Category: photography

Hyperion Espresso

DSCN2828Web[SqTiltDallasFrame]

Hyperion Espresso, Fredericksburg, VA.

Wild phlox in Virginia

DSCN2887Web[SqDallasFrame]

Allegheny River by daylight

20150502-112733.jpg

Allegheny River crossing near Pittsburgh.

April fading to May

DSCN2898WebHR[SqDallasFrame]

Poem: The honey bee

Poem: The honey bee

NOTE: Originally published April 19, 2011, https://coffeehousejunkie.net/2011/04/19/poem-the-honey-bee/

Poem: Expectations

Expectations

Anyone may “find” a text; the poet is he who names it, “Text”.
–John Hollander [1] [2] [3]

1.

The very heavens
rupture — news of Pontiff’s decision
to abdicate.

2.

Somewhere in America,
for nearly a week, film and
fiction collide — Rambo-like
manhunt ends as expected.

3.

She sings, When you get
to Asheville send me
an email…. 

Will she tell me that
the President is
coming to town?

Will a hollywood
celebrity greet
him when he arrives?

Will he retire
to the Paris of the South
after this whole
presidency thing?

4.

Whether it comes from
above or snakes its way through
the dark depths below,

the number one regret on
the lips of the dying is
to have lived true to one’s self

rather than by the
expectation of others.

NOTES:
[1] From the archives of this blog.
[2] The poem was composed from and of news headlines and related blog posts. John Hollander wrote in Vision and Resonance: Two Senses of Poetic Form that “anyone may ‘find’ a text; the poet is he who names it, ‘Text’.”
[3] Annotated version of this found poem was published Feb. 15, 2013 and originally titled “The courage to live”.

What better to embrace the weekend?

DSCN2780WEB
What better to embrace the weekend, than with Shostakovich, String Quartet #6 in G. The passacaglia is beautiful.

Graphic designer… at work

DSCN2512[Square Dallas]

Nickels and dimes, my friends, nickels and dimes

20150416-171228.jpg
Amid the dry wall dust of demolition and uncut two-by-fours ready for framing, I calculated that I have lifted and carried more than a thousand pounds of building materials and debris. Not all at once, but one forty-pound load at a time. Poco a poco.

Early to work as the sun rises, bring your work gloves

20150415-132528.jpg

Afternoon work, windows open, listening to Joseph Arthur

20150410-150554.jpg
Listening to “It takes a lot of time to live in the moment” by Joseph Arthur while working on an illustration comp for a book cover.

Behind the camera

DSCN2322[square-tilt-dallas-frame]

A concrete slab harvested from a demolished city building defends Pershing Park from the frozen Lake Michigan waves. It is large — the size of a small sedan — and surrounded by smaller rubble. Rebar and concrete and ice mix into a violent Jackson Pollack sketch as waves thunder into the shoreline.

The temperature outside is in the single digits — lower with the windchill. In the small sedan, the heater is not working. Or not well. The driver’s toes — numb from the cold — curl and uncurl. The driver is trying to capture an image — a photograph — of the spray from the waves when they hit the shoreline and shoot twenty feet into the air.

The visit to the public library introduced the driver to books by E. L. Doctorow, Wendell Berry and Alberto Manguel and a book on the history of time by Oxford Press. Timing the waves as they advance on the shoreline creates an illusion of distance. Patiently the driver composes a few more images.

The icy air advances deeper into epidermis. Reluctantly the driver places the lens cap on the camera and stows it in a black bag next to the library books.

Last snow before Easter?

The week before Easter - a light snow
The week before Easter – a light snow

Poem: Original Instagram

Poem Original Instagram

Reflections in a mud puddle

20130701-123531.jpgIt is an early summer morning. It rained the night before as I walk a mile or so before I climb into the car for the morning’s mega commute. The parking lot near my home is dappled with puddles slowly evaporating. It reminds me of when I first started taking black and white photographs in high school. One of my favorite subjects was reflections of the sky in puddles.

I don’t remember what initially attracted me to the subject matter, but I remember loading a 35mm SLR manual camera–either an Olympus or a Pentex–with a spool of film, pulling the leader and lining the sprocket holes with the sprockets, securing the leader to the spindle, closing the back door and advancing the film a couple frames. I’d sling the camera over my shoulder and head outdoors to capture a surreal glimpse of the heavens from the perspective of puddles on asphalt. Or pools of water on gravel roads or a grassy field.

After collecting images captured and hidden on a roll of exposed black and white film, I returned to the darkroom at the high school and processed the film. First developing the amber film strips and then placing it in the enlarger to make prints. The way the image emerged from the paper as it floated in the developer solution was no end of amazement for me–like watching an unseen ghost suddenly materialize. The image of a lamp post in a puddle near the grainery, the water tower with clouds dancing from the pavement, the side of the building of the Coal Miner’s bar on Main Street or a self-portrait reflecting in a pool of water in an alley.

Something about a reflection seen from a different perspective captivated me. How can I look at a subject differently? How can I view it from a different angle–another perspective? I guess that’s how I approach a lot of things today–asking myself, What’s the wider context? Some days I just need to take a long walk on an early summer morning and look for those puddles, search for a different angle of the sky, watch the fog on the mountain tops from a mud puddle. Maybe a distorted, impressionistic reflection will inform me of something I didn’t see before.

50 poems in 30 days

Over two months of writing a poem a day
Photo courtesy of coffeehousejunkie.

More than 50 poems were sent to publishers in January. Encouraged by another poet who submits somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 poems a month, I thought it would be a good discipline as well. It’s exhausting as well.

A few years ago, I was encourage not to post my poems on this blog (or Facebook), because a lot of small press publishers consider those poems “published.” So, I’ve been writing offline and sharing the new poems at private salons, a poetry festival and with friends. But I have not pursued publication until this year.

Talking with Al Maginnes after his recent reading at Malaprop’s, he told me how is first poetry submission was accepted immediately. Encouraged by this, he submitted more poetry to publishers. He said it was years before anything else was published.

So far, two publishers replied with rejection notices. That’s alright. I will submit those poems to other publishers.

Vanishing art

Anyone remember when you used to capture a photo and had to wait weeks to see how the negative film exposed to light translated by silver halide salts to a produce a positive image on paper?

retro-dolls:

This looks perfect

(Source: via http://shopruche.blogspot.com/)

(Source: http://www.johneatscanvas.tumblr.com)

Sun wrapped in mountain mist. March 1st.

(Source: http://instagr.am/p/HoawRWzJLL/)

Dixie Drive Thru.

(Source: http://instagr.am/p/Hl3bmmTJDc/)

Why am I wandering the mall at this hour? (Taken with instagram)

(Source: http://instagr.am/p/HklH4lzJJ8/)

Downtown #avl all lit up.

A view from my afternoon office.