Waiting For Winter, Coincidentally

I was looking through the photos on my phone the other day, and came across one from late November 2018.  Taken at Cliff Cave Park over near Arnold, MO.  Coincidentally, I had been in Arnold earlier this week for work, and had stopped by Cliff Cave Park.

Now, the photo on my phone was unprocessed, I did some magic with snapseed.  Here's the original.

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Meanwhile, after I posted this, I got to wondering about what I did post that day last year.  I'ts easy enough to check.  So the image I posted was taken with my Nikon P340 compact digital camera (RIP).  The vantage was pretty close to the middle of this photo.  And processed remarkably similarly.  And named the same (thus the coincidence)!  Here 't'is:

Red Tailed Hawk

He (She?) was kind enough to pose for me before flying off.

Check out the Mike Cross song:  Red Tailed Hawk.

Like a Red Tailed Hawk, I would dance upon the wind

I would sail along with the spirits of my kin

I would glide loop and dive as I flew across the land

Like a red tailed hawk I would would fly through the sky

Free again

Mellow Yellow

Along one of the trails at SIUE...  Just a little strolling before commitments....

Fly Me To The Moon

I was leaving the local park at sunset today, and noticed this jet headed towards the moon. I couldn't resist!

Full disclosure: The moon is about 240,000 miles from the earth. The jet isn't really headed towards the moon, it's an optical illusion. It was likely leaving St. Louis airport which is about 20 miles west of this spot. I doubt is was more than 2-3 miles high...

Quite a bit of noise, but the light was fading fast.

Fly Me To Moon is, of course Sinatra

Frosty

Welcome to November!

This is straight out of camera, from my iPhone.

Makes me think of a cold morning, perhaps at a campsite along a mountain stream. Perhaps getting ready to canoe, or fish. But it's just some landscaping rock in the parking lot where I work. Hopefully nobody saw me down on my knees being creative!

Incidentally, the title "Frosty", besides defining the weather this morning, is from the old Gatemouth Brown song. Which is NOT about the snowman!
Frosty

Run Boy Run

Check out the new single from Mikayla Joy;  Run Boy Run.  It's just a little outside my normal stylings, but it's good stuff:

Full disclosure, I know Mikayla, she's part of the Praise Band at our church.  Granted, I stepped back from PB about a year ago, but and I played with her (and her husband) pretty much very week before that...  And I've been stepping back in lately, on a limited basis.  Which doesn't have anything to do with this song, of course. 

Anyway, as I noted before, it's good stuff, and worth a listen.

Youtube

Spotify

Locust Creek Covered Bridge

A couple of weeks ago the wife and I took a weekend jaunt.  From St. Louis over to KC, and then wandering back (via Hannibal, MO).  A "Quilt shops and Photo Ops" excursion. 

On the Eastbound drive, Driving across Missouri on Rt 36, we saw a brown sign" for Locust Creek Covered Bridge. A short drive off the highway, and a short walk later, we found this cool old covered bridge.  The bridge was built in 1868, and is apparently the longest of Missouri's four remaining covered bridges. These days, not only has the road moved, but also the creek, so it provides a walkway across a dry depression. Still cool.  History here.

I took this photo with my iPhone, mostly to get gps coordinates.  But I decided to play with this version using the processing tools on my phone, and was happy with the result.  Mostly the free ap Snapseed.  There's actually quite a bit of tweaking, trying to get an "old time" feel.

Here's the original "SOOC" version, for comparison, complete with finger edging into the top-left corner:

I entered this into the ETSOOI contest at 365project, and it made finalist.  Yay!

There's battle lines being drawn...

"There's battle lines being drawn, Nobody's right if everybody's wrong"

For What It's Worth

Buffalo Springfield (Stephen Stills)

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Happenstance Photography - Top Images of 2014

Time for something a little different.  I was looking back over the past few years at my Happenstance Photography blog, adn decided to see what my Top viewed photos have been year by year.  Pretty easy, I just copy-pasted from the stats page to Excel, and sorted by views.  I'll go with the Top 5, + ties.

So, to start, here are the most popular posts from 2014, sorted by most view to least.

Abstract #8683

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St. Mary's Cross, Joplin, MO

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In The Mountains

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Mud Cave #2

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Mission Trip 2014 - Joplin Promise

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Abandoned speedramp

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There you have it.  Not necessarily my favorites (but could be!), nor my "best"...  just most popular.  Check back in 2 weeks for 2015!

Hard Times (Trouble and Strife)

Taken along one of the hiking trails at Pere Marquette State Park.  Seek says this is Virginia Creeper.  And I believe it!

Meanwhile, the photo is a little bit of a disappointment (to me).  I really wanted very sharp focus over the leaves, then off to the blurred background.  And it's close.  But the nearest parts are a little soft.  Blame it on me leaving the tripod (and the mono pod) in the car.  This is 1/30th second, hand held, f5.6.  That's about as slow as I can go (handheld).

Story of my life.

This Way Or That?

So...  last weekend our Church had a Fall-Festival a little outside town.  Nice place out in the Southern Illinois Farmlands, with a lake.  Hayrides, s'mores ny the fire pit, fishing...  good times.

It had been a nice day, and despite potential for some rain, it stayed dry.  BUT, around 5pm, we did get clouds rolling in, which provided some photo ops.  I had my "real" camera in the car, but decided the wide angle of the iPhone would better suit what I was envisioning.  So, here's my (original) take:

I'm a sucker for these kinds of "big sky" shots, as regular visitors probably know.And I do like this one...  better in color than monochrome, with that yellow color along the horizon.  I processed this in the phone, using snapseed.  Anyway, all's happy, I got my shot, time to move on.  Right?


Well, maybe not.  just a couple of minutes later (3, by the time tags), I decided to do a landscape version of the same scene.  I didn't even look at it for a couple of days, but when I did, I rather liked it, too!

In this version, the "star" of the show is the shoreline.  The contrast between the clouds and reflections certainly comes in.  And again, the muted colors along the horizon.

I posted the first (portrait orientation) photo to 365project that day.  And the second (landscape orientation) a couple of days later.  Both versions received their "popular" and "trending" designations.  Which is pretty cool.

If there's a point here, I guess it is that you should keep looking at a scene, keep wondering.  And try different takes.

So, do you have a preference?

Downed

Silver Lake Park in Highland, Illinois. It's been almost 14 years since I worked in Highland, but when I did, Silver Lake Park was a regular lunch time spot.  Not long ago I decided to swing by, even though it's a bit out of the way these days.

ACC -107 - Moving On Faith - Something You Will Never Forget

Trying to catch up on my entries to the Album Cover Challenge over at 365project.  I'm behind, this is from ACC-107, ACC-110 is already running (and I've entered).   Anyway, this is one of my favorite challenges over there, as it combines two of my passions:  Photography and music.  Yee-Haw!  Details on the challenge here.  The challeneg has been run 11 times in 2019, I've entered 8, and received 6 finalists.  No wins, though.  This entry, for ACC-107 didn't make finalist (sad face)...

Anyway, my randomly generated band name was : Moving On Faith

And my randomly generated album name was "Something you will never forget" from the quote: "The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget."

I like the graphic feel of this, but not the greatest Band/Album.  That's how random works sometimes.


Check out all of my album cover challenge entries here.

Full Serve

Old gas / service station, on the north west side of Paducah, KY.  I'm a sucker for old buildings, but that should be evident to regulars here.  This is the "13th Street Station", according to the sign (not in this photo), but that's generic enough that Google didn't find anything.

Here's a snip from Google Streetview, click to expand...

Album Review - Rossington Band

Wow...  so all of a sudden it has been 6 months since I've done an album review.  Time flies.  This one has been sitting in my "pending" bin for a rather long time, guess I should clean it up and get it out.  It's a long one, though.

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The band Lynyrd Skynyrd was  of the top rock acts of the mid-to-late 70's.  From 1973's debut, with the iconic Freebird, to 1976's live album, "One More From the Road".  They released 4 studio albums in just over 3 years, with non-stop touring in between.  I saw them twice in 1976, and they were outstanding.  After a short break of 1 year, they released "Street Survivors" and embarked on the next massive tour.  But, as any rock aficionado knows, three days into the tour, their plane crashed, killing 6 people, including leader, lyricist and singer Ronnie Van Zant.   And functionally killing Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Two and a half years later, (1980) most of the survivors would rise again, under the banner Rossington Collins Band.  This included almost all of the surviving members of Lynyrd Skynyrd, (except drummer Artimus Pyle), with a new lead singer (Dale Krantz), a new 3rd guitar player and a new drummer,   I remember eagerly picking up the album, and then seeing RCB in concert 3.5 weeks after it came out.  RCB would put out 2 albums, both pretty good, but clearly missed the lyrics of Ronnie Van Zant.   But that's not what I'm here to talk about.

After the Rise and fall of Lynyrd Skynyrd, and after the rise and fall of Rossington Collins Band, most of the survivors (except Gary Rossington and Dale Krantz) formed the Allen Collins Band, which released a single album (in 1983).  But that's not what I want to talk about, either.

A couple of years after the demise of Allen Collins Band, Rossington and Krantz (now married) formed The Rossington Band.  They released two albums, 1986's "Returned to the Scene of the Crime", and 1988's "Love Your Man".

Which is a long road to the album I want to talk about today.

Despite owning every release from the original Lynyrd Skynyrd, both RCB albums and ACB's release, I wasn't even aware of The Rossington Band until the last few years, when I found 1 song on the compilation "Solo Flytes" (which was released in 1999).  That album included The Rossington Band's "Welcome Me Home", which is really quite good.  An easy 4 out of 5 stars.

Fast forward to 2019, and an excursion to one of my area's used record stores.  And I came across The Rossington Band's album "Love Your Man", which includes Welcome Me Home.  Of course I had to jump.

So let's get to it:

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Artist:  The Rossington Band
Album:  Love Your Man
Released: 1988
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This is a pretty good album overall.  It is a bit of a product of It's time (1988), which can make it sound a little dated.  Pretty highly produced, rather "slick".  Especially the use of synthesizers,  Sometimes subtle, more often in the front, but more Van Halen-Jump than Lynyrd Skynyrd-Freebird.   The sound often reminds me of mid-80's Heart, or even Starship...

Besides Rossington and Krantz, the album doesn't feature anybody I'm familiar with.  Jay Johnson (Guitar), Mitch Rigel (Drums), Tim Lindsey (Bass), Tim Sharpton (Keyboards), Ronnie Eades (Saxophone).  All very competent.  Oh yeah, and they have a Sax player.

Best songs:  Welcome Me Home, Losin' Control, Love Your Man (the most reminiscent of RCB), Rock On

Anyway, some of this is pretty good, none of it stinks.  Overall, I'd rand this below RCB's first album, but a smidge above their second one.  And all of those behind Allen Collins Band.  I do think it would be better if it wasn't so mid-80s sounding.

Worth having, especially from a used record bin.

you can see all of my album reviews by clicking on the tag albumreviews.  Or click here.