Impediments

Walker Road Park is just two minutes away from me and a cool little spot to make any last-minute decisions to shoot at.

In the event of a lightning storm, its openness gives me the chance to shoot in any direction. It allows me to capture sunrises with a decent easterly view. And just occasionally it gives me a view of a sunset.

I say “occasionally” because the west horizon is mostly obscured with closer trees and buildings. So unless there is a smattering of cloud at a certain height above the horizon, I won’t get anything.

It was lightning I was after the other night. I thought I heard some thunder rumbles happening when I was home and was not yet in a shoes-off mode.

But it must have been the cats upstairs, because when I got there, there was absolutely nothing happening in the sky. I guess the kitties have figured out how to get me out of the house.

I had only brought the one lens (the 11 mm super wide one) so I just set the camera up on the tripod and leaned back against the car.

When my eyes became accustomed to the darkness, I could see that there was an abundance of thick clouds overhead to where even if there was lightning, I wasn’t going to see it.

Sometimes clouds really add to a sky and sometimes they mute it too much, The only thinning or gap this time seemed to be right where the sun had gone down.

I checked the local radar and there wasn’t any lightning happening from what I could tell for at least 30 miles.

Then I noticed the first tinge of red on the clouds near the gap and began shooting the pics that ended up in this blog.

A nearby pond gave me some reflections to work with in some of the pics and a distant bat graced one of them too.

All told, I really enjoyed the brief color splashes that went on and I was glad I got the chance to witness it directly.

I had nearly packed up just before the colors started so I was glad that I didn’t.

I hope you enjoy the small selection below. Nothing prize worthy but nonetheless pretty.

When I got home I was thinking about clouds and their role as impediments this evening. And how eventually they became the subject after initially blocking one.

And it made me think about impediments in general.

We all find them periodically and sometime we find more than others.

When we are in a rut, they seem to get in the way of almost everything we try to do. At other times they are merely a nuisance.

Most impediments in life are temporary and persistence or patience eventually wins the day as they eventually dissipate and we can move forward.

Yes there are those that have a more permanent nature and these require us to figure a work-around or even an abandonment of whatever we were trying to do.

We often can’t tell which is temporary in nature and which is permanent and so we need to make several attempts or wait a certain length of time before their true nature appears.

Giving up should always be the last resort. Yes, it is always an option but it is rarely the right one.

Society doesn’t like quitters (or so I am told) but more importantly, repeatedly quitting alters our own character and our resolve and it can become our normal reaction to encountering any difficulty.

So, we therefore owe it to ourselves to hang in there and keep trying for at least a while.

And what do I mean by “a while”?

Well, this entirely depends on how important the end goal is for us and how determined we see the impediment to be.

For example if the impediment is merely a small rain cloud, then wait it out. But if the skies around you are engulfed in thick black carpets of cloud, then find something else to do.

Or if the end goal is life-defining (like a marriage you are in) then show patience and work through whatever is happening. Whereas if the end goal was trivial like listening to a song on the radio, then change the channel and find something else when the ads come on.

All obstacles that we meet in our path require some resolve to get past them. And the greater the obstacle that we have gotten past, the greater the character building that we have just performed.

And character is what makes us the person we are. Or the person we end up as.

Without impediments to our aims, we develop no character.

If you win everything you ever play or achieve everything you ever try, then you learn nothing in the process. Learning comes through loss and loss is a function of the obstacle to our success and how we handled it.

I am not saying we go out and seek path with impediments. Character building should be a by-product of our endeavors not a main goal.

And too many difficulties in life can wear us down. They can change who we are and make us less willing to take on new challenges in the first place.

So, like most things in life, it is about finding a balance. Not always looking for a challenge and not always looking for an easy way out.

But my main message here is that when we do find ourselves confronted with an unexpected obstacle, take the time to assess its size, weigh in the importance of your end goal and make a decision of how best to proceed.

It’s a simple 1-2-3 that can really help in defining who we are.

… just a thought.

Free as a Bird

We had wrapped up Saturday’s mermaid shoot and after Kari was back in her skivvies we noticed a flock of seagulls had been hanging around nearby taking everything in.

And she ran…

(if you don’t get the significance of that, just look up their biggest hit)

… right at them.

Her sudden movement towards their serene little observation point, caused the air to be filled with the sound of wings, beating through the early morning air.

I had positioned myself at the opposite side of the flock so they essentially took off between us. At least initially it seemed that way, but there were so many of them that they flew in front and behind both of us and made for some pretty awesome shots.

The flock was actually a good mixture of terns and black skimmers, so the colors, sizes and shapes made for a wonderful sight.

And the feeling of being in their midst was sensational. There never seemed to be a Hitchcockian threat, only the sense of being in the middle of organized chaos.

I’ve included some of the images at the end of the blog … hope you enjoy!

The expression “Free as Bird” ran around inside my head as I drove home and from an initial wonderment about why we choose freedom as being the domain of a bird to what does freedom even mean anyway?

You see, in one sense, birds are no freer than most creatures on the planet. They are subject to all the same restraints and dangers as any other wild creature. They have a daily search for food and they are subject to predators and thanks to us, they have a shrinking environment in which to live.

So, I mused that perhaps it is the notion that they can just take off and that their movement has a third dimension that ours doesn’t naturally have.

All creatures move in x-y directions along a surface plane, whereas the birds have a z component that allows them to also travel vertically.

That makes complete sense until all of a sudden the brain goes “Hang on. What about fish?” They have a z component also. They can swim in a z axis, just as much as an x and a y. And no one ever says As Free as a Fish.

Humankind is essentially an envious creature. We continually try to compare ourselves to each other, looking for dominance where we can. I guess that reassures a sense of worth in the minds of those that crave it.

If put to it, humans can dive and swim to an extent so perhaps there wasn’t enough to envy in fish capabilities. Also we tend to dismiss fish while elevating birds. The largest and most powerful of fish are vilified and happily hunted. While we elevate birds like the eagle to national and political status.

Could it be as simple as when we look down we see fish and when we look up we see birds?

We are so discriminatory, that the fish are therefore labeled as beneath us?

Think about it. Heaven is always up and hell is always down.

The more I thought about it, the less I could come up with a good argument as to why Free as a Bird is even a remotely valid argument.

Yet, as expressions go, it is a good one. It is full of positivity and is always used to describe a good and healthy situation.

It was a long drive home, so after my brain had run the gamut on the expression relevance, I turned my attention to the single word “free” and I began to process what we mean when we say that word and how it becomes a false sentiment that justifies the most heinous of actions.

Here in America, we like to call ourselves the Land of the Free and every time we send our troops to war, we tell everyone how they are fighting for freedom or protecting freedom.

It is difficult to imagine how that is ever a valid argument unless of course some tyrannical force is trying to take over the US, but that is never the case. Our troops fight for freedom overseas apparently in places like Afghanistan or Iraq or Vietnam. And no doubt if we ever do go to battle with Iran, it will be because we again want to be seen as the defenders of freedom.

I can’t tell you how many red-folk have repeated the viewpoint that all these people hate us because of our freedom. Being blue, I find that argument completely ridiculous and a real insult to the lives that end up being lost because of it.

But just how free, are we here in America?

That question took a lot of thought from me on the drive home and must have consumed 20 to 30 miles alone.

I began with what things can I say or day here that I can’t elsewhere and a few things bubbled quickly to the surface.

The first amendment protects our speech in many ways but the instances it doesn’t are actually interesting. For example, go ahead and post on Facebook or Twitter about how someone should assassinate the president. Be sure to recite your first amendment as they stuff you head first in handcuffs into the back of a black SUV.

Or voice your interest in having sex with a minor. That’s always a good one for getting arrested.

I had to look it up when I got home but there are around 10 or 11 categories of speech not protected by that amendment. These include: Obscenity, Fighting words, Defamation, Child Pornography, Perjury, Blackmail, Incitement to lawless action, Threats, Solicitation to commit crimes, and Treason.

It’s an interesting collection and while I don’t disagree with hardly any of it (except Obscenities, of course), it was also interesting to read that in most of the above, there is an exemption for political speeches. I guess this is why a certain dotard’s legal position is that they were making a political speech when they incited lawless action, thereby committing treason.

If you and I sat in our living room and said the exact same things to a half a dozen people that then immediately went and attacked a government building, they would be able to take us away. This is why we all need to buy podiums for our living rooms. So we can stand up and dictate our treason in a political framework.

Anyway, I digress. Sorry.

But beyond the mere legal interpretations of freedom here, I began to think about our sense of freedom here and what it is based on.

There is an unbelievably disproportionate spreading of freedom in the US than I wave witnessed in most western societies.

For example, apparently when Lincoln freed the black folk, he didn’t make sure that their freedom was the exact same as us white folk. For example, just last week in Michigan, a black realtor and his two black clients were taken at gunpoint out of a home that the realtor was showing and handcuffed. All because a neighbor reported that there was something suspicious in these folk entering a vacant home.

How free do you think those folk felt?

How free do you think a black male feels when he is pulled over in a car with his kids in the back, because he matches a description of a recent criminal in the area. Yeah … we’ve all read that description before … it’s called “black male”.

I won’t go on about how women are not free here to do with their own body what they see fit, because I don’t want to cause a continental divide over abortion issues.

Nor will I talk about how black communities are free to stand in a line for six or seven hours come voting time, while white suburbans can get in and out of their polling stations in twenty minutes.

And I certainly won’t mention how the US has 2.2. million people in prison, which as a percentage of our population is five times more than the rest of the world’s percentages. Don’t get me started on the percentage of those that are black, either. Damn black realtors clogging up our prison system!

No, the list is too long and hopefully I have made my point already about how the notion of American freedom is overstated.

So, I looked up the UN data and related sources to try to understand what the free-est nations in the world were and I found lists. Apparentlypeople other than me are interested in this stuff. Because the list is published every year.

America comes fifteenth.

There, I took away all the excitement and anticipation with three little words. Sad, huh?

I’ve reviewed several lists and they each do their best to categorize based on personal freedom, economic freedom, and political freedom. And America moves a bit between 15th and 20th across these lists.

Many Americans will decry the lists because they buy into the whole America Number One belief system, but then again these are the same folk who think the World Series is actually between the top two baseball teams in the world. In case you didn’t know, it’s name is actually a sponsorship name from The World newspaper which sponsored the first meeting of the best teams in two american leagues (1880’s I believe).

It is all well and good to be proud of America and even to want it to be number one. But when you put your blinkers on and dismiss any statements that you are not number one … well, that’s how society’s crumble.

Beyond the society we live in, it is important to ask ourselves on an individual level, how free are we?

I mean individually.

Are you tied into a job you don’t want. A marriage you hate. A life you regret.

Things like this form the basis of our individual happiness and I guess that is where I ended up, by the time I got home.

You see, changing society is a good thing but the real change that’s important in our lives is the change we make within our own.

We should look at our waking ours and ask ourselves what are we doing with our time from the “want to” perspective than the “have to” perspective. The latter needs to be as small a percentage as possible. The former is where our own freedom really lies.

If the only freedom we experience is in our dreams, then I’m sorry. That’s for the birds.

… just a thought!

Dead Fish

Not the most glamorous of titles that I have ever used for a blog, I’m afraid. But sometimes words need to be succinct and to the point.

You see, Saturday morning was a very early start. A 90 minute drive to Lido Beach in Sarasota was on the cards. I was meeting with Kari and Brian and their friend Denise so that we could try to pull off a specific photograph at first sign of dawn.

Kari had raised the issue to me a week ago and given that I had already experienced it several times on Florida’s west coast, I didn’t need any convincing.

So I left home around 4:45 and with nobody on the road, I managed to shave ten minutes off the ride and pulled in to the little car park just off Lido Beach just after six.

I was quite a bit away from sunrise and about half an hour ahead of our meeting time, so I sat there for a moment thinking about what had brought me here, this time of day.

Dead fish.

See I told you that title was to the point.

I needed to take shots of the dead fish that are regularly washing up on the shore along a huge stretch of the gulf coastline. And one dead fish, in particular.

If you haven’t experienced what is commonly known here as the red tide, then you likely have no idea where I am going with this. But I will explain in a few.

The result of the red tide is a regular holocaust of marine species and a near toxic level of fumes that make breathing while on the beach, a bit of a novelty.

I first experienced this down in Englewood the year before last at Vel’s beach house. I had driven down to hang out with him and have a beer on the beach and then spend the night just catching up back at the house. I only lasted about three minutes on the beach that evening as it felt like I had been a victim of mustard gas. I couldn’t inhale fully, nor stop coughing, and my nose was running incessantly.

Interestingly enough, there was no physical smell. Nothing smelled bad or sweet or anything. It was just that the air was unbreathable.

That’s when I first learned about red tide and while the lack of quality air eventually made it impossible for me to sleep at the house, I then read about the disastrous effect it has on marine life.

Disastrous to the point that every morning the beaches were adorned with the dead bodies of every kind of fish you can think of.

Now if this was a lone or rare incident, you would understand Florida’s reaction to the problem. But the frequency and the intensity has been increasing for years now.

Given that Florida’s beach communities are a rather important part of the tourist industry here, wouldn’t you imagine that some money grabbing politicians would get to the bottom of this and find a fix?

I have given up on these red-state morons taking any action to protect the environment or the creatures that we share it with. But surely, the folks that line their pockets must be making some noise about what is happening?

When I applied that logic at first, I arrived at the conclusion that it must be a natural phenomenon that they can’t do anything about. How else could it possibly go untackled?

I don’t feel awfully bad for the tourists when this happens although I can imagine it makes for some pretty miserable Florida visits. I do feel bad for the small businesses that are negatively affected by a drop in revenue when these tourists go inland to the theme parks instead of hanging out in bars, restaurants, and bistros at the beach.

But mostly I feel sorry for the poor creatures. Those without a vote or even a voice. Those who suffer and die in their millions.

So that got me reading more about what causes red tide and when I read just a little about it, I saw that it was algae that grows out of whack periodically and when it gets to a certain level, the water blooms red … hence the name.

An apparently it has been happening forever. It is a natural phenomenon.

Or is it? Well, yes the actual phenomenon is, but the frequency of and intensity of what is happening is not. Turns out that is a human-caused issue, specifically tied to the run off of fertilizer from intense farming into the rivers and lakes that eventually feed the gulf.

And pride of place as chief culprit is the run off from Lake Okeechobee which is not just the biggest lake in the state but resides right in the middle of intense citrus and sugar farming country. Red states are notoriously farm-friendly and very loose in terms of government control of silly little things like pollutants.

I might be stating the obvious here, but I suspect there is a sizable lobby lining the pockets of elected officials from these activities. Making matters worse is that whatever noise the small communities make about loss of business is not only drowned out by these fertilizer run-off kings, … well, frankly the theme parks have a big lobby too and they get fatter with every disillusioned beach goer.

There is a hell of a lot more money to be made at a theme park from these damn Yankees, than there is letting them lollygag on our white sand beaches for free.

Unwilling to treat the problem on a state level, local governments along the coastline areas came up with an easy answer to the symptom.

Or at least one of them. See, we can’t fix the air, And we can’t stop the algae from killing these creatures, so Florida being Florida, we send out the tractors and the clean-up crews first thing each morning to scoop up all the dead bodies that the night tides have brought in.

Hence the reason why I needed to arrive at Lido Beach early enough to beat the clean-up crew.

How pathetic is that?

The only analogy that springs to mind is where, imagine if you were eating something that was causing you to soil yourself twice a day every day. But instead of changing your eating habits, your decision is to simply always carry a couple of garment changes with you and hope that nobody notices the smell that follows you around.

Welcome to Florida. Apparently that’s our master plan of dealing with serious issues.

Of course it begs the question, how bad can it all get, even if we keep hiding the bodies and pretend the air is breathable. Does anyone really believe that it won’t get worse?

And how much worse does it have to get before these fat politicians stop counting the dollars going into their re-election funds and start counting the bodies that are needlessly being created by these symptom-treating remedies.

So, this morning, as daylight broke and I began shooting a very special shoot to highlight the problem, I looked around me. Fish carcass after fish carcass, as far as the eyes could see in both directions. There wasn’t an eye left in a socket hardly, as the only beneficiaries seemed to be the terns, gulls, and other birds that were gathered in their hundreds.

I say “seemed to be” because the toxins that kill these fish eventually damage and kills the birds also. But they don’t know. They think they have been served up an all you eat buffet of enormous proportions.

Other than ourselves, is there any creature we care about to effect a change?

If the victims were dogs, you can bet your bottom dollar, a fix would be in the works. Imagine hitting the beach every morning where dead dogs lined the shoreline as far at the eyes could see.

America loves its dogs. Wildlife? Who gives a shit.

Am I the only fool that thinks that is incredibly sad?

So this morning, we shot a mermaid. She lay there among the dead fish and we mourned her passing and the needless death that it all seemed to be.

There was a time when we pumped raw sewage into our streams and rivers, lakes, and seas. It killed untold quantities of creatures but the reason we eventually started treating it was that we couldn’t live with the smell.

We have a history of only making changes when they are for our benefit.

I paused here while writing this for a moment, trying to think of positive changes we made in the world for the betterment of creatures other than humans. Can you think of some? I am damned if I can.

So, I guess what I have arrived at is that our selfishness and disregard for any creature not human means that nothing is going to change here in the foreseeable future.

If we could just convince people that mermaids are real, therefore recognizing our harm to part-human creatures, maybe we have a chance.

But it’s only children that still care for mermaids and unicorns. And by the time they become good citizens that cast votes, they will have long forgotten such creatures and will disregard all others. Except dogs, of course.

And just in case you are wondering … each year the state drains off over 200 billion gallons of fertilizer-polluted water from Lake Okeechobee to the Caloosahatchee river, which in turn runs into the gulf near Fort Myers.

Every time a news story begins with “today in Florida..” you know they are about to point out some dumb shit that happened. The parallel between fertilizer and shit is not lost on me.

… just a thought.

Here is the shot we set out to create and beneath it are others that I thought worth sharing from my morning.

Footnote: The Army Corps of Engineers is about to release its plans for the next ten years, tomorrow, regarding the deliberate run offs from Lake Okeechobee. At the current levels they will plan to release over two trillion gallons of heavily fertilizer-polluted water into the gulf. The person with whom the buck stops is Colonel Andrew Kelly. Here is his email address, should you wish to share your thoughts with him. andrew.d.kelly@usace.army.mil

I have shared mine. So, I will possibly mysteriously disappear soon.

Enjoy(?) the pics.

The song within

Today was the last day of visit from Erin, Victoria and Joe and we decided a few days ago that the visit would end with a trail adventure over at Circle B.

Erin had her own camera so the idea was to take a leisurely morning through Alligator Alley as it ran alongside Lake Hancock.

What we didn’t plan on was that today decided to be grey and rainy so the expectation of bright images with blue skies in the background, had to be postponed until another visit.

But determined to make the best of a bad lot, we donned jackets and headed off to the trail regardless.

Yes, our feet got wet as we tried to dodge the overly muddy sections with standing water. And yes, some of the expected subjects for our photo adventure were taking cover somewhere. And yes, the duller than normal light meant that our images wouldn’t be as crisp.

But we still had a wonderful time. We saw wild pigs, alligators, osprey and hawks. We saw a myriad of herons, egrets, and anhinga. Not to mention some amazing butterflies.

But the truth is, none of those made the time wonderful.

It was made wonderful by the company we each traveled with and particular one little seven-year-old girl who ignored the wetness under her feet and the extra layer of clothing in the Florida heat. Her focus was on the search for creatures, the sounds coming from the trees and water around us, and her unbridled sense of adventure as to what her camera might capture for her memory bank.

She is still learning her camera and undoubtedly has a number of blurry shots in the process. But didn’t we all, when we first picked up a camera and tried to figure out what we were doing. Some of us still do …. that’s what makes the delete button on our PC such an important photography accessory!

But whatever struggles she may have had, they left her completely undaunted and happy to stay the path and keep trying.

It is impossible to be in the company of such brightness and still stay in the dark. And my own adventure was heightened as I fed off her energy and enthusiasm.

I have posted a little selection of images from today at the end of the blog and I hope you enjoy. See if you can spot the jumping fish in the background of one of the shots.

But anyway, the idea for today’s blog thought has nothing to do with the images I got. Only the company that I kept.

The thought that emerged after all the goodbyes and the parting tears, was how the experience today was totally fashioned by virtue of the positive energy of the youngest member of the expedition.

It was an energy that some people might call an aura or spiritual emanation.

But I like to think of it as a song. A melody. Something that plays out within our soul and other souls nearby can hear it. Like a dog whistle, our normal senses can’t but we feel the positivity and it engages us.

When we walk our journey in the company of someone with a loud and positive song, then we find ourselves humming along, walking in step to it, and eventually it energizes our own melody within us.

I remember a Fraggle Rock episode about how each Fraggle had their song and how important it was to have one. And I believe that.

We have to have an inner melody that gives our steps through life a pace to travel to. Otherwise we will wander aimlessly and easily lose our way.

When our melody is in tune with what our life goals are, then we are best likely to live a happy and rewarding life. And the energy of a nearby song can help us remember our own when we begin to lose our way.

Sometimes we allow negative tunes from others around us to fashion what our song becomes. They drown out our own positivity and silence our happy song.

This is why when we travel in the company of others in life, it is important to shield ourselves from negative people or negative influences. If we can’t lift them with our own song, then we need to put our headphones on, drown out their beat, and keep marching forward to the rhythm of our own drum.

Negative influences are the single most reasons for people losing their way in life. Oftentimes people don’t even know they are marching to the wrong tune until they are so far down life’s journey, they can’t even remember their own.

People can confuse loudness and popularity with an acceptance of the tune being good. Only to find out later that the tune is full of hate, lies, and misdirection. And by then the soul is so confused with the loud screech of insanities that they no longer know what truth is, and they march ever closer to the cliff of stupidity.

And if you think for a moment that your soul is going to be saved by the song of someone you are traveling to that cliff with, then think again. Their song is every bit as stupid as the one your soul is singing.

So, how do we decide in the first place, whether we are listening to a good song or a bad one?

There is no simple litmus test but if a song is about to alter your life journey, it needs to be adding a harmony of more love, respect, tolerance, caring, decency, and truth to the melody you already have.

I’m sure there are other positive aspects than my little list above. It wasn’t meant to be exhaustive. But if the new song has less of any of those than your current one, then beware.

And if the new song encourages hatred, racism, disregard, demonization, and lies, then get those headphones on and keep walking.

… just a thought.

Through the eyes of a child

Yesterday’s trip to Universal Studios was something I had been looking forward to for quite a while. I have been there a number of times before, but this one was to be special.

This time I was to be in the company of Erin, my little granddaughter. She is a big Harry Potter fan and this was her first time being exposed to the creative minds of the whole Universal experience.

When we reached Diagon Alley, she literally leaped with joy and her excitement reached fever pitch. At the young age of seven, this was her first time stepping out of the pages of the books that Victoria has faithfully been reading with her and seeing first-hand how the world of Harry Potter looks like in “real life”.

Any words I could use to describe the place would be a misunderstatement, so I won’t even attempt to. But suffice to say that it is well worth the visit.

I didn’t go on any rides (they aren’t my thing) so I mainly just followed my three fellow-adventurers and chronicled their experience with my lens.

I haven’t included any of the family shots here but only some of the shots that I took of the experience itself. They are here at the end of the blog … I hope you enjoy.

In distancing myself from the front-line visitor experience, I largely drew my own experience from the sight and sounds of Erin as she encountered magical moment after magical moment.

Her “oohs” and “aahs” were palpable and they gave me a true experience that no theme park could ever emulate.

As I drove home, I had a broad smile across my face; a smile of having had a wonderful time with those I love and also a smile of rejuvenated outlook on some of the world around me.

We forget the excitement as we grow older, as most things we experience have already been experienced before. It is difficult for life to serve us up something to which we have no experience or imagination of.

But through the eyes of a child we get to witness joys, wonder, and excitement that are at once innocent and wild.

Some people try to rein in their child’s reaction, insisting that they shush or use their indoor voice. They become overly conscious of how the strangers around them might judge them.

But the adults that unbridle their child’s emotions tend to carry the broadest of smiles as they truly share the experience with their child.

I am not talking for a moment about bad or raucous behavior; I very much agree that this should be stamped out. But I am talking about letting out the emotional line so that our children can run with it.

Never subdue a child’s smile. For they brighten the world in a way that no candle ever can.

When it comes to our own daily lives, it is very difficult to remember, let alone retain, any of the wonder that the world has to offer.

What I have found is that technological or artistic developments produce a limited scope of wonder into our lives. And it wears away quickly.

Try describing the first time you saw color television to someone and if you are greeted by more than a blank look, I would be surprised. Where is the wonder in that?

However, the natural world, if we allow it, can produce an everlasting sense of wonder if we are but willing to breathe it in..

It plays out beside us every day and yet never runs dry in its production of beauty and drama.

But the big difference between mad-made and natural wonder is that the former allows us to be mainly passive, while the latter requires us to be mostly active.

As we went through Universal yesterday, our enjoyment didn’t require us to do hardly anything but just be entertained. And don’t get me wrong; it was terrifically entertaining.

But the natural world requires us to explore, seek out, stop and scrutinize, and yes, understand what it is we are experiencing. We need to walk a trail, keep our wits about us, and occasionally lift a leaf to see what is underneath.

This world is not organized and on display for us and neither does it perform for us at scheduled times. It doesn’t come with express lines or souvenir shops, yet the memories we take away can be life-transforming and life-lasting.

Erin joins me on a trail on Tuesday morning before they all fly back to Chicago and I hope to witness some more memories for her on her journey through life.

She and I may be on opposite ends of life’s story but there is still so much for me to learn by drawing from her experience of it.

So here is what I am trying to say. Go ahead and accompany a child on a natural experience somewhere. It doesn’t even matter what that experience is… only that we experience it through their bright eyes and not our own tired and dull ones.

… just a thought.

Fear Feeding

Sunday’s aborted night-time trail adventure was rescheduled for last night, so armed with the camera and a storm-free sky overhead, I headed off to meet Jax and her little daughters for eight.

It was right around sunset as we arrived at the trail so the brief light from a lovely sky was soon no more than a memory as we shuffled ahead through near-complete darkness.

There was a rising moon but its light was muffled by some clouds that it chose to stay behind. So we quickly became reliant on the flashlights that the ladies had.

For my part, I had a flashlight in my pocket but was planning on using the camera flash unit to capture anything that needed to be photographed.

While that initially worked, after just four or five flashes for some reason it became non-functional and nothing more than a dead-weight mounted on top of the camera. I haven’t figured out why, just yet. But will later. I had just put new batteries into it, so it can’t be that.

In any event, for the rest of the trail I relied on the lights of my co-adventurers or of the one in my pocket. It turned out to be a badly-handicapped photo-journey, between the lighting inconsistencies and my own inabilities to steady a very heavy camera assembly in my right hand, lighting the subject with my left, and relying on the auto-focus to be able to figure out what I am trying to shoot. I know that was an overly long sentence … sorry! But there was a lot going on.

The end results were pretty poor and all the poor shots have been duly buried, never to see the light of day again. But the images that have made it onto the end of this blog are decent enough to make someone think that I knew what I was doing.

Apparently, I don’t.

But as much as images are a big part of my life story these days, they were truly a secondary element to what was really happening last night. Eagle-eyed Jax and her two wing-ladies opened up a world of detail for me that I would surely have missed, had I been there on my own.

There were bats, toads, spiders, beetles, moths, and crickets … all setting about their nocturnal business. But for me, at least, the main attraction was the awesome collection of stick insects that worked their way across the tall grasses and shrubs.

I would never have even seen one, yet there must have been at least ten pointed out for me to study and shoot. These are amazing and such gentle little creatures … I just wish my images could have done them justice.

My senses were completely satiated by the time we returned to the start of the trail and I needed not another victory to make this night one for the memory-bank. Yet, Jax managed to find a little green preying mantis clinging to some grasses off the trail and so I got a couple of decent shots of him too.

They are all there for you at the end of the blog. I hope you enjoy.

I was in such good company, so I wasn’t fearful on this little adventure. But normally the thought of walking in near-total darkness in a habitat like this might have made me a little nervous. Stepping on living creatures and face-planting into spider-webs are just a couple of reasons, I guess.

But last night I trailed five or ten yards behind the ladies for much of the journey and there was no such worry.

Anastasia and Kallista are 7 and 5 respectively and they walked forward unabashedly but carefully. In fact, it is the “carefully” part that really gave me the idea for my blog today.

They have been brought up in a household that not only respects nature, but loves it. There is no fear regardless of what creatures they might encounter (although one of them did say she hoped we didn’t come across any wolves) and their willingness to softly pick up and love even the most humble of creature was truly inspiring.

There were discussions about what our favorite insects might be or animal might be and there wasn’t a single “eww” factor as they both had such a nature-harmonious character that they recognized the role of all. Which is really quite remarkable for such young minds.

They have obviously been nurtured into this mindset by a mom and dad that are themselves at one with the world we live in. And it was wonderful to witness up close and so personal. If I had any eww feelings at all, they would have been shed quickly out of a feeling of ridiculousness, trust me.

And I realized something last night. Something that these two young ladies have, that many of us do not.

By having no eww feeling and by having an appreciative understanding of the roles of each creature in the circle, they have developed a respect and love that makes them excellent guardians of their natural environment.

There is no possibility that some creature might be crushed, hurt, or even disparaged. Certainly not by these little ladies.

All of us start off in the world with a clean-slate when it comes to interaction with the world around us. When we establish a fear, or an eww factor in how we respond to any creature, it changes how we relate to that creature.

When we develop a superiority feeling over any creature, we become hunters or abusers. Their feelings or well-being become collateral damage in how we run our lives.

Children absorb their fears and phobias from the environment we create for them. We feed these fears by reinforcing stereo types like killer sharks, killer whales, and even killer bees.

When they see us fish or hunt, they immediately understand that prey are lesser beings than us.

Bonding time between father and son where fishing or hunting is involved establishes an ingrained disrespect for these “lesser” creatures. This act of cruelty becomes associated within their minds as a good memory of time with their dad. And, as they likely revere their own father, they would outrightly reject any such argument as the one I am making.

Footnote: Sport preying on creatures is very difference from hunting or fishing for sustenance. And I honestly see nothing wrong with that. But when the killing of another creature is done for any reason other than survival and sustenance, then I have a big problem. Sorry.

Oh wait. No. I am not sorry.

When we grow our children with a real view of the planet we live on and how each creature plays a role…

When we teach each child that regardless of whether the creature in front of them is a gorgeous little puppy or a strange looking invertebrate, they are equal in the eyes of mother nature and deserve our love and respect…

When we teach our children that our interactions with the world around us should be done on a level playing field of respect and awareness…

… that’s when the world will begin to find a balance and humans will no longer be a scourge or parasite, but a genuine team-member within a flourishing world.

For just a while last night, it seemed that I lived in such a world. Yes there were still stories of Barbies and magical caves, but there was a deeper story that played out in front of me and it gave me hope that maybe future generations will give this whole tale a happy ending.

… just a thought.

Peripheral Vision

So, last night was supposed to be spent with Jax and her little ladies on a trail, checking out some night creatures and such. But when we got there the skies above, which had been darkening, began to let loose the heavens.

Torrential rains and loud thunder claps with sharp and cutting lightning.

It all got a bit too scary for the two young ladies, so we called it a night before we had even set foot one on the trail. In truth, we sat there in the car for about fifteen minutes hoping it would pass, but it became obvious that even if it did move on, it was saturating the ground we hoped to be searching along.

So, I found myself back on the road heading home all too early. It wasn’t a failure. No time with Jax could ever be. But we agreed that a tactical retreat was the best move and we promised to return before school restarts.

As I was driving up route 39, the stormy skies were continuing to light up and the thought occurred to me that I should really try to catch some of the lightning.

The problem was that it is a narrow road heavily lined with trees and there really wasn’t a view of the sky that would have worked for me. For six miles it was going to be like that but I resolved to stop when the road hit route 60. I was pretty sure that the road opened up at that stage and all I needed was the rain to stop and the lightning to keep working its magic.

And I was right. There was a small parking lot right at the light where the Auto Zone is. So, I quickly parked and jumped out with the camera, slapped it on the tripod and stood there hopefully.

For the first few minutes, I thought I was too late. There was nothing happening and the skies just stayed dark.

But then for just about five or ten minutes, the skies gave a last hurrah and treated me to some flashes as the storm faded off to the distant west.

I wasn’t sure if I had captured anything and so the drive home was filled with anticipation.

I had only actually taken about fifteen shots, I found out as I went to load them onto the laptop when I sat impatiently back on the sofa.

The moment of truth was with me as I flipped through them and while some were nice, one made me stop and hold my breath. I have attached them at the end of this blog and the last one is thus far my favorite shot of the year.

In this blog I have included it in a cropped view because I suspect most people will view it by phone. The full one is destined for my calendar. But either way, there is so much right about this shot … I was just so happy.

I hope you enjoy.

The joy was still with me when I woke up this morning and I was delighted that I chose to give it a try. To make that stop. Even though the storm looked like it had run its course.

There was every possibility that my stop would yield nothing and on another day, it well might have.

But the whole notion of peripheral vision came into my mind and how no matter where we are heading or what we are aiming for, it is always right to keep half an eye on peripheral possibilities.

Not all the wins in life come from things we aim for. Sometimes they come from something incidental we just allowed to happen.

“Allowed to happen” by being open to the possibility.

And that is really the point of todays blog.

Life should indeed have a course, a plan … a direction that we are following and hopefully one that takes us on the journey we are hoping for.

But a truly successful journey involves leaving the blinkers off and taking in what is happening either side of us. Maybe occasionally even stopping and tasting a little something that is unplanned.

Being singularly focused can produce a certain type of success and some people choose that. They go for wealth or power, career or vocation. And these people often grab the headlines in apparent achievement.

But a life that is totally focused is very likely to be black and white, where success is callously measured and failure every bit as damning as success is rewarding.

No, the correct approach involves allowing a peripheral vision to add the colors of possibilities to our life tapestry.

How could I have known how the camera could enrich my life story, if I hadn’t picked one up twenty years ago. My education is electrical engineering. My expertise was in fiber optics. Yet, my camera opened up many worlds to my soul and broadened my understanding of life and the enjoyment of a less-focused journey.

And that is true for all of us. By allowing ourselves the latitude of slight diversion, we could discover a better path to our journey than the one we had planned.

Our journey is not an interstate designed to carry us to the end as fast and efficiently as possible. It is made up of many side roads and cross-roads. Each one with a view to the side that we are fools not to take in.

In the olden days of horse and carts, they would put blinkers onto the poor horses so that they could only see straight ahead and therefore not be distracted. They still do put blinkers on these poor animals in some situations, although I would strongly argue that it is cruel and inhumane to restrict the vision of any poor creature.

But who in their own mind would willingly go through their one life with blinkers? Yes they would see their own path and destination, but they would miss out on the real color of the one life that they are going to pass through.

I guess what I am trying to say here is that we have peripheral vision for a reason and it involves more than just our eyes.

… just a thought.

Spite

I left home yesterday evening full of optimism.

I was heading to a good friend’s house to help her do a quick set-up of her new Sony Alpha and as it was half-way in towards Tampa, I decided to combine it with a sunset shoot at Picnic Island.

The clouds looked ever-so promising high up in a beautiful blue sky and I was pretty confident in getting a good sunset based on all I knew.

Or should I say “based on all I thought I knew”.

Because after the quick stop enroute as I got back on the interstate heading into Tampa, the clouds had become much more threatening.

Gone were the soft puffy clouds that would float above the horizon and give me promise of orange and reds. They were replaced with intimidating and expansive light and dark grey clouds that threatened to swallow all before them and drop some wet-stuff in the process.

Undeterred, I continued the drive and found myself at a near-empty boat ramp and fishing pier with plenty of time for things to change in my favor.

It rained a little and the clouds somehow managed to find the one sweet-spot on the horizon that would create a near-total block of the sunset.

I mean, seriously!

There was lots of blue sky to the left and right but these mischievous gremlins decided Neville wasn’t going to have a sunset memory this evening.

I began to shoot anyway and waited in hope that there might be some lateral movement along the horizon as the sun made its final descent.

But my hope was in vain.

Just as it dropped through the final degree, the sun did manage to squeeze a tiny spray of color across the immediate clouds near the horizon.

So, I guess it wasn’t a total loss.

What am I saying … of course it wasn’t a total loss. Sometimes clouds try their utmost to hide what they think we want to see, but they forget their own beauty in the process. And that, my friends, is what I made the main subject of the evening.

There aren’t any Pulitzer prize-winning shots but I still think they were pretty enough to anchor the end of this blog. I hope you enjoy them.

Based on the lack of numbers there on the fishing dock last night, I am guessing that most people decided the evening wasn’t to their liking and stayed home on the sofa.

But I refused to let the clouds win and sought out success in spite of them.

And that is really was generated the thought for this little blog.

How spite can sometimes be a wonderful motivator, if we only listen to it occasionally.

As children we are told never to act out of spite and the word itself is given many negative reviews by those responsible for raising us.

We are called spiteful and such, as an insult and a put-down that is meant to reduce this emotion from our arsenal. In fact that word in itself is difficult to deliver in a positive way.

And yet we praise someone with phrases like “in spite of” or words like “despite” almost as if they are a negative to the word “spite”.

But they ignore that spite can be a real motivator and many times can be a driving force that takes our achievements to new heights.

“Girls can’t do that” is a centuries-old put-down that many “girls” have spitefully responded by doing just that.

Would they have achieved as good a result if they hadn’t been put down in such a manner? Who knows.

But what I do know is that there are many times where I have been motivated to succeed because someone expected me to fail. Proving someone wrong can infuse us with a drive and energy that would be difficult to conjure up entirely from within.

In fact, when people encourage us by telling us of course we can do something and then we can’t … well it just feels awful. Like we have let everyone down.

Humans rise best to a challenge and spite is a major ingredient to many a successful challenge. Never underestimate it.

Rather embrace it and harness the energy it can give you. Let the clouds pour across your horizon and let the rain fall on your shoulders. All they succeed in doing is making you look for new horizons and so what if you get a little damp in the process.

When life presents us with challenges and obstacles, they only serve to motivate us further and to find new way to succeed or new things to succeed at.

The one lady on the dock last night asked me if I was shooting the sunset. I replied that no, I was shooting the clouds. And I smiled inside, because I knew that my success would happen one way or another despite what the clouds might be attempting to do.

… just a thought.

It’s own rewards

It was still a bit before sunset and the lightning and thunder was playing their symphony outside my living room window.

It was dry and now if it would only get dark, I might have a chance at shooting something.

I grabbed the camera and figured I would head down to the ball fields and maybe get lucky if darkness could come before all the lightning stopped.

I stood there knowing that I was missing my target, but I honestly didn’t care. The wind was about 30 mph gusting at times to 40 or 50 and it felt amazing. It was dry and any mosquito in the area was taking cover from the wind.

For some reason (and I still don’t know why) my camera would not let me preview any of the shots just taken. That’s what I would normally do at the start of a shoot, to make sure my settings were correct. But in this case, that feedback loop was unavailable to me.

So, I turned on my Amazon playlist and just relaxed, breathing in the moment and snapping away. I kept adjusting the aperture on the camera as it got increasingly darker. But other than that, I was blind in the process.

I think in total I took over 200 pics. The first 150 or 160 were in daylight and they were almost entirely worthless.

The first two or three below are from that bunch. Getting only 1 or 2% of any shoot is ridiculous and certainly not what I would hope for.

But once it got a little darker to where I maxed out the aperture and so all adjustments ceased, the good shots started to come in. I think I got about 20 good shots from the last 40 taken.

A 50% yield when it comes to trying to capture lightning is more than acceptable to me. I was thrilled.

I have added them all below in the sequence they were taken and I have a couple of favorites that I think are genuinely special. I will let you decide for yourself what you like or don’t, but don’t forget to zoom in to see the detail of the lightning itself.

Depending on where in the sky it happened seemed to decide what colors it was creating and I suspect it is something to do with the heat or moisture content as to what color it generated.

None of the photographs are altered. I have only cropped or resized into the section of the sky where the action took place. I hope you find something to like.

It was only when the storm moved a bit far away and the rain started that I called it a night. And on the short two minute drive home, I was proud of myself.

Not because I thought I had gotten some decent images (because I honestly had no way to know) but because I hung in there after that first hour of nothing and managed to still be there when the skies started behaving nicely for me.

During that first hour, I managed to entertain myself and enjoy the whole atmosphere around me, so there was nothing that I had to endure beyond knowing that each was a wasted shutter click.

It was a wonderful experience start to finish and I would definitely do it all again. There was one moment when the evening had turned very dark and there was a huge flash in the sky close by. It was so huge that it momentarily turned the field I was standing in into pure daylight. I got the shot but haven’t included it here. Do let me know if you would like to see it.

But there was a moment (albeit only one or two seconds) where night turned to day and the world almost stopped turning. It was magical. And I was there to witness it.

I know there are many sayings about persistence but the one that springs to mind is that “persistence brings its own rewards” and mine was truly rewarded.

I am not the most patient person in the world, so persistence is something that I have to put effort into.

By that, I mean that in the face of adversity I sometimes have to talk myself into staying with it and continuing to fight the good fight.

It isn’t that I give up. I rarely do.

But I often adjust and find another approach to whatever is not working.

I think this is very much a trait I got from my dad. He would tackle anything and always gave it his all. I never, in the 50 odd years that I knew him, ever saw him walk away from something.

I view that as a strength of character and I try to bring that to the table for each project that I am engaged in.

But, as I said, I often try to alter the approach and exercise a plan B when something clearly isn’t working.

But the thing about plan Bs is that we don’t always have them.

Sometimes, the obstacle or difficulty is outside of our control and beyond our ability to affect it.

These are the moments when we must find it within ourselves to persevere and do or die, however it all plays out.

Because walking away removes all possibility of a positive outcome.

There is no such thing as a tactical retreat in life. There are retreats but they are not military maneuvers … they are simply acknowledgement of defeat.

And there is no acceptable defeat in life.

We may get beaten and bruised and still lose. But we also might win and if we aren’t still engaged in the effort, then there will never be that win. As F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote: “never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat”.

So the possibility of defeat should never be a factor in our decision to try.

And then once we try something, we need to stay with it. Give it everything and every chance for it to work.

It may not work and at the end of the day we may be wearing a failure for our efforts. But when the failure happens, we need to be still there and take the hurt.

Because if we aren’t there, how could we possibly know the real outcome?

… just a thought.

Blind Spot

It was one of those mornings where everyone upstairs was fed and those in lock down had been fed and released into the darkness.

The Keurig finished its noisy dark offering and all in the world became calm.

I was standing there in the office and all but LOLA were now outside. While the coffee had been filling up in my cup, I had been checking my phone and when I got to the weather app and it said mostly clear, I double checked the time and said “What the hell … I can make it for twilight!”

So, I snapped the lid onto the paper cup, grabbed the camera from upstairs and set off towards the brightening skies at Lake Parker.

I knew it would be a push because I didn’t really have any slop time in the drive. I needed most lights to be green and they were. Those that weren’t, I tried to circumvent where possible and so I found myself pulling in by the boat dock with five minutes to spare.

There were a couple of early morning boaters already in the water and about to head off, so I hopped from the car and began shooting immediately so as not to lose them.

As they pulled away, I settled the camera on the tripod and began to play with some of the manual settings and I was able to see in LCD screen that it seemed to be doing the early sky justice. The colors looked genuine for what my eyes saw and at the end of the day that it what I generally aim for.

If I can get the camera to see what I see, then I feel I am in control of the situation.

Anyway, I have attached a number of the shots and they show the progression of dawn from when I got there until I left. Hope you enjoy!

When I got back to the office and loaded the pictures on the screen, I made a second cup and began to go through them. It’s a great way to relax and enjoy the fruits of your labor, as you decide which ones you like and which you don’t.

Right from image one, though, I was immediately pissed off. There was a big blurry piece of dirt right in the middle of the picture. Every picture. It was something on the lens and it sat front and center on each picture as I advanced through them.

I was seriously annoyed. Yes, I was able to remove it with Corel Photopaint but that isn’t the point.

A dirty lens is unacceptable. Photography 101 leads off with how important it is to keep your lens dirt free. And I failed!

In situ at the boat dock, I was unable to see it because the screen on the camera is so small. But on my computer screen it presented itself proudly and a dog with a mallet up his ass would have winced at how obvious it was.

I can understand in part that when I got there I was in a hurry to catch the boaters, so that is what initially caused me to not clean the lens, but beyond that, it was all me.

And I realized while angry that this has happened to me several times before. It is occasionally something on the front lens but it might also be specks of dust on the sensor that found their way in while I was changing lenses.

Howsoever it appears, it is the photographer’s job to remove it and these are a habitual blind spot (no pun intended) for my nature shoots.

A combination of an aging pair of eyes, and tiny screens or viewfinders are partly responsible. But you would think after the first few times, I would learn. All it really needs is a solid routine or process that cleanses the lens each time before the first picture is taken.

Why is it that I can’t master that?

In fairness, I tend to get distracted by the excitement of the situation happening around me and this is often the cause.

And that is what made me think of today’s blog topic. Because so many of us have habitual blind spots in our lives and in very many cases we even know about them.

We find ourselves committing the same mistake over and over and it isn’t because we are stupid. It is because we are predisposed to making the error.

For example, 9 times out of ten I will type teh instead of the. It isn’t that I don’t know how to spell teh word. Shit, there I go again. For some reason my ham-fisted efforts at typing have a synchronization problem between left and right hands and my left index finger always seems to win the race.

Thankfully, most programs like this one now underline in red for me that I have made a mistake and I go back and fix it. But it slows down my typing immensely. I have found myself trying to find sentences that I can write that don’t have the word “the” in them. How crazy is that?

In real life, our repeat errors are not conveniently underlined and they often are only noticed much later, long after the mistake has had its effect.

So why do we keep making errors or why are we repeatedly open to enabling the same mistake to happen?

Is it a simple wiring in our brain that is slightly off? Yes, it could be.

But it is more likely that (like me this morning) we become distracted and unfocused by something else that is happening around us to where our brain is fully engaged in that and not in watching out for our blind spot.

I think we can all agree that if we deliberately watch out for our blind spot, it doesn’t happen.

But our brains are semi-autonomous creatures and they makes certain decisions by themselves without consulting us in teh process. Dammit, there I go again.

Our subconscious runs an enormous portion of our life. And as we get older, it seems to run even more. Routine tasks, things that we have done before, get mostly handled without our thinking of them. We drive the same way home without thinking. We eat our meal without thinking. We shower without thinking.

But if we are playing a new game or working on a new project, we take much greater care and the only mistakes we are likely to make are caused by inexperience. Our brains engage.

When we are younger, our brains also engage more because most experiences are new to us.

So the real trick is to try to keep new experiences happening in our lives as much as possible. Whatever age we are.

New experiences keep our brains engaged and also, incidentally, keep life more interesting.

I have found that having to learn new stuff or try new things can be painful inasmuch as they take us out of our comfort zone. But, they are also truly rewarding.

Traveling the same direction on our journey always feels easier and by avoiding the challenge of new things, we reduce our chance of failure. This is why most of us do it.

But they also perpetuate our blind spots. We continue to see things from the same perspective only and repeatedly make the same errors. We either never learn or we learn incredibly slowly.

It’s one of the reason I love hanging out with people half my age. They help steer me in directions that I might otherwise not have gone.

Now if I could just figure out how to keep my lens clean, all would be good in teh world!

Damn, damn, damn … there it goes again!

… just a thought.