Blog Archives
The madonna in a harsh landscape
The cemetery in Saragosa, Texas, is always hot, always dry. The ground between graves is hard-packed dirt, with nothing growing to soften the edges of the markers, of memories, of loss.
A tornado struck the town in 1987, killing 30 people – including children and families taking part in a Head Start graduation ceremony at the parish hall. A loss of 30 people is bad…but at the time, the town’s population was less than 200.
It doesn’t take long in the cemetery to spot markers with a common date: May 27, 1987.
Toward the center of the cemetery, this blonde madonna guards a grave, her calm and patient face a respite from everything else.
Saragosa, Texas
photographed 11.11.2011
Many horizontals
When I took photography in college (which was a LONG time ago!), my professor didn’t permit us to crop our shots: everything had to be printed full-frame. I’ve long-since abandoned most of what I learned in that class (Zone System, anyone?) but for some reason the Do Not Crop rule is nearly always in play.
But this shot – I cropped this one. It felt daring, like I was really getting away with something. But mostly it felt like I was improving the shot: I wanted to emphasize all those horizontal lines and the original version, which had the entire building elevation, wasn’t doing that.
Know the rules, so you can break them, right?
Lubbock, Texas
photographed 4.28.2013
Do the math…
…you’ll save 60¢ on each meal with the #3 combo.
Or, to look at it another way, you can save yourself $14.99, since Burger Boy #2 appears to be out of business.
And, then, if you add in the savings in fuel costs by not even driving over there…well, you can see how the savings are just adding up.
East Broadway
Lubbock, Texas
photographed 12.1.2012
#1 Meal
“#1 Meal Load Out” sounds like it might be some sort of express line at McDonald’s. This shot was taken at Pyco Industries, a cottonseed oil mill, and it turns out that cottonseed meal is a by-product of cottonseed oil processing. It’s used as a nutritional ingredient* in cattle feed, so I guess there IS a connection with McDonald’s, after all.
Oh, and those clouds? In the past four years or so that I’ve been relatively serious about photography, this part of Texas has been in a drought. So, in spite of all my practice with taking pictures of all kinds of things, I never have learned how to photograph clouds: there haven’t been enough of them around to practice on. (Thanks – I feel better having gotten that off my chest.)
Lubbock, Texas
photographed 4.28.2013
* I know – it doesn’t sound that nutritional to me, either. But that’s what Pyco says on their website.
White on white, 11
I liked this airport; it was tiny but there were quite a few interesting things to look at.
But however interesting it was, it didn’t obscure the fact that I was leaving Paradise. Literally – the name of the resort was Paradise.
Matei Airport
Taveuni Island, Fiji
photographed 7.6.2013
