Nashville – Page 2 – Mary Rice's blog

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.

October 2, 2017October 3, 2017

a little cloud therapy

Oh, America. We’re living in some challenging times.

Last night, Las Vegas experienced the deadliest mass shooting in American history. Puerto Rico, hit by two hurricanes in 10 days, is in critical need. East Texas and Florida are still recovering from devastation wrought by Hurricane Irma. Unpredictable and inexperienced world leaders control nuclear weapons. Cyber security has become an oxymoron. Tempers are flaring, divisions are widening, racial tensions are rising, and statements seem to have replaced respect when it comes to observing the national anthem and receiving a gift of Dr. Seuss books.

So what’s a fitting blog post from a photographer? I’m not really sure, but I think we — all of us — need to pause, take a few deep breaths and begin the process of healing. Look for those things that unite instead of divide or incite us.

Perhaps today’s topic should simply be clouds. Innocent, fleeting, ethereal clouds. Clouds which force us to look up and be hopeful. Clouds which rekindle our childlike curiosity and wonder. Clouds which have inspired artists for centuries and recently me when attending “Thin Air,” Catherine Erb’s exhibit of clouds at the David Lusk Gallery in Nashville.

So here we go, with a little cloud therapy.

Remember as a child looking up at the sky and imagining the various white puffy cumulus clouds to be a whale or a duck or something else familiar to you? And as you grew a little older, you started discovering the rich colorful palettes of a sunrise or sunset? What about all those other times in between when you just happened to look up and notice a quiet or bold beautiful patch of clouds in the sky? How did that make you feel?

Recently I’ve been reading the poetry of Pulitzer Prize winning poet Mary Oliver. From her collection of poems titled Evidence (Beacon Press 2009), in a poem titled “To Begin With, the Sweet Grass,” she writes:

… I have become a child of the clouds, and of hope. I have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is. I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned, I have become younger …

And from her poem titled “It Was Early:”

Sometimes I need only to stand wherever I am to be blessed.

I love that line.

Now consider this sentiment from Charles M. Schulz, the creator of the Peanuts comic strip, who introduced us to Snoopy and Lucy and Charlie Brown:

Aren’t the clouds beautiful? I could lie here all day, and watch them drift by.

Me too.

But I can’t, and chances are you can’t, but we can perhaps now, just for a little while.

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Feel a little better?

I think when we look up and see eye-catching or beautiful clouds in the sky, we should make the most of that moment. After all, the sky will never have looked quite that way in the past nor will it ever look quite that way in the future. It’s the present — both “the now” and a gift — which we then hold. And I think wherever we stand (or whatever we stand for), we should consider that moment not only a gift, but as Mary Oliver says, a blessing.

Thanks for blessing me with your presence today. I’m looking forward to a busy but beautiful month of pleasing fall color.

August 19, 2017

Will Photography Eclipse Your One Time Viewing Experience?

There’s a great line in the movie The Secret Life of Walter Mitty when Mitty (played by Ben Stiller) has caught up with Sean O’Connell, acting the part of a highly regarded Life Magazine photographer who finally has a clean shot of the elusive leopard he’s been chasing. Although the “ghost cat” is in full view and O’Connell is “camera ready,” he fails to take its picture. Mitty sees the leopard and O’Connell’s inaction and finally turns to him and asks impatiently, “When are you going to take it?” O’Connell answers calmly, “Sometimes I don’t. If I like a moment, for me, personally, I don’t like to have the distraction of the camera.”

So Nashville is on the arc of the eclipse and it seems everyone under the sun (no pun intended) is flocking here to view the eclipse on Monday. Along with that has come inflated prices on airfare and hotel rooms, a healthy supply of eclipse T-shirts, a shrinking supply of the special ISO marked viewing glasses, and hundreds of tutorials on how to safely view and photograph the eclipse.

But just as O’Connell’s character chose not to photograph his prized “ghost cat,” I’m not planning to photograph the eclipse. I mean – it’s only going to happen once in my lifetime. Do I want “the distraction of the camera” (and in this case also the tripod, cable release and flashlight) or should I instead “sit back and experience the moment?” I think the latter.

I learned the “experience the moment” lesson the hard way several years ago when my daughter was taking dance. When she joined her studio’s competitive dance team, I photographed her performances regularly. Then one day, her dance teacher met me in the back dressing room after a competition had ended and with tremendous excitement exuding from every part of her being she asked, “did you see her jump, did you see that split jump?” I looked blankly back at her and couldn’t honestly answer. Apparently I hadn’t, at least not as she had, because I was too busy shooting. So I looked back through my images to see if I had captured it. I had, but I also then realized that in getting the photograph, I had missed the much more meaningful proud parent moment – you know, the kind that takes your breath away as you watch it unfold. And while I could always look back at my photograph, I could never get that moment back again.

I continued to take dance photographs after that competition, but more and more I came to rely on a friend to take the pictures. Hers were great, there was no need for us both to be shooting the exact same thing at the same time, and it allowed me to enjoy the thrill of my daughter dancing and then share that excitement with her right after the performance, much as her teacher had done with me that day.

This eclipse on Monday … is it more important to you to photograph it and own a version of one of the many duplicative photographs we’ll see posted all over social media in the days following or are you willing to pause and let the moment take your breath away?

You know, you can make a decent facsimile of the eclipse in Photoshop like I did above in only a couple of minutes … and if the actual eclipse doesn’t look exactly like it does above, I bet I can tweak my facsimile pretty quickly to make it mirror the photographs.

This past week was a little stormy so the thought of a calm day with a wondrous view in the sky will be a refreshing and welcome change. Here’s hoping for clear skies on Monday, for those of us viewing the eclipse and for everyone in the world really.