If your day was an empty canvas, a blank slate, even an old wall…and you were encouraged to create your own picture upon your own day, what would it look like at the end of that day? Would you paint what was or would you paint what is? Would you paint what you thought it SHOULD be? Would you paint what you hoped it would be? Would you paint what you believed it could be? Would you paint at all?

Try as I might, I could not figure out how to get to that boat without violating the trespass signs, so I drove back up to the highway, parked on the side of the road, and ran back down the exit ramp to the place where I’d first glimpsed this find and shot with my zoom through the trees.

I got several peculiar stares, but I did, after all, have on my photographer’s vest, so perhaps between that and a big zoom lens, that made me look professional enough for them to dismiss my bizarre behavior as some crazed paparazzi, or maybe they thought I was a private detective. (My ex-husband once said I had quite a knack for detective work…he should know…such said talents played a big part in why he is my EX-husband…) Whatever the passers-by thought, I got my UNIQUE shot without being flattened into a road pancake by a semi. After all, how often is it that you see a boat afloat in a field of wild flowers?!

I deduce that having reached a stage in my pursuit of images, that I’m willing to risk life and limb…and PRIDE…to get “the shot,” I now declare myself a PRO.

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This is actually a re-work. I had originally posted the original shot when I first set up this website…it was my first post. This version was processed with Photomatrix and tonemapped to bring out the depth of texture and tones in the dramatic sky. This is one in a series I’m currently working on putting together for a grouping.

(Click on the pictures to view a full-frame version, and to see picture title.)

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It’s snowing in South Carolina! I haven’t felt well this weekend but HAD to take the camera out to seek out a shot or two of this uncommon southern rarity before it disappears. Shooting this outhouse during the snow gave me pause to be eternally grateful for modern indoor plumbing!

Another thought…is always a good idea to have someone watch the door for you when you use a public facility…

This is an old antique tractor that sits on display in a neighbor’s field. The background of the original setting was not horrible, but neither was it very interesting. So I start plundering through my collection for some background images that needed a little something extra to make THEM more interesting.

An old shot of another neighbor’s donkeys seemed a PERFECT fit for this old tractor. I had actually put the tractor on 3 other backgrounds too…all of which I like, and may post later…this one just turned out to be my favorite. It’s almost as if the donkeys are checking out the tractor as the “new guy” in the field…”So he thinks he’s a hot shot…sitting over there with his big rubber tires and loud motor…PFFT.”

(Click on the preview above to pull up a FULL VIEW of the picture.)

There is no question. With or without an official medical diagnosis, it’s certain that I am afflicted with SAD (seasonal affective disorder). It happens every year. I like winter to an extent, but after a couple of months of it, I’ve had enough…3 months and I’m bordering on severe depression and utter insanity.

Beginning in November, I start feeling unusually lazy and unmotivated. I can’t get going in the mornings and I plop down on the sofa like a slug at the end of a workday and gaze blankly at the TV as though in a coma. I don’t want to go anywhere, don’t want to do anything, don’t want to see anyone. If life did not necessitate full-time employment, I would happily drift into a full-fledged state of winter hibernation until this dreary season was passed.

Here in the south, we are not even graced with any of the normal perks of winter, such as pretty snow. Frozen precipitation here is more often just sloppy sleet and freezing rain, which too often results in DAYS (sometimes WEEKS) without power (aka Internet and TV…EGADS!). Even in those rare events when we actual DO see white stuff, we’re expected to risk life and limb to show up on the job regardless, so we don’t get to ENJOY it while it’s here…which is rarely more than 1 day at best.

Painting, drawing, even writing…creative inspiration and endeavors…it’s the ONE thing, the ONLY thing, I want to do during this miserably depressing season. I would be delighted to hold up in a cave and just paint the winter away, if not for the unreasonable demands of responsible living and friends who just do not understand the typical inclinations of a hermit afflicted with SAD.

I had important things to do today. I SHOULD have ridden at least one horse while the weather is not miserably cold. Instead, I fed them and considered my responsibilities met in full. I should have taken my dogs to the vet for their allergy shots. I overslept instead. I should have gone to pick up a print job that’s going to cost me God knows what. Instead, I started a painting. I’m not finished with it yet. I’m never really finished with anything, which is one reason I love digital media…it’s always available to revisit and improve upon, or even completely rework. If only LIFE were so easy to revist and improve upon…even rework entirely…

NOW we KNOW what Santa does in the off season…

Rising costs have affected us all. Apparently, even the North Pole is not exempt from the financial hardships of modern times. It was once speculated that Santa spent the off season basking in the warm Caribbean sun, but who can afford leisure and recreation in such perilous times as these?

I met this jolly old gentleman at a roadside produce stand tucked away on a winding mountain road on our way to Caesar’s Head State Park back in the fall. He kindly posed for several shots of himself and his goods – various and assorted homemade ciders, pickled goods and homegrown canned goods. The prices were a bit steep but who wouldn’t figure a donation to the Santa Claus enterprise to be a worthy cause? And if THIS ain’t Santa Claus, then Virginia…there really AIN’T no Santa Claus!

(Click on the preview above to pull up a FULL VIEW of the picture.)

I have a thing for old antique trucks. I discovered this particular treasure in the spring of 2009 on a trip from South Carolina to Indiana with a good friend. We had stopped at a Quick Mart in North Carolina for a fill-up, a bathroom stop and some travel snacks and I spotted this truck parked in an abandoned parking lot across the road. Because of it’s positioning and proximity to the highway, I had difficulty getting every angle I would have liked, but I shot as many as I could.

After returning home and browsing through my shots from the trip, I wanted to do something nice with one of the several I got of Karen’s favorite overlook on Skyline Drive in her hometown of Seymore, Indiana. Only a couple were even acceptably good, but the best of those were still in the ‘snapshot’ category…nothing really noteworthy.

Contemplating ways I might improve upon the mediocre scenic shots and somehow make at least ONE of them ‘special,’ I started playing around with positioning some cuts of the NC truck (a FABULOUS subject trapped in the horrible background of an abandoned parking lot) and came up with the perfect picture. This turned out to be one of those pics that you can almost see yourself in…smell the grass, feel the summer breeze in your hair, hear the birds, FEEL the history in the presence of the old truck and the past it bears witness to.

(Click on the preview above to pull up a FULL VIEW of the picture.)

I’ve been wanting to work on this piece ever since I shot it but haven’t been able to find the spare time to do so. I captured this old antique car on a recent excursion to the mountains with friends to see some autumn color. We had actually stopped for a car accident that we happened upon, while one of our party assisted the victims until the rescue teams got there. The accident happened in front of a couple of old country stores in a stretch of road called Echo Valley, so I got out with my camera and started exploring. This old car was parked out by a shed behind the stores in a fenced lot that hosted an interesting array of ducks, geese, ostrich and other assorted critters. I had to shoot through a hole in the chain link fence, and was limited in the angles I was able to try because of the fence and the layout of the scene. In the original photo, there was a tangle of chain link directly in front of the car, and an old metal bar round pen in front of a lean-to off to the left of the car. My exposure wasn’t great and neither was the background scenery, sooooo, I CHANGED it up with some elements from some other photos in my collection. The shed behind the car seemed dull somehow, even after all the editing and effects, so I added an old weathered coke sign to it. Ahhh, yeah…just right! Too bad the ugly things in LIFE aren’t so easy to change and improve.