photograph
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It wasn't in the forecast. Today was supposed to be partly-sunny at best. Instead we awoke to clear skies that, as the day progressed, stayed with us becoming deep blue. The temperature climbed to nearly 40 degrees (F) making the icicles sweat, shrink, and sometimes lose their grip entirely. Now the forecast has shifted… they're saying today will be partly-cloudy, tomorrow mostly-cloudy with a chance of snow. I've got a scheduled open night at the observatory tomorrow night. What will the weather be like? Maybe like today, or maybe some other sort of surprise!
I haven't done "people" photos –portraits, dance, illustration– in a very long time. Recently I was running a Google Image search for pictures of Albert Einstein. I'd seen a photograph of the great theoretical physicist in the middle of a big laugh. While Einstein was known for the twinkle in his eye and had been photographed poking out his tongue, gently smiling, and riding a bicycle, I'd never seen him in a full-out laugh. Well, I found that image unfortunately without attribution; I don't know the photographer, publisher, or copyright status (please forgive me if you own this image). As I was searching, however, I came across a more formal portrait of Einstein… this one by Yousuf Karsh (1908 – 2002). That led me to order a book about his life and work, Karsh: A Biography In Images. My admiration for the work of the late Arnold Newman (1918 – 2006) resurfaced. All of this served to stir my longing to continue rekindling my practice of photography and get back into the action. Maybe seek out a photo assignment. We'll see. I'm already pulled in too many directions. Perhaps I'm coming back around to my true heading.
The day started out sunny and frosty. I thought the thermometer on our patio read something like 14 degrees as I left the house. At one point during my travel, however, I glanced at the dashboard… the car's thermometer was reading 6 degrees (F). I'm not sure what that was about. It didn't seem that cold to me! The natural beauty (and light traffic due to the Presidents Day holiday) made for an enjoyable drive to work. Put in a nice, solid day of effort including a configuration tweak on our new MozyPro backup software — it needed to have a dedicated Temp directory set up on a drive with more free space along with a small Windows registry edit. Rovin, the helpful young man on the phone from India, had the right solution on the first try. Unseen by me during the day, clouds were thickening and by the time it was time to go home, it was lightly snowing. I took a look out the office window from which I spied the insanely beautiful snow drift sculpture not many days ago. There, wet from unseen thaw above, a small forest of icicles was forming on an evergreen tree. I shot a few photos before leaving for a snowy drive home. Back to the gray grind of work and winter weather.
Driving to work this morning was both a pain and a pleasure. It was very cold this morning; en route my car's thermometer hit a low of 4 degrees (F) on the east side of Strongsville. At home and in many areas along my route, hoar frost had coated very twig producing an amazing landscape at every turn. It was a beautiful trip but painful to resist the urge to play hooky, wade through the snow, and take photographs everywhere I went. Helping little, I told myself to simply enjoy the passing view and not worry about photographing. Still, I did succumb and pulled into a conveniently located Metroparks parking lot immediately adjacent to an open field lined with flocked trees. The sun was just beginning to illuminate the treeline when I shot the last of my morning's pictures.
Too beautiful a winter's day to stay at home, we headed out to Hudson for lunch at Chipolte and a walk around their quaint downtown area. We picked up a few items, including a couple of nice bottles of wine at Heinen's then headed towards home. On a lark we stopped in Peninsula and visited the Century Cycles store there. As we were wrapping up, the northbound run of the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad pulled in and stopped right in front of the trackside store. Remarking, "train!" I excused myself and stepped outside to greet the rumbling giant and shoot a few portraits of its mighty engine, #6777 (formerly Canadian National #6777, ca. 1959).
Don't worry… the train was headed away from me but at a full stop, with air brakes firmly set!
I didn't do much photography today –a little in Hudson, including a snow-covered bistro patio arrangement, Loomis Observatory;, and then the train in Peninsula– but under an intensely blue patch of sky, the Peninsula church steeple was the shot of the day.
Overall the snow we received in Northeastern Ohio wasn't that big a deal; not compared, at least, with what they got in Washington DC or in Brother's Charlottesville, Virginia. Odd situation, this, the weather being sort of topsy-turvy: us getting a manageable eight inches or so of the white stuff and them Southerners getting two to three feet of snowfall.
We dug out and got going at about 9:30 this morning with a run to the nearby mall for 10 o'clock haircuts. The manager couldn't get out of her drive due to snow so didn't open til noon. Then we learned that our cutter wouldn't be in at all due to a blocked driveway. Wimps! So after waiting for two hours for haircuts we didn't get, we set out on a few minor errands. The day actually became sunny for a while and, as the road salt took hold, driving became easier. The scenery was typically wintry –not amazingly beautiful this time– but enjoyable, nonetheless.
Back home I unloaded the car, stashed 40 pounds of bird feed in a vermin-proof can, and shot a few photos around the house. Now, as I type with Tasha ensconced on my lap, She is upstairs working on a red velvet cake — vegan style*. A strange Saturday, perhaps, but a surprisingly pleasant strange day.
*We'll see how that goes but She is getting very good at eggless cooking!















