A Southern Snow

My sister just called from sunny California to give me an update on the weather. She does this when she knows I'm freezing here in the south. It seems that it's somewhere around 75 degrees there and it's a balmy 45 degrees here. For those of you who care, it's 10 degrees cooler than it's supposed to be...and I'm not happy.

All of this weather talk reminded me of the snow that we had a few weeks ago. It started on a Friday afternoon and continued through the night. The images below appear to be black and white because the snow was falling so fast that it completely blocked out any light.

The next day the sun appeared but the snow stayed with us for much of the day.

Looks just like cotton candy.

I hope that's it for snow this winter.

Note: I wrote this post a week ago, thinking the snow was over for the winter. Today (March 2nd) it's here again. As my friend Susan would say, "Oy vey!"

The Flowers Are Blooming at the... Part II

Southeastern Flower Show

As you can tell, the flowers were absolutely beautiful. They even had grass. Most of it was mondo, but I though this was pretty, so green, so spring and no bugs, no fire ants.


This is a quince; my new favorite flower. Well actually it's a bush. I've got to get busy and try to find one for Tom to plant. I know he's going to be thrilled. Where is the shovel?

So there I was in a great mood, walking around silently planning a garden, when I spotted the photography exhibit. I walked back and fourth, pacing both sides of the exhibit, wondering why my submissions had been refused. I still don't get it. I noticed one photographer had nine, count 'em nine entries. Not fair. Obviously political. Humm. Maybe if I bought a macro lens. Something to think about. Here is one side of the exhibit.

Yep, I was having a mood swing. An African photo shoot is not in my future. I'm not getting this image.
My mood was getting worse by the minute. This image won first place. It is obviously a black and white. It was good. Not my taste, but obviously good enough to win. Could this be sour grapes on my part?
Just when I was feeling sorry for myself, guess who I bumped into? None other than P. Allen Smith! Another mood swing. Things were definitely looking up. When I saw him, I laughed and said, "I didn't know you were going to be here!" (Like he should have called me first!) I told him that I just had to take his picture. He and his escort laughed, and she offered to take a shot with the both of us. What a hoot! What a gentleman!

A few minutes later he began his presentation. For those of you who don't know who P. Allen Smith is, go to his website: www.pallensmith.com. He is an amazing garden designer and represents Bonnie Nurseries. I have one of his books and he's often on the Today Show.

As he spoke, he walked among us, asking questions. He combined sarcasm and humor as he entertained us with his vast knowledge of garden design.

Oh no, here he comes toward the back row. Please, please don't ask me a question.

He did. Something about me growing lettuce. If he only knew. The only thing green about me was the scarf I was wearing.

The Flowers Are Blooming in Atlanta At The..Part I

Southeaster Flower Show!

Earlier this week I volunteered at the flower show. Trust me, I know very little about flowers, but I do love them. My job title was a "runner" which meant that I took plants from the "passers" table to the show where the "stagers" placed them in their sections to be judged. Before last year I didn't know that folks could bring their plants and flowers for competition. I think a lot of garden clubs and master gardeners participate because the process is rather complicated and they thrive on the competition. As a thank you for volunteering, I was given a free ticket to the show. So two days later and I was there with my camera ready just immerse myself in spring.

This was what I saw when I first walked in the room. Six gorgeous cherry trees. Earlier I watched as the workers used a fork lift to place them in their planters.

Vignettes were located near the entrance. This was one of the larger ones. They are full of ideas for those who are ready to put thousands of dollars in their yards, thus transforming a plain old yard into a garden!

Obviously there were thousands of flowers. Here are white snapdragons

and pink snapdragons,

and a variety of snapdragons. I like snapdragons but not one lives in my garden. (This image was blurry so I just added a touch of photoshop.)

And there were lots of shops. Here's a cute one.

Oops! I have a stud finder (Home Depot), but do I need this?

Then I saw this. I needed one, but couldn't decide on a color...so I left...the shop, not the show!

Placed near the vignettes were tables that were judged. This is one of them. I try to stay apolitical on this blog, but I thought this was pretty darn creative. They didn't win. If you peek behind the water bottle, you'll see Al's pic in the chair.

That about sums up Part I. The second part will include the photo competition and a very, very special speaker. Did my photo get in the exhibition? Do you know the famous garden planner? Stay tuned.

It Was Too Soon

My sister and I just returned from a short visit to our hometown. The purpose of our trip was to attend a memorial service for a family friend who had passed away after a long and painful illness. She died too soon. I know we always think that, but she did. She was only fifty-nine. Although I didn't see her during her illness, her mother kept us informed throughout her struggle so we knew how hard she was fighting to live.

She was fortunate to have the comfort of lots of family and friends. At the service I met her two beautiful daughters...very strong...had their mother's gorgeous looks and her personality. It was a pleasant surprise to meet her granddaughter who looked just like she did when she was her age. Both Karla and her husband had many, many friends, some of whom were members of the theatre group at the local university where her husband is on the faculty. Our Karla was a wife, mother, grandmother, daughter, sister, aunt, niece, and a friend to many. I will always remember her smile and her infectious laughter. She was an inspiration to us all.

F.Y.I., Karla's the one in the highchair. That's me probably trying to sneak a piece of cake! This was just one of our many, many birthday parties...thanks to our very loving parents. I bet Karla's mother, Doris, made those fancy hats.

Here's The Real Reason I Went To New York

Almost two months ago on Friday, November 13th, Tom came home from work with a copy of USA Today. He showed me an article about a, no, THE photographer, Robert Frank. He thought that maybe I would want to see the exhibit, without him, of course because he's still working, not retired, like I.

The article was about an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that was honoring the fiftieth anniversary of Frank's book, The Americans. Various towns were mentioned in the article where Frank visited and shot the images. Towns such as, Charleston, Detroit, Memphis, Hoboken, San Francisco and Miami Beach to name a few. Since I love black and white photography and I've never had a history of photography class, I though it would be a great reason to visit my favorite city. Also going there at Christmas just made the trip more enticing.

So then I started thinking. Maybe I could fly up and back in the same day, but if I did there would be no way that I could make the lecture that would be taking place 11:00. It was too chancy. Soon one day turned into two. I talked to friends about going with me and one in particular seemed interested, and that was Karen. She often accompanies me on my local shoots and even went with me to a show in Myrtle Beach. Karen was apprenhensive in the beginning because she still teaches and didn't want to take the days. I finally had to have a "come to Jesus" meeting with her and it worked!

Three and one half weeks later we were on our way to New York. We left Wednesday afternoon so we could be at the museum bright and early on Thursday morning. We were able to hear two lectures that morning. The first one was way out there and was called, "Surface Tension: Contemporary Photographs from the Collection." Although it was way out of the box, the associate pointed out some interesting facts. Did you know that you can take a photograph of a painting hanging in a museum (with permission and no flash please) and incorporate it into your own composition? Yep, you can. That was all I needed to hear to motivate me to spend some time later that day snapping Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet and Manet. I've got them all in my computer just waiting to bust loose in some future masterpiece.

Oops, two got loose. The first on is Monet. You can see his signature in the lower right corner.

This one is obviously Van Gogh.

Back to Frank. The lecture on his work was led by the curator of photography, Jeff Rosenheim. There was a huge group of people and 83 photographs to view. The lecture lasted over an hour and was extremely interesting. After working for Vanity Fair magazine, Frank came up with the idea to spend a year traveling the United States and photographing it's people in their day to day activities. In order to do this, he had to find a way to finance the project because he had a family and it was going to be costly. He applied for a Guggenheim Grant and was accepted. The grant, both the rough draft and the final copy were on display. In the application was the question, "What do you plan to do with the grant?", and his answer was "take pictures." I can't remember who the proofreader was, but it was rephrased in the final copy kinda like the way my mother "rephrased" my term papers, only on a different level. At one point the curator was replying to a question and said, "Robert thought that...," then he paused and looked around the room and said that he wanted to give the correct answer because sometimes Robert joined the crowd and listened to the lecture. What a hoot! He lives in Manhattan.

This is the cover of the book with an image taken in New Orleans. If you look closely, you will see that this image epitomised the south in the fifties.

Yes, it was worth the trip and yes, I bought the book. Aaaannnnnndddddd, I need to put more people in my shots...at least some of the time.

Here's A Tip

As Karen and I were having lunch at the Metropolitan Museum, we started discussing what we would do that night (Thursday). We both agreed that a play would be nice, but neither one of us had done any research on the availability of seats. So I pulled out my trusty cell phone and called my sister in California. Lucky for me she was sitting at her computer and was able to pull up the current listing of plays in New York. She read the description of several ones; a woman who sat next to me on the plane was going to Burn The Floor, but I wanted something with a plot. We finally agreed on Memphis. ...Since we would have to buy them at the theatre, we planned to leave at six and walk the fourteen blocks in the 27 degree freezing temperature. In addition to the freezing cold and wind, I was carrying my camera with the new wide angle lens. Love it.

We walked down Sixth Avenue bundled up looking like we were ready for a blizzard. We walked from Fifty-seventh Street down Seventh Avenue through Times Square, where I affectionately refer to as HELL, and then took a right on Forty-fourth Street. We walked one more block and there it was, The Shubert Theatre. When we walked in the lobby (about 12 feet by 6 feet) I approached the ticket agent by the name of Craig. After learning that there were tickets available the negotiations began. Be patient, the TIP is coming.

After the pleasantries, I told Craig that we didn't want zillion dollar seats. Furthermore,we didn't care if we were in the last row of the balcony...it just didn't matter to us. That seemed to go in one ear and out the other because he showed me a floor plan and pointed to seats smack dab in the center section, ten rows back. I knew they were expensive because Janie, my sister, told me during our conversation that they started at $121.50. After Craig told me the price, I told him AGAIN, that we wanted the cheap seats. Then he showed me something a little less expensive and again I declined. Here's where it happened. Read slowly.

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I laughed and told him that I knew he wanted to reach through the window and strangle me because I sold tickets for the Braves wayyyy back and I wanted to kill people who behaved like I was behaving, i.e. "Are they in the shade ?", "Are they on the right side or the left side of the section because I don't want to be distracted by people walking up and down the aisles ?", and "Are they under the overhang because we want to be in the shade ?", and on and on. Then I heard a voice behind the window asking if I sold tickets during the time that the Yankees beat the Braves. I told him it was before (as if I knew) and this started an amicable conversation. After Craig and the mysterious voice had a short conversation that I couldn't hear, although my ear was almost going through the window, Craig showed me the same seats that he offered at $121.50. Then he peered behind me to see who was standing behind me and saw that a line was forming. So instead of telling me the new price, he wrote it on a scrap of paper and showed me- $69.50. I accepted the new price and thanked him profusely. The mysterious man said something about extending the discount because I had been in "the business". Little did I know twenty some years ago that working for the Braves in those teensy, claustrophobic ticket booths after teaching all day would years later get me a $52.00 discount on a Broadway ticket! So that's the tip. Be nice, smile, try to joke with them, and when all else fails, tell them you used to sell tickets for the Braves. It's just me, but I would try the first three and only use the last one if you really did sell tickets for the Braves. You never know.

By the way, the play was wonderful and was worth the long walk to and from Broadway. Here are some of the shots I took with my new lens.

Thank you Craig and thank you Braves!

IF YOU HAVEN'T HEARD OF HER, YOU WILL

Last Friday, as we were waiting for my sister, Ann, to arrive from Connecticut, Karen (my friend who traveled with me to New York) and I decided to walk over to Columbus Circle and walk around the Time Warner Center. Besides, I knew there was a cute little restaurant on the third floor where we could have a coke and look out the HUGE window to watch millions of people play dodge ball with the cabs.

The decorations were drop-dead gorgeous. The stars that were hanging from the rafters changed colors in rhythm to the music. (More on this is a later post.) As we took the escalator to the second floor on the way to the restaurant, I tried to free my camera from the depths of my bag so I could take two or three thousand pictures. Digital is a miracle. As we were climbing on the escalator and after I got my hands on the camera, I spotted Borders Bookstore. I knew it was there and I was using their snack bar as a back up just in case the wait at the restaurant was too long. But before we continued our trek to the third floor I spotted a huge sign in the window of Borders. There were pictures of about six people who would be signing books soon with their schedules. I couldn't believe what I was reading. Lo and behold, the Pioneer Woman (http://www.thepioneerwoman.com/) was going to be there that evening to sign her cookbook. She was in Atlanta the Monday before I left for New York, but I couldn't go and I was just sick about it. Those of you who do not know who she is, you will.

Side Bar: Ree Drummond, aka The Pioneer Woman, has a blog. It is absolutely the best blog that I have ever read. It's divided into sections: confessions, photography, cooking, and home and garden. Of course my favorite part of her blog is photography. She puts the process into every day lingo that is easily understood. You really should take the time and check it out, but it will take hours if you try to read it all at one sitting.

After seeing the notice in the window, I had to go in the store and get the low down. Poor Karen, she followed me into the store as I was mumbling, drooling, and running all over the store trying to find the book. Finally I got control of myself and found a really nice man who took me to the front counter and asked one of the folks to show me THE BOOK. That is when I met Amanda H. She is an angel. She not only showed me the book, but looked up my Borders club number so I could get a discount on the purchase price AND, get this, gave me THREE wrist bands so we could get seats at the discussion and the signing. "Good grief", I thought, "this is New York, people aren't supposed to be this nice and certainly not this helpful." But she was and it didn't end there.

I told Amanda all about The Pioneer Woman. Bless her heart, she really hadn't heard of her until recently. As she was showing us where the discussion and book signing was going to take place, she mentioned that the Atlanta signing had over 800 people. When I saw that they only had sixty chairs, I worried. But I didn't need to.

When my sister arrived at the hotel, Karen and I met her, exchanged pleasantries, and then I began educating her about the PW. She was willing to go with us, but I couldn't see any enthusiasm. She didn't "get" the whole PW thing, but I had confidence that she would. We had to leave the hotel around five to get there in plenty of time. We also knew that we had to leave Borders at seven to get to Lincoln Center to see the Nutcracker. Sadly, I had given up hope of having her sign my book. When we arrived we found Amanda H. and my sister asked her if there were any books left because she wanted to buy one. Amanda being the angel she is, took Ann's credit card and even gave her my discount! Amazing. Get this...she knew that we had to leave early (she also has a great memory) so she took our books in the back of the store where PW was waiting and asked her to sign them for us! She should be Employee of the Year. Maybe I'll write a letter.

At around six, out came PW. She was dressed in black, and had a sweet smile. She answered about fifteen questions from the two or three hundred in attendance. As soon as she started signing books we made a quick exit.

What surprised me was that PW seemed timid. I imagined her to be really outgoing and she probably is when she isn't in front of a huge NYC crowd and her publisher. She writes in some of her posts that she's always nervous, but she doesn't need to be...everyone there loved her!

We met a nice young man while we waited, named James. James was from Oklahoma, where PW lives, but was working in NYC at Bank of America. He knew almost everything about her. He's her friend on FB and Twitter. In fact, he got a tweet from her as we were talking. What a hoot! James also likes to cook, thus the cookbook. (Sorry for the blurred shot, James. I only brought my wide angle lens.) I don't cook, but I did buy the book just in case the mood strikes. Truth be told, if she wrote a book on dirt, I'd probably buy it. I'm a fan, what can I say?