April 23rd, 2010 - Random Pics From The Old Bag of Tricks

I found a few quick pics that I had set aside over the last few months whilst looking for something else along the way.

The quality of some might not be on my "A" list, but I felt that there was enough redeeming value to justify a post.

Ansel Adams would have probably told you otherwise, but I feel pictures are not always about technical quality. Sometimes a concept shines through, and even though you didn't 'nail it', it still presents something interesting.

I feel that maybe too much emphasis is placed on taking a laboratory grade image every frame these days, and that trying to live up to that sort of takes the fun out of it. Sometimes pictures should just plain be impulsive enjoyment of the moment, or express the mood or the scene, and you get what you get when you get it. I think that's what makes camera phones so great. I wonder if Ansel would have a camera phone. I think not.

These images have come out of everything from a scanned 35mm print, to my first 1.3 Megapixel Pentax digital Point and Shoot, to my current Nikon DSLR...

I don't know about you, but something in this photo tells me this a female Milkweed.

Just a guess. Plants have their own special way of looking good to other plants, and to their pollinators.

It's not something that is well understood by humans.

Alas, as their season moves on, gravity has it's way, things dry out, and wrinkles begin to occur.

The next thing you know, your pods are exploding.

And so it goes.

I been framed, framed I tells ya!

Don't I even get a phone call mister Ranger man?

You got nothin' on me.

Any psychoactive substances found on my person are occurring there naturally, man.

Aww, I can't believe this. Stupid salamanders are probably eatin' all my flies while I'm rottin' away in this bubble on a bad rap.

Dang. I gots rights!

Speaking of crime scenes, I'm not exactly sure what went on here.

Looks like the pigeon or crow came in a little too hot for the normal approach and skidded on its butt for a spell, like an F-16 missing the carrier wire.

Then comes the part I don't get. It looks to me like it gets up, walks in a 180 to it's right and ends up near the dark area at the upper-left of the photo (actually a rock or a dead-head frozen into the creek.)

Note then the other set of bird feet walking the same direction towards the rock. Where did it go? Did it moonwalk backwards off camera-right? In the full size image it doesn't look like there are any more tracks than are shown here. Unh?

Here's an old (early 1980's) scan of a B & W print I took looking west down the railroad tracks near sunset from the Hennipen Avenue overpass by Lagoon Avenue in Minneapolis, MN.

This rail-route is now home to the Minneapolis Midtown Greenway bicycle corridor, the tracks are long gone, paved over, and the bridge is a bus stop.

Seemed like it was always a nice sunset looking down the rail while I was headed over to my friend Mike's to play records, guitars, and ping-pong, no doubt.

Our old cat Harry the Cat. He was a good cat, when he wasn't trying to rip your face off.

Sweet boy.

Frosted Ritz cracker...?

No just a manhole cover venting through the fresh snow.

One more for the road. I made this from a 'failed shot', actually one of those pictures that results from your camera going off as you are putting it back in your pocket.

I thought the initial shot was pretty cool, it was from my cheapy little camera, and was a full-frame smear with this surreal focused area on one side that was caused by the flash firing while the camera was being swung.

I won't tell you how I did the rest, unless you really want to know...

I call it Gas Ball.

Take care now...

Take those pictures, even if you don't think they are good enough to win the Pulitzer.

Just have fun.