, sewing machines--a non-working treadle and a Kenmore from about 1970. It's a nice machine, and as soon as I buy some pins, I will make myself a shift from some fabric I have had a long time. More later. Good night!

Content aware fill with Photoshop CS5

Originally uploaded by jhhymas

Photoshop CS5: content aware fill. My first try, using panorama from 20 vertical shots taken in mid-July at Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Dakota. Only the topmost cloud in the upper right is completely fake; I was not able to discourage it.
For larger view, double-click this photo to go to Flickr, where the original ragged panorama is also displayed.

Sammi in Sepia

I was playing with the functions of the DMC-ZS7, when I grabbed this sepia test. I think this is the answer to photographing the brown dachshund, which doesn't show that well in regular color. All that undifferentiated brown! This shows the texture of the fur, and the modeling of the form. And means we will have to have a portrait shoot of all of them. Window light helps, too!

Goatsbeard, or Salsify

When our daughter was left a widow with two young boys, she found a place to raise them in the country and called it Goatsbeard Farm, after this plant and in recognition of the goats she kept for milk. We bought some acreage adjacent to her place and built what I often call Goatsbeard Manor, because the farm has a hundred year old house on it, and the manor was new fifteen years ago.
Last night, those boys, now 22 and 24, were home for a visit and we were taking them out to dinner at the Northwood, which is decorated with wooden wall sculptures theit father made. But first, I had to have S. stop the car when I saw the late afternoon light on this perfectly symmetrical seedhead. This was taken with my new favorite camera, the Panasonic Lumix ZS7, using the zoom and the automatic program. It's all about light . . .