Dry Spell

 September has been a bad month for my photo-mojo.  I've only taken a few photos, and posted fewer.  Oh well, I've been taking pictures for a long time, this is far from my longest dry spell.  Longest in a while, though.  No excuses, just haven't been feeling it.

Maybe this little shot will kick start my muse.  Just a cell phone shot, processed on the iPad.  But I kinda like it. thanks for hanging in there, those of you who have!

One of the crosswalks in downtown Edwardsville, IL.  It was just starting to rain, and I saw these ladies crossing Main Street.  

September 1972 on the Music Charts

 Moving into the last third of 1973, the continuing series of hits -of-the-month, moving to September1972.  Fifty years ago (Yikes!)

There were 5 weeks in September of 1972, and there were 60 songs that spent time in the Top 40.  That's a tick up from the past couple of months, for what it's worth. And over those 5 weeks, there were 3 songs that topped the charts: Gilbert O'Sullivan's  "Alone Again, Naturally" rebounded to #1, after ending August with a week at #2.   It spent 6 weeks total at the top1.  matching Roberta Flack and "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" which was #1 for 6 consecutive weeks in April and May.  Three Dog Night took over the #1 spot for 1 week, with "Black And White", and "Baby Don't Get Hooked On Me" by Mac Davis topped the last 2 weeks.

Here's the top 10 songs (11 with a tie) of the month, ranked by average chart position over the 5 weeks of the month. 

• Baby Don't Get Hooked On Me - Mac Davis - 2.8
• Black And White - Three Dog Night - 5.6
• Alone Again (Naturally) - Gilbert O'Sullivan - 5.6
• Back Stabbers - The O'Jays - 5.8
• Saturday In The Park - Chicago - 7
• Go All The Way - Raspberries - 12.6
• Rock And Roll Part 2 - Gary Glitter - 12.6
• Honkey Cat - Elton John - 14
• Long Cool Woman (In A Black Dress) - The Hollies - 14.2
• Brandy (You're A Fine Girl) - Looking Glass - 14.6

Very solid Top 10 this month, I have 9 of the 10 in my collection.

Meanwhile, Twenty-Four (24) songs made their Top 40 debut. Here they are, ranked by debut chart position:

• My Ding-A-Ling - Chuck Berry - 31
• Everybody Plays The Fool - The Main Ingredient - 32
• Ben - Michael Jackson - 32
• Play Me - Neil Diamond - 33
• Use me - Bill Withers - 33
• Garden Party - Rick Nelson And The Stone Canyon Band - 33
• Tight Rope - Leon Russell - 34
• Thunder And Lightnin - Chi Coltrane - 34
• Speak To The Sky - Rick Springfield - 35
• Witchy Woman - Eagles - 35
• The City Of New Orleans - Arlo Guthrie - 36
• Freddie's Dead (Theme From "Superfly") - Curtis Mayfield - 36
• Get On The Good Foot-Part 1 - James Brown - 37
• Starting All Over Again - Mel And Tim - 37
• Listen To The Music - The Doobie Brothers - 37
• If I Could Reach You - The 5th Dimension - 37
• Why/Lonely Boy - Donny Osmond - 38
• If You Leave Me Tonight I'll Cry - Jerry Wallace - 38
• Don't Ever Be Lonely - Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose - 38
• Nights In White Satin - The Moody Blues - 39
• You Wear It Well - Rod Stewart - 39
• Burning Love - Elvis Presley - 40
• Easy Livin' - Uriah Heep - 40
• Good Time Charlie's Got The Blues - Danny O'Keefe - 40

The Museum Of Me - 001

 We spent some time this weekend cleaning the basement, trying hard to be ruthless and purge decades of accumulation.  One of the hazards of living in one house for 33 years, I suppose

Anyway, I came across some old Major Matt Mason toys.  Major Matt Mason was a toy linein the late 60's, smallish "action figures" (don't say dolls!) with a space theme.  And my brother and I had pretty big collections.  Many years ago, when cleaning out my parents' house we found all the old "MMM" stuff, and sold most of it on eBay (back when eBay was fun!).  Some of it drew pretty big dollars,

Anyway, in this weekend's cleaning I found a few pieces that didn't get sold back then, and have been in our basement for probably 20 years.  Here's some photos which I sent to my brother.  None of this is museum quality, a;; of it was well used by my 7 or 8 year old self.Here's the pics, a glimpse into my youthL

Major Matt Mason, and his Jetpack

The Astro-Trac

Some sort of vehicle, couldn't find a name

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"Museum Of Me" is a cool concept, borrowed from a song by Savory Flakes.  Check 'em out on Bandcamp!

BetterPhoto Winners, July 2022

 Well...  no winners this month.  I've had a good run, 5 month in a row with 2nd place winners.  I have no gripes, I tend to struggle in July (and August)., and have been struggling with my photo-mojo recently.  It'll came around, though.

I did have 3x photo make "Finalist", shown below:

Check out the Better Photo winners here:

Grass growing on a fallen tree

 

Almost, but not quite...  I was feeling pretty good about this one when I spapped the shutter...  But once I pulled it up on the computer, it just didn't quite make it.  Oh, I think it;s OK, but just OK.  O think the muck in the water distracts from the scene, it would've been better if the water was clear.  But you take what you're given and try to make the most of it.

There's acyually quite a lot of post processing here, more than I'd normally use.  The last but was sort of happenstance.  I had processed, and saved the image, and was posting to Instagram.  I was resetting for 1:1 sizing (in instagram), and mis-clicked 16:9 ratio.  And I decided I liked that a lot better.  So I went back to Photoshop (Elements) and re-cropped to 16:9.  

Anywat, what do YOU think?  Is it garbage, a secret masterpiece, or just "meh"?  Let me know in the comments.

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And, here's the original straight Out Of Camera (SOOC) version.