Lighting the night

But, much as I enjoy the neighbors’ lights, I enjoy this house even more. I love that star on their chimney and all those decked-out trees.

I’m just grateful I don’t have to go to all that work. But these lights pale compared to some people’s light shows. Most of us don’t have the cash to pay for thousands of lights and the sound/sequencing equipment necessary to do Griswold lights bumped up numerous notches. So we just enjoy looking at them on YouTube:

Our neighbors’ Christmas lights put ours in the shade. I so enjoy looking out the window at theirs, especially since we won’t have to pay the light bill. Neighbors decorate for most holidays, but they pull out the stops for Christmas.

Piano Man

We stopped at an old schoolhouse Saturday. This building was solid, made from poured cement. Interior looked pretty sad, but the exterior, other than broken windows, was still in good shape. Jacqui crawled halfway into a basement window to see what was down there. I nearly had heart failure. What if she fell in? Then what would we do? Cell service was poor to nonexistent.

“I see a piano,” she said.

A piano?

“Yes, a broken piano.”

That was interesting.

I have safety rules for junking. Rule No. 1: DO NOT walk down stairs. Who knows what might be in the basement/cellar/crawl space. I might find some dead creature or live ones that I’d prefer not to encounter. And who knows what condition those steps are in? I have no desire to take a bad fall.

But our nightly lows have fallen well below freezing. Snakes and skunks should be hibernating. She shined the flashlight around the room and saw nothing other than broken chairs and plaster. And the rest of building was in amazingly-good condition. Perhaps steps would be safe?

Staircase was partially covered by a wooden door, which looked intact. Steps were covered with fallen plaster, but maybe they were passable. When I pushed up the door, I saw a dead creature on top of it, mostly noticing a set of bared teeth. Jacqui followed me. I told her to push the door tightly against the rail unless she wanted to see the set of teeth.

Piano was in horrible condition. Keyboard was entirely gone. Hammers were broken. Front of piano had disappeared. But it still maintained a certain dignity. Someone had pride in its construction, even the places that would normally be invisible.

Apparently, the local people had used this basement for entertainment. Piano sat on a little platform. Remnants of theater seating were scattered around the rest of room.

I started singing, “…Son, can you play me a memory; I’m not really sure how it goes. But it’s sad and it’s sweet and I knew it complete when I wore a younger man’s clothes … Sing us a song; you’re the Piano Man. Sing us a song tonight! ‘Cause we’re all in the mood for a melody and you’ve got us feeling all right.…”

Singing in that forlorn basement was bittersweet. Acoustics were great, but seeing the remnants of what had been a vibrant community was very sad.

Milo

Most crops are either gone or are ugly by the time fall comes. Wheat already has been harvested by July. Combines are mowing down corn and sunflowers. Sunflowers are the most beautiful crop when they are flowering, but they are the ugliest when they are ready to harvest. No field looks worse than a field of drying sunflowers. The stalks and heads are shriveled and brown, a very depressing sight — except to the one who is about to reap his harvest. Corn is not impressive in the fall, either, although shocks of corn make wonderful fall decorations. I love to look at corn when it’s green, stalks and tassels waving in the wind, but dead stalks aren’t the same. Fall corn looks best after it’s harvested. The money is out of the field and into the elevator.

Milo, however, is at its most beautiful just before it’s harvested. The seed heads range in color from purple to every shade of brown and tan. Several years ago, a friend gave me a bunch of corn and milo stalks for an outdoor fall bouquet. It was beautiful. The squirrels thought so, too. My bouquet didn’t last very long under the squirrels’ admiring attention.

Apparently, milo is not a good bird feed ingredient since squirrels love it so. But I don’t mind feeding squirrels. I think they are funny and enjoy watching them. Anything that makes me laugh is worth attracting.

Lavender

I love the light and colors of fall. As the nights lengthen, the purples, reds, oranges and yellows of autumn take over from summer’s greens (if we have enough rain) and tans (when we don’t, a more usual condition). I enjoy those deeper jewel tones. I love spring, but its pastel palette isn’t intense enough for my preference. Give me the stronger colors of autumn, the last colorful explosion before the muted white and blue palette of winter.

Autumn’s low light dusts the landscape with a luminescent glow. Light in the fall is more beautiful than light in any other season. Or maybe we appreciate it more as we watch the days fade away ever more quickly into long nights?

This plant may be named “lavender”, but I love its pure purple.

Long live fall!

Insulators

I saw an interesting shed a few days ago. When I looked in the open door, I was astounded. The shed was packed with these vintage insulators. Shed was impossible to enter due to the thick layer of them strewn all over the floor. Someone had left numerous boxes full of these collector’s items.

When I looked on eBay, insulators were listed as up to $100 apiece.

I would be afraid to sort through this treasure trove, though. A horrible stench of mice urine arose from the pile on the floor. These insulators overflowed a worktable top.

Still, the forms looked wonderful. I’ve always liked shapes like this, perhaps since shapes are about the only item I can draw!

Sunset

Many of the best sunsets occur when a storm is on its way. Such was the case Tuesday night. I watched rain clouds forming when I came home that night. I had to find a good vantage point from which to photograph the sunset. Finally, I stood on an Interstate overpass and aimed at a farmstead on the horizon.

The camera didn’t do justice to the sunset, so I began to enhance the photo in Photoshop. I used both cooling and warming filters, then dodged and burned the image until it became what you see now. Ansel Adams had to spend hours in the darkroom enhancing his images; I’m only following in his footsteps.

Halloween bunny

This rabbit posed patiently for me while I took several photos. When I downloaded this one, I burst out laughing.

Mr. Red-Eyed Rabbit is not one I’d want to meet on Halloween night! He appears to be possessed.

I could use Photoshop’s red-eye removal feature, but I like the “possessed-rabbit” picture.

Years ago, we covered a football game involving the Jackrabbits. At halftime’s end, ‘Rabbit fans formed a lane for their players’ return to the field. As the players ran through the lane, fans chanted, “Rabbits! Rabbits! Rabbits!” The chant sounded more like “Rabids! Rabids! Rabids!”

Maybe this rabbit was the rabid rabbit they were chanting about.

Shooting at the car show, yeah

Hubby and I attended our community’s annual car and motorcycle shows Saturday. I love photographing the vintage vehicles. I love the bright colors and the sculptural forms. Saturday’s light and weather were perfect, a true photographer’s heaven.

However, car shows have one very great disadvantage: flocks of people. Several great shots were ruined by a pair of inopportunely-appearing legs or other body part. Sigh.

In the hubcap photo’s case, I wanted the legs to appear in the foreground. This picture just says “car show” to me. Here are the brick street (the inspiration for my blog’s title), the cars and the people enjoying the cars. And I think the elongated reflection of the man walking past is funny.
This hood ornament on the flaming hood is the kind of image I’m always searching for. I love the bright colors and I’d like to intensify them further. I enjoy the hood ornament’s streamlined form and the contrast of chrome with the bright paint. The hood ornament bird seems to be swimming with the colors streaming out in its wake.

What makes life worth living

I laughed when I saw this pile of blocks several months ago. When I was a kid, we played a lot with little foam blocks that looked just like this. This pile looks like giant’s kids have been playing in this barn.

When I was a child, I often said, “I can hardly wait until I grow up. Then I’ll do whatever I want.”

Yeah, right.

It seems that life grows ever more hectic with ever more responsibilities. I am fond of saying that I’ll never die because I have so much to do. Of course, many of the items on that list are my own projects that I don’t have to do, but those projects and spending time with people I enjoy are what makes life worth living.

I work to pay bills.

I play with blocks or whatever else I can find because playing makes life worth living.

On safari

We were in the middle of nowhere on our Sunday outing. Hubby decided he would dress in his safari hat. I’m not sure where he thought the lions were, but he looks like the big game hunter in this hat.

We were more likely to see a rattler than any kind of big cat. Fortunately, no snakes made their appearance.

We were walking in a ravine when he stepped into a side gulch and told me to snap this photo.

This hat was ironically a gag gift in a game of “Dirty Santa” at Christmas 2005. He wasn’t supposed to like it, but he certainly does. He had chances to take away other people’s gifts, which I thought were a better choice, but he would have nothing to do with anything but this hat.

Do all men have a “big game hunter” hidden deep inside?

Range on the home

Hubby and I went on an all-day outing with our friend Tonya yesterday. On our return, I saw this shed. The pattern of the roof’s shadow on the side of the building attracted me and I pulled off.

“My wife is attracted to these old buildings,” Hubby explained, “and is always having to stop to take pictures of them.” When we pulled into the drive, we found that the shed’s door was blocked by a range. Strange.

Oh, well. I’ve seen lots of strange objects in abandoned buildings.

I got out to take the pictures I desired. As I circled the building, he yelled out the window, “You could call this picture ‘Range on the Home’!”

Of course, that called for a song:

Oh, give me a range
Where the buffaloes are strange
And the deer are all deranged
Where often is heard
A tune with new words
And your ears are not safe,
No way.

Range, range on the home
Where the deer are all alone
Where often is heard
A tune with new words
And your ears are not safe,
No way.

Hubby said that this was awful doggerel, but he was laughing so hard that he could hardly read it.

That radiant glow

Until I used this photo in an illustration, I did not notice that the leaves glow. I swear that I did not do some special tricks in Photoshop to make that happen. I don’t know that much about Photoshop! And even if I did, I doubt I’d have the patience to draw glowing areas around each leaf.

The glow is just some natural lighting effect, God’s gift to this photographer.

Or maybe the sunflower is radioactive and I’ve received some as yet undiscovered supernatural powers from exposure to this thing?

The photographer needs knee pads

The next time I take pictures in a field, I’m going to add knee pads to my attire, the kind with hard plastic on them. Kneeling on a goathead patch is very hard on the knees.

My feet are very calloused. I hate shoes and wouldn’t wear them if they weren’t a necessity. Even those hard feet don’t protect me from those sharp goathead thorns. My knees have tender skin. Thorns hurt!

Frou-frou lamp sunflower

Sunflower at left reminds me of a fringed lamp. Can you tell that I have never lacked for imagination?

The head turning downward has a practical purpose. A sunflower head parallel to the ground makes life harder for birds trying to eat the seeds.

This particular sunflower field is a confectionery sunflower crop. Sunflowers grown for oil would have smaller heads. This head is full of sunflower seeds; therefore, it’s a prime target for birds.

Sunflower rising

I was trying to get this picture when I included my cap. I love the interplay of light and shadow across the flower and the variations in the petals.

The photographer wears a ball cap

The photographer wears work boots on her feet and a cap on her head. The cap keeps my hair out of my eyes and away from my lens.

Monday morning, I was trying to shoot a picture of a bashful sunflower, one with its head pointing toward the ground. Because I was holding the camera parallel to the ground, lens facing upward, I couldn’t see what I was shooting. When I looked at my screen after taking this picture, I laughed. Apparently, my cap thought that Monday morning was time for its close-up.

Where’s Cecil DeMille when you need him?

Sunflowers at sunrise

No light is better than that shining at sunrise. No crop is more beautiful than sunflowers. Put them together for wonderful pictures.

I arose early Monday morning, even though it was a holiday, to take sunflower pictures. I marveled at the glory and provision of God to make these beautiful creations to feed his creatures and for the wisdom He has granted us to improve their yield.

I thought of the song “When Morning Gilds the Skies”.

When morning gilds the skies my heart awaking cries:
May Jesus Christ be praised!
Alike at work and prayer, to Jesus I repair:
May Jesus Christ be praised!

When you begin the day, O never fail to say,
May Jesus Christ be praised!
And at your work rejoice, to sing with heart and voice,
May Jesus Christ be praised!

To God, the Word, on high, the host of angels cry,
May Jesus Christ be praised!
Let mortals, too, upraise their voice in hymns of praise,
May Jesus Christ be praised!

The night becomes as day when from the heart we say:
May Jesus Christ be praised!
The powers of darkness fear when this sweet chant they hear:
May Jesus Christ be praised!

Be this, while life is mine, my canticle divine:
May Jesus Christ be praised!
Sing this eternal song through all the ages long:
May Jesus Christ be praised!

We'll leave the light on for you

Abandoned houses almost always have their doors standing open. It’s as if they are lonely for the people who once inhabited them.

“Come home! I miss you.”

This one takes the invitation a bit more seriously than most. In all the abandoned buildings I’ve photographed, only this one appears to have left the lights on. House seems to be begging for company.

“We’ve left the light on for you,” it says.

Of course, that light has to be coming from the massive holes in the walls. If anyone was foolish enough to walk into that house, that person would likely not come back out unless carried out on a gurney.

The photographer wears work boots

No matter how hot it is, I wear blue jeans and work boots when I walk around old buildings to take pictures. While I try to watch my step, I’m not always able to avoid every hazard. And I can’t avoid walking through tall, scratchy weeds.

I was especially grateful for the boots Saturday.

I intended to photograph this white house on our way to Dad’s house.

I became very sleepy while driving and needed to stop. I saw another abandoned house and turned off.

While walking around this house, I felt this nail penetrate my boot sole. I was so grateful I was wearing work boots. Otherwise, I would have had a puncture wound in my foot. (Later, at the white house, I stepped on a box spring that was hidden in those tall weeds. Thank God for thickly soled boots.)

Boards came from the second floor. Nearly all the siding has fallen off that second floor. Much of it remains on the porch roof, but some has slid to the ground to catch the unwary.

So much siding has fallen off that the house reminded me of one of those mountain resort homes with the huge picture windows in front. But this house did not look out onto any mountain view. It looks out to rolling prairie.

I was very careful to stay under the porch roof as much as possible. Note the window near the roof’s edge. I definitely would not like any piece of that pile to fall on me. Maybe I should wear a hard hat, too?

I am careful always to check the soundness of any floors I might walk on. Falling through the floor would be a bad idea. If I have any doubt as to the floor’s soundness, I stay away. Floor was sound in most of the “Ozymandias house”, but the back porch felt soft when I tested it. I did not enter the back porch. My husband was glad to know this. Most of these abandoned buildings are a long way from any emergency rooms and he’d rather not have to take me to one of them.

I’d rather avoid those places myself.

Ozymandias on the High Plains

OZYMANDIAS

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley

This poem often comes to mind when I shoot pictures of old, abandoned buildings. Someone had a dream. Someone had hopes. Someone had plans for the future that included this building and the land it stands on. But something happened to those plans. And the people who owned the building and the land walked away.

What happened to those people? Why did their dreams die, their plans fail?

I will never have an answer. In the open door of an abandoned house, only questions and silence remain.

And the lone and level plains stretch far away.

It'll Do

We thought this was a great name for a motel. Yes, it’s no five-star Ritz Carlton, but it’s shelter and a bed. Sometimes, shelter and a bed is all we’re going to get.

“But godliness with contentment is great gain.” – I Tim. 6:6

Calling 'The General Lee'

While on a photo safari the other day, we saw this building on a hilltop. It looked interesting, so we went looking for a road to it.

We found the road — and a "bridge out" sign. We couldn't resist seeing what this "bridge out" looked like, so we drove around the barricade. When we saw orange flags in front of a dip in the road, we got out and walked to the bottom.

The road stopped. It was gone.



We gingerly approached the gap, being careful to stay clear of the crumbling edges. The only evidence left of the departed bridge was an exposed culvert. The area had received some heavy rains which apparently overwhelmed the culvert and took out the dirt encasing it.



Parts of the culvert had been unearthed and pushed downstream.



Where was The General Lee, The Dukes of Hazzard’s Dodge Charger, when we needed it? We could have soared right over that obstacle if we’d had that famous TV car on call. And if it came with Bo and Luke Duke, so much the better! Hubby would probably insist on Daisy Duke, though, and her presence just would not do. Guess I’ll have to pass on the Brothers Duke, but flying over the obstacle in that car would have been great.

A girl can dream, can’t she?

Alone in the endless grass

Sometimes we can get a glimpse of what life was like before modern conveniences arrived, of the isolation and back-breaking work our forefathers and foremothers endured. Such is the case at this set of abandoned buildings. The corner of the building in the foreground might have been a bunkhouse. The main house is just visible on the horizon at right.


Civilization barely intrudes on an endless sea of grass. Little topsoil is present in this area. Grass barely disguises limestone. Farming would have been an exercise in futility. Those who lived here would have raised livestock, which require lots of pasture land. Except for the buildings on the horizon, these plains dwellers would have seen no human habitation. Only the wind would have kept them company.

The wind is hard on High Plains dwellers today. What would it have been like for someone alone in the endless grass to listen to the wind's howling day after day? This house was cut from the native rock, but it couldn't have been impervious to the noise of the relentless wind.


At some point, power came to this house. Many farms and ranches were not hooked to power lines until the 1950s. How long did the family who lived here wait for the blessings of electricity and telephones? How long until manual labor was eased? How long until they could reach out and touch someone through the miracle of the telephone? The advent of power and electronic communication, no matter how primitive they seem to us now, would have been cause for great celebration.

The world had come to the lonely High Plains hilltop.

Lights, camera, actions

I have recently learned to love Photoshop's Actions palette. Actions allows the user to automate repetitive tasks. I created an "Initial Processing" action. It runs all Photoshop's automatic adjustments (auto levels, auto colors, auto contrast) plus unsharp mask.



Here's the original picture using my own actions.

I have found that auto colors tends to make pictures bluer than I'd like. If I don't like new color, I go into the history palette and click on the step before auto colors. That removes auto colors.

Then I use the unsharp mask command again. It's under filter ---> sharpen. Unsharp mask has three sliders. I have set my amount slider at 50 percent, radius at 1.0 pixels and threshold at 0 level. I rarely change these.

I've also automated changing the photo's dots per inch from its original setting to 72 (web quality).

To make your own action, choose the actions palette under windows. Click on the circled arrow or three bars at the upper right of that palette for the menu. Choose either "New Set…" or "New Action…". "New Set" will make a folder for your actions, but a new folder is not necessary. After naming your new action, click "Record", then complete the commands you wish to automate. When finished, choose "Stop Recording".



I found some very fun actions, including the collage, at Visual Blast Media.



The Pioneer Woman is another source for great actions. Hers are more practical than the fun ones at Visual Blast Media. I used Quick Edge Burn on this one.

Keep your eyes open

Sometimes the best pictures are the unexpected ones.

Hubby and I went to an old barn, where I shot lots of pictures. We were about to leave when a stock tank caught my eye.

It seemed to be saying, "Take a picture of me! Take a picture of me!"

When I walked to the stock tank, I found two of them calling to me.

Calling to me for very good reason.



Then sometimes you get what you expected to find.



Good pictures start with the seeing.