Personal – Page 2 – Mary Rice's blog

November 20, 2017November 20, 2017

the Jesus Bakery

When working in downtown Atlanta, my friends and I would sometimes walk down Marietta Street to the “Jesus Bakery” to buy a cake or a pie or some other sinful dessert for a co-worker’s birthday or because we just wanted to. These bakery goods were the real deal, made from real butter and sugar, all the good stuff, no preservatives.

The bakery actually had another name, we just called it the “Jesus Bakery” because of the inescapable message you received when there. So, for example, if visiting to ask if they could have a red velvet cake ready for pick-up the next day, the answer would always be “if the good Lord is willing.” More than once I left the store with more than I went in to buy. You might think that’s typical of a lot of shopping trips except I didn’t ask for or buy these extra pies or cakes, they just freely gave them to me.

Recently I’ve spent a lot of time driving with my husband through the South: 20 hours to and from Tampa a couple weekends ago with furniture to set up Scott’s new apartment, and 12 hours last weekend to and from South Carolina for Parents’ Weekend at our daughter’s college. These were in no way photography trips. It was mostly a lot of boring interstate with a day wedged in between when we could spend time with our children.

But I always bring a camera and so I took this image of Spanish moss at a rest stop somewhere in northern Florida.

In South Georgia I was struck by the thick white cotton fields alongside the interstate. Don kindly exited the interstate and took a nearby frontage road so I could briefly photograph them.

irrigation system over Georgia cotton fields

High Cotton — big white fluffy cotton ready to pick in South Georgia cotton field

I say briefly not because Don or I were in any hurry, but because within a minute I realized I was standing in ankle high ant beds with armies of red fiery ants crawling all over and in my sandals. If you think there’s a lot of cotton in that field, I’m thinking there’s at least ten times as many ants.

In South Carolina a week later, Don and Betsy gave me five minutes (bless their hearts) to take a couple photos of the boiled peanuts vendor who is always parked across the street from the local Walmart.

Hot boiled peanuts vendor parked outside a Walmart in Greenville, South Carolina

Twenty minutes later, I returned to the car having eaten and learned all about boiled peanuts and then giving Don a bag of roasted peanuts instead. And people wonder why I frequently run late …

Here’s the peanut man getting ready to show me how to open a freshly boiled peanut:

getting a lesson in how to open a hot boiled peanut — How many peanuts have these hands opened?

Here he is inside his trailer posing. Notice the sign above his radio.

this unspoken message — peanut salesman posing in his trailer in Greenville, South Carolina

It’s occurred to me that the South is, in a sense, one big Jesus bakery. You enter it knowing you’ll be greeted by characters you just don’t meet anywhere else and you leave often taking home with you more than you bargained for. Yes, the Bible Belt is changing, but that’s why the real deal needs preserving through photographs.

Photographing the South is hardly an original idea; indeed, there are entire festivals and magazines devoted exclusively to southern photography, but I think, this Mississippi bred girl is going to take it on, slowly (as in years) but surely, if … the good Lord is willing. The landscape is beautiful, the people colorful, the culture intriguing, and … it’s home.

“One place understood helps us understand all places better.”
– Eudora Welty

Happy Thanksgiving ya’ll.

October 30, 2017

a little Halloween hocus focus

I love Halloween. I love the crisp chill in the air, all the scary movies, ghosts hanging down from trees, spiders taking over my living room, and the last minute rush to carve and light the pumpkin before the first wave of trick or treaters start ringing the doorbell. I love all the trick or treaters, but especially the first-time pink costumed fairy princesses.

But this year, I think a black cat crossed the road when I wasn’t looking because there’s something a little scarier about Halloween this year. You can see it in my photographs.

It may have started with a little double vision or um … “ghosting.”

Initially, I didn’t think too much about it, but then, when another photo went all blurry on me …

I knew I had to do a little problem solving.

So I went out and took a few test shots with a couple scarecrows to figure this whole thing out, and here’s what I got.

Ruh-Roh.

Scarecrow #1 kind of looks blurry and like I’ve got double or octuplet vision.

And here’s scarecrow #2.

Well, you can see for yourself that this focusing problem was spiraling quickly out of control.

So I went to my eye doctor to see what’s up and he said the epithelial lining of my eyes looks like Swiss cheese.

“Holy candy corn conjunctivitis Batman!” I said.

“Is it permanent?” I asked.

“No, but I suggest you take these eye drops along with these other prescriptions and take a little fall break from photography. Limit your screen time.”

So I left his office feeling a good bit dejected until I returned home and was looking around in one of our cabinets and found a little square photograph of the sweetest little pink costumed Disney princess I have ever known. We used to call her “Boo.”

Holding that photograph helped me put everything back in its proper focus. Look at Boo now.

Sometimes the best medicine is not found in prescription bottles or even in laughter but in the smiles we get when thinking of our children or other friends and family. I guess I have a lot to smile about.

So with everything now in focus, let me say Happy Halloween to you, and to you, and to Boo!

And for any of you wondering, I’ll have my camera back in hand and working this weekend.

Thanks for following my blog posts.

October 13, 2017

Happy Friday the 13th

Friday the 13th has never been a particularly unlucky day for me, nor has it been for most people. Sure, if I burn the lasagna on a Friday the 13th I might laugh and chock it up to the day, but I just don’t attach any real significance to it.

Some people do, however. In fact, it’s estimated that there’s an economic loss of 700-900 million dollars every Friday the 13th due to people staying at home or superstitiously avoiding certain activities, such as airline travel. Just the number 13 bothers some people. Lots of hotels and other buildings lack a 13 to press in their elevators.

So for the superstitious among you, I offer these photographs. They were not taken on a Friday the 13th, but I’ve always been intrigued by the somewhat odd, almost Alfred Hitchcock-ish quality they share in common. I took them with my iPhone on a couple of unseasonably warm days in January 2012, so maybe this is what you get when the weather is out of whack.

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So that’s my photo homage to Friday the 13th.

Now, so you know I do take more comforting photographs that are more seasonably friendly, I’ll end with this one.

It was taken several years ago in Babcock State Park in West Virginia.

Happy October.

September 13, 2017September 14, 2017

when that inner voice might just be a “Godwink”

Let’s be clear. I am neither a bird watcher nor a bird photographer but …

In December 2015 I went with the American Nature Photography Workshops to Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico to photograph the annual winter migration of sandhill cranes, snow geese, and other water fowl.

I got some nice photographs from the workshop

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yet my general takeaway was that this kind of bird photography, at least with the equipment I brought, is kind of difficult. Aside from the technical challenges of shooting flying birds very far away in low light, it’s not like you can say, “hey birds, would you mind separating a bit more in your flight so you don’t overlap with one another?” You just have to take what you get and hope for the best.

I stayed in the area an extra day after the workshop ended and returned to Bosque the next afternoon to photograph a cool tree we had driven by. That tree just happened to be close to a bird viewing platform.

Our workshop leaders had done an excellent job in scouting the birds’ favorite places and behaviors before we arrived. It’s just that the birds didn’t always cooperate. I remember standing in the dark one very early morning waiting to capture the epic lift off and landing at sunrise. We knew exactly when and where the takeoff should occur and we were ready, but I don’t know … we saw a lot of birds flying far in the distance in front of us, but the whole thing just didn’t really materialize, at least not in my camera.

So on my extra day, I photographed the cool tree and then drove to the viewing platform we had never visited and that’s when everything became a little more memorable.

I could hear the birds in the distance and as they got closer and louder I began seeing their approach. It wasn’t long before I realized OMG – this is the lift off and landing our leaders had wanted us to see – and they are landing – swarms of them – directly in front of me. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen or likely will ever see again. Think 1,000+ birds – many of them 5′ tall and with a 4-6′ wingspan in diameter – all swarming down to the water directly in front of you. It was loud, chaotic, and lasted for maybe 15-20 minutes or so. I didn’t really feel I was in harm’s way as the viewing platform was pretty well protected, but I did feel a little bit like I had crossed the set of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds into Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park.

With the low light and all the flurry of the backlit birds flying in I decided to take some video – that way I also would be able to record the cacophony of loud bird sounds. I also just stood for minutes at a time and marveled.

As the sun began to set and the birds began to settle in for the evening, I started photographing again. You can maybe get a sense of the serenity that replaced the previous chaos by looking at the top photo above. Really, the quiet beauty and serenity before me then was just as or maybe more powerful than the chaotic, frenzied landings that had preceded it. The whole thing was just extraordinary.

So in these past two weeks we’ve seen Harvey flood Houston and eastern Texas, an earthquake destroy parts of Mexico, wildfires spread through the Pacific Northwest, and Hurricane Irma level the Florida Keys, flood many other areas, and leave millions without power. Against this backdrop, we learned that Equifax has been hacked leaving millions of Americans a good bit more vulnerable and, on a personal note, the hard drive on my computer crashed. In a big way. With unrecoverable data.

Not the best of times.

You know what though? Some inner voice or perhaps a “Godwink” (defined by Squire Rushnell as a “a message of reassurance from God” www.whengodwinks.com) kept pulling me back last week to the serene sunset photo of the sandhill cranes above. So I’d see some heart-wrenching pictures from Harvey and then for some reason, maybe later that day, I’d find myself pulling up the sandhill cranes photograph and feeling a little better. It brought anxious me back down a notch or two.

After viewing the photo from time to time for a few days, I think the larger message of the Bosque sandhill cranes experience finally sunk in. The sunset photo wasn’t just to calm me, it was to help me understand the bigger picture of these past two weeks, that being:

there will always be natural forces much bigger than any of us;
despite our best efforts, we cannot control them or even accurately predict what will happen;
there are patterns of behavior in nature — sandhill crane migrations and hurricane seasons – that will come and go;
accept this fact and stop worrying – God is in control;
there is typically a beautiful moment that follows chaos and uncertainty — a gorgeous sunset or people coming together to help others in need; and
God is always there to guide and comfort us, maybe even sending a “Godwink” along the way.

I’m glad I had the opportunity to go to Bosque Del Apache. Thanks for letting me share this bit of self-reflection with you.

August 10, 2017

Do you have a favorite photograph?

Here’s one of mine.

It was taken in March, 1953. The teacher had taken her class of kindergarten students to Kentucky’s Blue Grass Airport to watch the airplanes fly in and out. A photojournalist with the Lexington Herald took this picture as a feature for the newspaper.

Why is it one of my favorites? Because the teacher is my mother and it’s a great environmental portrait. My mother always loved children. Even when elderly and dementia prevented her from remembering familiar names or events, it was really not too surprising to walk into her room and find her singing or reciting a nursery rhyme to one or both of her very young great grandsons. So I like this photograph because Mom is surrounded by children and looking happy. It’s how I remember her looking at me as a child. And I think the photographer achieved what all great portrait photographers strive to achieve. He captured the essence or soul of his subject at that moment. For me, that renders this otherwise 1950’s era photograph timeless.

What else do I like about it? I like the leading lines of the fence and the kids hanging all over it. I like that the girls are closest to the teacher and smiling for the camera while the boys, for the most part, are climbing every which way at the end of the fence and just being boys. They’re a mess. I like the expressions on the girls’ faces and especially the shy grin on the girl closest to the camera. I like all the coats, hats, bobby socks, Oxford shoes and even my Mom’s shoes. I especially like that Mom is the only one pictured who is not wearing a hat, cap or scarf and her hair seems to be blowing freely in the wind. To me that’s symbolic of the relative freedom in her life at that time. Eight months later she would marry my dad and become a preacher’s wife. While many good things came of that, I think it’s fair to say her hair never blew quite as freely again.

Mom died in November 2014, but I still think of her often and always on August 10th. Today would be her 95th birthday. Yes, 95th. She was a little ahead of the curve in having a career first and then getting married and having children later in life. She was years ahead of Sheryl Sandberg who penned the bestseller Lean In. Look back at the photograph again. Mom is “leaning in.”

So … recently when attending a neighborhood happy hour social a new neighbor innocently asked, “What is your favorite photograph you’ve taken?” His question caught me off guard and all of a sudden I had that sinking feeling you get when you’re interviewing for a job and the interviewer asks you a wide open question just to see how you respond. It’s the “what’s your favorite book” question. After thinking about my neighbor’s question for a minute, I answered, “I really can’t say there’s one photograph I’ve taken that I like more than all the rest. Usually I have a group of favorites from each shoot, but there’s not one over-arching photograph I like better than all the rest.” He seemed disappointed and we moved on to other subjects.

I’ve been thinking about my neighbor’s question and my response from time to time since. In hindsight, I should have added, “but while I don’t have an all-time favorite photograph I’ve taken, I do have some favorite photographs – some I have taken and some others have taken. One of my favorite photographs is of my mother who I loved very much. One day in March 1953, a photojournalist I will never know took her picture …”

Do you have a favorite photograph? I ask only because I’ve learned it’s worth taking a little time to think about.