Giving Thanks

 Happy Thanksgiving to all! Hope everyone has a great day!

Kind of nice to be home this year, for a change. Of course we were supposed to be in Pittsburgh, but a sick dog scrapped that plan. We've been on the road 7 of the previous Thanksgivings, following family: Raleigh NC, Pittsburgh PA, Atlanta GA, Sanford FL, Winston Salem NC, Springfield IL, Flagstaff AZ....

Here's a few Throwback photos for Thanksgiving Thursday:

Thanksgiving 11/22/2012, Flagstaff AZ (and surrounding area). We took a drive to Sedona on Thanksgiving day:

- - -

Thanksgiving 11/27/2014, Winston Salem, NC. Walking in the Moravian Cemetary at Old Salem, where several of my relatives are interred.

- - -

Thanksgiving 11/24/2016, Sanford, Florida. Old pier on Lake Monroe

- - -

Thanksgiving 11/23/2017, Alpharetta, GA. Not sure why, but I took a photo of our Thanksgiving Breakfast leftovers, in the hotel room:

- - -

Thanksgiving 11/22/2018, Pittsburgh, PA. The photo is from 11/23, the day after Thanksgiving. West End Bridge, across the Ohio River.

- - -

Thanksgiving 11/28/2019, We didn't travel in 2019, but did see Poco at the Wildey Theater the day after Thanksgiving:

- - -

Thanksgiving 11/26/2020, Raleigh, NC. The photo is from the day before Thanksgiving...

November 1971

 Winding down 1971, here's the penultimate edition of my ongoing series of reviewing the Top 40 songs from 50 years ago.  So what was November1971 like?

There were 4 weeks of November '71, and there were 57 songs that spent time in the Top 40. As usual, lots of great stuff, but a few that I'd thankfully forgotten.  Still,  1971 was a pretty outstanding year!

Over the 4 weeks in November '71, 2 songs topped the charts:  Cher's Gypsys, Tramps and Thieves was #1 over the first 2 weeks, and Isaac Hayes' Theme From Shaft was peak over the last 2 days.

Moving on:  Here's the top 10 songs of the month, ranked by average chart position over the 4 weeks of the month:

• Theme From Shaft - Isaac Hayes - 1.5
• Gypsys, Tramps and Thieves - Cher - 1.5
• Imagine - John Lennon - 4
• Maggie May - Rod Stewart - 6
• Peace Train - Cat Stevens - 7.25
• Have You Seen Her - The Chi-lites - 7.75
• Yo-Yo - The Osmonds - 9
• Baby I'm - A Want You - Bread - 10
• Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler) - Marvin Gaye - 13
• Superstar - Carpenters - 13.25

Nineteen (19) songs made their Top 40 debut, a couple of notable songs.  Here they are (listed by entering position):

• Family Affair - Sly and The Family Stone - 21
• Baby I'm - A Want You - Bread - 22
• Stones - Neil Diamond - 23
• Where Did Our Love Go - Donnie Elbert - 30
• Theme From "Summer Of '42" - Peter Nero - 31
• Superstar - The Temptations - 32
• All I Ever Need Is You - Sonny and Cher - 33
• Brand New Key - Melanie - 33
• Rock Steady - Aretha Franklin - 34
• You Are Everything - The Stylistics - 35
• Wild Night - Van Morrison - 36
• Respect Yourself - The Staple Singers - 37
• Scorpio - Dennis Coffey and The Detroit Guitar Band - 38
• (I Know) I'm Losing You - Rod Stewart With Faces - 38
• Got To Be There - Michael Jackson - 39
• She's All I Got - Freddie North - 39
• An Old Fashioned Love Song - Three Dog Night - 39
• I'd Love To Change The World - Ten Years After - 40
• Charity Ball - Fanny - 40

Current Cover, LawheadPhoto.com

 I've been trying to change out the cover image over at my Web Site.  And adding an article to the site with a little bit of backstory.  

Here's the text from the article:

Not quite a throwback, but an oldie, from November 2017. Back then (November2017) there was a thing floating around Facebook: a challenge to post 7 Days of black and white images.  The guidelines seem to vary but as presented to me: Seven days, seven black and white photos of your life. No people, no explanations. Well, that's pretty much right in my wheelhouse, so I was happy when my oldest daughter challenged me. I did add a couple of personal twists. All of the images were shot with my humble iPhone 7. All (well, 7 of 8) were processed on my iPhone. And all feature minimal adjustments. I spent the week in a B&W mood, even though it spanned a business trip to St. Paul, Minnesota. And this was actually NOT used as one of my 7 photos, but remains one of my favorites. You can see the 7 photos at my LsquaredImaging blog: 

I'm always interested in feedback on the web site, by the way.  Comment here, or there!

Fork

New cover photo at Lawheadphoto.com:

 One of the photo sites I frequent (365pjoject.org) does ongoing themes or challenges, which can be fun, and sometimes inspiring.  This was is the Mundane challenge, the goal to try to think of interesting ways to shoot what may otherwise be rather boring objects.  This round’s topic was “fork”.  Quite a challenge, for me, at least.  How to you take an interesting photo of a fork?  And have at least a tiny bit of originality… 

I ended up trying several close ups, focusing on the tines, and shadows…  Parallel lines in 2D, with curves…  Anyway, I didn’t hate what I came up with.  And Lo and Behold, it just won a 2nd Place badge at BetterPhoto.com, in September’s Contest (in the “Man Made” category).