Daily Photos

< August 2011 >

August 1, 2011
Nibbles. Dimples. Tattoos. Achoos. Footsteps in the attic.

August 2, 2011
Leave it to me to find the world`s only anti-social ant. Dew or rain, I can`t remember. Up early for work. Flowers just want to be loved. Oh, to be skinny . . . and blue.

August 3, 2011
My old car still hasn`t lost its shine. This Oregon District restaurant just went out of business. I think people never really understood their style of cuisine. Dude stopped to ask me `why anybody would want to take pictures of dirty and disgusting Dayton.` Dirty and disgusting Dayton. Since this is a historic district, my neighbors are limited in the type of work they can do to their houses. And when they do renovations, they have to use a really old ladder.

August 4, 2011
Henry, Eighth Lord Arundell of Wardour, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, with an anonymous lady. Another in my ongoing series of photos of the Art Institute floor (see July 28, 2011, and September 24, 2009). Sometimes three is all you need. The worn spot is where he slaps that bass. One of our community`s treasures is falling into disrepair. No one is allowed onto the grand staircase anymore.

August 5, 2011
Having achieved the highest recognition possible in film acting, Oscar-winner Natalie Portman decides to leave Hollywood and try busking on the sidewalks of Dayton. Sometimes my photos require captions, but other times they`re completely self-explanatory. I`m a proud PETA member: People Eating Tiny Animals. Very rarely do someone else`s photographs stop me in my tracks: Thoughts to Coexist, by De`Narrow Brown. One of the metal `adornments` by De`Narrow Brown, a recent graduate of Stivers School for the Arts.

August 6, 2011
I haven`t given you a chair photo lately. Forgive me. Of course, someone had to ask, `Whatcha taking pitchers of? That building?` One of us was on the wrong side of the fence. Sunset cat. Shakespeare`s difficult enough to understand in a theatre. In the open air, he`s almost unintelligible.

August 7, 2011
That house seen inside the water droplet is for sale. It was a drippy evening. I hope they brought towels to wipe off the seats. I still haven`t gotten tired of exploring my neighborhood, and discovering street signs that were painted by hand. After a while, I was also covered with water droplets.

August 8, 2011
For Ashley, who is moving away {SNIF!}. They rushed toward me hungrily, but were disappointed. Fortunately for them, this lady did not disappoint. A cloud came over at just the right moment. Don`t waste time, dragonfly. You have six weeks to live.

August 9, 2011
Reflections of Fifth Street. Smelled bad too. Creepy, but they do more good than harm. I`m the bird on the wire by itself. Experimenting with night photography in the living room.

August 10, 2011
Grecian architecture, transported to Dayton, Ohio. Gasoline is twelve cents a gallon? Outrageous! I`m really good at using the latest high technology. I think I just saw Michael Landon in the window. It may look like this man is holding one of the Budweiser Clydesdales, but actually one of the Budweiser Clydesdales is allowing itself to be held by this man.

August 11, 2011
Reminds me of the red dancer on November 14, 2009. Still experimenting with night photography -- but during the day inside of a creepy basement full of unusual objects. I pointed an ordinary flashlight at the boxes and barrels for about 20 seconds, and then went into the little room and fired my flash several times using a blue theatrical gel. This was lit with a flashlight for 15 seconds. Yes, there is half of a minivan in the creepy basement. Here I used flashlight on the outside and red flash inside.

August 12, 2011
William McKinley backs away slowly from approaching scrap metal dealers. Heard the latest buzz? Sometimes, late at night, I wish I`d taken more pictures earlier in the day. A preview of tomorrow night`s full mooon. Would you rather see a picture of the mosquito bites I got creating this shot?

August 13, 2011
Finally, my experiments with night photography get put to use during a workshop. This was an indoor rehearsal. Then I took the class outside and we had fun running around with flashlights and colored lights. To be specific, this was ME running around with a flashlight, pointing it at a row of twenty cameras. The weather was perfect, and I didn`t get bitten by bugs. They were too afraid of my flashlight. This one is nice, but I saw several pictures taken by students that were a lot better than mine.

August 14, 2011
In the alley between air conditioners and garbage cans. After I shot this, someone in a car followed me for a while, evidently thinking he was an agent for Homeland Security. I ignored him, confident that photography is not a crime. There`s already activity in the former Las Americas restaurant (see August 3 above). Good luck to them. Frog legs for dinner! By an odd coincidence, I photographed a cardinal eating a cicada on this date last year (see August 14, 2010).

August 15, 2011
Lured by the flags out front, true patriots will buy used furniture at this business. People with cameras often receive suspicious looks. Not shy. Have you ever noticed that squirrels are tree-colored? And then the battery died, and I was done for the day.

August 16, 2011
If they were our size and we were their size, which of us would be the dominant species on the planet? That`s an order! Stood in the hot sun for a while to get this one. While waiting for the aforementioned butterfly to pose properly for me, this bee bumbled by. Only freedom and independence? How about liberty?

August 17, 2011
A sign that fall is coming: long shadows at 5:12pm. Another sign that fall is coming. A sign that summer ain`t done yet. People don`t eat enough vegetables. Pass the dressing. It took a long evening nap so it would be able to stay awake all night and howl outside my window.

August 18, 2011
I must admit, I didn`t take five pictures today. I took more like five hundred: and all of them were of tennis. Today I saw buckets and baskets and boxes of tennis balls, more than I ever thought could exist in one place. These poor tennis balls were being hit all day long and, in retaliation, some of them nearly hit me. Are you being served? Today I also learned that tennis players, male and female, pros and kids, put little cutesie things on their rackets.

August 19, 2011
An evening stroll through the neighborhood. A blue Cobalt. Wait, isn`t that redundant? How old is Barbie now: fifty? She still looks lovely. A passerby looked up at the building I was photographing, probably wondering: `Where`s the aesthetic value?` In Long Beach, California, photographers can be arrested for taking pictures of things that, in the eyes of the police, have no aesthetic value. The terrorists have officially won.

August 20, 2011
I knew it! The day would come when I have a photography workshop and nobody shows up. I`m such a total failure! Oh, there they are. Never mind. I had a tough time finding trunks to match my swim cap. Hanging around the Wegerzyn Garden. Without ever landing, it hovered around this flower drinking dew from the tendrils.

August 21, 2011
Can you see the little hailstones falling? The hail shredded leaves off of the trees. And then the storm passed, and all was well. I envision Batman and Robin climbing this wall with ropes. I need to move the chair AWAY from the window (see August 6 above).

August 22, 2011
Exhausted, and content to let me get as close as I wanted. The only one today. A clear, sunny sky means vivid colors -- but dark shadows. No evidence of exhaustion in this one. They don`t have to migrate a long way: they live, breed and die right here. Prickly!

August 23, 2011
Nothing between him and the goalie but painted lines. This is where all of those practice drills pay off. A good effort, keeper, but not good enough. Celebration and dejection. A moment not soon to be forgotten.

August 24, 2011
A lot of my pictures lately have involved games and balls. Oops. Elmo protects the clubs. Who invented this game, and did they have absolutely nothing better to do? Thwack!

August 25, 2011
More sports pictures today, just for the sake of variety. Now that`s using your head. Who says you have to use your feet in soccer? In this sport, it helps to be tall. Ice pack, please.

August 26, 2011
Who is that intrepid fellow taking pictures from a lift? You`ll never get me up there. Look at all those warnings! Well, okay, maybe just this once. This totally ordinary flower photo is important because it`s the first picture I`ve taken FOR MYSELF in a long time. Fleur-de-lis avec les fleurs du jardin.

August 27, 2011
As it kept circling, I hoped somebody would jump out. Slanted darkness. Please call again. Skylines. Half the man I used to be.

August 28, 2011
Just out of the shower. Nice color scheme. Sunday sunbather. Around certain kinds of plants, you can just expect to see certain kinds of birds. A greatly magnified water droplet on an orange flower petal, with a precise, diamond-like reflection of the sun.

August 29, 2011
More games, more balls. Mr. Woodchuck was in great danger on the driving range. Putting, Step One: Address the ball. `Hello, ball.` This one went into the trees not far away, but then she took a provisional (whatever that means) and she cracked the next one over the horizon. Another reason why Mr. Woodchuck is in danger.

August 30, 2011
I haven`t been able to take a morning walk in a long time. Ready for changing leaves? Me neither. LOSER! No camera can capture what human eyes can see. The flower provides for the bee, the bee provides for the flower. For whom does humanity provide, except for itself?

August 31, 2011
What did YOU photograph today?

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