Blue Ridge blog

Hee Haw

I got up early this morning to see what I could find to test out a new Canon 16-35mm 2.8 lens. Et voila, I wondered into Valle Crucis and found some ass to pose for me on the Taylor Family farm. The bottom photo is untouched-- just a little sharpening in PS. I discovered a bit of vignetting on the lens but this is something I can generally work around. I lit the donkey using a Fong (just google it). I played with the shot on top while in Adobe's Lightroom. I'm adjusting to this new software and Canon world I have been thrust into...and I dare say I'm may be going over to the white side.

Day 1

What do cute shoes, a Fuji Finepix S1 Pro camera and Gloria Steinem have in common?

The answer:
Not much, but all three were a large part of my first day on the new job.
What did I learn?
1) Taking over someone's camera is sort of like wearing their underwear--it's way too personal....
2) Cute shoes sometimes equals bleeding raw skin, which is what I got when traveling across campus to
practice shooting Gloria Steinem with the Fuji Finepix S1 Pro.
Still, all went well on day 1. I was enveloped with nothing but the fuzziest of welcomes by all.
But tomorrow I'm packing my sneakers and D1H:)

I took this photo tonight while on the bridge crossing the Watauga River. I was too lazy to use a tripod so I propped my D1H on the concrete rail.

A Rainbow Fallout

The High Country experienced a significant 'ice event' yesterday morning. Schools were closed, powers went out and for awhile, nobody did much of anything except hope and pray that big old tree too close to the house would'nt yield to the pressure of the coat of 1/4 quarter inch or more of ice. Around 11:30 a.m. I stepped out on my deck and heard the snap, crackle, pop cacophony of brittle branches as they succombed under the weight of ice.
All the sudden I noticed THE RAINBOW. Holy Moly, I ran down to the car to retrieve my camera. Rainbows are fleeting and I thought I might lose it. Yet the rainbow remained. As I fiddled with the polarizing filter, it tumbled over the deck. Shit. I ran downstairs and outside in my jammies and slippers, knowing full well the rainbow might be gone, again. I tripped up the stairs in my slippers and my jammie bottoms were at my knees. I walked out of my jammies and back into my slippers. I was now a comedy in action. Yet, the rainbow stayed and became even more intense. It spanned over Valle Crucis, from say Daisy Ridge plum over the horse farm, the river and the pot of gold was on Old Hartley Rd. The rainbow visted for more than 10 minutes--a record in my books. I scored lots of shots.
These photos are fairly straight forward though I did have to work with level adjustments in Photoshop in order to get the ice covered trees to show up. I also used a touch of Photomatix in the middle image. The last image is a close up of the rainbow against Matney mountain.

I woke up grumpy this morning. Not sure why but when I stopped at the Mast Store to pick up my mail, I noticed shoes on sale. Retail shoe therapy is oh so much better than a massage.

Nesting...

Something must have gotten into Marie as she spent her entire Sunday cleaning the main floor of her house--baseboards and all.

And what happened next was people freaked.

"I knew something was odd when I went downstairs for a cup of coffee and she shimmied up to me half singing, half saying: 'Sing with me, sing for the years, sing for the laughter, sing for the tears,'" recounted her loving, yet confused husband who retreated upstairs to the safety of his man cave.

Aerosmith's 'Dream On' song was not the only tune Marie would belt out as she furiously folded laundry.
Marie pushed and shoved furniture, vacuuming spaces that hadn't seen the light in 3 years or more. Suddenly she encountered green rat poop.
"Those rat bastards got into my Coumadin," she shrieked." She then remembered the exterminator had recently planted green blocks of poison around the house to combat a growing field mice population.
Living amidst filth and vermin irritated Marie and she needed to vent on a human.
And that someone would be her youngest child.
"It was a 'Shock and Awe' moment when she burst into my room at 1 p.m. this morning, errr, afternoon, and demanded I bring my laundry as well as a molded bowl of oatmeal upstairs for cleaning. I was scared. I thought she might actually insist I hand over the keys to my car. It was a horrible, unbelievable nightmare--worse than seeing 'Saw 4' ," said Youngest.

After hours of hand scrubbing floors while listening to ANTM on the t.v., Marie worked out her little problems and took realistic stock of her housekeeping.
"I need three months and nothing else to do on weekends. Then maybe, just maybe, I'll be ready to invite the Valle Crucis bourgeoisie over for petite dejeuner. Until then, ain't no one seein' my hillbilly ghetto trailer," she said.

Just stuff

Yesterday I chased snowflakes around Valle Crucis. I tried a few new photo techniques with a failure rate of about 99%. Encouraging. This horse at Dutch Creek Trails was my buddy for about 15 minutes. Oh how he enjoys a bit of nose rubbing...

A few links:

First, if you like word games but you have no time whatsoever to spend, do not click on this Free Rice site. On the other hand, if you don't mind sending rice to starving children at the expense of the site's advertisers and you love words, then by all means, click away. It is fun. The site is legit, Amy did the research.

Next, US Air magazine did a huge 22 page profile piece on the Boone/Blowing Rock area. My photos are sprinkled within. I must say, it is delightful to be paid industry photography rates- a rare treat up here in the middle of nowhere. The magazine staff was professional and kind. I suppose this isn't such a great time to mention I have a certain fondness for American Airlines...
However, if you are on a US Air flight in the next couple of days, check out the in-flight magazine. Be sure to bend the pages nearly clear to the spine, then squint real hard and then maybe, just maybe, you will see my photo credit. It's ok with me though, their check cleared;)

See Mr. Ahn run...on insulin....

Steve Ahn, the guy in the center, taught my girls' science at Valle Crucis in middle school. He is responsible for igniting a passion in them for science which they continue to explore to this day. My children agree, if you could bottle Mr. Ahn's enthusiasm and ability to connect with students and inject said characteristics into the United States public education system then the state of education in America could quite possibly change overnight, in a good way.
Ok. We all love Mr. Ahn.
That said. Mr. Ahn is a Type 1 diabetic. He and two other local Type 1 diabetics are participating in Ironman Wisconsin in September as part of a team of ten Type 1 diabetics. You can read a whole lot about it here.
Or you may opt instead to check out Ahn's blog or his friend, Dave Shack's Blog and read as they suffer through the training process.
And did I forget to mention that Steve, Dave and the other Boone resident, John Moore will be part of a Discovery Channel documentary which will track their progress. Check out the trailer. They are the first three stars with speaking rolls. *sigh, movie stars*
I wrote a story about them in the paper which goes into a bit more detail. These guys have guts and I'll be sending in my check...but you don't have to.
However, when you read their blogs, you may understand a bit of the daily ordeal these guys go through even when they aren't training for an Ironman competition. Really, kudos to John, Steve and Dave, who now teaches middle school science at Valle Crucis. Go leave notes of encouragement.

Courtesy of Momma Nature...

I rotated this image, but that was only after I returned home to thaw out my fingers and toes. This is an image taken on the ice gathered on the Watauga River while I straddled the bridge near Preacher Billings Rd. A couple days of ice which runneth over make for ripples and dents and well, interesting images of the quite ordinary winter trees. It helps to time the photo sessions as the sun lowers (or rises, yawn) to help intensify the colors. I used no filters or Photoshop other than 'Sharpening' in the photo. It is Momma Nature made-I just rotated her a bit to suit me.

A snowy/icy day in Valle Crucis....

It was just another snow day which turned to icy slush by noon. Still, the whiteness cleaned-up the scenery with muted colors while the local beast hung out and did whatever it is they do. Check out John Doe snoozing on the Mast Store's bench in front of the pot-belly stove. And look how big the piggie is. My how it smiles.

Congrats to my good buddy Mark. His blog Photojournalism reached it's millionth viewer in the wee hours of the morning. If you are even remotely interested in photography and more specifically photojournalism, then his site is a daily must-read. His PJ related posts are a continuous reference source for me, particularly at the beginning of each new sport season. The blogosphere is fortunate to have him share his images and knowledge.

(The used Lucis Art on the above images. I applied the #3 plaid.)

Licking wounds and liking barn quilts....

The Cooper's barn has a new decoration. I stopped in the field yesterday and admired the quilt on the side. I think it may be particularly becoming when it snows. I'll get back to you on that one.

On the family front:
My eldest daughter is licking her wounds.
The application she filed to transfer from USC to Appalachian early in September is still 'under review' with the swamped admissions office. No one is able to tell her a thing except that her paperwork is 'under review.' She is resigned to remain at USC next semester because she is days away from making important decisions. To further aggrevate the situation, she was told that if she wanted to be considered for next fall, she would need to re-apply. And, she missed the November 15th deadline for that early application because she was waiting to hear on her current application. With over 14,000 applications for Fall '08, I fear both my children will fall victim to Appalachian winning 2, and hopefully 3 National Championships.

Getting into ASU is like scoring a ticket to the National Championship game...

In search of the big light...

Look. Marie went out in search of pretty pictures for the first time in several weeks.
'bout time.
At 8:00 this morning I kissed my husband on the cheek and said,
"Gonna go find me some good light, baby."
Just so you know, I was in my pajamas when I took these photos. I did not brush my hair or teeth because light doesn't wait for vanity or grooming.
It was Sunday and I was thinking about how my perfect church would congregate outdoors.
As the toes of my sneaks were muddied tiptoe-ing around groundhog holes and my pj's were snagged crossing barbed wire fences, I thought of God and how if one couldn't find him in a great big field in Valle Crucis, then one might'n never find him.
Organized religion ain't my thing, but that doesn't make me a non-believer.
God is good.
You just gotta take some time and look-see for yourself.