As everybody knows, Black & White will always be my first love, so I was happy to see at least a couple of submissions this week. Here are the submissions for BLACK & WHITE:
IMAGE LOST
Julie Johnson of The Joy is in the Journey
Mike Vest of Waxen Media
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Carla Stensland
The theme for next week:
This is also a new theme for this year.
There can be no doubt that there are certain subjects that I photograph for certain people. For example, I photograph tulips and roses for my Mom. I photograph daisies and lilies for Jill. (A fact that lead to a rather embarrassing phone call recently that the story of which, may or may not be revealed in the next month or so.) I photograph dark alleys for Sara.
But irises? I definitely photograph irises for Jen. That shows what a deep level of friendship Jen and I have, because I HATE irises.
I know that sounds harsh. How can anybody hate a flower? After all, didn’t Henry Beecher put it best when he wrote:
“Flowers are the sweetest things God ever made, and forgot to put a soul into.”
But irises confound me for two reasons. They bloom and are gone in what feels like 45 seconds.
Second, I have never been able to figure out how to photograph irises. They are all weird angles and they never seem to reveal their best parts for the photographing.
They aren’t like daisies or roses or (my personal favorite) moonflowers (although I also like marigolds, hollyhocks, coneflowers, dahlias…) that seem to be saying, “Come photograph me!”
They seem to be saying, “Try and photograph this!”
I made a solemn vow this year that the iris was not going to get the best of me. But even after two separate trips to photograph an iris patch, I wasn’t convinced that I had captured anything that was worth looking at.
I even put off editing the pictures for close to 5 weeks.
However, after editing the images I feel that I have captured something of quality. It wasn’t an easy dance like it is with the tulip or the hollyhock, but we got to the right place in the end.
Here are more pictures from the Mad with Joy Series.
So one of these iris pictures will end up as Jen’s birthday present. Jen’s birthday was week ago and I have yet to decide which one to give her. There will be more pictures published on Saturday (at the usual time), you can help pick out Jen’s birthday present by voting on which one you think is the best in the comments section of this website. (If you vote on Facebook, I won’t count your vote.) Although be warned, if Jen votes, hers is the only vote that matters.
Stay tuned for more irises tomorrow.
A few pictures in this collection will probably make you go: “AWWWWWWWW!!!”
These pictures are from a vacation we took up near the Nisswa area.
These pictures come from:
Backup/Old My Pictures/Minnesota Vacation
Next week’s folder is:
Backup/Old My Pictures/New Folder
The final pictures from the Plant Happiness Series.
The last few pictures were taken of the lilies I purchased and planted in my lily patch when I got home from the excursion with my Mom. The very last picture is of an an archaic creature that can no longer be found in my lawn.
More pictures from my trip to the Northwest Greenhouse with my Mom.
The Plant Happiness Series comes from a trip I made to the Northwest Greenhouse with my Mom. Here are more pictures from the series:
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More pictures from the Plant Happiness Series tomorrow.
I’m not really sure about most of these pictures, but I think a couple of them might be pictures of the old Bennett coal mine in Rippey. However, that is just a a best guess.
There aren’t many pictures this week as the negatives were cut very short.
Most people are probably as sick of hearing about New York City as I am of talking about it, (not really-I love talking about me and things I’ve done) but I recently got a package in the mail from Sarah consisting of some NYC “souvenirs”, one of the nicest cards I’ve ever received in the mail, and a flash drive with her pictures from my visit.
I’m going to share a few of those pictures that I have chosen based on an undisclosed criteria.
Jesse and I at the Statue of Liberty
Ellis Island
Jesse and Ellis Island
The Jazz Club that Served PBR
On the Subway
Tim on the Subway
Brooklyn Bridge
On the Brooklyn Bridge
Manhattan Skyline
Me
Our Meal at the Italian Restaurant
Union Station
Jesse and I Overlooking Ground Zero
Jesse and I at the Statue of Liberty
Me and a Bird
Liberty Island
Me Displaying a Blatant Disregard for the Law
Waiting for the Subway
Waiting for the Subway
Jesse and I in Front of the Bar that Screwed Us on the Free Hot Dogs
Sarah and Tim and possibly other members of my family are coming to visit Boone at a yet to be determined time in September. If you are desiring to meet these people, you better get your name on the manifest in the immediate future.
Next week’s random photos will be a very small collection of pictures from a recent camping trip.
This “gold mine” of pictures came from:
Backup/Old My Pictures/McFriends
Most of these pictures came from a slide show I had to put together for an Evil Clown Empire “Crew Rally”, but there is inexplicably some Halloween images mixed into this folder.
Next week’s folder:
Backup/Old My Pictures/Minnesota Vacation