Ahhh, SWEET WILDERNESS...Sour Stomach, but Sweet Wilderness

Nothing like having breakfast outside on a camping trip...unless you get food poisoning. You're a long way from medical attention out in the woods. You better make sure to NOT put mayo on anything before you leave home.

As to what's going on here? I'd say these folks are not paying attention to the family member writhing next to the tent. Did he eat something gone bad? Is the woman in the foreground smelling the bread thinking, "Oh geez, this is gone bad. Wonder if anyone has noticed."
Click on the top image to see it larger.

 This is my submission this week for Sepia Saturday. Just hang the sign on my door "Gone Camping!"

And no idea why the second photo is green. The original isn't. The one uploaded isn't. But then this page has been a nightmare to create. 
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Tattered and Lost volumes 1 to 9 available at Amazon.

A PICNIC Would Be Nice

A few weeks of dealing with caregiver things followed by three days in Humboldt County for the Kinetic Sculpture Race has me a bit tired.

I could use a nice quiet picnic by a stream. But this shot has me curious. Who took the photo? Was there a fifth person at the picnic or was there another couple and one of them didn't want to appear in the photo without their partner? It's a thought that often crosses my mind when I find a group snapshot with an even amount of people in the shot. I seriously doubt that it was someone walking down the stream who said, "Hey, want me to take your picture?" And most blessed is that it's not a selfie.

Click on image to see it larger.

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Tattered and Lost volumes 1 to 7 available at Amazon.

On a SUMMER DAY…A Picnic Outside Grandma's Trailer Might Be Nice

Yesterday, Labor Day, I held my annual BBQ for family and friends. It takes days to prepare the yard and the food. In the end it's always good fun. Today I've spent recovering.

I imagine these two boys were visiting the trailer their grandparents lived in. Were grandma and grandpa just visiting, soon to again hit the open two lane road? Or had they taken the wheels off and planted themselves in this location? I know that awning had to be a challenge to get up and down and you wouldn't want to do it night after night.

Can you guess where the photographer sat?


Click on image to see it larger.
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Available at Amazon:
Tattered and Lost: Cakes, Picnics, and Watermelon

On a SUMMER DAY…It Might Be Nice to Eat Watermelon Standing Up

Stop mowing the lawn and eat some cool refreshing sweet watermelon. The grass will still be there when you're done and it won't have grown much. Take the time to enjoy a few moments with family and friends. Sometimes work can wait.


Click on image to see it larger.

You can see in this shot that we have two seed pickers on the left. The other three either don't care about the seeds and simply swallow them or are faster pickers.

Of course, here in California my lawn is a thing of the past. It is dead and parched. Some of it will grow back if we get rain this winter, but if not it's not something I'm going to need to mow. So it's full on watermelon time!
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Available at Amazon:
Tattered and Lost: Cakes, Picnics, and Watermelon

On a SUMMER DAY…You Might Cross from One Season to Another

For those of us in the US this weekend we celebrate Labor Day. The first Monday of every September is a national holiday. Sadly we've strayed from the initial intent. Instead of celebrating the hard workers who built this country we now celebrate ostentatious wealth and the handful of people who now pull all the strings.

Shouldn't businesses be closed on such a holiday allowing workers to actually spend some time with family? Apparently not since the newspapers are filled with advertising for Labor Day sales.

So here's to the folks who must work next Monday, many at minimum wage. I'm sure they'd rather spend the day with family and friends having a picnic in the shade of a big tree along a gently flowing river.


Click on image to see it larger.

Labor Day is also an unofficial bridge between summer and fall. Though technically summer doesn't end until later in September, the Labor Day holiday is always the last hurrah. Kids are back to school, workers are remembering their summer vacations, and Christmas decorations start showing up in stores. Wait, I think Christmas decorations started a few months ago.

This is my submission for this weeks Sepia Saturday theme, bridges.
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Available at Amazon:
Tattered and Lost: Cakes, Picnics, and Watermelon

CATEGORIES: Picnics

While so much of this country is in subzero temperatures, we have picnic weather. And actually, I'm sad to even say that. So far winter has mostly missed us and that's not a good thing. A few rain storms have made me feel a little bit better about my well, but I know that the drought has been here for years and will probably remain for many more.

But hey, it's nice outside each day. Picnic weather!



Picnics is actually a category in one of my books, Tattered and Lost: Cakes, Picnics, and Watermelon. The idea behind the category is the sharing of food on special and not so special occasions. This photo, recently purchased for 25 cents, is not in the book.
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Available at Amazon 
Tattered and Lost: The Quiet Art of Reading

GRANNY in the flesh on Thanksgiving

It's just one meal on one day out of a whole year. Get along.

I think the young fella might be wondering how he ended up dining with Granny from the Tweety Bird and Sylvester cartoons.


Click on image to see it larger. From the book Tattered and Lost: Cakes, Picnics, and Watermelon

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Click here to visit the Tattered and Lost page at Amazon 

to find the perfect gifts for those hard to buy for friends.

Volume 6 will be for sale soon!

It was QUITE A SPREAD!

Memorial Day, a day of remembrance. At least once a year I remember the two teenagers from high school who died in Vietnam. I don't know if there were others, but I'm still haunted by the one boy who always sat in front of me alphabetically.

But for most people, Memorial Day is the unofficial day of summer…and sales. I hate the sales part. I hate that stores are open on holidays. It's just wrong. We can stop shopping once in awhile and spend time with family and friends and not our credit cards.

What better way to spend the day than with a picnic of homemade food?


Click on image to see it larger.

Oh sure, it was easier to get the store-bought bread. And there was something enticing about that puffy white stuff that came in a bag. I wonder if "Favorite Bread" is still made?

It looks like everything else was homemade. I wonder what percentage of food on a picnic table today is homemade?


Click on image to see it larger.

The GHOSTLY PICNIC

This real photo post card is one of my favorite images from my collection. A mistaken double exposure or a purposeful shot? It is a ghostly picnic.

Click on image to see it larger.

I always think of act three from Thorton Wilder's play Our Town when I look at it.

The Stage Manager opens the act with a lengthy monologue emphasizing eternity, and introduces us to the cemetery outside of town and the characters who died in the nine years since Act Two: Mrs Gibbs (pneumonia, while traveling), Wally Webb (burst appendix, while camping), Mrs Soames, and Simon Stimson (suicide by hanging), among others. We meet the undertaker, Joe Stoddard, and a young man Sam Craig who has returned home for his cousin's funeral. We learn that his cousin is Emily, who died giving birth to her and George's second child. The funeral ends and Emily emerges to join the dead. Then Mrs. Gibbs tells her that they must wait and forget the life that came before, but Emily refuses. Despite the warnings of Simon, Mrs. Soames, and Mrs. Gibbs, Emily decides to return to Earth to re-live just one day, her 12th birthday. She finally finds it too painful, and realizes just how much life should be valued, "every, every minute." Poignantly, she asks the Stage Manager whether anyone realizes life while they live it, and is told, "No. The saints and poets, maybe – they do some." She then returns to her grave, beside Mrs. Gibbs, watching impassively as George kneels weeping at her graveside. The Stage Manager concludes the play, reflecting on the probable lack of life beyond Earth, and wishes the audience a good night. (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

Did these young ladies and gentlemen mysteriously disappear following their gathering? Was there an accident? Perhaps a drowning from an overturned boat on the nearby lake? A vehicle overturned killing all aboard? Did they forever haunt the place where they last knew happiness together? We'll never know, but the image is certainly open to interpretation.

This is my Sepia Saturday contribution for the week.

THE LAST from Wyoming

As we leave our intrepid travelers in Wyoming in 1926 we have this last thought as we view one of the bear fondlers in all her glory. Had Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota not been started in 1927 we might have ended up with this as a famous rock sculpture in Wyoming.

Then again...

the rocks behind her look quite a bit like the rock monster from Galaxy Quest so maybe in the long run this woman was doomed from the start. Either the bear or the rocks got her.

When you GO OUT IN THE WOODS TODAY...

be sure to take along two huge makeup bags. If you're going to pet a bear's butt you want to make sure you're attractive when the coroner shows up.


Click on image to see it larger.



Taken before or after the bear butt petting?

To see the bear petting photo click here.

A picnic with some of the WYOMING TRAVELERS

Time for a picnic. Was this before or after petting the bear? The bear petter is second from the left. I don't see any hands. Could there be nothing but bloody stumps behind the thermos?


Click on image to see it larger.

More of the LOST "ART" of the Double Exposure

I found a site last night that purported to explain how to create double exposures. It was utter nonsense. It had nothing to do with a real double exposure and was nothing more than explaining how to do layers using photo editing software. Though many of the images were striking, they weren't double exposures. This sits in the craw of old timers like me. Don't use old terminology to explain something you're doing today that has no similar reference point.

Generally a real double exposure was an accident, but not always. Some people did successfully find ways to make film not advance or go back so that they could create a double exposure. They were still at the mercy of the camera and had no idea what they would get until they processed the negative and print.

double exposure  noun      the repeated exposure of a photographic plate or film to light, often producing ghost images.

• the photograph that results from such exposure.

Obviously this is not the same as placing layer after layer of images into one document in Photoshop where you're in control every step of the way.

Before computers you could play in the darkroom with multiple negs and create all sorts of wonderful images. I did it myself and recall an especially odd print of Mick Jagger with a fern sticking out of his nose. Oh to still have that odd print. And no, it wasn't a real photo of Mick. It was a shot I'd taken of an album cover and some tropical ferns in the backyard. I'm sure it was funnier at the time, thanks to the overwhelming smell of developing chemicals, than it would ever be if I saw it today. Best to keep it as a vague memory.

I continue to search for double exposures, but the pickin's now are pretty slim. I believe most people tossed them with disgust when they got their prints.

One of the joys in this category are ghost people. Don't believe in ghosts? Really? What more proof do you need?



This is the happiest group of ghosts I've ever seen. A ghosts day out at the lake. I believe they might have been institutionalized ghosts.

Have some double exposures you'd like to share or links to images? Let me know and I'll include them in this post. It's a category!

Here are a couple links to images I've posted in the past, including yesterdays post:

The LOST "ART" of the Double Exposure
DOUBLE EXPOSURE Rosa and Rodrique
CATEGORY and SUBCATEGORIES GALORE!

Here's a grouping at another site:
House of Mirth

And here are two submitted by online friends:

From Nancy at Nancy's Family History Blog

From Jim at DullToolDimBulb.

The LOST "ART" of the Double Exposure

It's sad to think that the surprise and mystery of double exposures will now be a thing of the past. No more surprises when you take your photos to the drug store for prints; you'll have already seen what you're going to get long before you have prints in hand. And henceforth, images that look like double exposures will simply be someone with Photoshop, or one of it's lesser imitators, using layers. Happenstance won't happen anymore.

I guess this is progress, though I will miss seeing the creations made when errors are in control.

Click on image to see it larger.

One of my favorites in my collection is of a group having a picnic. The double exposure is of the same folks standing on steps which overlays the picnic shot. You can see it in the slideshow to the left in the book Telling Stories.

Have some double exposures you'd like to share or links to images? Let me know and I'll include them in this post. It's a category!

Here are a couple links to images I've posted in the past:

DOUBLE EXPOSURE Rosa and Rodrique
CATEGORY and SUBCATEGORIES GALORE!

Here's a grouping at another site:
House of Mirth

From Nancy at Nancy's Family History Blog

From Jim at DullToolDimBulb.

YOU HAVE A CHOICE this holiday season

The holiday season is upon us. Dance and be merry! Or be like me and sit on a log and stare at some guys butt.

And so WE GATHER...

all around the table.

SUMMERTIME: Part 3

Summertime is a picnic on a lazy warm afternoon with family and friends.

Click on image to see it larger.

Tomorrow: bathing beauties

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I collect vernacular photography which I think of as photographs of the ordinary by the ordinary. Snapshots are my favorite, especially showing people involved with their surroundings and not lined up and posed.

There are people who believe collecting these photos is odd and a waste of time. Why collect something taken by an amateur of people you don't know? It has no value? Why not collect something with a pedigree?

The obvious answer for me is money. I can't afford photos by the greats, but I can afford these. But more important it's the challenge of searching through junk to find a jewel. An amateur snapshot that is as beautiful as many I've seen by professionals. And since I know nothing about the photographer who am I to say they were an amateur? Perhaps the photographer was a professional or it was just a very lucky shot by an amateur. Makes no difference to me. The shot is perfect.

Others might not agree with me and that's fine. It's my little gem and I have no idea if there are more copies floating around somewhere. This may be the only one in existence and I might be the first person to react this way to it. For awhile it was someone else's trash. Not anymore, at least not for now.

This is my contribution to this weeks Sepia Saturday. To see more summertime shots click here and here. More will be added over the next several days.