Today began with a featureless, clear, blue sky.  I was willing even at that to see what I could do photographically, but on my way to Fort George Inlet where I've often been visually lucky, the clouds rolled in with enthusiasm!  Here are some from today:

In this Christmas week, it was a challenge to get to Anastasia SP where I made these photographs. Despite Covid concerns about close indoor contact with strangers even with masks, stores and parking lots in shopping areas were slammed as if it were a typical Christmas season. I slowly made my way to the park which was minimally busy, and, being outdoors, comparatively safe.

 

 

 After my dopey error of a few days ago when I made what I thought were good photographs, but hadn't put film in my camera, today I went back to the same place having made damn sure all was as it needed to be.  Here are a few from today.

 Back to boneyard beach at Big Talbot Island SP, an overcast and mild Saturday afternoon at low tide.

 Walking the railtrail again today, these were among the dozen photographs I made.  I don't really know why one view is chosen over another, nor even why I decide to select a particular scene at all, but they are all authentic expressions because they were made with genuine emotion which is very personal,  

 I'm still trying to become familiar enough again with my C330 to use it for photographs I really want to be sure will technically succeed.  Having not used it in years, there's a lot to remember.  Here are two from a farm beside a fourteen mile rail trail that I took on December 7th.

 

 I try to walk at least two miles every day.  A favorite place to do that is a quite beautiful corporate park named Deerwood.  Within the park is a lake about a quarter mile in length.  Here are two photographs from this past week I made with my Mamiya C330 that I've not used for years. I am startled at how quiet the shutter is with no mirror slap as it's a twin lens reflex.  

In the many years I've been going to Tiger-Betz Preserve where I've made a lot of photographs, I've never been all the way to the end.  The access road has always been gated (and it's a very long hike!)...until yesterday!  Evidently a lot of restoration and new building was undertaken which has now been completed. Here are some photographs of what I saw.

 While awaiting a new light meter for my Pentax 67, I decided to try metering the way I used to with two hand held meters...a Gossen Luna Pro, and a Digital Spot meter. I also used a camera I haven't used in years...my Mamiya C220 twin lens reflex. I didn't have the deep yellow or orange filter I would have preferred, but did have a Red 25A which I used for the entire roll. Here are five from that shoot:

Here are some more from Georgia! They were prepared for this blog through tears of joy now that the reign of corruption, and treason has ended!! 

 We have just returned from a week in north Georgia where I was happy to have some wonderful photographic subjects.  Here's a set of them all taken at the same farm in the mountains. 

Every year we spend a week or so in the mountains of north Georgia. This year we are spending four of them  in a new place and four nights where we were last year. Here's what things looked like this morning in Young Harris.  (phone cam)

 For Halloween...a goblin's tree at Yellow Bluff Fort SP

 Fairy-tale Logic

Fairy tales are full of impossible tasks:
Gather the chin hairs of a man-eating goat,
Or cross a sulphuric lake in a leaky boat,
Select the prince from a row of identical masks,
Tiptoe up to a dragon where it basks
And snatch its bone; count dust specks, mote by mote,
Or learn the phone directory by rote.
Always it’s impossible what someone asks—
You have to fight magic with magic. You have to believe
That you have something impossible up your sleeve,
The language of snakes, perhaps, an invisible cloak,
An army of ants at your beck, or a lethal joke,
The will to do whatever must be done:
Marry a monster. Hand over your firstborn son.

— A.E. Stallings

 

 These two images are far more important to me than they seem.  They're from a second roll of film I exposed at Dutton Island Preserve. The first roll had some really interesting images, but when I developed it later that day, the film was blank except for some extremely faint traces of the subjects I had photographed.  I had no idea what had happened...I was sure I had done everything the way I always do,  The second roll of film was still in the camera with only two exposures, so I set up some test shots for the rest of the roll and quickly developed it.  I checked everything twice and to my enormous relief, the film was perfect.  There were eight test shots, and these two images.  Whew!!!   

 

 This is from a long time ago at Croton Point Park in New York.  I just came across it and wanted to post it here.

 I have crossed this bridge countless times, but never seen it from below. I recently found out there is a park underneath which is where these views were taken.