From the Conductor's Side

Four years of Art School have completely ruined my ability to just look out the window. I'm always more interested in looking at how my view is broken up into panels by the windows themselves or by the reflections on top of other reflections. As far as office views go, you can't do much better than this without being a pilot or an astronaut.

(just so you know, any 'warping' of the image was optical, and not a post effect.)

"Twin Views Times Two, #1" 2010, digital image. Photo by - Anonymous

"Twin Views Times Two, #2" 2010, digital image. Photo by - Anonymous

2011 HEADERS

Changing the Header picture at the beginning of the blog is such a love/hate thing for me. I like each one so much that I don't want to replace it, but I have so much fun making a new one! It may be something I should seek help with. Maybe there's a medication for it. But just so I don't feel bad about the older ones, I will keep all the year's "headers" here in this post.

"Marci and Lu at Mee-mee's house for Christmas" 2010, Digital Image. Photo by Brett A. Beighley

Windows West

I want so badly to get my Lubitel out on the road. How much fun would that old unpredictable plastic lens be? I never worried about specifics when I shot with that camera. Get the exposure close and hope for the best. Focus? Seriously? With a Lubitel? That sort of went against the whole point of using a Russian made "toy" camera. With that camera I was always trying to photograph a memory, or capture a feeling, or illustrate a mood. It gave me an opportunity to bypass photography's more technical aspects and consider the content of my images instead of the technique. And of all my cameras, my Lubitel is still one of my favorites. These next few images remind me in some ways of my time with the Lubitel, in that while being restricted by the technical aspects of the camera, an interesting image will almost always find its way through the view finder of someone willing to look for it.

"West at Night" near Freindsville, OH. 2010, digital image. Photo by - Anonymous

"Westbound at Sunset" near Creston, OH. 2010, digital image. Photo by - Anonymous

"Overhead Bridge" westbound at Sullivan, OH. 2010, digital image. Photo by - Anonymous

"State Line at Sunrise" just east of Lowellville, OH. 2010, digital image. Photo by - Anonymous

"Nova Tower" Nova Tower looking West, 2010, digital image. Photo by - Anonymous

Another Winter Comes East...

I really wanted this winter to be better. I wanted to not put 100,000 miles on the odometer of my other-wise brand new truck. I didn't want to spend one cold night of 2011 sleeping in the front seat of that same truck. Nissan's are nice but they don't make very good hotel rooms. I did not, did not, want to see Connellsville again, but I will. Sometimes, being a grown up is really no fun.

I could just take the layoff. Chances are I would get back to work fairly soon. I might only miss a couple paychecks. The savings account could handle it. Right? (Deep breath, big sigh.) Yes and maybe and perhaps with a little bit of who-knows and I'm-not-sure. The only known thing here is that the savings account would get smaller, and that just isn't very responsible, huh? No. It isn't. I'm a husband, and a father. I'm a provider. I don't get to cry about long nights away from home, and I don't get to complain about horrible weather on the roads, and I just have to stand up and be "that-guy."

Pack the pillow and the blanket behind the driver's seat. This isn't forever. This isn't the way it will always be. It could get better. It should.

"Window Frame #1" from an Eastbound Freight running through south Akron, Ohio, 2010. Photo by: Anonymous

Marci Gets a Trim

Another year. It's strange how you can sometimes feel the weight of the old year shifting away. How you can sense, on that last December day, that things are coming to an end. It's nothing really but a day on a calendar, but we all feel it. And even though it comes in the middle of winter, though everything around us is cold, empty, and grey, there is that contentedness we have with the knowledge that tomorrow is new. The first of January is the lightest of days. It's all possibility. It's hope of maybe doing it right this time around. It's another start. And sometimes, to make it really feel official, you need a new haircut.

"Marci's New Haircut." January, 2011