The door is unlocked: padlock missing, hasp open. Nobody enters. There is no reason to go there. Spiders stretch thick webs. There are likely other creatures inside that space, most wanting to hide. Paint peels, revealing the colorful past, before falling away and exposing aging bare wood. The door is unlocked but is no entry.
Atop a stack of CDs, a toy bunny looks into his room.
I stopped for lunch in Garrettsville, Ohio today. It’s an interesting old town with strong historical links to President James A. Garfield. The village also has one of the best Subway sandwich shops I know of. So after an enjoyable lunch I did a little walk around the downtown area spotting several good photo-ops; one such opportunity was the back window of one of the main street shops. Certainly the window sash and frame could use some attention, but I loved the texture of the wood, the weathered paint, and the ancient brick and stone of the building. Spotting the carefully-placed little toy bunny through the old glass was wonderful.
The shadow betrays no secrets.
During Sunday’s visit to Vermilion, Ohio we explored the old downtown area of the city. The district is a wonderful assortment of frame and brick commercial structures ranging from the grand to the humble, occupied and well-kept to neglected; there is a lot of character to those buildings and I enjoyed viewing and photographing them. I’ll post at least one more image after this pair but it is a challenging picture to get just right, and I may or may not succeed.
‘estaraunt no more.
Detail: carved stone arch over mausoleum entrance.
It is possibly the oldest structure in North Royalton, Ohio and it was built to house the dead. In my city walkaround I visited the cemetery at the top of the hill … the one across the street from Taco Bell. In the churchyard stands a little mausoleum bearing the date 1879. The stone structure is definitely in distress and could use some repair. I don’t know if any bodies are inside but window gratings are falling from their openings and some of the stones look like they could just tumble to the ground. Still the little maison des morts stands, built with attention to detail, its beauty in some ways growing as the decades pass, as testament to love for the departed.
Trees clings to a cliff overlooking Lake Erie.
Around 1:00 this afternoon I found myself on cliffs overlooking Lake Erie. It was a wonderful time and place to enjoy the 70-degree (F) fresh air blowing in from across the waters. At land’s edge, trees cling to the soil and live full lives as the ground around their roots gradually abandons them. In the far distance, appearing to be on the horizon, was an ore carrier steaming from east to west; the blue expanse of the lake made the big boat look tiny, easily lost amongst the shallow waves.
Steaming westward on Lake Erie.
The river looked like wavy glass and fat raindrops like bullets hitting it.
A view of the curved-wall gallery area at the library and my photos as I placed them. There was one other, larger image placed near the entrance to the gallery and a staff office.The gallery could use better lighting. Donations, anyone?
I started out the post-holiday work week hanging my photos in the gallery area of the Westlake Porter Public Library. It took longer unpacking the pictures from their shipping materials (layers of bubble wrap taped shut around each framed picture) than it did to actually hang them. The library provides adjustable hangers that attach to a modern picture molding near the ceiling of the gallery areas. As I was hanging the pictures a couple strode up and remarked, “We’re here to see the pictures. Not much here.” They spent a grand total of about 15 seconds before they turned heel and walked away. A few minutes later a couple of library volunteers took a few moments from their work, storing books for an upcoming fund-raising sale, to look at the pictures. They expressed their admiration, wondered where the pictures were taken, and spent a decent time looking at them. All to be expected, I suppose, but I’d not experienced the extremes in such quick succession!
You can view and purchase the photos that appear in the showing, along with a couple of alternative images that are not on display, at: GuilfordPhoto.com
Dragonfly Halloween Pennant (Celithemis eponina)
The library invited me to hang another showing of my photographs in their art gallery area. The gallery is actually an alcove in a long corridor that leads to the facility’s meeting rooms. Hundreds of people will pass pay on their way to and from events. It may not be the Cleveland Museum of Art, but it’s something!
It was fun and a bit challenging (self-editing certainly can be) choosing from among hundreds of photos which to show. I’d decided on a nature theme, “Down by the Pond”, which helped narrow the prospects. Despite that the selection process took hours. Once I’d made my picks, I made final technical and artistic adjustments to the images and set the digital files aside.
Late Wednesday morning I placed the order for 12 of my photographs to be printed and framed through Mpix, a company whose work I’ve appreciated. Their quality is high and their prices are quite reasonable. Still, when you take even a respectable price for framed art and multiply by 12, well, it gets into real money pretty quick!
Thursday afternoon a big box arrived at the office … the photos! I was stunned. I’d expected a bit more delay between ordering and receipt but that’s just one more thing about Mpix that I appreciate!
Friday I spent a few hours revamping my photography Web site. It’s still fairly basic but a lot more attractive and well-organized than it has been. Print sales there are disabled, at present, until I can create a price list.
So everything’s coming together for my little show. I’ll add some pond-themed photos from a 2009 exhibit to the new pictures and will have about 20 themed works for people to look at. Now, if only they’ll buy a few!
Irises bloom in a boggy wetland area at Summit Metroparks' Nature Realm.
On the morning of Veteran’s Day we decided we could not stay indoors all day, effectively “wasting” a day off. The day promised to be steamy-hot and we were unprepared for that. So we took a little drive to Summit Metroparks’ Nature Realm preserve in Akron. One of our favorite places, the park features natural areas with marked earthen trails and formal gardens with paved walkways. Plants and animals are all around and offer many photo opportunities! This day I made 100 exposures and, though threw away some promising but ultimately disappointing shots, got some really good pictures. An iris blooming in a boggy wetland spot is my favorite of the bunch. After some time, and as the muggy air began to take its toll, we headed out to lunch and ultimately home. A pleasant time in nature’s realm.
Left-hand is post-, right-hand is pre-calibration of monitor.
I’ve never calibrated my computer monitors. With all the photography and publication work I’ve done on computers over the years, it’s never been done. Lately, looking at my photos on various monitors and in print, I’ve begun to feel something needed to be done. So I bought a Spyder3 Elite colorimeter and calibrated my monitor this morning. It was a fairly easy process once the software was installed and updated. The colorimeter and its software ask certain manual adjustments be made –brightness only, in my case– but is largely automatic. The whole thing was done in under an hour, though I didn’t time it.
The Spyder’s software came with a set of photos displayed in a window that, after calibration, allowed fast switching between the monitor’s former color settings and the “corrected” ones. The “before” and “after” displays were both acceptable and pleasing but post-calibration images were noticably warmer in color. In general my monitor also seems a bit brighter and possibly a bit contrastier.
As a non-scientific test, I opened my recent sunset photo from its RAW file and adjusted it in ways similar (as best I can recall) to what I’d previously done. Then I copied half of the previously-pleasing picture and superimposed it on the newly-adjusted image. Whoa! That’s what’s displayed above. In each case the colors may be more brilliant than the original scene but the comparison is still striking.
So I’m hoping for better, more consistent results with my photos and graphics. It wasn’t cheap but I think it will be worth it.
PhotonStopper 