Winter's Kiss is the very first photo I ever had printed in large format - done locally at a film processing and printing studio back sometime around 1986, I think. Forget the name, but they were located next door or very near Huber's Bar on Church St. in Champaign, IL. The fellow who did the print suggested a Cibachrome print due to the "color" content in the original 35mm slide. I had no idea what he meant but went along with his suggestion. I think I like the one on the right better, altho I'm missing a bit of the scene on the left and right sides of the digital copy. Guess I'll have to dig out the original slide and redo. It's somewhere in the basement in its own little plastic 35mm slide box hiding from the light and me. And yes, there really was a shaft of sunlight breaking thru the clouds right in the middle of the frame. I decided to enter the original framed print (18"x24") in the Champaign Town & Country Art Show in 1988. It garnered a Blue Ribbon. There's much more of an interesting story behind this, my first foray into printing, matting, and framing a picture, but it will not fit here. I'll make a link to the full story at some point.
Abbot Study #21, so named because it was the 21st negative on the B&W film roll, was another entry the following year in the Champaign Town & Country Art Show (1989). It also garnered a Blue Ribbon and First Place in 2D (photos and paintings). That qualified it for the State (IL.) Town & Country Art Show and garnered First Place (in 2D) and Best of Show. Abbott, if you are not a Champaign-Urbana resident, is the Abbott Power Plant for the University of Illinois. This picture, too, has a rather um, bizarre story behind it. Another link at some point to the tale. (Teaser: I was drunk when I took it! - wasn't even my camera! Go figure...)
This may be one of my earliest photos that I've done anything with. I think 1974, and taken with my new Fujica ST701 - playing around with lenses and such. My good friend, apartment neighbor and fellow ex-Air Force pal and pseudo photog-mentor, Daryl J. Lamkey, was/is a pro photographer. He had a Leica and this amazing Sinar P camera. We were on the quad of the campus of the U of I searching out interesting shots when I decided to turn the tables and get this shot of him behind the Sinar curtain. He let me try it a few times. Bizarre, since what you see in the very large viewfinder is upside down! I just really like the composition.
Just an interesting architectural shot of the tower of the Beckman Institute on the campus of the U of I.
This was taken during our March 2007 Rome trip. A flower vendor on the Piazza Navona.
I took this on our horse farm in 2014 of my wife having some fun with the bubble thing. Again, I just liked the simple composition. A simple visual story.
I took this one on a late afternoon on our horse farm in 2013. We were witness to uncountable rainbows when we lived there. You can only take so many of them, plus everybody takes rainbow pictures, but how many times can you get one with the end of the rainbow falling on a church?
The one on the left was south in rural Champaign County at a friend's horse farm. A December 2015 sunset. Just happened to have my camera! I do not believe I tweaked anything on this photo. The one on the right is one from our farm a couple months after we moved there. An October 2007 sunset. No tweaking here, either. That's what they looked like. And yes, everybody takes sunset pictures, too. I just think these are cool ones, especially when enlarged to 16"x20" and framed and hanging on a wall.
This is a photo (circa 1987) of the original framed and signed picture I took of Ross Farm, a farm south of Champaign, IL on Duncan Road I took on a late afternoon as the sun peeked out and lit up the field, outbuildings and the approaching clouds. At first I didn't know who owned the property, so later, with a copy of the print in hand, (still untitled) I stopped and spoke with the folks who lived there and found out they were the Ross's. I gave them the copy I had brought with me. They liked it. Made me happy.
On our way to Denver from Champaign on US 36 in 2008. Stopped at Anton, CO, for gas. A tiny tiny community in the wild open spaces of Eastern Colorado. At the gas station, which was about all that was there, I turned to look southeast and saw this. I immediately thought of both Billy Morrow Jackson and Larry Kanfer. Consider it an homage to both of their artistry.
These are not Monet, though certainly inspired by the Master. Taken at the Denver Botantical Gardens in 2005.
This is not a Henri Rousseau, though it does remind me of some of his "jungle" and "forest" works. It's just missing a lion or apes and snakes. This also taken at the Denver Botantical Gardens in 2005.
This one just appeals to the bizarre part of me. An abstract taken, of all places, on our garage floor after snow/ice gunk under the car fell, melted, then froze again. See whatever you want to see in it.
Barn side at our friends' Kat and Rachelle - 2005 - near Hindsboro, IL.
Interesting abstract with bizarre colors. One or more of our horses did this. I leave it to the viewer to ponder what they actually did.
The Riggins place, our farm neighbors to the SW. Took this in 2010 from my vineyard pasture.
If you have cats, and are a photographer, you take lots and lots of cat shots. Well, even if you're not a photographer. Mostly they are boring except for the cats' humans who want to share each and every one of them with you. Cat photos somehow just aren't as interesting as cat videos. Having said that, I couldn't resist putting this one up. My wife says it reminds her of a Klimt. It reminds me a bit of some of the works of the late local artist, David Bushman (R.I.P.).
I took several of this scene in a row - a drenching rain storm that appears to be right over Hume, IL. All pix in the sequence are very similar, but I think I like this one the best. You can also see a faint bit of a rainbow right over the 2nd-from-the-left farmstead. Shot May 3, 2010.
Whimsical, post-blizzard of 2010 snow sculpture I call the Snow Shark nestled inside one of the horse lean-to's.
I doubt that the previous "Snow Shark" gave you the willies, but this photo I took in 1978 from the observation deck of the Seattle Space Needle always gives me shudders. Yes, they have security harnesses on, but still... They were taking a lunch break! OUT THERE! Um, why not come back inside and eat, guys! For me the tension in the picture as a voyeur is palpable. I don't think that anyone with acrophobia would buy this. But ya never know. Plus one wonders what they were staring at. There's a story in there somewhere...
One of our many Coleus plants.
Some trees at Denver Botanical Gardens
Toni Putnam's Heron sculpture hiding in the plants at a friend's house - another homage to Henri Rousseau.
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Allerton Park ![]()
Archangelo the Tyger (2007 - 2022) ![]()
Denver Botanical Gardens ![]()
Denver Botanical Gardens IL sunset
Afternoon idyll
Piazza Navona, Rome
Flower planter bottom
Raphael, barn cat extraordinaire (2007 - 2009)
Douglas Lake, TN
Walnut Point State Park, Oakland, IL
Yellowstone National Park