From the Barefoot Files...

More old photos from my grandfather's collection. I am not sure if this is Hawaii or Puerto Rico. This photo shows a collection of boats in a harbor. There is another photo showing one ship.

I really like this last photo of the solitary ship on the sea. These two would look great framed and on the wall.

Nature Undisturbed 2010 -- Deadline

<------------------------------------ The link to the call for entries will disappear over the weekend. Saturday is the last day to get your entry in the mail to me.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me. I will be checking email frequently these last couple days. There was an error with the commission for sales. One spot said 40% and another 50% -- the correct commission is 50%. This exhibit/sale does benefit Southern Conservation Trust.

So far we have entries from Florida, North Carolina, Illinois, Washington, and of course Georgia.

The website with all of the info is www.natureundisturbed.com -- pass it along to anyone you think would be interested.

Editing

I have been thinking about writing about editing for a while now; ever since the 365 project started. In the past I have posted blogs about editing your work and how themes help your focus and hone your work. Editing not as in photo editing with software -- but editing as in culling and composing a body of work.

Think of the word 'cull.' The definition I find says,

"to choose, select, pick; to gather the choice things; to collect, gather, pluck."

Gather the choice things. -- I like this.

Taking a photo a day can be a challenge. Coming up with something good daily is not that easy. I know some of mine so far have been so-so. (I do have a few that I think are pretty darn good too.) There are also those days when I come up with more than one that is really good. How do you choose the 'one' for the day?

Learning and practicing to take a great photo is one thing. Learning to choose and select the one to show is another. Many people ask me about what to do with their photography. They want to know how to show, how to approach a gallery or what to sell. Before you can do that -- you first need to learn to select your best. Show your best work. I always think that I am only as good as my worst photo. Lately I am not overly pleased with my 365 work. It is good -- but I know I can do better.

From the Barefoot Files...

Here is another one of the photos from my grandfather's collection. I have no idea if he took this or was given the photo. I can assume he took it since he is not in the photo. This is some where in South America. It appears to be in a bar. And these guys look like they have been there for a while.

I really like this -- even considering the not so perfect technical qualities of the photograph. Just look at all of those bottles!

Creativity

Amazing. I was playing around one day -- for the photo a day project. At first when I was taking photos I forgot I had the star aperture still in my Lensbaby. I like the look. When I edited the photo -- I did not do much to it except bump up the saturation a little bit.

Unbelievable that this photo has 400 views on Flickr.

The photo evolved from pure creativity. The process evolved as I was shooting photos that day. I took about 35 photos. There are 4 or 5 that I really like and out of those this one stood out. I think the best things come from just poking around -- not overthinking something -- just seeing "what if."

So far this photo a day project is working well. I have a few photos from it that I think are possibilities for entries in shows. The daily themes are not being my friend. I may ditch them or only keep them as a go to 'idea' if I have nothing else. The Saturday theme is really bothering me. It is 'night.' OK -- I think what if I forget at night to take a photo and the day is gone and I miss a photo a day?

From now on my strategy will be to take the best photo I see -- work with things as they come. If I can't get something or nothing big is happening that day -- I will use the themes to give me a push of what to do.

From the Barefoot Files...

Another Friday, another old family photo; this is my grandmother's brother, my grandfather, and my grandmother's other brother. My grandfather is holding my mother. The brother on the right is the one featured on the January 1 blog. The brother on the left is the oldest. His birthday is in January. The brother on the right was the youngest. I am guessing that this photo was taken in 1938.

Fredericksburg National Cemetery

A companion blog to Sunken Road -- Fredericksburg National Cemetery is on the hill above the road. The cemetery is located on Marye's Heights -- the very place the Confederates used to their advantage to defeat the Union soldiers pinned down below. The battle occurred December, 1862. The cemetery was established in July of 1865 -- just months after the end of the Civil War.

Only 20% of the 15,000 soldiers buried here are identified. They are mostly Union. The Confederate dead were buried at the Confederate Cemetery in Fredericksburg. The Confederate Cemetery was established in May of 1866. Both cemeteries hold those killed in the area battles -- not just from Sunken Road. The four battles in and around Fredericksburg were the Battle of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Spotsylvania Courthouse, and the Wilderness. The most interesting thing about Chancellorsville is Stonewall Jackson's left arm. He was injured in this battle, and his arm amputated and buried there.

This was the same morning I walked along Sunken Road in the fog. The cold and fog added to the atmosphere in the cemetery as I walked along through the fallen ginkgo leaves and soldiers. I had visited this place numerous times -- school field trips and just to go there and walk along the heights.

The park ranger told me that during battle the dead were hastily buried in mass graves. Later, when the cemetery was created, these mass graves were opened and the men were moved to this place. Those who could be identified were and have names on their markers. The other markers have two numbers. One number is for the gravesite location. The other number represents the number of bodies in that grave.

From the Barefoot Files...

Today -- the vintage photo is my great grandfather. George Walter King has appeared on the blog before. He was on the left -- the old gentleman -- in the photo showing Stafford Springs. His amnesty paper from the Civil War was also featured in another post.

Here he is again. I chose his photo today since his birthday is just around the corner. He was born in 1834 and died in 1914. He was 69 years old when his last child, my grandfather, was born. He and my great grandmother were married in 1878.

I just looked that info up in my family tree. Like many people interested in genealogy, I have an Ancestry account. Funny thing I found today -- when I looked up George -- there was a hint for him today. So I clicked that little leaf (have you all seen those commercials about clicking the leaves?). Anyway -- it was nothing -- it just let me know that he appears in someone else's family tree. Me being curious -- I looked it up and there is the photo I uploaded for my tree! Someone lifted my family photo for their tree. Can people do this? Does Ancestry.com condone taking photos from another person's account without seeking permission? I need to look into this.

A Walk in the Woods...

Yesterday my husband came in and said, "get your camera." There are some interesting ice formations in the dirt out in the yard. I got my camera. They are interesting -- but I did not get a good shot of them.

It had been a while since I was out in the yard without Sadie and with the camera. So I went into the woods. At the base of a few trees I saw an interesting green leaf poking through the layer of dead, brown leaves. At first I was very excited thinking I had found a Lady Slipper growing wild. But then I realized it was not that plant -- but it is an orchid.

Last night I got on the internet checking the Georgia Native Plant website and consulting my Audubon Southeastern Field Guide. My assessment was that I had found a patch (or three) of Cranefly Orchids. This morning I emailed a photographer friend who knows a lot about woodland plants. She confirmed my find.

The Cranefly Orchid grows a single leaf in September. The leaf is dark green on top and purple underneath. The leaf remains until spring and then it disappears. In late July or August the plant sends up a stalk for the blooms. There are no leaves present when the plant blooms. The photo above shows a dried stalk with seed pods. I found this in the middle of a bunch of leaves. Obviously it was from last summer's blooms.

The photo below shows the leaves mixed in with the brown leaves that cover the woodland floor. They are easy to spot since they are so bright green and nothing else is (well a little moss was here and there).

Nature Undisturbed 2010

I am pleased to announce that the juror for this year's Nature Undisturbed photography exhibit show and sale is Lucinda Bunnen. Last September I had the pleasure to meet and chat with Lucinda for a time at Slow Exposures. I have been a big fan of her work and found her to be a very nice person. I am really looking forward to spending the time with her when she is judging the work in the show. That will be a treat for me.

Here is a little background info on Lucinda. Remember, there is still plenty of time to get your entry in for the show. The deadline is January 30, 2010. The photo on the blog today is one of Lucinda's.

Hatcher's Pond

Lucinda Weil Bunnen is a practicing artist (photographer) living in Atlanta, Georgia. She has traveled worldwide for her work and has had numerous one and two person shows throughout the Southeast. She has also participated in many national, international and regional juried shows such as: “Atlanta Artists in Buenos Aires” in Argentina; “Atlanta in France” in Toulouse, France, “New Southern Photography: Between Myth and Reality” at the Burden Gallery in New York City. Lucinda has been a part of several multi-media exhibitions as well as the subject of a video and the producer of a video. Her work has been reviewed in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Atlanta Magazine, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and other publications.

Her work has been featured in several books and she has also co-authored three books: “Movers and Shakers in Georgia”, 1978, “Scoring in Heaven, Gravestones and Cemetery Art in The American Sunbelt States”, 1990, “ALASKA Trails Tales and Eccentric Detours”, 1992. In 2004, she was the Master Series Artist for the city of Atlanta, and then in 1999, she had a 30-year retrospective and along with it an award-winning catalog. Lucinda won the “Women in the Visual Arts” Award in 1997 and has been listed in Who’s Who in American Art since 1975. She has had radio and television interviews including a piece for National Public Radio and the “Oprah Winfrey Show.”

Her work can be found in numerous public collections including: Museum of Modern Art and The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, Pushkin Museum in Moscow, Russia, The Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., The Mint Museum in Charlotte NC, the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, VA, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. and the High Museum in Atlanta, Georgia. She has lectured, given workshops and curated exhibitions across the Southeast United States. She was both donor and curator of “Subjective Vision: the Lucinda W. Bunnen Collection of Photographs,” a collection of contemporary photographs assembled for Atlanta’s High Museum of Art. Lucinda has been the curator and judge for numerous organizations for several years.

From the Barefoot Files...

Happy 2010! New Year's Day and vintage photo Friday are the same.

The photo I chose to start off the year is of my Uncle John. I am not sure exactly when this was taken or where. I like the photo of him. His expression and the way he is standing really looks like him. That may sound odd -- but you know how some people never really look like themselves in a photo? Well, this is my Uncle John -- much younger and thinner than I ever remember him.

I like the background too. Barely visible on the window behind him it says "air cooled." When air conditioning was a real selling point -- to just get people in the door. The woman walking is interesting to me too. I like to look at her shoe and wonder what is the place she is entering -- a department store? a theater?

And look at the photographer! Love the camera around his neck. When I zoom in on the photo -- his mouth is wide open. Is he yelling? I don't think so -- his body language suggests perhaps it is just a yawn.