It’s ridiculously hot out there — heat indexes well over 100 for days now — but the purple coneflowers in the front yard don’t seem to mind. I’m hoping it eases up a little tomorrow evening so that I can make another attempt at a twilight shot of the Eldridge Hotel. Finger’s crossed…
In my last post, I talked about my desire not to look back on a year and see time wasted. In a funny coincidence I was alerted days later to one of my images appearing as a double-page spread in the new book, “Make the Most of Your Time On Earth” published by Rough Guides:
It’s a shot I took of some monks at Haeinsa Temple in South Korea. The temple stay program there is featured as one of Rough Guides’ 1000 must-do experiences. It’s an interesting book with tons of ideas for adventurous travel. Some of them I’ve already experienced but so many more of them I have not. So much to do, so little time. Anyway, I thought it was interesting that this particular usage would pop up just as I was having thoughts of making the most of my own time on earth.
I’ve been busy planning upcoming trips and trying to get my stock files fed at various agencies. Good work to do when it’s cold and snowy out. More on the upcoming travel plans later but, for any cat people out there, I’ll leave you with an update on our broken-legged cat. You may remember that Caper fell from an upstairs bannister and broke his leg around Thanksgiving. After two surgeries and weeks of seclusion in a room emptied of anything he might jump on, Caper has finally been cleared to resume all cat duties. He’s still hesitant to make the big jumps but he’s getting around really well. Here he’s enjoying watching the snow fall:
I had brought the camera to the living room window to shoot the snow-covered redbud tree in the front yard. As I was framing the shot, an SUV came sliding down the street, out of control. I instinctively tracked the car’s path with my Nikon and fired off a burst of shots just as it slammed into the neighbor’s mailbox across the street. The driver then left without so much as a “sorry ’bout that”. I jotted down the license number as they drove away and reported the incident to our local police, following up with an email that included the series of photos along with one enlargement of the car’s plates. Needless to say, the neighbors were quite pleased.
Ever since moving back to Lawrence, I’ve been meaning to take some photos of this sculpture on the KU campus. It’s a structure built of woven branches that surrounds a tree so that the living branches grow through its walls (I’ll have to get the name of it and the artist after the big pile of snow melts that’s currently covering the plaque). I have some ideas for a night shot but just haven’t managed to make the 2 mile trek over some evening to do it. The local shots are always the hardest, aren’t they? I suppose it’s because you can do them anytime so why bother now. Maybe the light will be better tomorrow night, etc. etc.
Another light snow last night — maybe two or three inches — and I decided to check out my sculpture and see if the snow added anything. As it turned out, it didn’t stick as well to the branches as I’d hoped, but it was still a good opportunity to scope the site out for my later return for a night shot. What I’d had in mind isn’t exactly going to work, but I now have some new ideas. The night shot doesn’t require snow, though, so I think I’ll wait for it to warm up a bit.
Here’s a shot I did like from this morning, though. It’s taken from inside the sculpture (yes — it’s big enough to have a small party in there) looking out at the Natural History Museum. I toned it with a color overlay layer in Photoshop to give it a little eerie coolness. It’s a shame that I’m limited to 500 pixels in width here because it has a great texture when you see it really large.
It’s been another busy week but one filled with good news. Not least of which was that the above photo of Native American dancers at the Cortez Cultural Center in Colorado earned me the “Photographer of the Year” award from the Central States Chapter of the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW). Thanks, folks!
All good news on the new house front as well. The inspections haven’t turned up any horrifying secrets and we are scheduled to close next week. Various contractors have already been lined up to meet us at the house soon after. We only have a week to get some bids going before we head for Michigan for a week of shooting and story research. I’ll be home for one day after that before catching another plane to South Carolina where I will be giving a presentation on digital photography workflow and image management. Hopefully, by the time I’m back from that trip, we’ll be ready to get things moving on the new house in hopes of moving in later this summer.
Still having a great time here in Banff on the pre-tour to the Society of American Travel Writer’s Freelance Council conference. Although it says “writers” in the name, there are many photographer members — myself included. This morning a vanload of us were on our way to breakfast when one of the photographers spotted the full moon setting behind these two mountains. The driver was strongly encouraged to stop the vehicle and he politely complied (it is Canada after all).
Insert sound of shutters tripping madly.
A few minutes later, the moon was gone and we made our way to breakfast. A terrific plate of smoked salmon scrambled eggs for me. And we weren’t really THAT late…