Swallowtail

Behold the mighty swallowtail! copyright 2002 stephen bayer

Uh ...

Common teasel with a visitor - a Silver or White Spotted Skipper. 2002 with a Sony DSC-F707

Swinging

Swinging high with a friend. 2002. Film scan, same data as below.

Pouting ...

What more can I say? (Actually, she's play acting.) Mamiya 645, 150 mm C, tri-x most likely, film scan.

Whaddya Mean Filibuster?

All in fun. Don't remember exactly what I took this with. But it was digital - a Sony 707 or something like that - and I zoomed in to catch the decisive moment!

Stop!

I call this one The End of a Long Day.

Teen Girl Volleyball Serve

Posture + Toss, Contact, BAM and away it goes! #2 served up something like 5 consecutive points this evening. That was cool. FWIW, these images were from 3 different serves, not from continuous shooting on one serve. Behold the triptych:

Teen, Girl, Volleyball

Psychologists call this a Manifestation of Attentive Post-game Behavior, candid. Nikon D-70, kit lens

Let's All Count

Who doesn't appreciate the instruction and humor presented by PBS's Sesame Street's character "The Count"? Well, if you remember the style, let's all play count the birdies:

One streamlined gull standing steady.

Two fine examples of feathery floaters
that are not floundering.

Three tiny birds teetering
on top of twisted wires.

Four, fat, feathered, flat-footed birds
lined up in formation for some fine food.

Cinco de Bird-o by Steve-O

Six semi-sequential squabby-looking sea-side rock doves.

1 preening birdy plus 1 gull sitting plus 1 that's sleeping
and then add 4 more standing equals
SEVEN salty birds standing on the sand!!!

Seven Salty Birds!!! Bwaaa-ha-haaa-ha-haaaaa!

9 in Black and White

Well, first of all, it's in color, not b&w. Really. Second of all, there are 7 flowers - not 9. Now, we have that settled. Tarpon Springs Florida, or somewhere nearby, 2001.

One

Sometimes, one photographs one's reflection for one's own self portrait. Taken in the urban jungles of Florida, back in 2001. You may call me Bwana Steve-o, if you'd like.

Camo

Back in 2001, on a walk through a Florida nature trail, I saw something - just barely. Then I photographed it. Here's what I barely saw. Sony DSC D-770

Cincinnati from Hopple Street

Bridges are easy to drive over and, as said elsewhere below, very often, one can't really see the view but one rarely wants to stop to see all there is to be seen. "One" means, in this case, speaking for myself, is expressed in the proper collegiate fashion. Hopple Street is a long and higher-than-normal bridge, spanning portions of a large switching yard. This particular day, one decided to park the car and have a walk to see what one was missing. This image is a good summary of what one saw. Now, you've seen it. It was not a particularly nice day and, as evidenced by puddles along side the tracks, obviously it been raining. The Cincinnati profile BT, seen as we look southerly, is off in the distance a couple of miles away. Sony DSC D-770, 2001.

Reds game, back in May of 2000. It rained. Pretty hard. People left. Here we have texture, color, repetition, rhythm, order, and more.

The camera? T'was a Sony DSC D-770, 1344 pixels maximum dimension. At the time, it was an expensive leader - about $1800 and beyond a megapixel - 1.4 I think. A very, very good consumer-grade image for its day. Some (or arguably all, though some may not be marked as such) had very good 3X Zeiss lenses, starting at 28mm equivalent to about 80. This was a very useful range for many things. Used the first generation Memory Stick. Still a fine camera for 4x6 inch prints (no cropping of the long dimension!) and, especially, images destined for web pages. Some, including mine, had some back-focus problems on closeups. Too bad Sony didn't fix this design and upgrade the sensor. I really thought it was a very smart and ultra-modern design.

I_heart_my_barbie_camera_Y2K

Somewhere, someone collected an unused, boxed version of this camera. I'll bet they'd like a copy of this to go with it. I wouldn't blame them. DSC D-770 back in the spring of year 2000.

Kayaking the Placid Ohio

Well, if you've never been there, the Ohio River is pretty wide. About 20 stones throws, for my arm. So, here's a couple kayaking just off the riverfront in New Richmond, Ohio.

Harry- Look - What Are Those Things?

Sony DSC D-770, 11/11/2000, Rt. 133, South of Williamsburg, Oh. near a landing strip.

Remember when the world was going to come to an end back in 2000? Well, I photographed these dementors flying in, late in the year, for the Y2K Halloween Party. Fun with imaging. Only brightness and contrast adjusted very slightly. Nature (or the supernatural) provided the rest. But to believe is everything. Sweet dreams. Wooooo ~~~

Fly By

Sony DSC D-700, 1999, Bradenton Beach, Florida. In an auburn panorama, a gull follows the evening flyway as an ocean-going sailboat connects with the setting Sun. The nearly-indescribable differences in actual sizes and locations are nulled by earthbound perspective, allowing superimposition of two totally unrelated, independent entities. The dark boat's dagger skewers the star! The bird cries out distantly, beyond earshot. But - will the sun toast the boat? Could the dagger chop the Sun in half like cordwood? Will the setting Sun sink the boat? Travelling the invisible route that hundreds of other seabirds had taken a bit earlier that evening, this gull is but a dim-witted spectator to the scene. Its sole goal is to find a place to roost for the night. People gather on the beach to observe and record the drama. As they watch the boat skewer the sun, one might be thinking " Red sky at night, sailor's delight."

In reality, the Sun seems to rely on nothing. It is perpetual, hotter than a nuclear bomb, and is super massive. It's normally so bright it can etch our eyes into blindness. Scientifically, it's in charge of everything earthbound. It blisters skin in our most vicious deserts. Some use a burning glass to focus its energy to fry insects and start leaves on fire.

The sailboat, arguably, is just a mindless vessel in charge of nothing. In contrast to the Sun, the boat's tiny and frail. Visually, however, it's profile is hard cut - masculine and aggressive. Be that as it may, sailboats are next to useless without breezes born from sun-nurtured convection currents. Just to survive and function, our boat requires a planetary distance from the sun, defined as 1 Sol, that sustains vast areas of liquid water and prevents water from perpetually steaming away or freezing solid. In the boat's conception, a wise designer configured it to float on the water and cut through efficiently. A wise shipwright ensured the boat is solid, watertight, and seaworthy. Under sail, the boat is best suited to a sailor's experienced hand on the tiller, while keeping sails to the wind and eyes on the horizon. The sailor is everything to avoid the boat's un-manned tendency toward aimlessly floating about willy-nilly.

Even the shapes illustrate differences. The round, soft pillow of a Sun gently sets into the horizon, falling to rest into the mother of the word horizontal. Yet the boat, locked to the horizontal, points to the sky, the domain of the gull. The mind knows that the travel of the Sun is about to be cut short; yet, the boat may well travel on.

Yes, the photographer - arguably the almighty creator of all seen here - had a hand in this too - scurrying around, seeking out and tracking, to locate the just-right position on the beach that provided a perspective allowing this catch. The quest also involved taking sample images, along the way, to ensure optimal exposure. Yet, of 5 or so frames shot before this image, the one most dramatically appealing is this particular one - the coincidence of Sol and boat at the intersect of sky and earth. Perfect clouds wallpaper the sky. The remaining images were so far inferior, they should have been deleted. Here, we have both movement and time frozen still in the click of a fractional second.

(Photographer's note: my English professor used to say "Things, in parenthesis, are whispered." OK. Lean in close and I'll whisper. The gull was a paste-in from a different frame of this same sailboat and sunset scenario. Knowing that now cheapens the shot, eh? So, all this becomes a moral yin-yang: the emotional coalescence of the ecstasy of artistic freedom (modifying one reality to create another false reality) and the agony of dishonesty (thought it looks real, it's dishonest as a photograph.) Bear with me: if, because of its beauty, composition, etc. of this photo, this is a good yin-yang concept, then, possibly, the cut-and-paste cheating is concievably the opposite - a bad yin-yang. It follows that we have the opposing forces of good and bad yin-yangs united in the presentation of panorama below. For that possibility, I have no name.)

Meet Yin and Yang ....

Yin-yang: "... used to describe how seemingly opposite or contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world." See wikipedia or see image:

11 years ago ...

A headshot, from 11 years ago. 11 years isn't that much in the life of this old geezer but it's a half a lifetime for this gal. Taken with Sony's first digital SLR, the DSC-D700 which uses the newly introduced memory stick for digital storage. Some darkroomish (as the Dutch say) stuff (oh how I love that word!) applied passim.

Not a Self Portrait

Mister Steve-O by Katie Kees, circa 2004

Teen, Girl, Phone

OK - I can't exactly claim this. Katie Kees (at the time, about the same age as the model) claims the copyright on this one. Back in 2004, my porch, my phone, my favorite model, my suggestions, but she and the model put it all together in this image.

Cincinnati 2007 BT

Here's a pano from my more recent archives - Cincinnati, from about 8 floors up. We're looking roughly East here. This photo is BT - Before Tiara. Scroll down about 13 posts to see the new skyline "after tiara." Hand stitched form 2 Nikon D-70 images, pano channel mixed to bring out cloud detail, as did a bit of burning. (wow, i got through that without any parenthetical throw-ins!)

A Kodachrome Moment

Well, how's this for a happy, artistic, heart-felt image that probably wouldn't quite "get it" in monochrome? A lot of angles in this composition too, eh? Leave it to you to find all those angular things. There are repetitive u shapes too, if you draw outlines of the girl's back and bottom, the 2 heart lobes, and the yellow hair in the drawing. And dang it if there aren't 3 major items arranged in a triangular pattern that's part of the repetitive angle thing, to provide visual choice, keeping the eye moving to various interests. (Pretty much "out of the box" with only re-sizing and a very slight tweak of saturation increase.)

3 and 3

Straight out of the box - except for resizing. 3 people, 3 expressions. Nikon D-70 and all that stuff - back in summer of 2010.

Did Ya Ever Feel?

Do you ever get that creepy feeling, thinking somebody's watching you? Well, maybe someone is. However, scientists say we're innately programmed (ok - you can argue the nature/nurture thing) to look for faces. I aint gonna explain why. But I was somewhere (god knows where cause I roam all over the place) and this one was staring at me! This'n was a photograph taken between 2 autumn leaves images and 2 pix of flowering bushes. I don't remember taking it. The face looks like it was embedded into concrete or plaster. In any case, here tis. No, I don't contrive these things. That would be too easy. If I did, I'd tell ya. It's what I call a just-for-fun shot.

Who's Looking at You?

Well, these days it seems that CCD technology has put the eye of big brother nearly everywhere. Some time back, I started photographing them photographing me photographing them. Here, at a bank, is an example.

Prepping?

A very hot day back in 2010, taken by an innocent bystander, in the humid wilds of Clermont County, Ohio. No animals were killed in the making of this photograph. YeeeeHaw

Felon?

Noooo ... feline! A place in the sun, largely monochromatic with diagonals. I was considering titling this "The Ascent of Road Kill" but I didn't.

What's coming up?

What's coming up soon? Halloween, fun foto time! My rule - no photo, no treat.

Acrophobiacs - do not look!

OK - no rambling essays or feeble attempts at wit (see, I'm starting to ramble again! I just can't help myself!!! Really. Slap! Ahem.)

This entry is a color-channel-mixed, b&w conversion of a "leading lines" example, taken from a non-typical viewpoint. That should make it a bit interesting. Take it from me, it's more dramatic and "hip" in b&w without the green grass. I made it "art!"

This is from 2007, taken from atop the observation tower, Serpent Mound State Memorial, Peebles, Ohio. This park, aside from the serpentine earthworks constructed by ancient aboriginals, is also ground zero for an ancient meteor impact.

So innocent

Innumerable people drive over the Milford, Ohio bridge (photo of same is in a post below) that crosses the Little Miami River. By innumerable, I mean that I know there's lots and lots and lots of vehicles crossing the bridge and I aint gonna stand there all day and night to count them just to give you what would probably be a baised value anyway! Back to the bridge, the problem is, unless you have a monster truck or something similar that sits you up high enough to see over the retaining wall, you never can see, from most vehicles, the scene you're passing. The same is true for so many bridges built these days, erected to replace those scenic, airy steel truss bridges of days gone by. So, to see what things look like, I parked the car on Mill Street, very close to where I once saw a steel garbage can passing a car that was driving down the street! There, this galvanized, rumbling, rolling, clanking Nascar-grade garbage can was turbo-powered by one of the tornadoes dropping from the 1969 mega-outbreak. That summer, for a few days, the U.S. had swarms of tornadoes - up the wazoo!!! So, that scary day, one was skimming across the Milford valley only a long baseball throwaway from where I stood to take this photograph. Anyway (a term people around here use when they need to get back to the point), I crossed Mill street and sauntered the remaining 12 or so yards to set foot high above the center of the river. There, I captured, with an exposure time roughly equivalent to one beat of a hummingbird's wing stroke, this serene, incredibly drama-free scene for all to see.

Here, you are looking upstream in a tiny segment of the Little Miami River - once part of the stomping grounds of famous warrior Tecumseh. Here, the river peacefully flows, meandering some 25 miles or so (that's a SWAG on my behalf) before it joins in with the Ohio River, a bit East of Cincinnati. As I was enjoying the view, I thought of more turbulent, rain-swollen flows. This river can really show a temper. I thought of my dental technician who, while canoeing in waters more angry than seen here, got caught up in submerged tree limbs trapped beneath this bridge. She said she very nearly drowned, being held firmly in the limbs and nearly pushed under by the force of the flow. Luckily (or is it lucky?) for her, she didn't drown and lived on many years later. I changed dentists, a few yeas back, so I don't know if she's still kicking (or paddling or, for that matter, cleaning teeth!)

Funny thing (two words that people, in this part of the world, use to preface something that they are going to say - when - they think the listener has already tuned them out and has moved on to to other thoughtful things), a friend, who once had a cabin along this river, once told me (paraphrased): "Often, nearly day to day, the river never looks the same. If nothing else, it brings things but it also takes things away." The downstream view is pretty much the same as this upstream view and they both look considerably different that what I remember from 40 some years ago. Then again, so do I and, in my case, it's really, really not for the best.

R U Smarter'n a 5th Grader

1. Read these 4 items first.
2. Carefully scroll down and study the photo immediately below.
3. Do not scroll past the image or read the text below the image.
4. Return to this area and continue reading from here. OK, get scrolling.

Given: the most distant-appearing deer is a doe. Click to put a check mark in the square of each possibility that can be used in a sentence accurately describing something about the image below. You may refer back to the image as needed. Reading beyond the image is cheating - suit yourself.

far side
his left side
it's broadside
its right side
along side
head's front side
her back side
by the roadside
they're inside
their outsides
they're outside
on the other side
green hillside

When you have completed your choices, scroll down to the answer key, found below the image.

Shame on you if you're peeking.

Key:

If you chose "they're inside", you failed. No, wait, that's correct. All three deer are INSIDE THE PHOTO! Well Tickle Me Elmo. Actually, all of 'em can be used in a sentence that accurately relates to some aspect of the image. If you didn't check all boxes, you should have. For example:

Them thar deers on the far side of that thar fence are beautious.

Lookit that - he's layin so's his left side is a'showin t'us.

It's their broadside where's it easiest to shoot them critters.

Its right side is its best side.

None of em's along side each other.

That little un's head's front side is a'lookin at us.

Her back side aint waggin its tail. (See discussion about aint in the next post.)

I photographed deer, by the roadside, on a backstreet in Newtown, Ohio.

They're inside the photograph but 2 are not in focus.

Their outsides git bit by them dadburn deer flies and ticks.

They're outside and enjoying it.

They are on on the other side of the fence.

On the green hillside, there are 3 examples of Odocoileus virginianus.

(The last sentence gives a nod to "The Count", my favorite Sesame Street cast member.)

Flag Spring Cemetery

Here, I offer a glimpse of Flag Spring Cemetery, 3541 Round Bottom Rd, Newtown, Ohio. This aint no ordinary cemetery. The major reason is that it has, what is often called, an "indian mound" in the center of it. There was another so-called indian mound nearby but that one was removed for a - cough, cough - golf course! Go figure. Maybe the developers just needed a little teenie bit bit more room for the clubhouse? Admittedly, I'm speaking in ignorance of the real justification and rambling on with a degree of sarcasm. No doubt there was a profound justification behind eliminating the burial mound. Also, there was another mound, when I was a youngster, a few miles away. It's gone now and whatever was in it is in a museum somewhere so's we can study the stuff. Let's leave it at - one can still see where it used to be. Anyway, back to this burial-ground image - here, we're looking approximately eastward, towards the main entrance.

Hahaha (This I prefer to LOL because, not only am I not a man of few words, I also am not a man of few letters. Also, as you may now notice, I thrive on irrelevant (but insightful) parenthetical toss-ins.) What now, you must be thinking? Well, my spell checker says "aint" is misspelled. What a hoot. Aint must, therefore, be somewhat legitimate. Pardon me, I should've typed ain't! My deceased high-school-English teacher must be shuddering in her grave. Although she didn't, I and, perhaps, the writers for "The Beverly Hillbillies" always thought aint was as legitimate a word as any other word. Consider "preponderance". Preponderance was probably invented by a lawyer who, later, became an award-winning writer of bills or regulations in some administrative component of government. I am, however, still confused why ain't needs an apostrophe because it (meaning ain't) aint really a contraction of anything. Although the spell checker thinks I should be typing "aunt" and doesn't suggest "ain't" as a correct spelling, the proof of legitimacy is in that the spell checker does not recognize "ain't" as being misspelled. I rest my case.

Cincinnati from Mt. Echo

Well, the title says it all. So more can I say? not being a man of few words, how about the EXIF information embedded in the dark, original 2-stop underexposed image. What is EXIF data? It's the sometimes considered "secret information" record-keeping advantage built into most decent digital cameras. This information is saved as part of the photograph - meaning contained in the data of the photographic image - when it's taken. Of course, if the year, date, and time are set wrong, the EXIF date and time will be also be incorrect. If set incorrectly, this information could cause validity problems when being used as evidence. Personally, I don't ever remember setting that stuff. (Oh, I love the word stuff, it is so frequently useful.)

Make - NIKON CORPORATION
Model - NIKON D70
Orientation - 1 (top left)
XResolution - 300
YResolution - 300
ResolutionUnit - 2 (inch)
Software - Ver.1.03
DateTime - 2013:09:12 01:16:09
YCbCrPositioning - 2 (datum point)
ExifOffset - 216
ExposureTime - 10/60 seconds
FNumber - 8.0000
ExposureProgram - 1 (manual control)
ExifVersion - 221
DateTimeOriginal - 2013:09:12 01:16:09
DateTimeDigitized - 2013:09:12 01:16:09
ComponentsConfiguration - 0 3 2 (CrCb)
CompressedBitsPerPixel - 4 (average)
ExposureBiasValue - 0.0000
MaxApertureValue - F 4.44
MeteringMode - 2 (center weighted average)
LightSource - 0 (auto)
Flash - 0 (no flash)
FocalLength - 70.0000 mm
UserComment - ASCII
SubsecTime - 825229312
SubsecTimeOriginal - 825229312
SubsecTimeDigitized - 825229312
FlashPixVersion - 010
ColorSpace - 1 (sRGB)
ExifImageWidth - 3008
ExifImageHeight - 2000
InteroperabilityOffset - 28060
SensingMethod - 2 (other)
FileSource - 768 (other)
SceneType - 256 (other)

Hahahahahahahahaaaaaaa! Behold what we often call "Cincy"

Not Knowing What I Done Did Was Wrong

A short essay:

Below, you're looking up a fragment of Main Street from the intersection of Main and Mill St. on a peaceful Sunday afternoon. Here, too many years ago, during my more reckless days, in the City of Milford Mayor's Court, after I pointed out, with some respectful argument, two important errors made, by the officer, on my traffic ticket, the mayor finally interrupted my carefully planned diatribe for eluding justice and said (the following is paraphrased just slightly) "Look back there at this room full of people!" (That sentence should break some kind of punctuation records!) Following his directions, I turned and looked. Your Honor pointed and panned his gavel outwards towards a large, humid room full of sweaty, nervous-looking, traffic-violating, cash cow criminals-to-be awaiting their turn at the hot seat. Focusing his attention back to me, as the officer sat at his side, scowling at me for catching his procedural inadequacies, Your Honor had made his decision and exclaimed "We don't want to be here all night. What you pointed out may be true - but you know what you did was wrong." BANG goes the gavel! "Guilty" Your Honor vociferated. Ahhh, it's as if I've eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil - I'm guilty because of knowing in Milford Mayor's court. The mayor's a mind reader also! He knows that I know, That's just the kind of judge we need more of these days. Wow. ... Seems to me that Milford's Mayor's Court building was just up the street a bit, on the right side of the photo. Well, I still have a lot of love for Milford. And I still remember that I knew what I did was wrong.

Curious Commotion Causing Congestion

Way back when, we used to have "happenings" which were sort of informally planned but superficially spontaneous gatherings - kind of like today's concept of flash mobs; however, this curiosity is not an example. I wish I had some happening examples. The only one I ever went to resulted in my motorcycle being stolen. What's really going on here, I have no recall. I see it as a congested bunch of people and vehicles all of whom are going nowhere fast and, by and large, the people are looking (stupid, confused, bewildered, frightened, intimidated, aggravated, ___________ (insert your own opinion here) at the intersection of Sycamore and 5th Street in Cincinnati, Ohio. There's the old Grayhound Bus Terminal in the background.

I suspect this disruption may have been a side effect caused from a protest or bomb threat, both of which were popular back at that time - 1969. (Posting that sentence probably gets me on today's FBI watch list!) Then again, maybe the Beatles were coming to town. Or Lou Reed who, as I recall, was banned. Check out that antique emergency vehicle! I guess they didn't have Homeland Security bucks to throw around back then.

So, I decided this was a genuine commotion! I figure that because grandma used to say things like "Somebody's raising a commotion down the street!" This may be what she meant. The other image I took is similar, but I ain't gonna show it you. That image has a couple more federal GSA vehicles and police cars than are present in this intersection (here, I count 1 each). It (thereby meaning the other image) has, however, a less interesting composition. So, you can make up your own story about what this commotion is all about. Your story would probably be more interesting than whatever story caused this commotion.

Millcroft Inn, Milford, Ohio

Behold a cornerstone of the early days of Milford, Ohio - the Millcroft Inn. This is the building I had my back to for the following bridge images. I once lived in an apartment herein! As you'll see, the light was much better for photographing the Inn as opposed to the bridge. Aw, who cares?

Milford Ohio Bridge over Little Miami

One night 40 years ago, I took a time exposure of the bridge over the Little Miami River in Milford, Ohio. It was a Pennsylvania Through Truss Bridge erected in 1924 and dismantled in 1992 due to structural deterioration. Without further drama, here's a bit of then and now, night to day, monochrome to color, and film to digital.

Self Portrait

Taken in a Bed and Breakfast Store. Some slight post processing.

Freedom In The Rock

Well, for this photo, we (my camera and I) traveled to downtown Bantam, Ohio. It's a discreet community, socially isolated on a loop of old highway that's been replaced by a straight stretch of new highway. It's always been a very small town, and, for that matter, has always been socially isolated. Bantam - get it - like the chickens of the same name? There isn't even a convenience store. The state probably doesn't even keep crime statistics on Bantam. There was a large bulldozer parked in the middle of town - for sale - I think. You'd probably never go to bantam, Ohio except that the popular the entrance to East Fork State Park's public beach and a fine boat ramp is on the outskirts of town.

Until the mid-70's one could drive from Afton, Ohio (another signpost community) down through Elklick valley, and then up and out into Bantam. It was a beautiful drive through the river valley and also passed by some attractive southern-Ohio farmland. Somewhere, along that driving possibility, was a swimming hole at "Twin Bridges" where idiots, in an attempt to impress someone who probably didn't otherwise care, used to break their necks and backs diving off the top of a bridge into 6 feet of water whose bottom was lined with sedimentary rock. My friend John Howe lived at the bottom of Elklick, near a picturesque steel bridge that's now very deep under water in Lake Harsha. Back in the 70's, I took some photos off that bridge but I've never been able to find them or the negatives. ... Strange ... So, now, to drive (walk or bike) from Afton to Bantam (or versee vicee), it's a VERY LONG drive. I liken it, as the song says, to driving "to L.A. via Omaha." Thanks Corps of Engineers.

Whoops, back to the image - welcome to pastor Deems' church in central Bantam, Ohio. Never met the guy. I just took this photo because I remembered my grandma taking me there when I was just a sprout. She said they had a lady preacher that she was going to take me to see. Many years later, at a family reunion, I related that experience. My aunt said "Certainly. That was my mother." So, I recall that woman pastor Dalton was for sure an evangelical, hell-fire, and damnation preacher. I have no bad memories of my visit there - just good quality-time memories being with grandma. I remember people with their hands raised up saying "Amen" a lot. I was hoping, by typing this story, I'd remember more - but I didn't.

I'll leave it to you to figure out the light vertical stripe in the image. For you Earth Files paranormal advocates, trust me, it has absolutely nothing to do with spirituality entering or escaping.

Lock It Thru ...

Here, have a look-see at the Meldahl Lock & Dam at 2443 U.S. Route 52 near Chilo, Ohio. It, like many web sites, is under construction. When I was a child - well, for that matter, in the recent past, one could go to places like Meldahl Dam, climb a metal staircase, and watch American Engineering at work. Crafts from small pleasure boats to large sets of barges would lock in, drop down 50 feet or so (don't quote me on that number), and then cruise on out on their way downstream, headed for Cincinnati and on to the next dam in Indiana. Oops, yep, some boats would lock in and get raised up for the other direction, heading upstream towards Eastern Kentucky, West by-god Virginia, or even Pittsburgh PA! We - people - would occasionally bring picnic baskets and enjoy themselves in a variety of ways on the grounds surrounding the dam and locks. It was sort of an afternoon day-trip thing. Now, it's been 9/11 homeland securitized. When I was there, it was myself, a ho-hum biker with his lady, They were in a shelter having some kind of heart-to-heart. A ranger from Ohio's Department of Natural Resources drove around, checking for hunting, fishing, or trapping never-do-wells. These days, the locks are under construction for maintenance and, considering I can't speak for access on the Kentucky side, this is about all one can see of the whole kit and kaboodle. Except from an airplane, balloon, drone, or balcony of the homes high up on the hillsides. Well, from different angles on the grounds you can see more but ya don't really see the fun and rewarding content. Visitors, take your binoculars and watch out for keep out signs.

Sci Fi

This from using the GIMP channel mixer on an image from a series I took last evening, during the twilight period, just as darkness closed in. Behold Cincinnati as seen looking eastward from the Mt. Echo Park Overlook. Original image taken on a Nikon D-70, 50mm zoom setting, f8 at .01 second, and a tripod.