150 Years Ago

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863

Pool Series

Reflections

While at The Met last month I was distracted by the light streaming into one of the galleries.  The golden autumn sun created a collage of images in the floor to ceiling windows.  It was truly stunning.

Focus

Adding to my list of technical dilemmas, my camera is in the repair shop.  There's a circuit board issue with my USB port, read expensive to fix, and the focus has been off.  For months I've struggled with pictures that were never quite as crisp as I wanted them to be.  I assumed it was a problem with my skill, even when it was on autofocus, or my faulty eyes were betraying me behind the lens.   The entire time it was an issue with my camera.  Yes, I see the behavioral pattern.

Eleven days without my camera has felt like an eternity.  I don't shoot everyday, but I often have it with me knowing I can snap a pic at any moment.   I really miss it.  I'm still waiting for the estimate to determine if it is indeed worth fixing.  In the interim, as I've been sifting and sorting through photos recovered from my corrupted external drive here's a series of sunsets taken from my deck over the years.

Patterns

In July, when my computer crashed I didn't lament the two months of photos and music I hadn't backed up.  Such is the reality of the technological world in which we live.  However, when I learned the files on my external drive were corrupted and wouldn't transfer to my new laptop, I began to worry.  With these odds I should go to Vegas.  Thus began the arduous and costly process of of retrieving my files.  Armed with my raw data on a new external drive, I spent hours importing and sorting my photos only to discover that the majority from the past year have evaporated into the ether.  The biggest heartbreak, my photos from Africa.  It was an amazing trip for many reasons, but in part due to the many joyful hours shooting the wildlife in the Serengeti, children on the beach in Zanzibar, the ancient streets in Stone Town, and the slums of Dar Salaam on a particularly beautiful morning.  Thankfully, this blog has become my virtual scrapbook, and several of the images from the hundreds I snapped still exist.

After hours of sifting through raw data, organizing and labeling my images I was struck by how often I shoot the same subject matter.  There were enough sunsets in the hills and  reflections in the pool to warrant their own categories.  However, another grouping of photos emerged, more silly and less artful, but perhaps behaviorally insightful; self portraits in the dirty sliding glass doors in Palm Springs.

Manasquan Reservoir

Without a struggle and at a fast clip, my 82 year old mother walked the five mile perimeter of the reservoir.   Long-sleeve-tee-shirt weather and fire-engine red trees enhanced the spectacular trail.

November Sunset