Look around and down

When you need a change of pace on a short schedule and an even shorter budget in early spring, your yard or almost any unoccupied green space will reveal enough marvels to keep your attention. This close up of a dandelion bloom gone-to-seed is a good example.

Click to see more of the dandelion plus azaleas and more

Geodesic dome designers, eat your hearts out, Mother Nature has bested you before you leave the blocks. The common dandelion, hated by many and admired by few, is an engineering marvel available for viewing in most back yards. Though they are the target of many a squirt of Roundup, I admire their yellow blooms and miraculous seeding process.

Get a closer look at the dandelion as it has done its work, plus some azalea freckles, spring beauties, and a tiny mystery flower on the Photo of the Week page at Corndancer dot-com. We’ll wait here while you look.

Moving right along, looking ahead of your feet, if you get lucky, you will see some small yellow flowers waiting to be pollinated. These are stretching it to be 3/8 inch across at the widest point.

If your neck gets tired from looking down, look up and you may spot some Dogwood trees if you are lucky. If you do, keep walking to see the blooms up close and personal. You may miss some details otherwise.

The dogwood blooms are early here in LA this year. They will be long gone by Easter. Further north, they may be right on time.

Closer inspection of blooms on the tree revealed a busy bug. A detail you’ll miss if you don’t get close. Consider it a mini-zoo visit.

Lurking in a corner, these blooms go almost unnoticed unless you face in the right direction. The long pistils of the flowers fooled the cameras auto focus function, so they jump out like freckles.

Click on the blooms to see more spring shots.

Ofttimes there is plenty to see that incurs no expense past a few foot pounds of energy. Mother Nature is fickle. She cares not if you look, but offers manifold rewards if you do.

Speaking of which, if you take a look at our Weekly Grist Gallery, you will find 20 more poesy pictures including more of the dandelion, some azaleas, a closeup of the Dogwood bug, and last, but not least, some wild yellow flowers along the highway (shot incidentally and not on a special trip) which demonstrate some social characteristics.

Thanks for dropping by,

Joe Dempsey

Joe Dempsey,
Weekly Grist for the Eyes and Mind

http://www.joedempseycommunications.com/
http://www.joedempseyphoto.com/
http://www.corndancer.com/joephoto/photohome.html

Sabbatical

I am taking a Sabbatical this week. If you are curious, this is where I do my work.

Sabbatical this week

For the first time in a number of years, I am taking a sabbatical this week. Today is my birthday and as a present to my self, I am going to bed early. I will come roaring back next Sunday night with new stuff here and on the Photo of the Week page at Corndancer dot-com. Stay tuned. And I thank one and all for reading and looking at my offerings each week.

Thanks,
Joe

PS: Exercise due caution at all times and stay pure!

Weekly Grist for the Eyes and Mind

http://www.joedempseycommunications.com/
http://www.joedempseyphoto.com/
http://www.corndancer.com/joephoto/photohome.html

Critters and climate

Remember film? The stuff in the little round cans?

Click on the tiger for the original post

Continuing our recent pattern of taking second looks, this week we are looking at some images shot in the early nineties on transparency film (slides).

We first posted these images in August, 2010. On our original post, we eschewed our normal location focus in favor of a media focus, to wit: stuff shot on film.

Click here to see the original Weekly Grist post, Two tigers-two sunsets. You’ll see a couple of tiger shots — and a pair of sunset shots which will never be duplicated since there is now a building in the middle of the former scene.

Click on the jaguar for the original Corndancer Photo of the Week story and pictures.

I shot the sunsets at Saracen Lake, nee Lake Pine Bluff, around the same time. The sky is big there. Late spring and summer thunder storms love to develop in the west close to sundown, making for unique opportunities

Lake Pine Bluff, now Saracen Lake.

The original story on the Photo of the Week page at Corndancerdot-com featured a fine jaguar at the Little Rock Zoo. Since they are more than wary, even in captivity, it was a fortuitous, one-time opportunity. You had to be there right then.

I’m wondering now, given the warp-speed advances in digital technology, if the format of the digital images I’m shooting now can be easily accessed in the future. Already, I have grabbed some archive DVDs and gotten the dreaded “cannot read media” message. I suppose it is the electronic weevil version of mould and mildew which love old film so much.

Thanks for dropping by,

Joe Dempsey,
Weekly Grist for the Eyes and Mind

http://www.joedempseycommunications.com/
http://www.joedempseyphoto.com/
http://www.corndancer.com/joephoto/photohome.html

A cool country barn redux

The man who built this barn was around 10 years old at the end of the War Between the States.. His descendants agreed for me to photograph it and gave me a few details about the structure. Our story includes some detailed pictures of the barn's innards.

We’ve been here before

But some things bear a second look. There has been recent interest expressed in photographing and documenting old barns. It’s nice to know I am no longer alone in this pursuit. Turns out there is a National Barn Alliance too.

I did this story originally in July, 2010. At that time the structure of the original building was sound for the most part. As you can see, you can’t say as much for the add-ons that are omnipresent in most southern barns I see. Let’s hope not much has changed in a couple of years. See our original Cool Country Barn post here.

Be sure and see the original Corndancer Photo of the Week story as well.

Click here for a gallery of 20 pictures of the old barn including inside the structure plus a couple of old churches and a surprise critter.

Click here for a gallery of 42 color and black and white pictures of the barn, plus a churches and critter. This is a flash gallery which Macintosh computers don’t like.

Thanks for dropping by,

Joe Dempsey,
Weekly Grist for the Eyes and Mind

http://www.joedempseycommunications.com/
http://www.joedempseyphoto.com/
http://www.corndancer.com/joephoto/photohome.html