With You

There’s a song on the current Pop charts that talks about how I feel when I’m with Sandy. One line in it says, “You’re like ‘Jordans’ on Saturday”. I had to chuckle when I first heard that lyric, because I “get” what he’s saying since I’m a big sneaker fan myself.

I originally took this image almost two years ago of my own pair of "Jordans" and posted it along with a writing about my interest in sneakers. Two weeks ago, I added the blurb to the photo and emailed it to my girl.

I just felt like posting this image again and talking about my love for Sandy. She’s much more than “Jordans on Saturday” though.

“Baby, you’re the best part of my day.”

Color Pot

I’m on an “archive” kick this week! I just keep finding older images of mine that have new life to them for me. So, I’m sharing another one with you.

Today at work, I happened to glance over at an image of myself that someone placed on a “Sonny’s BBQ” print-out poster that reads, “Worlds Biggest BBQ Lover”. I think the template originated from Sonny’s website and one of my loving co-workers placed an image of my face on it. This advertisement exists on my friend, David’s white board at the edge of his cubicle and has been there for at least two months…maybe more.

Anyway, I said all that to say this, the image of myself is from the trip I took to Boca Raton almost exactly two years ago for business…and a little bit of fun too. As I looked at my smiling face looking back at me, I thought about some of the prayers I was giving to God during that trip…and how He has been answering those prayers and proclamations lately!

Looking at the bright colors of this flower pot that I photographed outside of the Boca Raton Resort and thinking of what God was working in me back then and is doing right now, makes me feel really good.

Jet Stream

I captured this image of a Chevy Belair’s hood ornament, two and a half years ago at Old Town’s “Saturday Night Cruise” in Kissimmee, Florida.

I gave this image (and the one in my previous post) as a gift to my friend, Bryan, as a house warming present a couple years ago when he was still a Bachelor. The framed prints are now featured in Bryan’s “Man Cave”, an area of his house that his wife, Autumn, has agreed to let him display these more “masculine” images.

This is actually the second time I’ve posted this image, but the first time that it’s gotten it’s own post. It was featured with a few more of my “Auto Art” images the first time.

Fly Me To The Moon

Another image from my Old Town archives. I had posted a different view of this car a while ago, in a post entitled, “Come Fly With Me”. That particular image is one of my most favorite ones that I’ve captured of a classic automobile and this one is not far behind it.

This is a classic Ford Victoria. I love the shade of teal that graces the body of this car and the way that the hood ornament jet plane, in all it’s chrome glory, looks as though it’s getting ready to fly strait out of the earth's atmosphere.

One of the times that I was photographing the front of this car, an older woman walked up to me and said proudly, that she had a car like this when she was younger.

So many memories seem to be tied in with the automobiles that share our lives.

Green Machine

Here’s an image from my archives, taken three years ago this month. One of the many images I’ve captured at the classic car show at “Old Town” in Kissimmee, Florida.

I had thought about posting this image about a year ago, but never did. I decided to tonight.

A Chance Encounter

As the evening photo shoot at Lake Parker began to near to a close, my Dad was photographing an egret on the banks of the lake. About 60 yards away from where he was shooting, was a concrete dock that I had ventured out on to take in the peaceful view of the massive body of water. The air was cool and crisp and there were only a few small waterfowl in sight. There weren’t many humans in sight either, except for Dad and I.

As I stood there, looking out on all the glorious nature in front of me, I began to pray under my breath to God. I was thinking of all that He has been doing in my life and all that He has given me. I began to tell Him of how He was the “Master Creator and Artist”. “The Master Writer of True Stories”, for He has been writing my story and I asked Him to continue to do that. Little did I know that God was about to write something very surprising into the script of this particular evening for Dad and I.

It wasn’t long until my Dad finished photographing the egret and we started the journey back across the park to our vehicle. Not far into our walk, we began to hear a man shouting something. At first, I didn’t think that he could be shouting at us, but then I noticed his hand motions to get our attention. We soon realized that he was saying, “Hey, there’s an eagle over here!” He kept on repeating this and waving his hands like a mad man at us while hiding behind a tree. As we approached (with caution), the man kept on saying, “Do you see it? It’s right over there!” I was beginning to really wonder if this guy, who was around my age, was crazy. We soon noticed a bird on the ground though, behind some trees in front of the lake, about 20 feet from where the man was standing behind his tree. His “eagle”, was actually an “osprey”, as my Dad quickly realized and pointed out.

As we came up on the scene, we readied our camera’s and began shooting this rare sight. The osprey was just sitting on the ground on top of some nesting material. After a couple shots, I moved in about five more feet. Then, I decided to get a different angle and went around the trees to the opposite side of the osprey. At first, I was 15 feet away…then 12...then I laid down on the ground about 7 feet away to get an even better angle of this raptor. My Dad was still firing with his camera on the opposite side of the bird, about 20 feet away. Soon, I carefully got back up from the ground and began to make my way in front of the bird, placing me about 6 feet away from him. Before I could get a shot off though, I saw his massive wings begin to spread open. Upon seeing this…I ran, for fear that I was about to be attacked by an osprey at Lake Parker. As I passed by my Dad, I heard him say, “it’s ok, he’s flying the other way”. With this action, the male osprey was saying, “enough is enough” and took to the skies, leaving his nesting material behind.

My Dad then said, “at least we now know he wasn’t injured”. We thanked the man who had gotten our attention after seeing us with our cameras. He knew that he was probably going to look crazy, but he took that chance anyway. We were glad he did. As we headed back to the car, we knew that we had shared a very special moment that night. Why the osprey sat there so long while we photographed him is beyond us, but it wasn’t long until I remembered what I had said to God moments before that event; He is “The Master Writer of True Stories”.

He wrote a good one for us that night.


…you can see my Dad’s side of this story by visiting his photo blog, “Country Captures“.

Reflecting Ibis

As my Dad and I continued our photographic journey along the banks of Lake Parker, we came upon this white ibis. When I saw it’s head turn to the right, I knew I had a chance to make an interesting photograph. “Click”. I was pleased with what I had captured…another one of my favorite images from that evening.

Watchers of the Lake

Readers of my Dad’s photo blog will know that him and my Mom were down to Florida recently to visit me. I had taken three days off work to spend with them and we all had a wonderful time.

Dad ventured to Lake Parker a couple of times to photograph birds and I accompanied him on two of those outings. It was on our last visit to the lake that I captured my personal favorite images from those adventures. Above is one of them.

It wasn’t long after Dad and I left the parking lot and started over a foot bridge that we came upon this scene. We quickly and quietly set up our positions and began to fire away at these three friends.

They are wood storks, and to me, they look like something out of pre-history. What drew me to this shot was the formation that they were standing in and the reflections that they were casting on the water beneath.

I loved what I was seeing…I hope you enjoy it now too.