Not Whether... How?

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Minutes till start.
Done it before.
Can do it better.
Will!

Not whether…
How?

Canon 7D, Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens 300mm, f5.61/60, ISO 360, hand-held

PS4: Custom texture, PerfectPhotoSuite6, Topaz Adjust 6: custom settings,

Burst Of Swagger

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Escape? Lemme tell ya’…
That’s what you paid for…

Trample the detonator to throttle
A screeching stench of tearing rubber…
Neck-snapping…
Fantasy rush.

Each one of these babies came
With a full charge of swagger.

Say every girl didn’t swoon
At this rocketing past…

Hell…
You believed it…
And perception… that’s a
Big-assed part of truth.
Right?

Were you mistaken?
Like, you gotta’ know,
If you don’t make mistakes…
You ain’t making nothin’.

After that reckless feeling that came with each of these cars… The guy-fantasy of pulling on a super-hero costume that made little-pimply you invisible inside it’s sleek exoskeleton. Every fourteen year old boy’s cloak of seduction. Within this beast you were the rocker who became a movie star with an explosive ball of light beneath your foot. Or at least you figured you’d be all of that if somehow.. you could only grow up to buy one.

Canon 40D, Table top art, PS4: custom filters, AlienSkin: SnapArt3: Water Color, Alien Skin Bokeh2: Custom settings, Exposure4 – custom effects.

Love-Worned and Abandoned

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Sad how it seems
When your past forms your dreams
Of that time when
Wishes came true.

Then no one was lonely
Back when love was there only
For you.

What is more poignant than a lonesome little thing dreaming – of finding one more hug? She stood there tagged in life’s shadows… Eyes closed… dreaming of what? New love? Old love? Any…. love?

Canon 40D, PS4: AlienSkin Exposure 4, Custom textures

Chris Herr's Rotary Memorial Resolution

Rotary asked me to compose and read a memorial resolution for my friend Chris Herr. Fearing I'd break up as I read it, instead I pulled together this short slideshow. Hope it links properly here. Lemme know, K?

A Tree Grows In Ephesus

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Its roots growing into a Grecian cellar, its limbs embracing a Latinate erection… A tree thrives in the Turkish air above what was once… the greatest city of its age… second only in size to Rome.

And now the mighty port city, trapped miles inland from the Aegean…. houses only marble ghosts… And trees like this that suckle upon subterranean leavings of empires down where legends feed the hungry roots.

Canon 7D, PS4, Topaz Adjust 5, Perfect Photo Suite

Found a Tree In Ephasus

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Paradise Panels

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What is the difference
Between picturing
A truck and
Pondering
Truckiness?

And if something
Is trucky yet just
Pieces of
Things that are
Trucky-like
Have we then
Merely pondered
Trucks?

The truck ruins sit garaged, or barned in a place nearby to Paradise, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. And since I found it in parts… it seemed best displayed… in panels, huh?

great big

Canon G10, PS4, Topaz Adjust 5, Custom photo-pop brushes and texture screens.

Rockier Still

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Well, it's interesting to discover from the mail I've received about the Cappadocia Fairy Chimneys that most people were, like me, unaware of them. Fact is they were a delightful surprise when my host bought us there. Apparently Turkey has a treasure here that so many have never heard of. Unfortunately for me our schedule got us there at the worst time of day for the sun was glaring down almost directly. Oh well... That's what a lifetime of technical experience prepares us for, right?

So... here's a three shot pano with some heavy PhotoShop lifting to recover the dynamic range sufficiently so that shadows and highlights are not terribly lost. It's a bit more detailed than my previous Fairy Tunnel explorations.

Canon 7D, Pano stitched together in PS4.

Winter Nears Blue Ball

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When you’re in summer,
The warm goes on forever
And winter’s little more than
A figment at day’s end.

When you’re in winter
Each wind is much colder than
The memory of summer’s
Way of making things live.

Near Blue Ball, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania

Canon G10, PS4, Topaz, AlienSkin: SnapArt, Water Color, Custom textures and brushes.

Fairy Tale

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There’s a living space
Behind a tree
Dug in the rock face
Where fairies lived.



Or that’s what they say
To explain it
There off the roadway
Long here abandoned.

Empty of all proof
Of the digger’s
Not really being
An ancient fairy.

Some Fairy Chimneys of Cappadocia, Turkey.

Canon 7D, 4 image pano, PS4: Custom textures and brushes, Topaz Adjust 5, Alien Skin: Xenofex2: Fluffy Clouds, Exposure 4: Jaws Color Shift: Custom Adjustments. Custom plaster filter.

Good Morning Florence

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An oarsman snaps
His way along the
Mirrored Arno.

The light enwraps
Its coat over the
Ancient feeling.

Canon 40D, PS4: custom brushes, Topaz, AlienSkin: Exposure4: Color Slide: Agfa RSXII 100 <- My favorite film ever!

Pepper Fears Children

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It’s seventy years since
A nasty kid
Broke off her Salt’s head
And left him dying
In a puddle of powder.

Now she peers wildly
Maddened by the nearest giggle
Hoping to hide from
Hands unable to tell
Play from cruelty.

Canon 7D, PS4: Topaz Adjust5, Alien Skin: Bokeh 2, Exposure 4: Kodachrome II (1962-1974), Custom pop-spot texturing.

The Right To Bare Arms?

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Men2Mountains: 2011... This is the Potter County, Pennsylvania hunting camp. Here's an All-American and an Eagle Scout. The guy in the blue vest's swimming record still holds at William and Mary College... the guy mugging it up in the orange hat's just earned his Eagle Scout. BTW, that's my buddy Chris Herr in that blue vest... Looking healthy and happy just a handful of time back at his Lucky 7 hunting lodge on a chilly morning. S morning FAR to cold to bare anything but fingers. Yep... in that cold it's just not right to bare arms.

Incidentally, the dazzling color's enhanced by AlienSkin's impressive new Exposure4. I used the pre-set for Color Films and applied Fuji Pro 160C... a classic recipe that always popped the multi-chromatic range up. Then I selectively cranked back the red saturation in the skin tones in PS4. The overall effect is POW-erful, don't you think? The tonal range SINGS!

At 10 mm the Canon EF-S 10-22mm imposes a chromatic fringe that needs to be death with in post processing. You can't see it here in the jpg, but when you pop the suckers up... there's a neon effect that's not-pleasantly startling. Still, while it takes a bit of time, it's easily dealt with in PhotoShop.

GEEK Stuff.... Canon 7D, Canon EF-S 10-22mm (f3.5-4.5) at 10m, PS4: custom brushes and filters, AlienSkin: Exposure4, Color Films: Fuji 160C, Topaz 4: Custom.

Chris Left This Morning...

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My friend Chris’s body stopped
this morning…
But a spirit in motion
stays in motion.

RIP, Chris Herr 1939-2011

In the Blue Mosque, Istanbul, Turkey (June, 2011)
Canon 7D: Extreme crop (20%), PS4, Alien Skin: BlowUp3, SnapArt3, Oil. Custom textures & Brushes.