The Photo Bin - January 2015

Selfies. Not a big fan. I suppose it’s because ego is one of those human traits that I believe has over-evolved, here of late, and the constant flow of arm-length mug shots has begun to wear thin on me. Besides, with a mug like mine, the fewer likenesses floating around, the better.

But Mary headed off for a few days to visit with family, leaving me to my own devices, and that’s always a dangerous thing. Moreover, my buddy Bob White recently floated a question to his artist and photographer acquaintances regarding self-portraits and the prospect intrigued me. After all, my "stock picture" is now ten years old (and a rough ten years at that) and my funky social media avatar is just that; funky. So, looking for a photographic challenge and having some time on my hands, I had a little fun, turned the camera around, and shot the above image out on the back porch. This is what a contented sixty-year-old looks like.

And that, my friends, should do it for another ten years.

Enough with the black-and-white. Let’s have some color. I was pleased to contribute to the recent winter edition of the Southern Culture on the Fly, placing a piece about the train tracks that lead to one of my favorite fishing holes. Last minute, I drove up to get a few more railroad images for the story and, while I was there, a mile-long string of graffiti rolled by. Add the shadowy tiger-stripes of trackside trees and a bit of a tilt and you come up with some fascinating abstracts.

I’m convinced that a trip to a rail yard would yield a fantastic array of colors and shapes, just begging to be photographed. True art, some of this stuff, especially flying by at 50mph.

And speaking of color, while it looks like a Fox Sports Network graphic, this image is actually a view from underneath the scoreboard at Georgia Tech's McCamish Pavilion, from Cremin's court, just outside of the center jump circle, where our dinner table was placed. We found ourselves looking up from this unique position as we attended the annual Georgia Tech Sports Scholarship Banquet, honoring the memory of our son and spending a few hours with this year's delightful recipient (a gifted young lady swimmer) of the memorial scholarship that we have established in Freeman's name. An evening filled with laughter and with tears, for neither can be fully appreciated without the other.

Go Jackets!

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