Twisty

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Decluttering with Jasper & Spot

I should come up with a better name for the cleaning I am constantly doing in my office (and every other corner of the house). It’s not spring, so it’s not really spring cleaning. Let’s call it what it is—decluttering. Constantly. I emptied out a canvas and wicker basket late this afternoon. Jasper, who never turns down an empty box or basket, claimed it as his nap bed for the rest of the evening. I only had one of my point-n-shoots ready, so the quality of this shot is questionable—but I love it anyway! He’s watching Spot, our “sea monster,” as my friend Debbi calls him/her (we still don’t know what gender this pleco is). What we do know is that he/she is huge—a little over a foot long now. Spot is sucking algae off the tank (plecos are primarily algae eaters). Check out my posting here about how we inherited Spot, the $500 free fish.

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Latest portraits: classical guitarist Charles Mokotoff

Charles Mokotoff is our next cover feature for the Hearing Loss Magazine. An IT specialist with NIH by day, he’s also a classical guitarist. Michael and I met him at the Hearing Loss Association of America headquarters in March. He performed for the HLAA staff and I did some studio shots for his upcoming feature article. He came by my studio earlier this week so we could get some additional images for the upcoming January/February 2010 issue. In exchange for these additional photos, he’s going to perform at our Tapas Potluck Party this coming weekend and we’re excited that we’re going to have live music! I also shot the photos on his website here. You can hear sample soundbites here.

I told my sister Debbie that if this works out well, I’m going to barter musical services from other artists for future parties. I’m thinking that, in exchange for some wonderful new head shots by me, Josh Groban can come sing something Italian for our annual Pesto Fest. As accordian-playing (and bizarre) comedian Judy Tenuta sarcastically says, “yeah, that could happen!”

Insert useless information here: During our Vegas-to-Kodachrome Basin-Bryce-Moab vacation many years ago, my cousin Bill and I were at a casino in Las Vegas. While we were waiting in line at a hotel restaurant, Judy Tenuta walked down a ramp right past us. I had only caught her act just a few times on tv, but I knew who she was immediately—the result of a photographic memory, I guess.

Hey Josh—have your people call my people!

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Piano stairs

Thanks to my friend, F.T., for sharing this video with me. Be sure to have your sound turned up!

A photo credit doesn’t pay the rent (much less buy me a measly 99 cent Taco Bell caramel apple empanada)

Thank you to Patty Hankins of Hankins-Lawrence Images for her photo-related links she just sent. I read with great interest an article titled, “A Photo Credit Doesn’t Pay the Rent,” by photographer Harrison McClary on the Black Star Rising website.

I do this more often than not—give away my photos for free. While I always appreciate fans of my work and am truly flattered they want to use my images, I rarely get offered anything in exchange. Can they not even spare $10, $20, or $25 to use an image? Even cheap (but good quality) stock sites such as Big Stock Photo or iStock Photo charge a few dollars for use of their images. This is merely an observation and it doesn’t usually bother me to the point of distraction—but after reading the posting and comments from other photographers, it got me to thinking about it in a different light. Photographers are often told, “We really love your image and want to use it, but we can’t pay you anything. (Even though we do profit from our newspaper/newsletter/magazine.) We’ll give you a credit line, though. And maybe a tearsheet for your portfolio. Plus, it’s free advertising for you!” While I wouldn’t ever knock free advertising, how much business will the Meat Cove Express generate for me? One must consider the publication. Is it worth the trade of a stellar image for a credit line and a tearsheet?

I liked Doug’s comment in particular: “Good work. The argument they give photographers is ridiculous if applied to any other business. I could never dream of walking into a car dealership and saying, “I like this car—if you give it to me for free, I’ll tell everyone that asks who gave it to me. It’ll be great advertising for your work!”

Heymo had it right when he wrote, “Couldn’t agree more. This ‘free publicity’ thing never worked for me. It only tells a potential client ‘hey, I’m cheap!’”

And my favorite comment was by Paul O’Mahony: “…a society that devalues the artist’s labor…when was it ever different? However, the only people who can devalue the artist’s work is the artist. No one can devalue your work—unless you let them. This view might not make you rich in money, but it protects the rest of your riches.” Well written, Paul!

From time to time, I get requests from painters who want to use my images as reference. I appreciate their compliments and the fact that they bothered to ask in the first place. I’m well aware that there are a great number who go ahead and do it without my permission—I’ll most likely never realize it. I never think to ask, “are you going to profit from the painting that results from using my photo as reference?” If so, don’t you think I should be compensated in some small way? Maybe enough to buy a cheap lunch? If not with money, why not barter your services (whatever they may be) in exchange for my images? Since I started this blog, a half dozen painters have asked permission to use a floral image as a painting reference. I agreed, with the only stipulation that they remember to send me a jpg or a link to view the final painting. Not one has remembered to do so. Is that asking too much?

I think a great majority of people in this point-n-shoot-saturated-world don’t think about what goes into creating work of this caliber. I’ve been shooting since high school, which was quite some time ago. I upgrade my equipment when needed. I own a plethora of really good Nikon glass—and if you know anything about Nikon, you’ll know they’re mighty proud of their glass and they attach exorbitant price tags to it to prove it. If you want optimum quality in your photos, you need great equipment. I constantly read about photography. I subscribe to several photography magazines. I have a nice collection of studio lighting videos. In my book library there are 100’s of tomes on the subject—everything from posing models to landscape photography to macro and garden photography to event and wedding photography to marketing your photography. You name the book, I probably have a copy in my library. I scour the web for inspiration and to see what others are doing with the subjects I love to shoot. I’ve gone to fee-based workshops to learn more. I’ve studied under other photographers and I am constantly striving to improve. I own countless CF cards, SD cards, flashes, reflectors, lenses, filters, camera and studio accessories, studio strobes, soft boxes, stands, barn doors, gel filters, backgrounds, props, makeup, clothing, jewelry, clamps, light boxes, etc. You name it—I probably have at least one. And now that I shoot exclusively digital (for the last seven+ years, at least), I own all the latest software required to process these images. The CS Suite doesn’t come cheap. I bought the first incarnation several years ago and now own all the upgrades up to CS4. Upgrades are running $300+. Occasionally I purchase Photoshop plugins online to infuse more creativity into certain images. At this point in time, I own two Mac G5’s (I’ve owned about 13 computers in the last 20 years of self-employment), a Mac laptop, several Wacom tablets, a monitor calibrator, two Nikon slide scanners, several Epson inkjet printers, a laser printer, flatbed scanners, card readers, and at least seven backup drives….not to mention all the graphic design software, fonts and clip art I have amassed. I’m sure I’m forgetting something that emptied my wallet. I pay annually for my zenfolio.com site and the other domains I own. I spend a good deal of time maintaining my blogs, both this one and the gardening-only blog. Both blogs are an intense labor of love and have brought me such joy and recognition of my work. Something/someone has to pay for all these books, workshops and equipment. “We can give you a credit line” falls kind of flat in light of the work and equipment that goes into creating these images, ya know?

I love being published. I don’t care if it’s the Meat Cove Express, the Podunk Times, the Upper Slovobia Ledger, the Hearing Loss Magazine, or the Washington Post. I love seeing “© Cindy Dyer” next to an image I’ve created. But, except for my Hearing Loss Magazine efforts, most of the images I’ve had published haven’t paid one single bill—or even bought me a burrito at Taco Bell—and they’re only 99 cents! I am a self-employed graphic design and photographer. I’ve been doing this on my own for 20 years this year. I am very passionate about my work and I love sharing it with others. I don’t want to discourage people from asking; I just wish that those who ask for more at least offer me either a small monetary reward or follow through when they say they’ll send tearsheets or show me a snapshot of their final painting or sketch. I don’t think that’s asking too much. If the request comes from an organization that charges for their newspaper/magazine/publication, then shouldn’t they pay for the components that make their publication great? If it’s an individual request from an artist who simply wants my image as an inspiration—that’s one thing. If it’s a for-profit organization, then photographers should receive some kind of compensation. Yes, even in this economic climate. A photo credit doesn’t cut it.

About a year ago, an editor/writer for the Patriot-Times Ledger in Connecticut asked if she could use one of my Osteospermum flower images in a garden column she was writing for the paper. She gushed over my work; my head swelled. She said I would get a credit line and samples of the newspaper. I all too happily obliged. A few months later, I e-mailed her to ask if I could get samples of final result and I never heard back from her. I e-mailed her twice. I took the time to respond to all of her e-mails and agreed to a no-pay situation. I located the high resolution image in my archives and prepared and uploaded it to her less than an hour after her request. She was the one who offered the credit line and samples. She never responded to my two requests for samples months after the supposed publication. How is that fair? At the very least, it was very unprofessional. I’ve since lost her contact information and can’t badger her to hold up her end of the bargain. You know you you are. I can state that I didn’t lose sleep over it, but here it is, over a year later—and it obviously still annoys me. I hope that it was a lesson learned. Maybe, maybe not. Time will tell.

This art form—my photography—is a huge creative outlet for me. It is one of the things I am most passionate about, and I truly believe that it shows in the work that I post. Photography is an essential part of who I am. I would say it even defines me. I am humbled and thrilled by the comments of my regular visitors and I try to remember to support the work of my fellow photography bloggers, too. I’ve encountered a few decent-paying assignments as a result of my efforts on my blogs. It would be nice to have more of those and I intend to actively pursue those opportunities. This doesn’t mean I won’t grant permission in the future for an artist to use my photos as reference or for some obscure newspaper writer to use my photos gratis in exchange for a credit line and samples. It doesn’t mean I won’t allow a worthy non-profit to use my images gratis to further their mission. I do hope, however, that if you do expect something for free, you honor your end of the agreement, whatever that encompasses. Try to compensate me financially, even if it is a pittance. If, in the end, you can only offer a credit line and a tearsheet…Give me the credit line, reproduce my work well, and send me those samples!

So there. Off my soapbox (for the time being) and off on some other adventure…

Reciting haiku to kittens

My friend Jeff just sent an e-mail that ended with something about how he “likes to recite haiku to kittens.” This prompted my response below:

Jeff,

Could you come over and read this to ZenaB and Jasper? The two of them are driving us crazy with their food switching. Most days we are sure they both love the stuff in the dark green can (chicken feast). Then they both decide, “nah, we don’t like the smell or texture of that today. Got somethin’ else?”

Then I open another can—”hey, yummmm…you guys love anything with gravy, right? You haven’t had chicken slices-n-gravy lately. Try this.” Then they say, “Ummm…ditch that one, too, Mom. Gravy? It’s overrated. What else ya got?” (insert twitchy tale action here)

“Oh, lum lum lum…how about this “Hunter Stew” thing with venison (oh, I’m so sorry, Bambi. Michael must have bought you without my approval)…Jasper, you love venison. Sunnovabitch, you won’t eat that either? Bambi died for you—show some respect, will ya?”

There are now seven (count ‘em) opened, partially eaten cans of cat food in the fridge. ZenaB used to eat anything that wasn’t fish. Jasper ate some things but always fish. Now she has noticed that when he looks up at us with that “surely you have something else to feed me—don’t you love me anymore?” look, he is presented five additional entrees until one appeals to him. Who says cats aren’t smart? Now she’s doing it! I’m going to put them in separate rooms when they eat.

Please come read any or all of the haiku below to ZenaB and Jasper for me. Maybe you can get through to them with your cat whispering skills. (Yes, I know I took liberties with the numbers of syllables).

Oh ZenaB and Jasper
You love chicken and gravy
Don’t turn your nose at me!

Do not look at me that way
I have opened five cans today
Okay then starve

One more can and that is all
oh so now you do like fish?
Do not just lick the gravy

Jasper look Hunter Stew
Oh Bambi died for you
Show some respect

I put the fresh can down
if I do not receive their gaze
I can pretend I got it right

What will I do with you
you most spoiled felines
cats are starving in India

_________________________________________

Cat Haiku Update: Jeff responded with:

I haiku, you haiku, we all haiku!

My words have inspired
Thoughts of food and felines
Finicky are they

_________________________________________

I read this after I had just set out two bowls for their dinner. I figured there was no way they wouldn’t eat what I put out this time. I opened three different cans and put a spoonful of each in the two bowls. Three choices, all laden with yummy gravy. I walked away as they inspected it, trying not to look back. I did look back and they both curled their lips and took two steps away from the bowl. I told ZenaB “eat it or else.” She began to eat. I walked off into the living room and then looked back to see who would emerge from the kitchen first. It was Jasper—walking toward me with a hopeful look. And since I am his servant, I went in, found something fishy (Trout Feast) and he gobbled it up. Cats. Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em.

Doughty family portraits

I photographed the Doughty family this summer at Green Spring Gardens in Alexandria, Virginia. Reed Doughty (#37) is a defensive player for the Washington Redskins and was profiled for the November/December 2008 issue of the Hearing Loss Magazine, published by the Hearing Loss Association of America. I design and produce the bimonthly magazine and also shoot many of the covers and features.

Reed is serving as the 2009 Honorary Chair of the Washington, D.C. Walk4Hearing™ to bring about awareness about hearing loss, its implications and causes. He recently did a PSA for the Hearing Loss Association of America and you can view it here. For information on the Walk4Hearing™, visit HLAA’s website here.

Click here to read my blog posting on our cover photo session and to download the full Hearing Loss Magazine interview by Editor Barbara Kelley. In the July/August 2009 issue of Hearing Loss Magazine, Reed commented, “Hearing loss might have a stigma sometimes, but I am in need of hearing enhancement. I’m going to wear hearing aids. I hope others will get the help they need.” Learn more about Reed’s football career on the Washington Redskins website here. 

I met Reed, Katie and their two adorable sons at Green Spring Gardens for a family portrait session. Later I photographed Katie and her sons in my studio and posted a few images from that session here and here.

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

This should sufficiently explain my absence…

After a 19-year engagement (did a double-take, didn’t ya?), Michael and I got married in Texas on October 24! We’ve planned to do so at least four times prior, but we finally managed to pull it off two weeks ago. We wanted to have a long weekend with family and friends and got a great deal on two houses on Lake Placid in Seguin, Texas (less than an hour’s drive from San Antonio, where my parents and one sister and her family live). The Friday night Tex-Mex Karaoke Get Acquainted Party took place on Friday night, followed by an early evening wedding and reception on Saturday. We just had a few months to plan this big weekend and from the comments by our family and friends, we were wildly successful. We couldn’t have asked for better weather—like a spring day! The wedding and reception took place in the backyard of one of the houses—complete with two ponds, a pool filled with floating candles, garden-themed tables under giant pecan trees strung with white globe lights, and an island filled with bleating goats—infusing the night with some rural Texas vibe. Add our wonderful DJ (Tim Cedillo of SoundFX DJs), a dance floor, and catering by one of our favorite restaurants—Macaroni Grill—and you have a party! I’ll be posting some photos on this blog, but if you want the full story, visit our wedding-only blog entitled, “Better Late Than Never.”

And yes, I had to create a logo for the event—I’m a graphic designer, first and foremost! My friend Karen and I had a blast planning all the visuals and I spent every spare minute crafting for the event—from sewing satin shawls to crafting bling-bling headbands and boutonnieres and table signs to sewing runners and tablecloths to designing programs and signage. Virtually everything was handmade, so it was definitely a labor of love and an opportunity to use every creative skill I possess. Even our wedding favors were homegrown—a dozen of my Polaroid transfer notescards nestled in handstamped muslin bags and packages of homemade-by-Michael sweet-n-spicy sugared pecans (a nod to Seguin’s pecan heritage). I’ll be posting some of the crafts in the future as well. So head on over to our wedding blog (which will be updated regularly with new photos)—I think it should sufficiently explain why I was negligent in posting on this particular blog!

Deanne Bray from NBC’s Heroes

The November/December 2009 issue of Hearing Loss Magazine (which I design and produce bimonthly for the Hearing Loss Association of America) features actress Deanne Bray, whose is guest starring as Emma on the NBC series, Heroes. She appeared on the September 28, October 5, and October 12 episodes.

From Heroes Wiki: “Emma has the ability to see sound waves as beautiful lights. Her power can also shoot out the sound waves as a concussive blast if heavily pressured enough. She demonstrates this by playing her cello so furiously that a blast of ’sound’ leaves a scar on the wall.”

Deanne has a severe hearing loss and wears a hearing aid in her left ear. She was previously the star of the PAX-TV series, Sue Thomas, F.B. Eye. Based on a true story, the series followed the adventures of Sue Thomas, a deaf woman working for the FBI in Washington, D.C. Although the series ended in 2005, it was one of two highest rated shows on the channel.

Read Barbara Kelley’s feature, Deanne Bray—A Hearing Loss Hero, by clicking this link: DeanneBrayFeature. Be sure to click on the link once and then again when it appears a second time. The pdf should download to your desktop and open immediately.

Deanne is married to Troy Kotsur, an actor who is deaf. Kotsur was on the Lifetime series, Strong Medicine, and guest starred in Sue Thomas: F.B. Eye. He was also on the special deaf themed episode (December 13, 2008) of CSI: NY and an episode of Scrubs. Kotsur is also an award-winning director. Deanne and Troy have a four-year-old daughter, Kyra Monique.

I am fortunate to be able to photograph the majority of the covers for Hearing Loss Magazine. I would love to have flown to Hollywood to shoot this latest cover and feature, but alas, there wasn’t a budget for it. The cover photo was provided by Los Angeles-based Felicity Murphy.

Late fall in the rural Virginia countryside

Fairview Christian Church (Madison, VA), erected 1880…and nearby farms

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Rose at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Owl cat

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

A most educational dissertation on “Glow”

Referencing my 9/30 posting titled “Glow” (photo seen at right), Katie commented:

“the middle of the flower looks like a female silhouette, was that done on purpose? if not, amazing…if so, amazing still.”

To which my father (nicknamed “The King of Texas” by my friend Debbi) replied:

Katie is right on—there is definitely a female silhouette in the bloom. I can’t believe I missed it—thanks, Katie.

And I can see in the outline that the female is holding a child—great Scott, Cindy! You have captured the Madonna and Child—no, not that Madonna—the one that artists have portrayed over the centuries. Raphael is one of the most famous, but many have painted the Madonna and Child, The Holy Mother and Son, Mary and Jesus.

I can remember stories about images of Mary or Jesus or both being found in tree bark, in a toasted cheese sandwich, in a piece of toast, in an oil slick on the pavement, potato chips and Doritos, and there are probably many more that I missed. And all have drawn crowds of one size or another.

If the news of your Holy Vision in a picture of (whatever that is) gets out, especially to this part of the U.S. and to our nearest neighbor to the south, the faithful will be beating a path to your door. They’ll leave all sorts of flowers, emblems, wreaths, burning candles and notes with wishes and prayers. You’ll have to hose them down just to get out to your car—the faithful, not the burning candles—although the candles could pose a problem for the local fire department.

And it’s possible—nay, probable, that some will bring sick and suffering friends or family members so they can be near such an apparition, in the hopes they will be comforted, perhaps healed.

I believe that you should submit this photo to your local papers, to one or more photography magazines, perhaps present it to some of your local theologians for inspection and comments. You need to protect your rights on this one—it may be a real winner.

And, of course, a closer look may lead one to believe that the image shows a woman holding one child aloft and pregnant with another. Hey, it could still be Mary—we have no way of knowing whether it is, or is not. After all, Joseph had been waiting on the sidelines for quite awhile, probably with mounting impatience (no pun intended) before the Babe was born, and he must have been filled with joy that the Child had arrived. Most men will be able to relate to the joy he felt—I sure can.

And to further clarify, he e-mailed me this morning with:

And if you, with a bit of imagination, can see the outline of a pregnant woman holding a child, I suggest you add another factor, provided your imagination supports it. Since one cannot see any suggestion of clothing in the shadowy image, the figures are probably nude. At any rate, that’s what I see (no big surprise there, huh?). Hey, maybe they’re in the shower.

And if I keep looking at the photo long enough and let my imagination run rampant, I’ll probably find Joseph lurking in the darkness. And if I can’t see him, I can always imagine that he’s somewhere close, just to flesh out (no pun intended) the story.

Incidentally, I found this definition online at http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/flesh.html. I have never confused “flesh out” with “flush out,” but apparently others have—hence the need for an explanation.

One more “incidental:” This refers to the proper use of further vs farther: I found an explanation of their usages at http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/farther. In the definition of “flesh out” versus “flush out,” the author used the word correctly.

I know, I know. I have a lot of time on my hands, an expression that I have often used and will continue to use. I’m still waiting to hear someone say, or write, that perhaps I should “stop dragging my knuckles.”

There—since I am the first to apply that description, I’ve beat everyone else to the punch. (I found the definition for “beat to the punch” at http://www.yourdictionary.com/idioms/beat-to-it). It’s defined as follows:
beat to the draw or punch:

1. To get ahead of someone to obtain something, as in: There was only enough for one, so Jane ran as fast as she could in order to beat Jerry to it. [Colloquial; c. 1900]

2. Beat to the draw or punch. To react more quickly than someone else, as in: The new salesman tried to serve one of my customers, but I beat him to the draw and Bill was determined to get there first and beat everyone else to the punch. The variants imply aggression to get ahead, draw alluding to the drawing of a pistol and punch to hitting with the fists. [Second half of 1800s]

Hey, this has to stop somewhere, so I’m outta here.

Passionflower: alternate view

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

http://cindydyer.zenfolio.com/p270076135

Pow!

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

http://cindydyer.zenfolio.com/p270076135

Hmmm…wonder what’s on this CF card?

You know you’re a little behind in photo cataloging when you decide to go through the random CF cards stacked on your desk and discover one full of images you shot in late July and hadn’t even seen yet! And so, as a result of my desk-cleaning efforts, I can now present these images I made at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond, Virginia on July 26.

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.     http://cindydyer.zenfolio.com/p270076135

100,000 hits!

I was checking my blog stats and discovered that my busiest day ever was Wednesday, May 6, 2009, with a total of 440 hits. And 46 of those were for my Cabbage White Butterfly camouflage posting—must have been a lot of curious bug spotters that day!

To celebrate this milestone of 100,000 hits, I offer the following:

1. Oddest word searches that brought visitors to my blog:

kids running to touch wood  (a good old-fashioned—and legal—way to pass time)
beard of bees  (no thank you)
daylilies bugs hug   (aww….)
zoo-dutch dog with 2 ladies (1)  (huh?)
waffle house dirty    (hate it when that happens)
polaroid skull     (!)
hermaphrodite plant ruin    (I dare not ask.)
I never saw a purple cow what does it mean    (We’ll probably never really know.)
baby robin dying? crying   (Yep, that would be me doing the crying.)
cool stuff for 20 bucks    (Where? Where????)
gluten free elephant ears    (Didn’t know you could eat them!)
And then there’s the SPAM that gets filtered…    (…and sometimes it doesn’t)
Above-board! Just looking for you highly priced!   (Lost in translation)
young illegal booty content    (Again, I dare not ask.)
what is the flower is blue with 4 pedals   (A flower with pedals? How mobile it could be!)
when the cactus dies my love for you die   (Easy fix. Just don’t overwater.)
can you get high from a magnolia bud    (What? Morning glory seeds didn’t do it for ya?)
i shot myself flower    (Again—what’s up with the violence + flower stuff?)
now, that’s more like it ebay    (eBay sucks for sellers)
things cost an arm a leg or a soul    (Never bought anything that cost my soul!)
puppy girls feet wall paper    (That sounds like an HGTV decorating disaster.)
pups don’t shed for sale   (would make a very good name for a rock band)
sequim booty    (Hmm….Sequim, Washington? Known for booty? Who woulda thunk?)
elephant foot yam butterflies moths   (okay, way too much going on in this search)
cialis cindy   (alright already…enough with the cialis and viagara, spammers!)
legged fish wiki   
20 bucks    (I’ll take it!)
puppy road    (Puppy road, take me home, to the place where I belong, West Virginia…)
duck herding women    (I knew animals would take over one day, I just knew it!)
away morning
bulletin board idea for peek a boo   
tiny little bugs in kitchen denver  
fairmont empress + “bed bugs” 
spring rose sex
very little girl!   

________________________________________________________________________________

2. Top 10 posts of all time on this blog (click on post name to view):

Concrete leaf casting: 4,094 viewers

Color Magic Rose: 2,017 viewers

Crafty room divider screen: 1,730 viewers

Stuff About Me: 1,602 viewers

Snowberry Clearwing Hummingbird Moth: 806 viewers

Heavenly blue: 704 viewers

Gigglebean with parrot and sugar glider: 661 viewers

Spotlight on Abbie!: 626 viewers

Mina Lobata (Spanish Flag): 576 viewers

Monarch butterfly habitat poster: 536 viewers

________________________________________________________________________________

3. Top 10 referrers:

my2008blog.wordpress.com: 421 referrals  (Thanks, Birgitte!)

contradica.blogspot.com: 265 referrals  (Thanks, Abbie!)

penick.net/digging: 181 referrals  (Thanks, Pam!)

phillipoliver.blogspot.com: 178 referrals  (Thanks, Phillip!)

auntdebbisgarden.blogspot.com: 128 referrals  (Thanks, Debbi!)

mommymirandamusings.blogspot.com: 107 referrals  (Thanks, Heather!)

moresecretwhispers.wordpress.com: 99 referrals  (Thanks, Chloe!)

www.fotoblography.com: 87 referrals  (Thanks, Andy!)

www.outerchat.com: 86 referrals  (Thanks, Senthill!)

www.stphoto.wordpress.com: 62 referrals  (Thanks, Scott!)

________________________________________________________________________________

4. Top 10 links that visitors went to from my blog:

Concrete garden leaves: 1,196 clicks

Color Magic Rose photo: 698 clicks

Martha Stewart’s website: 654 clicks

Making a leaf casting: 641 clicks

Little and Lewis (concrete casting artists): 472 clicks

Jacquard Products (again, concrete casting related link!): 408 clicks

Ellis Hollow Blog (yet another concrete leaf cast related link): 213 clicks

My “Punch O Color” photo collage: 203 clicks

Photo collage of my garden club doing concrete casting: 200 clicks

PDF download of Abbie Cranmer’s feature article in Hearing Loss Magazine: 196 clicks

________________________________________________________________________________

I’ve been remiss in posting as often as I normally do. Work and other commitments called and something had to be set aside. To my regular and most loyal visitors, I offer a plea for leniency (and patience). I’ll be back soon with a plethora of postings, I promise! (In fact, I see that my white Japanese anemones have begun to bloom in the front yard…might they be my next subject?)

Glow

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Wordless Wednesday

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Viagra and Cialis

Arghhhhhhhhh………yesterday I had 261 spams on this blog and all of them were advertising either Viagra or Cialis. They started doing this every single day this summer. Some days I have less than 30. Some days I average 56 or so. But yesterday….261! I don’t know why, but it irritates me something fierce and I’d like to pummel both of them. Are any of you getting spammed that much lately?

A look back at some little gems

At long last, she blogs! It’s been several weeks since I posted on the blog—I apologize for my absence. I’ve had design work going in and out (not complaining, mind you), and lots of other tasks to complete. Plus, gardening season has slowed down quite a bit and I haven’t had a chance to get out to shoot what is still in bloom (not much!). I’ve been doing a slew of creative projects and will post about those soon. You’ll have to be patient until I can share them with you in early November!

Tomorrow baby Josie turns one years old and I’m heading off to Fredericksburg to wish her a happy one and I’m hoping to get some new photos of the birthday girl to post. I miss being out shooting, but work and other commitments beckon. I’ll promise to post new material shortly!

Check out Josie’s first debut on my blog here.
See Daddy’s little girl here.
View Josie “au naturel” in my studio here and with Mom & Grandma in the studio here.
See her when she was 147 days old here.
Check out our last studio session in June here, when she was eight months old.

Check out my updated Zenfolio!

The “cream of the crop” of my garden and landscape photos is now in one easy-to-navigate gallery. Eventually I’ll have the gallery set up to sell prints as well as stock photos, but in the interim, this is just a way to wrangle all of my web-viewing-only images into one gallery. I’ll be adding more images in the future. Currently there are 406 images in the Botanical Gallery. That should keep you plenty busy! If you’re a regular visitor to my blog, you’ll recognize many of the photos. Once you click on the first link below, you can click “view all” at the bottom and see everything on one page, scrolling down as you go. If you click on an individual photo, it will enlarge and thumbnails for other images will show up on the side (as shown in the collage below). You can click on any of those to enlarge, or you can just launch the slide show in the second link below. I hope you enjoy the show!

Gallery:  http://cindydyer.zenfolio.com/p270076135

Slideshow: http://cindydyer.zenfolio.com/p270076135/slideshow

A wounded warrior’s journey

I borrowed the title for this post from (Ret.) Army Cpt. Mark Brogan’s blog. I had the immense honor of meeting and photographing Mark and his wife, Sunny, during the Hearing Loss Association of America’s convention in Nashville in June. I found him (and Sunny as well) to be very candid, friendly, sweet and remarkably resilient. Mark shared his story (along with scars and his amazing Purple Heart tattoo, courtesy of Miami Ink)—it was a humbling experience for me. Mark was a guest speaker and the cover subject of our September 2009 issue of Hearing Loss Magazine, which just arrived in my mailbox today. Mark just turned 29 on August 31. Happy belated birthday, Mark!

He was a United States Calvary Officer in A Troop, 4th Squadron 14th Calvary, 172 Stryker Brigade Combat team, deployed from Fort Wainwright, Alaska to Iraq to lead a platoon of infantry soldiers. A TBI (traumatic brain injury) survivor, Mark was wounded while on a foot patrol in the Al Anbar Province in Iraq, on April 11, 2006. In addition to the injuries to his skull and arm, his right eardrum was perforated and he has severe-to-profound hearing loss. He wears hearing aids in both ears. Here is his incredible journey from intensive rehab to reconstructing his life, excerpted from his blog:

4/14/2009

Alive Day

The 11th of April, a day of no meaning for most of the world sans a select few. Three years ago I was unknowingly about to embark on the journey of a lifetime. I don’t remember knowing what the actual date was. Dates begin to blur together after several months of daily operations with no weekends and set work days. They just become another number in an operations order letting you know when you’ve got to execute your mission.

I remember the cool crisp air and “moon dust” that swirled around our vehicles as we headed into the town for our mission that day. The horrors that my men were to witness that day were forever deleted from my memory. I would stay in a comatose state for the next 18 days. Somewhere in the hazy surreality, I began to slowly realize my new reality. That day would change my life forever. During a patrol I led my patrol on, a suicide bomber strapped with three mortars walked around a corner in a market. He killed one of my soldiers and injured two, including myself. I was terribly hurt. My soldiers thought there was no way anybody could have survived such a blast. My skull had been penetrated by shrapnel and my arm nearly severed. Later during my evacuation in Germany they would discover shrapnel in my spinal cord which they assumed would cause me to be a quadriplegic.

My wife was called with the worst of news. Come to Germany and make a decision, he is most likely not going to survive and if so he would be comatose for life, quadraplegic, lose his arm, etc. She firmly told them, “you bring him to me, then I will make the decision.” Once I arrived in D.C., she believed that I was going to be all right and I pulled through.

___________________________________________

You can read the rest of Mark’s post about his injuries here. Mark and Sunny recently participated in the Veterans Retreat Introduction to Aviation and Flight Training course. Read Mark’s entry for the “Heroes in Paradise Best Vacation in the World” contest here. Mark was medically retired in 2007. He is a veterans’ advocate and a commander in the Military Order of the Purple Heart, Chapter 356 in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Read a downloadable pdf of Barbara Kelley’s feature article on Mark Brogan by clicking on the link below:
Mark Brogan Feature

Hemingway’s bed

…complete with the requisite polydactyl cat! I must confess—had the guide not been in the room (or chains around the bed), I would have been compelled to straighten the painting. It’s just a wee bit off. I shot this image while we were in Key West in June. I’ll post more photos from the Hemingway house soon. Check out these links below for more photos from our weekend in Key West, including Chantell and Austin’s wedding:

Birds of a feather
http://cindydyer.wordpress.com/2009/06/05/what-20-bucks-will-get-ya-in-key-west/

A rather unusual tree
http://cindydyer.wordpress.com/2009/06/11/amazing-tree-in-downtown-key-west/

Weekend in Key West
http://cindydyer.wordpress.com/2009/06/04/weekend-in-key-west/

Here lizard, lizard, lizard
http://cindydyer.wordpress.com/2009/06/05/here-lizard-lizard-lizard/

Cloudspotting
http://cindydyer.wordpress.com/2009/06/05/cloudspotting-spinal-column/

Much more of the Muchemores
http://cindydyer.wordpress.com/2009/06/11/much-more-of-the-muchemores/

Muchemore redux
http://cindydyer.wordpress.com/2009/06/25/muchemore-redux/

Chantell and Austin
http://cindydyer.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/chantell-and-austin-on-the-pier/

Yes, another wedding photo…
http://cindydyer.wordpress.com/2009/06/28/yes-another-wedding-photo/

The Key West Butterfly and Nature Conservatory
http://cindydyer.wordpress.com/2009/06/28/the-key-west-butterfly-and-nature-conservatory/

A few more butterflies…
http://cindydyer.wordpress.com/2009/06/28/a-few-more-butterflies/

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

The art of graphic design: behind the scenes

(Sorry I have been so delinquent in posting—paying work calls. I promise I’ll capture some images soon. Forgive me for my absence.)

Think graphic designers simply “press a button or two” and that anyone can do page layout? Watch this neat video:

Sponge painting should be illegal.

There. I said it (okay, typed it). I know I will offend some DIY’s out there who beg to differ. With the myriad painting treatments you can do to a wall, why on earth would you ever sponge paint one again? Ugh. There’s a reason that treatment didn’t stay around long. It’s U-G-L-Y. And no, it doesn’t matter if a master painter does it, either. Karen rented her lake house out last year and the tenants got creative in two of the bedrooms—the results were rather disastrous. This Exorcist-pea-soup green sponged room was actually the more tame of the two, if you can imagine that. I’ll share the worst room in a future post! I want to reiterate—while this is Karen’s lake house, she is not responsible for the “before” room treatments. She has much better taste, trust me.

If you ever hear a friend mention the word “sponge painting” when referencing what she envisions for a room in her home—remember—friends don’t let friends sponge paint! Color wash, yes. Stucco texture, if style appropriate and well done, have at it. Glazing, sure. Anything but sponge painting. I’ve never seen it done well. Ever. No need to send me photos or links or any other proof that it can be done well. I am my father’s daughter and I am stubborn. I cannot be swayed, at least not on this subject!

Karen and I painted the walls a seafoam blue and Joe painted the ceiling a bright white. Karen and I made padded headboards with MDF board, cotton batting, and upholstery fabric—very simple: we had Home Depot cut the sheet in half so we wouldn’t have to do any cutting at the lake. We wrapped the front with batting, then used a staple gun to tack on the fabric. It doesn’t get any easier than that! I bought the funky abstract rose-patterned fabric years ago and never had an occasion to use it until now.

I whitewashed the nightstand to give it a more rustic, shabby chic look. Karen already had the curtains. We raided our respective closets for some excess linens and bought the rest to tie the whole thing together. I’m envisioning a handmade something-or-another spanning the large wall behind the beds—perhaps a school of whimsical fish cut from wood or metal (Hey—Michael has a plasma cutter somewhere!)—something light and airy and floaty, perhaps?

This is the room Karen and Joe let me sleep one night this past February. It was the first time I stayed with them at the lake. This room was still sponged painted, unfortunately. Fortunately, you don’t notice it in the dark! They wanted me experience a sunrise on the lake. It was so beautiful! I photographed  and blogged about that first sunrise in a posting titled, “Room with a view.” I’ve been down there many times since and I always lay claim to this room—sure hope they don’t mind!

The room isn’t completely done yet, but it’s on its way!

More of our lake house makeovers to come…

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Blooming in my garden today…

Two passion flowers on the vine this morning…in our zone 7 area, passion flowers must be treated as an annual. I bought this vine from Home Depot and bring it indoors right before the first frost, put it just inside my office patio doors (where it gets filtered light and I keep it watered) and take it out again in spring. I’ve been able to keep it going strong for four consecutive years now—not bad for my $20 investment, huh?

I noticed that passion flower is spelled as one word and as two words all over the web—by experts and novice gardeners alike. In past postings, I’ve spelled it as one word. Which do you prefer? Are they both correct?

There are more than 500 known species and several hundred hybrids of passiflora. Most are vine-flowering, although some are shrubs, and a few are herbaceous. Just nine species are found in the U.S. and Southern Asia has the most native species–17. The most common species in the southeastern U.S. is the Maypop, Passiflora incarnata. Its edible fruit is sweet, yellow, the size of a chicken’s egg, and few pests bother it. It is the larval food of a number of butterfly species and important to local wildlife. Carpenter bees are important pollinators of maypops.

For more information on passion flowers:

Passiflora Online is a comprehensive website with growing tips, FAQs, plant ID, hybrid and species images, pollinators, and much more.

Plants in Motion has videos of a passion flower in bloom and also short clips of bees visiting the flowers.

Tradewinds Fruit has a great database of passion flower blossoms. Click on the “related species” section on the left of the site to see a wide variety of passion flower plants.

See more of my passion flower photos in the links below:

http://cindydyer.wordpress.com/2008/08/26/its-about-time/

http://cindydyer.wordpress.com/2008/06/22/backyard-blooms/

http://cindydyer.wordpress.com/2008/06/21/meanwhile-in-the-garden/

http://cindydyer.wordpress.com/2008/07/28/lady-margaret/

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Dolphins, oh my! and snorkeling gone awry

On June 2, the day after Chantell and Austin’s sailboat wedding in Key West, our entire group went back out to sea in two boats for our great dolphin watch and snorkeling adventure. As Captain Gary predicted, we did see a plethora of dolphins. He told us that they were taking an afternoon siesta—that explained why they didn’t come up really close to the boat or show their faces very often—but I still got some nice record shots.

The morning started off beautifully—smooth aqua-colored water, sun in the sky, dolphins encircling both boats. We got to the snorkeling spot and disembarked. By the time I got the hang of the mask-in-the-water-tube-above-water-don’t-forget-to-breathe procedure (thanks to Kathy), the waves picked up (making it hard to keep the salt water out of our tubes!). We knew it was getting a bit dangerous to stay out. The sky went from sunny and blue to a menacing shade of gray. The boats were rocking so violently that we had trouble even getting back into the boat when our trusty captains called us in. The snorkeling jaunt was supposed to be 45 minutes long—we weren’t in the water more than 20+ minutes before the weather ended it all. The ride back to shore was incredibly violent and the rain started coming down so hard that we were soaked by the time we got back to the dock. It was so choppy that I couldn’t even shoot photos to show how rough the weather was! Despite the rocky and abrupt ending to our adventure, we certainly had a “Champion!” morning—as Zimbabwe-born Captain Gary had promised.

The Muchemore family was on Captain Gary’s boat. Michael and I shared a boat with A.J. and his girlfriend, Christina (the couple shown in two of the photos below). A.J. is in the Army and was home on leave from Afghanistan and vacationing in Key West with Christina. The two met in Pontiac, IL (where he is from) four years ago and became the best of friends, which evolved into a “fairytale love story,” according to Christina. When he gets home in December (they’re hoping), he’ll be moving to Schaumburg, IL, where Christina majors in Interior Design at the Art Institute. She plans on getting her masters in architecture. A.J. will attend Harper Community College to finish his degree. And it appears that there’s an engagement and wedding in their future—need a photographer, Christina?

Check out these links below for more photos from our weekend in Key West, including Chantell and Austin’s wedding:

Birds of a feather
http://cindydyer.wordpress.com/2009/06/05/what-20-bucks-will-get-ya-in-key-west/

A rather unusual tree
http://cindydyer.wordpress.com/2009/06/11/amazing-tree-in-downtown-key-west/

Weekend in Key West
http://cindydyer.wordpress.com/2009/06/04/weekend-in-key-west/

Here lizard, lizard, lizard
http://cindydyer.wordpress.com/2009/06/05/here-lizard-lizard-lizard/

Cloudspotting
http://cindydyer.wordpress.com/2009/06/05/cloudspotting-spinal-column/

Much more of the Muchemores
http://cindydyer.wordpress.com/2009/06/11/much-more-of-the-muchemores/

Muchemore redux
http://cindydyer.wordpress.com/2009/06/25/muchemore-redux/

Chantell and Austin
http://cindydyer.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/chantell-and-austin-on-the-pier/

Yes, another wedding photo…
http://cindydyer.wordpress.com/2009/06/28/yes-another-wedding-photo/

The Key West Butterfly and Nature Conservatory
http://cindydyer.wordpress.com/2009/06/28/the-key-west-butterfly-and-nature-conservatory/

A few more butterflies…
http://cindydyer.wordpress.com/2009/06/28/a-few-more-butterflies/

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

At Green Spring Gardens today…

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

http://cindydyer.zenfolio.com/p270076135

Nicotiana

I photographed this Nicotiana flower a few weeks ago at Green Spring Gardens in Alexandria, Virginia. Nicotiana, an annual plant, is a member of the tobacco family. Also known as Tobacco Flower, Flowering Tobacco, Jasmine Tobacco and Ornamental Tobacco, this most-fragrant-at-night plant is native to warm tropical and sub-tropical areas of North and South America. Although this plant is considered an ornamental, it does contain high concentrations of nicotine. The trumpet shaped flowers attract hummingbirds (and ants, as evidenced in the photo below). Nicotiana is easy to grow from seed, begins blooming in early summer, and will rebloom if deadheaded. The five pointed florets bloom in red, white, pink, maroon, rose, yellow and lavender. The plant is poisonous, so keep away from children and pets.

Whenever I think of tobacco (the smoking and chewing kind), I’m reminded of the summer my sister Kelley, and my cousin Deanna and I were paid 5 cents a stick to unstring tobacco leaves for my Uncle Roscoe on his farm in Georgia. The dried tobacco leaves (or ‘backer, as it was called in the south) were strung two across along a stick that was about 3-4 feet long. We were charged with untying the leaves and putting them in piles. The sticks were hung from the rafters in a barn that also housed Roscoe’s beautiful black stallion and a few other horses—most memorable was a slow-moving, spotted Shetland pony named Champ. When we rode horses (never with our parent’s blessings), I inevitably ended up with Champ. His incredibly slow gait thwarted any fantasy I had to look like that model with the wind flowing through her hair as she galloped through a field of daisies on the package of some feminine hygiene product. My sister got to ride a horse aptly named “Shotgun.”

The three of us worked for a few hours (in a hot barn in the Georgia heat) and I remember making barely a couple of dollars for my efforts. I’m not sure what minimum wage was when I was 12 years old, but I’m pretty sure we were paid well under that amount that day! We didn’t care—we just wanted enough to buy Cokes from the vending machine he had outside the riding arena (complete with bleachers for an audience). We thought it was so cool they had their own outdoor coke machine. The soda came out in the cutest little bottles and I think they were just 10 cents each. My cousins were all avid competitive horse riders and had a slew of trophies on display in their living room—so many that one time they gave each of us one (not that we had earned it, but who doesn’t love a shiny trophy?) and they didn’t even miss them!

And while on the subject of Georgia tobacco…there’s an interesting account here about “Growing ‘Backer on the Wiregrass Plain.”

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Carmen’s tableau

This weekend Regina and I joined Karen at her lake house for a girls-only retreat. Our friend Carmen drove all the way up from South Carolina to join us and Sue happened to be in town from Alabama and stopped by to join us for several hours on Saturday. En route from South Carolina, Carmen bought this beautiful bouquet as a lake house warming gift for Karen at a farmer’s market in Petersburg, VA. She called ahead to see if we had a vase available. Since we were already out running errands, I hunted an appropriate vessel (without even knowing the color scheme of the bouquet) and found this beautiful glass vase on clearance at a local Michael’s Crafts for just $4.00! Karen had the fabric handy in our project stash to serve as a table scarf (thanks to Sue for suggesting we scrunch the fabric). I added the glass bowl and Carmen added the yellow and purple bell peppers. She then declared, “what a lovely tableau.” I teased her about her “fancy college word,” but it was a perfect noun for the finished result. I have to admit I don’t remember ever hearing anyone actually use that word—maybe in college in Art Appreciation 101 class, perhaps? And in the end, as you know—I love any opportunity to shoot a photo, so this was a photographic-can’t-not!

Floral arrangement courtesy of Carmen Mezzacappa.
Photo © Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Early morning at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens

Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens in Washington, D.C.

Click here to view images from July 20, 2008.

Click here to view images from July 22, 2007.

For more Kenilworth photos, click here.

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Craft project: The Monet Chair

My friend Karen inherited this rocking chair from her grandmother and took it out to the lake house a few weekends ago. She has often declared, “I’ve never met a little chair I didn’t like!” Since the fabric wasn’t in great shape, she asked what I thought about painting something on the chair to make it more whimsical. And, of course, I took on the challenge with gusto!

NOTE: The chair is not finished yet—the photo on the right is a Photoshop collage utilizing the chair in its current state with an overlay of a screen grab image of one of Monet’s water lily paintings. I combined the two images to use as a painting reference. This is what it should look like when I’m done!

Over the July 4th weekend, I painted a base coat of metallic blue, green and gold paint (finally, a use for all those little bottles of fabric paint I bought when such-and-such store was going out of business!). My initial plan was to paint sketchy leaves or swirly abstract shapes on top in a lighter color. I thought that it was starting to look like the water in one of Monet’s paintings of water lilies at his garden in Giverny, France. I shot some record shots of the chair after I was done. Karen loved the idea of turning it into a “Monet chair,” and it was her idea to split up the painting with the Japanese bridge on back of the chair and the water lilies on the seat. We found one of Monet’s many water lily paintings on the web, including one with very bright blue/teal and green combination of tones in the water. I did a screen grab of the painting and superimposed it over the chair in Photoshop to see what it would look like. She loved the effect—so guess what my project at the lake house this next weekend is? I’ll shoot some during-and-after shots so you can see how it turned out. I’m estimating it will take about 3-4 hours to complete.

Blooming in the garden today…

Song of the Flower

I am a kind word uttered and repeated 
By the voice of Nature;
I am a star fallen from the
Blue tent upon the green carpet.
I am the daughter of the elements
With whom Winter conceived;
To whom Spring gave birth;
I was Reared in the lap of Summer and I
Slept in the bed of Autumn.

At dawn I unite with the breeze
To announce the coming of light;
At eventide I join the birds
In bidding the light farewell.

The plains are decorated with
My beautiful colors, and the air
Is scented with my fragrance.

As I embrace Slumber the eyes of
Night watch over me, and as I
Awaken I stare at the sun, which is
The only eye of the day.

I drink dew for wine, and hearken to
The voices of the birds, and dance
To the rhythmic swaying of the grass.

I am the lover’s gift; I am the wedding wreath;
I am the memory of a moment of happiness;
I am the last gift of the living to the dead;
I am a part of joy and a part of sorrow.
But I look up high to see only the light,
And never look down to see my shadow.
This is wisdom which man must learn. 

— Khalil Gibran

Photos © Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.    
http://cindydyer.zenfolio.com/p270076135

Cover girl Jennifer Cheng

In May I photographed Jennifer Cheng for the July/August 2009 issue of Hearing Loss Magazine, published by the Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA). We met at Founder’s Park in Alexandria on Mother’s Day (when we scheduled the shoot, we didn’t realize it would fall on that holiday—parking was scarce and we attracted a lot of curious onlookers during the shoot!). She’s not only the cover girl for this issue—she also wrote the feature article about living with hearing loss. Jennifer was diagnosed with progressive sensorineural hearing loss ten years ago at age 17 and wears a hearing aid. She is an infectious diseases epidemiologist for the United States Public Health Services. She graduated from George Washington University with a Master of Public Health degree in International Health in May 2005 and has since been working with the Division of Immigration Health Services.

She was born and raised in Seattle where her family and childhood friends still reside. She is a competitive road cyclist for Team CycleLife powered by Specialized, a promoter of women’s cycling and racing in the Mid-Atlantic Region. Read more about Team CycleLife on their blog here. I caught up with Jen again during the recent HLAA Convention in Nashville, where she received the HLAA Outstanding Young Adult Award.

Patrick Holkins, who was the cover feature for the September/October 2008 issue of Hearing Loss Magazine, presented the award to Jennifer on Sunday, June 21 in Nashville.

Patrick and Jennifer are both HLAA members and have worked in HLAA’s headquarters. In 2009 Patrick launched HearingLossNation, the social network for the young and hard of hearing. Jennifer participated in the National Capital Area Walk4Hearing event last year. This year’s honorary chair for the event is Washington Redskins starting safety Reed Doughty, who was our cover feature for the November/December 2008 issue of Hearing Loss Magazine. I photographed Reed and his family earlier this summer and will post a few of those photos soon.

Jennifer’s article is available for download in pdf format here: Jen Cheng Feature. Click on the link, then click on “Jen Cheng Feature” again and the pdf will open on screen.

Orange you glad(iola)?

About the title—admittedly, very bad. I had to go with my first thought. Sorry.

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

http://cindydyer.zenfolio.com/p270076135.

Re-post: Rhymes with Orange

Why I feel the need to revisit orange: I’m working on final changes to a conference program for a client. The conference is next month in San Francisco. The client is working on conference signage and just asked if I knew what PMS (Pantone Matching System) ink color would be closest to the color of the Golden Gate Bridge. I googled “what PMS color is the Golden Gate Bridge?” Apparently the Golden Gate Bridge people have answered that question many times before. It’s PMS 173! See the background info in the two links below. Hmmm…Now I’m thinking I might change that red-colored bar at the bottom to something closer to PMS 173! I need a color pick-me-up—who doesn’t? So here you go!

http://goldengatebridge.org/research/factsGGBIntOrngPaint.php

http://www.flickr.com/photos/telstar/2903029/

________________________________________________

Original posting, January 30, 2009: 

For several months now I’ve been trying to catalog my images better, bit by bit (there are thousands and thousands of photos). While organizing my garden photos folder I noticed that I have a plethora of orange-hued flowers so I put together this collage of all things orange-ish to brighten your winter day.

Tangerine. Coral. Day-glow orange. Push-up popsicle orange. Sunset. Pumpkin. 70s shag carpet orange (I did window display at a department store while in college and there was multi-shaded orange shag carpet in each window. Do you know how hard it is to design around that color scheme? I covered it up every chance I got—with a decorating budget of zilch, unfortunately. I asked for $5 once for a huge set of markers and my boss freaked out).

Orange peel. Safety orange. Salmon (did you know that the “l” in salmon is silent? The correct pronunciation is “sam-uhn.” Don’t believe me? Click here).

Frou-frou-big-bowed-bridesmaid-dress-apricot (yes, I had to wear one once upon a time). Carrot. Persimmon. Vermilion. Orange-red. Rusty can orange. Burnt orange. Tomato. Panama Brown orange (the color Dad insists his old diesel VW Rabbit was—sorry, Dad, it was ORANGE).

After a week of designing at the computer in a cold basement, pausing only to look out at winter gray skies (save for that remarkable sunset on Wednesday), I needed a jolt of color to inspire me. What better color than orange?

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Re-post: Cool and Green and Shady

This shot of one of our pond plants (the center “poof ball” is a type of Dwarf Papyrus, as I recall) reminded me of a song from John Denver’s “Back Home Again” album. It’s called “Cool and Green and Shady.”

Saturdays, holidays, easy afternoon
Lazy days, summer days, nothing much to do
Rainy days are better days for hanging out inside
Rainy days and city ways make me want to hide
Someplace cool and green and shady

Find yourself a piece of grassy ground
Lay down, close your eyes
Find yourself and maybe lose yourself
While your free spirit flies

August skies, lullabies, promises to keep
Dandelions and twisting vines, Clover at your feet
Memories of Aspen leaves, trembling on the wind
Honeybees and fantasies
Where to start again
Someplace cool and green and shady

Cool and green and shady
Cool and green and shady
Cool and green and shady
Cool and green and shady

Words and music by John Denver and Joe Henry

Stinging scoundrels

Earlier this week I ventured out, camera in hand, with some trepidation—just to see if I could get a clandestine photo of the bat rastards (actually, just one stung me) that chased me into the house last week. I’m fairly confident they’re Eastern yellowjackets. I didn’t want to get too close to the nest (for fear they recognize my behind), so this is more “record shot” than art! (Oh, the things I do to entertain my visitors!)

Yes, I know they need to be removed from the garden if I’m ever to be able to work out there again. I can’t do it myself (for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is I don’t like killing anything—even if it did sting me), so Michael is taking up the task. Read the details of my attack in my posting here.

Here’s something alarming I read on Wikipedia:

Yellowjackets are social hunters living in colonies containing workers, queens, and males. Colonies are annual with only inseminated queens overwintering. Fertilized queens occur in protected places as hollow logs, in stumps, under bark, in leaf litter, in soil cavities, and human-made structures. Queens emerge during the warm days of late spring or early summer, select a nest site, and build a small paper nest in which eggs are laid. After eggs hatch from the 30 to 50 brood cells, the queen feeds the young larvae for about 18 to 20 days. Larvae pupate, emerging later as small, infertile females called workers. By mid-summer, the first adult workers emerge and assume the tasks of nest expansion, foraging for food, care of the queen and larvae, and colony defense.

(Here’s the really alarming part below)

From this time until her death in the autumn, the queen remains inside the nest laying eggs. The colony then expands rapidly reaching a maximum size of 4,000 and 5,000 workers and a nest of 10,000 and 15,000 cells in late summer. At peak size, reproductive cells are built with new males and queens produced. Adult reproductives remain in the nest fed by the workers. New queens build up fat reserves to overwinter. Adult reproductives leave the parent colony to mate. After mating, males quickly die while fertilized queens seek protected places to overwinter. Parent colony workers dwindle, usually leaving the nest and die, as does the foundress queen. Abandoned nests rapidly decompose and disintegrate during the winter but can persist as long as they are kept dry but are rarely used again.

Now I highly doubt that 4,000 workers could possibly fit in this small decorative birdhouse, but then again I was surprised that even the eight that I did see could fit. I’ve managed to water the garden in spurts over the past few days, but always with a wary eye to the left side of the garden. So far, no more keister bites! Flashback: the only other time I was stung by something was when I was about eight years old. My younger sister and I were playing house in the front yard. We were hanging sheets over the bushes outside our bedroom window, pretending to do laundry I suppose (we had strange ideas about what was considered fun when were kids, didn’t we?). I unknowingly tossed my sheet over a yellowjacket nest. Yes, yellowjackets. Déjá vu.

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.   http://cindydyer.zenfolio.com/p270076135

Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, discusses the creative process and how to nurture it. For more inspirational talks, head over to TED.

I know what you can get me for my next birthday…

Yes, I am fully aware that $15,000 is pretty pricey for a bed frame, but if just 15,000 of my currently 82,733 blog visitors chipped in just $1 each, I could sleep in this bed every night! Imagine that. (I didn’t account for tax and shipping charges, though—this thing must weigh quite a bit. Does anyone have a large truck?)

Of course, it might bring on recurring nightmares about the snake-and-doomed-robin-chick episode of last week that I posted here. The scene atop the bed looks eerily familiar. You see, I have this visual penchant for trees, leaves, nests, feathers, birds and eggs. Oh, and sleep. That’s a good thing, too. So, this present would combine four of those faves of mine in one simple gift. And you don’t even have to wrap it! Oh, and I’ll provide the linens, so no need to fret about including those.

Then again, $15,000 would buy at least three of the pricier prime Nikon lenses that I don’t already have but certainly still lust after. (Which ones, you ask? Oh, say the 600mm f/4D IF-ED II, the 200-400mm VR f/4 AF-S, and maybe the 200mm Micro f/4D IF-ED, in case you were curious or just taking notes.)

Tree bed, Nikon lenses. Tree bed, Nikon lenses. Hmmmm. What do you think? Talk amongst yourselves. I’m sure I’ll love whatever you get me.

Take a look at artist Shawn Lovell’s other metal creations on her website here. Beautiful work!

DIY overcast sky

As promised, I have new photos for you!

Picture this: Today. Green Spring Gardens. High noon. Not the best time to photograph flowers, but ventured out anyway. And I brought my own overcast sky. I carried my trusty Interfit 5 in 1 collapsible reflector (translucent portion only) to block the mid-day sun and get more saturated color. Amazon sells the 32-inch version for just $38.99. And, of course, you can use it as a regular reflector once you zip on the double-sided covers that utilize four other colors—gold, silver, opaque white and black. I just noticed that there is an even larger one (43″) for just $29.95, made by Opteka. These handy little contraptions fold down to an easy-to-carry size, so I would recommend buying the larger one for almost ten bucks less. You can find that one here on Amazon. If you don’t already have one—run and get one! They are invaluable in and out of the studio and for virtually every subject, from portraits to plants to products. I especially like the 5-in-1 products. Just don’t lose the zip-on cover (I speak from experience)! And you’ll most likely need to use your tripod to use it. I set the camera up, focus on my subject, then hold the reflector over my head with my left hand to block the sun (doubles as protection from the sun on you, too!). This leaves my right hand free to focus and shoot. Yes, you’ll look silly, but you’ll also look like a pro and intimidate people passing by. You can purchase an arm-and-stand holder for these reflectors, but that means more equipment to carry—who needs that? If you can convince your significant other or a friend to hold the reflector in exchange for a free lunch, good on ya (again, I speak from experience)!

Today’s photo challenge: Can you spot the little bug playing peek-a-boo in “Kilroy was here” fashion in the Cleome flower—the first image? I didn’t notice him at the time I was shooting this image. He popped out at me when I opened the image in Photoshop. Here’s a clue: he has black and white striped antennae with an orange-ish colored head.

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Check out my garden gallery here: http://cindydyer.zenfolio.com/p270076135

Re-post: On color…

I promise I’ll have some new works posted by this weekend. Perhaps some new images of lotus blossoms from Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens? Or maybe something from Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden? I’ve been going through my oldest archives and have found this collage I posted two years ago that makes me really, really happy when I view it. I also love the quote. Hope you don’t mind the reruns!

“I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way—things I had no words for.” — Georgia O’Keefe, American Painter, 1887-1986

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Check out my garden-photos-only portfolio at:

http://cindydyer.zenfolio.com/p270076135

Blooming in the garden today

My Star Gazer Lily
blooms
with colossal flowers of pink fire.
Its stamens lick the air
with pollen-covered tongues
of orange flames.
The trinity of blossoms lean heavy,
would topple and only ogle earth
with bright freckled eyes
if I had not propped them
against a colorful pot.
Heady fragrance fills the room,
demands attention.
A lower petal rests like a benediction
on the porcelain head
of an angel poised with a silent harp,
as if flower shakti could bring
the angel to life.
No shy, tiny violet
this plant blares its presence
in a trumpet of color,
declares its allegiance
to life with the vibrancy
of a Flamenco dancer,
castanets clacking,
red dress whirling,
feet stamping.
Its verve stirs me with purpose,
calls me to action
with the torch of love blazing,
a conflagration of pasión.

© 2006 Sher Lianne Christian

This beautiful poem was reprinted with permission by Sher Lianne Christian. Find more of Sher’s poetry and creative essays on her blog, www.lusciouspoetry.typepad.com/. Sher hosts the Third Sunday Poetry Reading and Open Mic at Coffee Catz in Sebastopol, CA, accompanied by her husband John on accordian and keyboard. She is the author of Star Kissed Shadows, Divining Poetry, available for purchase on her website. Click here to learn more about Sher, John, and their spoken-word CD, Sweet Tongue, Assorted Poems & Music, released in 2007.

Photo © Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved. See another Stargazer lily I posted in July last year here.

Check out my garden-photos-only portfolio at:

http://cindydyer.zenfolio.com/p270076135

What’s on my nightstand now…

Some people like light reading to lull them to sleep. I sometimes opt for the techie photography books! Currently residing on my nightstand are two very informative books on the subject of closeup/macro photography—Macro Photography for Gardeners and Nature Lovers, by Alan L. Detrick (published by Timber Press, Inc.) and Cyrill Harnischmacher’s Closeup Shooting: A Guide to Closeup, Tabletop, and Macro Photography (published by Rocky Nook, Inc.). The latter link allows you to download sample pages in pdf format.

Another of Harnischmacher’s books, Low Budget Shooting: Do It Yourself Solutions to Professional Photo Gear, is also on my nightstand at the moment. The author shows you how to create ingenious DIY projects with inexpensive supplies. What a great idea for a book! I read the reviews on Amazon and many readers wish the author had expanded on the how-to portion of the book with more details. Even so, if you want to replicate expensive studio accessories on a budget, the book is still worth purchasing. You can download sample pages in pdf format on the link provided.

As you might well assume, I own a plethora of photography books (who am I kidding—I own books on just about any subject you can toss at me—unless it involves math, that is). Alan Detrick’s Macro Photography for Gardeners and Nature Lovers is one of my top favorites on that subject and I highly recommend it. Click on this link here to view 17 pages from this book.

Check out my garden-photos-only portfolio at:

http://cindydyer.zenfolio.com/p270076135

Re-post: my favorite dragonfly photos

I photographed these two Blue Dasher dragonflies at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond, Virginia, this time last year. These were both photographed in natural light without fill flash. You’ll get your best shots (of almost any subject, but insects in particular) on an overcast day.

Check out Eric Isley’s article, Dragonfly Photography 101, for great tips on capturing these beautiful insects, as well as David Westover’s (very detailed!) article on How to Photograph Dragonflies with Flash.

Today I discovered 5 min Life Videopedia, which features short videos on all sorts of topics. Check out this informative one posted by Go Wild TV on photographing dragonflies (love the photographer’s accent, too!).

Click here for a list of 326 short photography how-to films on 5 min Life Videopedia.

_______________________________________________________________________________

I’m overdue for a field trip to Lewis Ginter (just about 1-1/2 hours away). I haven’t been there since April. Their Butterflies LIVE! exhibit is open (until October 11), so I’m sure that will be ripe with photographic subjects. Then again, I think the lotus blossoms are starting to do their thing at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens (less than 30 minutes away). Decisions, decisions, decisions!

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

See more of my photographs from Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden below:

http://cindydyer.wordpress.com/2009/04/14/spring-blooms-at-lewis-ginter-botanical-garden/

http://cindydyer.wordpress.com/2008/04/19/glorious-day-at-lewis-ginter

http://cindydyer.wordpress.com/2007/09/12/how-can-something-this-beautiful/

Re-post: One of my favorite macros

Since I haven’t seen any praying mantis in my garden this season, I thought I’d go through my archives and look at past macros of this fascinating insect. I posted this photo much smaller in size and part of a collage in 2007 when I began this blog. To see the collage of various praying mantis in my garden, click here. This is one of my favorite shots because of the stark contrast of the bright green mantis against the purple potato vine.

I punched up the color a bit more true-to-life than the original posting, which upon revisiting I’ve noticed the color was a little flat. With improved Photoshop skills and the Pantone Color Huey calibrating my monitor, my color correction is more spot-on than. It’s a reasonably priced instrument (it’s now just $65.21—I got mine for about $80 at the time at Amazon here). I highly recommend it if you’re having problems with color from your monitor to print! My Costco prints are much closer to what I see on my monitor now. I’ve had great results with it and it’s very easy to use. It prompts you to recalibrate your monitor approximately every two weeks.

The Praying Mantis by Ogden Nash

From whence arrived the praying mantis?
From outer space, or lost Atlantis?
glimpse the grin, green metal mug
at masks the pseudo-saintly bug,
Orthopterous, also carnivorous,
And faintly whisper, Lord deliver us.

Photo © Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved. http://cindydyer.zenfolio.com/p270076135

Partake as doth the Bee

Partake as doth the Bee,
Abstemiously.
The Rose is an Estate—
In Sicily.

—Emily Dickinson

Photo © Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Check out my garden-photos-only portfolio at:

http://cindydyer.zenfolio.com/p270076135

How my father became the King of Texas

As a birthday gift one year, my dear friend Debbi wrote and illustrated a fairytale for me. Here is her story.

Once upon a time in the far away Kingdom of Runnymeade lived a beautiful and kind Princess named Cindy. Princess Cindy loved to garden. She was very happy in her little castle, planting seedlings and bulbs and collecting yard art.

Her father was the King of Texas and Princess Cindy loved him very much. Her father came to visit Princess Cindy and was very disturbed by the Kingdom of Runnymeade. “Daughter,” he said, “you live in a tiny Kingdom of cracker boxes. There is no land in which you can grow Texas-sized plants and vegetables. Your neighbors and friends are colorful and strange. Your Kingdom feels like…well, the Projects! I shall forever call your Kingdom ‘The Projects,’” the King of Texas proclaimed.

Princess Cindy was very sad. She knew she had strange and colorful friends but she loved them. Her father, the King of Texas, didn’t understand that the Kingdom of Runnymeade was part of the land of fruit and nuts called Washington, D.C., where everyone was a little crazy.

Princess Cindy looked around her little Kingdom of Runnymeade and realized that her father, the King of Texas, was right about all the royal subjects’ gardens. They were a mess. She summoned two of her loyal friends, Maiden Barbara and Maiden Debbi and told them of her plan to beautify Runnymeade. They loved their garden and thought Princess Cindy had a royal idea. “I will start a Garden Club and beauty will spread through Runnymeade,” said Princess Cindy.

Princess Cindy went to see the Queen President of Runnymeade, Sue. The Queen Prez loved her garden and was excited that one of her royal subjects would volunteer to help the Kingdom. The Queen Prez loved volunteers. “Go for it!” the Queen Prez said.

Princess Cindy printed beautiful flyers, inviting everyone to join her Garden Club. She and Maiden Debbi distributed them throughout the Kingdom. Princess Cindy and Maiden Debbi saw lots of castles that needed help. “I hope they come,” said the Princess.

Princess Cindy was very happy when she realized that there were many subjects who were interested in her Garden Club. They started to meet in Princess Cindy’s castle once a month. Princess Cindy lovingly became known as the Head Cicada because it was Cicada season in her Kingdom and there were millions of them flying all around.

Princess Cindy went to visit Maiden Debbi one day after the cicadas had finally all died. Maiden Debbi’s husband Sir Tom announced Princess Cindy.  “The Head Weed is here!” he proclaimed. “Head Weed….” Princess Cindy thought to herself. “I like that name.” It will be 17 more years before the cicadas return so Princess Cindy decided that Head Weed would be her official title throughout the Kingdom.

Everyone in the Garden Club liked the Head Weed. The Head Weed gave everyone lots of information about gardening. The Garden Club made cement leaves, painted windows, and topiary cone heads. The royal subjects in Runnymeade started caring about their gardens. Beauty was spreading through the Kingdom thanks to the Head Weed. Everyone was happy in the Kingdom of Runnymeade, and they all lived happily ever after.

Moral of the story: Even one little weed can make a difference.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

Want to get to know the King of Texas? Now you can! He actually takes time out from his royal duties to blog. Read his letters to the editor of the San Antonio Express-News. Learn about the time he scolded Axel Rose for being rude at the San Antonio Airport. Discover how he met the Queen of Texas. Uncover entertaining stories from his childhood and his service in the Air Force, too. He’ll teach you proper grammar, offer cinematic reviews, brag about his three princesses and delve into politics. You never know what subject he’ll cover from one day to the next—from Boy Scouts to cats to Vietnam to chihuahuas to wayward M&M’s. Pay him a visit here. And please feel free to comment if the urge strikes you. He loves getting feedback from his subjects.

New print-on-demand option

Thanks to Maggie Soladay, a photo editor/producer/photographer and member of www.linkedin.com, for writing about print-on-demand books and posting a link to ASMP/NY’s blog on the subject. Maggie is in the “Women in Photography” group I belong to on Linkedin. ASMP/NY recently did a test of on-demand publishers for photo books and the results are posted in the link below.

http://sharpernewyork.blogspot.com/2009/07/print-on-demand-book-test-results.html

So far the only one I’ve tried is Blurb. I did one of their smaller books and although the printing quality was adequate, I wasn’t thrilled by layout and typeface/point size restrictions.

Yesterday I stumbled onto http://magcloud.com/. I’m considering trying the service out for a few projects. I was delighted to then see it got very high ratings in the ASMP test. I have some ideas for a magazine (actually two!) and thought it would an inexpensive way to do some limited run copies for distribution to potential advertisers. I am savvy enough to realize it’s not an ideal market in which to launch a magazine, but really—is there ever a good market to do such a thing? And yet there are new magazines popping up anyway. The economy may be the death of some current magazines, but it doesn’t appear to be a deterrent altogether. A magazine format could definitely serve as a portfolio for a photographer or artist, or even for fun projects such as a birthday or anniversary book. There are several “wedding magazines” that photographers have created for specific clients as a keepsake. You can browse (and even purchase) magazines that have been uploaded to the site. It’s a neat concept—I’ll try it out and report back with my findings.

Check out their help and FAQ pages to learn more about the process, costs and other details.

I discovered an interview with the MagCloud creators here and a good discussion about MagCloud on FOLIO: mediaPRO. I just learned here that the MagCloud project is the brainchild of HP Labs and HP’s Corporate Ventures team. This excerpt from that last link sums up what MagCloud is all about:

It costs you nothing to publish a magazine on MagCloud.com. The service lets you upload a high-resolution PDF and MagCloud takes care of the rest: printing, mailing, subscription management and more. The MagCloud website functions as a virtual newsstand, where readers can browse and, using PayPal or a credit card, order publications. The publisher specifies a markup on each copy sold, which MagCloud collects and pays the publisher at the end of each month.

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Truly a thing of beauty…

Go. Quickly. Check out this living work of art on Flora’s Blog. Wish I had a wall. Wish I was in a gardening zone that would be conducive to growing this.

UPDATE: Wish I hadn’t gone out to weed my garden just now. I glanced over at the decorative birdhouse that I’ve been “allowing” some unidentified hornet/wasp thingie to inhabit (nature lover that I am, I’m regretting that decision at this very moment). I watched as one adult, then another, then another (7 total) flew in to join the first one. I kept my distance, fascinated yet alarmed at the nest they were finalizing inside the entrance. Just as I was finishing up, minding my own business, I apparently stepped straight into the flight path of one of their relatives. I didn’t see him, but I realized something bumped me as I walked by. Just a few seconds later I felt a sharp sting in my posterior! Then my attacker called for reinforcements and I was chased (screaming like a little girl) into the house. One followed me just inside the door (with two others in hot pursuit). I let out a series of short guttural moans—unnhhhhh unnhhhhh unnhhhhh unnhhhhh. My two cats (who were happily basking in the afternoon light by the patio doors) ran off in all directions, ears back and eyes as big as saucers. I grabbed some envelopes and swatted them out (the hornets, not the cats). Sure hope I got them (the hornets, not the cats). Now I’m indoors (with a sore hiney) looking at six large plastic envelopes strewn over the patio. Hornets 1, Cindy 0.

This link here shows what my attacker looks like (or pretty close—I’m afraid to go back out to confirm identification for fear they’ll recognize me!) They’re going to have to GO.

My green-eyed girl

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Lacecap Hydrangea

Hydrangea macrophylla normalis — Lacecap Hydrangea photographed at Green Spring Gardens in Alexandria, Virginia

Click here for an excellent site on various hydrangea varieties and tips on planting, fertilizing, pruning, propagating and drying.

THIS JUST IN: I just checked out my blogging buddy Phillip’s blog, Dirt Therapy, and he has posted an amazing variety of hydrangeas growing in his garden in Florence, Alabama. Go check them out!

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved. http://cindydyer.zenfolio.com/p270076135

Bright Eyes Phlox

Aptly named Phlox paniculata ‘Bright Eyes’ — photographed at Green Spring Gardens

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

In bloom at Green Spring Gardens…

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Tuesday sky

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Check out my first paid blogging assignment!

A few weeks ago I wrote an article titled, “Got the Blues?” for Bloomin’ Blog, an online florist’s newsletter. All the photos, excluding the poppy image, are mine as well. The link to my newsletter contribution is below:

http://www.flowershopnetwork.com/blog/got-the-blues

Special thanks to Jamie, editor and webmaster of the Bloomin’ Blog, for contacting me and being such a pleasure to work with. I’m planning on submitting articles on event photography for their sister company, Wedding and Party Network.

Requiem for a baby robin

Not too long ago, a mama robin fashioned a beautiful nest at the top of the gazebo outside my office door. From my chair in front of the computer I could watch her come and go. I wasn’t sure if she was sitting on unhatched eggs or already mothering a hatched baby. Early this morning, after she left for her morning food gathering mission (I assume), I tapped on the gazebo and heard some faint chirping. I pulled out the ladder and climbed up to get a peek (camera in hand, of course). The gazebo has a grapevine growing over it and the area she had built the nest is well hidden by branches and leaves. We also put up one of those light nets that you put over bushes at Christmas so we could have mood lighting during parties. I wasn’t able to get up high enough to look down on the nest, so I just slipped my lens through the net, put the camera over my head, pointed it in the general direction, and snapped away. I got this not-that-great photo of her solitary sweet baby this morning.

About an hour ago, while we were watching a movie, Michael heard a bird chirping loudly and since birds don’t normally make much noise at night, we knew something was dreadfully wrong. Had the baby fallen out of the nest? Had Indie, a neighborhood cat, come into the yard and seen the baby? We ran downstairs, turned on the porch light and watched the mama bird hopping from branch to branch under the gazebo, chirping away. As soon as we opened the door, mama flew to the fence. We looked on the ground; no fallen baby. I looked up—and gasped—was that the curvy outline of a SNAKE? Yes, it was. I hollered to Michael. He went to grab a flashlight and grabbed the (black) snake by the head and pulled it out of the nest, banishing it (unharmed) to the woods nearby. Had we known the baby was already gone, I would have taken the dead bird and the snake out to the woods. I’m not a big fan of snakes, but I would never kill one (unless it was attacking me, that is) and I always discourage my snake-fearing friends from doing just that when they encounter one. I respect them but really…go feast on something else…and not in my yard!

I climbed the ladder to see if the baby was still alive. It was too late. I pulled its still warm but lifeless body out of the nest and began crying. Michael came back and we gave the baby bird a proper burial in the garden. Just 12 hours ago I was photographing an almost-ready-to-leave-the-nest baby and now we were burying it in our garden. I realize snakes need to survive, too, but it’s just such a sad thing to witness so soon after photographing it. Of course, when you build a paradise in your backyard, you’re bound to attract all sorts of wildlife, including the predators. I wish I had a better photograph to honor this sweet baby who lived such a short life. A short life, long remembered.

Speaking of snakes…a few years ago Michael was driving home through our neighborhood and noticed a U.S. postal truck that had stopped in the middle of the road. There was a group of kids on a nearby curb watching our postman beating the crap out of a harmless black snake! Michael gave him a lecture about black snakes and promptly rescued it, taking it to the woods to release it (although I’m sure it didn’t survive the postman’s wrath). The snake was simply slithering into the woods (as snakes are inclined to do) and the postman turned into animal control. Fast forward to a few weeks ago. Michael came home from work, then walked across the parking lot to get the mail from the communal post box. The mailman came running over, shouting “do you have a shovel?!” Michael asked him, “what in the world do you need a shovel for?” He said, “there’s a snake over there and I ran over him a couple of times with the truck but he’s still not dead!” Michael walked over and looked at the snake. Once again, it was a harmless black snake. And guess what? It was the same damn postman, too. When Michael came back in to the house, he told me what had transpired. He was mad, which in turn made me mad. I called the local post office to register a complaint. The man who answered said he would be the one to report to, so I told him both stories. I gave him our address so he was able to pinpoint exactly which mailman I reporting. He said, “that is so not his responsibility nor his job. Plus, doesn’t he know that snakes keep the rat population down?” He apologized for the man’s behavior and said he would speak to him about the incidents.

Obviously Michael is the calm one in this relationship. It’s a good thing I didn’t encounter the postman either time!

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Aw, I want one!

After the HLAA Convention was over, we headed toward Huntsville to visit our friend Sue. We wanted to show my sister the nearby towns of Franklin and Leipers Fork en route and we just had to stop to photograph this adorable baby donkey. He (she?) came right up to us to get some attention. I shot the image of Michael petting it to show you how small this little guy was.

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Another night at the Opry

During our behind-the-scenes tour at the Grand Ole Opry, our guide Jamie introduced us to the security guard at the entrance where the artists enter the building. She mentioned that no one gets past him without identification. There was a blonde-haired woman standing at the guard’s desk who looked remarkably like Rhonda Vincent to me, except she had blonde hair (Rhonda Vincent’s hair is naturally a very dark brown). In response to Jamie stating that “no one gets past the guard,” she looked over at us and said something like, “tell me about it. I had to show him I’m in the program guide to convince him who I was.” We all laughed. Barbara’s husband, Bill, who is a big Rhonda Vincent fan, linked arms with her and said something like, “Darlin, come with us,” or something to that effect. Funny thing is, he didn’t recognize her even then until we were at the end of the tour and we told him who she was! Hal Ketchum and his daughter, Sarah Rosie, walked right past Debbie and me backstage and since his hair wasn’t its usual gray, we thought he was a band member!

SIDEBAR: Jamie took us to the historic Studio A, where Hee Haw was filmed. I grew up watching Hee Haw and just had to go stand in the exact spot where the background haystacks would have been. I could just picture Buck Owens and Roy Clark doing their “I’m a pickin’…and I’m a grinnin’” spiel. It always impressed me that Roy Clark could play the banjo, guitar and the mandolin. Such talent! Mike Snider (who was on the roster this night) stars in Pickin’ & Grinnin’ with Mike Snider: A Grand Ole Comedy Revue, which debuted just a few days ago in Studio A (the television portion of the Grand Ole Opry).

FYI: In the photo with Alison Krauss holding a hymn book (9th photo down), that’s her (handsome!) brother, Viktor, accompanying her on acoustic bass.

I shot these photos from the second to the last row of the Opry. Yes, in the waaaay back. (In fact, I just read that there are 4,400 seats in the building. I’m pretty sure I was in seat # 4,399.) I shot with my Nikon D300 set on 1600 and higher, depending on the light fluctuations, and used my Nikkor 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D VR lens, handheld (except when shooting vertically—then I used my sister’s handy shoulder as a prop—thanks, Deboo). The images aren’t too shabby from that far back (at least you know who the artist is in each one), although it would have been such a treat to be up front for optimum photography! I used this same lens when I shot the images from our first visit to the Opry in 2008 here. The Opry show was back in the Ryman Auditorium at the time and we had better seats to that show—I was shooting at no more than 800 ISO during that performance, so the images are a bit better.

I included the last photo of John Conlee’s dialogue during real-time captioning, a first for the Grand Ole Opry! It was great to be there during its debut and the Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA) hopes they will implement it as a regular service. At the time I shot this photo, Conlee was introducing Sammy Johns, who wrote and recorded the 70s classic, Chevy Van.

Click on the individual names for their biography / websites / music video:

Jimmy Dickens
Jimmy C. Newman
Rhonda Vincent (Heartbreaker’s Alibi with Dolly Parton)
Mike Snider
Hal Ketchum
Point of Grace (I Wish)
John Conlee
Jesse McReynolds & The Virginia Boys
Jim Ed Brown
Sammy Johns
Opry Square Dancers
Vince Gill
Alison Krauss with The Whites

View Alison Krauss videos on AOL Music here. One of my favorite duets is this song, How’s the World Treating You, with Alison and my long-road-trip buddy, James Taylor.

THIS JUST IN: Thanks to Wes for the correct name of Hal Ketchum’s daughter, as well as some background info on Hal:

Hal Ketchum is one of the best, pure and natural singers of any genre of music. Had the pleasure to see him in concert about 50 times and have gotten to know him as well. Very down to earth guy. By the way Hal has one grown son and daughter by his first wife and three younger daughters Fanna Rose (Rosie), Ruby Joy and Sophia Grace by his current wife Gina. Ruby is the one that has been with him recently on stage at the Opry as well as other concerts. The daughter in your picture of Hal is Rosie. Just wanted to clear that up. By the way, great shots.

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

It would stand to reason…

that a couple as cute as Chantell & Austin (in the wedding photos I’ve been posting lately) would have to add an equally cute puppy to their newlywed home! I didn’t shoot this image, but if I had to bet on it, based on the hairy legs (it’s a safe assumption that those are Austin’s legs and not Chantell’s), Chantell probably shot it—so I’m giving her the credit. I don’t know what the pup’s name is yet.

THIS JUST IN: The puppy is a mixed breed of Jack Russell Terrier and Yorkshire Terrier. His name is Jack!

© Chantell Muchemore. All rights reserved.

A few more butterflies…

…from the Key West Butterfly and Nature Conservatory

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

The Key West Butterfly and Nature Conservatory

While in Key West, we visited the Key West Butterfly & Nature Conservatory before we met up with the Muchemore family for the big event—Chantell and Austin’s wedding.

This conservatory is definitely one of our favorites now! As you walk around the winding pathway through the conservatory, you’ll hear classical music playing. Not only are there 60+ species of butterflies, they also have an array of exotic birds, tropical plants and a koi pond. Ever notice that most butterfly conservatories are hot and humid? That’s the case here, except for the strategically placed cool air tubes throughout the conservatory—these are to help cool the air for the birds. We humans appreciated that touch on a hot Florida day, too! There’s also a Learning Center and a wonderful gift shop. Founders Sam Trophia and George Fernandez established the Conservatory and the Trophia Butterfly Foundation in January 2003. Read more about Sam Trophia in this article on www.SunSentinel.com.

I photographed a plethora of butterflies at the Wings of Fancy exhibit at Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, Maryland last year. If you fancy butterflies, click here and here to see those photos. I often find butterfly subjects to photograph in our garden—check out the Monarchs I photographed last fall here. Last year I designed a Monarch Butterfly Habitat poster for my friend Mary Ellen of Happy Tonics in Shell Lake, Wisconsin.

I have no idea what kind of butterfly this is below, but it’s a beauty, isn’t it? I made a half-hearted attempt to identify it for you but it’s late and I need some shut-eye (it may surprise some of you, but yes, I do sometimes sleep).

As my father often writes on his blog www.thekingoftexas.wordpress.com, “I’ll get back to you later with more details.”

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Yes, another wedding photo…

Can I help it if these two are so photogenic? I used either the “Rusty Cage” or the “Super Fun Happy” filter from Doug Boutwell Studio’s Totally Rad Action Mix to achieve this warm and dreamy effect.

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Abbie does it again!

Leave it to Abbie Cranmer to create something this original! Abbie is a cochlear implant recipient, of course. Whatever else did you think she meant?

I met Abbie online last year when I was looking for younger people with hearing loss to profile for Hearing Loss Magazine, which I design for the Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA). I stumbled onto her very entertaining and equally educational blog and just knew we had to profile her. She is now involved with HLAA and was the guest blogger for Convention 2009 last week in Nashville. You can read her recap of Convention 2009 here. It was great seeing you again, Abbie!

Abbie wrote for the magazine in the May/June 2008 issue. She came all the way from New Jersey to be photographed in my studio for the cover. See the final cover here and check out the glamour shots from the rest of the session here.

Download her full feature article here: http://www.cindydyer.com/BionicWoman.pdf

More convention photos to come…

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Captioning: a first for the Grand Ole Opry

One of the events at the Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA) Convention 2009 was a night at the Grand Ole Opry, a radio show that began in 1925. Before the show, several of us were treated to a backstage tour of the Grand Ole Opry, including the back entrance where the artists enter, the mailroom, the green room and historic Studio A—where the music variety show Hee Haw was filmed. At the end of the tour, we got to stand in the background on stage during the first performance by Little Jimmy Dickens and the Opry Square Dancers.

Although we weren’t allowed to shoot photographs during the tour, I saw a photo opportunity tailor-made for HLAA when the Grand Ole Opry’s vice president and general manager, Pete Fisher, was introduced to us by our tour guide, Jamie Hulet. For the first time in its 83-year history, the Grand Ole Opry would be real-time captioned. I saw an opportunity to get a shot with some of the people who got that ball rolling. We were granted permission to shoot, and Fisher called Jimmy Dickens over to join us. The Opry was treating that night’s show as “somewhat of an experiment” and may continue the use of captioning in the future.

Thanks to Karyn Menck of Tennessee Captioning and her team of CART (Communication Access Realtime Translation) writers, the HLAA staff, and to the Grand Ole Opry management, we enjoyed the show with real-time captions. Associated Press picked up the story about the captioning and the news spread across the country. Read more about the use of captioning at the Grand Ole Opry and HLAA’s involvement in this article on www.tennessean.com.

On the entertainment roster that night were: Jimmy Dickens, Jimmy C. Newman, Vince Gill, Hal Ketchum, bluegrass vocalist Rhonda Vincent and the Rage, Allison Krauss with The Whites, Point of Grace, Jim Ed Brown, bluegrass legends Jesse McReynolds & The Virginia Boys, John Conlee, singer/songwriter Sammy Johns (who wrote Chevy Van, a hit in 1975), comedian and banjo champ Mike Snider (of Hee Haw fame), and the Opry Square Dancers.

My sister Debbie and I couldn’t get John Conlee’s 1980 hit song, Friday Night Blues, out of our heads after that night! We realized just how old we were when we remembered the words to that song and his 1983 hit, Common Man, which was also written by Sammy Johns.

Here’s a fact I didn’t know—if you’re inducted into the Opry Hall of Fame, you’re paid just $600 for your performance. If you’re not a member, you earn just $300. Clearly these artists do it for the love of the Opry and its history and their love of performing!

Kudos to Nancy Macklin, director of events for HLAA, for putting on a fantastic convention. I could hardly believe it when I learned this was her first time planning a convention—she was organized, professional and less stressed than any convention planner I’ve ever encountered—wonder what her secret is?

I’ll have more stories and photos to share from our evening at the Grand Ole Opry. See photos from our first visit to the Opry in 2008 on my blog posting here.

______________________________________________________________________

Photo, from left: Brenda Battat, executive director of HLAA; Pete Fisher, vice president and general manager of the Grand Ole Opry; longtime performer and oldest living Grand Ole Opry member Jimmy Dickens (then and now); and Barbara Kelley, deputy executive director of HLAA and editor of the bimonthly Hearing Loss Magazine (which I design and produce for the organization). Barbara wrote in a recent press release, “It was fun to be a part of history, satisfying to have communication access, and rewarding to know that the work of our organization and others is paying off. Thanks to the Grand Ole Opry for looking forward. We hope it continues.”

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Chantell and Austin on the pier

I had such a blast photographing these two on the beach the day after their wedding. Both were spontaneous, up for anything, clearly crazy about each other and photogenic to boot. I had complete creative freedom, trusty assistants (the groom’s parents), a tropical backdrop, magical afternoon light, and easy-to-direct and very appreciative “models.” This assignment truly could not have been more ideal! I’ve photographed over 100 weddings in my photography career (most during and after college in Texas), and this one was the most laid-back, go-with-the-flow, low stress events of any of them!

Be patient and one day I might share an image or two and some really crazy stories about some of the most memorable weddings I have photographed. I shot one wedding during a tornado alert! I actually have photos of the mariachi (Mexican music) band swaying in the fierce winds with a turbulent navy sky in the background—at 4:00 p.m. on a South Texas afternoon. The bride and groom were so much in love and anxious to marry that they were apparently oblivious to the impending storm. Then there was the bride who paid half down, then went off to work as a migrant worker for a year. (Half down was $75, if you can believe that—I never charged more than $200 for a wedding—at the time, “top” photographers charged anywhere from $500-800. Those were the days, huh?) She came back with the balance in a piggy bank— we had to break it open to get the money (I can still hear the quarters, nickels and dimes as they rolled across our coffee table). I even remember the bride’s unusual name—Orfalinda. Sweet couple—although a little slow on pickup and payment! Trust me…I’ve got the stories!

In those days the contemporary photojournalistic style wasn’t in use at all—we had a checklist of posed images to get and then we could play after that. I love the new approach and it suits my shooting style so much better. And we shot print film then; digital wasn’t available yet. Having immediate feedback makes the job much more enjoyable and guarantees you get the shot. It almost makes me want to hang out my wedding photographer shingle again. We’ll see.

You can view the previous Key West/wedding photos here, here, and in the posting below this one.

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Muchemore redux

Here we go again! More photos finalized from Chantell and Austin’s June 1 wedding in Key West…even more to come (I’m editing and prepping photos in a folder that contains almost 1,000 images)! Special thanks to the groom’s parents, Kathy and Kevin, for their creative sand art creations for the photos.

You can view the previous Key West/wedding photos here and here.

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Big sky on I-81

I shot this image Tuesday afternoon en route from our trip to Nashville. We drove down the previous week to get set up to photograph the Hearing Loss Association of America Convention 2009, June 18-21. We had a great time meeting and photographing so many HLAA members. We also got three new covers in the hopper—member Lois Johnson from Houston, Texas; member (Ret.) Cpt Mark Brogan from Knoxville, Tennessee; and member Jennifer Thorpe and her family from the Nashville area. There will be lots of photos and stories coming right up! As my dad (www.thekingoftexas.wordpress.com) always writes, “I’ll get back to you later with more details.”

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Shelley’s stunning cloudscapes and Texas skies

With her express permission, I’m taking this opportunity to brag on my blog-buddy Shelley’s stunning storm and sky photos. I’m always amazed at how huge the sky is in my home state! 

I stumbled onto Shelley’s pbase gallery in December while I was in Texas visiting my family. Shelley is a certified storm spotter and is fortunate to witness the most beautiful, turbulent, storm-filled skies of the Panhandle (and lives to tell the tale and share these stunning photos, too).

Click on the link below and be sure to double click on each photo to enlarge.

My friend Jeff is headed west to join a storm spotting expedition and I wanted to give him some inspiration for this upcoming photography jaunt. Bring ‘em back (alive), Jeff!

http://www.pbase.com/sadie04/clouds_and_storms

Photos below © Shelley D. Sparks

Hey! What are ya? Deaf in one ear?

The long and short of it
I’ve had about a 20% overall hearing loss since I was a toddler, and although my parents bought me a hearing aid when I was about seven or eight years old, I wore it just a few times and gave it up, much to their dismay. Then I lost the hearing in my right ear in the spring of 1993 due to some known and unknown causes (years of scar tissue build up in the ear canal caused the stapes to no longer work or something medical-technical-ish). It most certainly wasn’t an easy row to hoe at first (have you ever seen an x-ray of your skull? Talk about surreal. Gone are fantasies of immortality when you witness your skeleton).

I eventually adjusted to life without hearing in that ear. So now I had a 20% loss in the “good” ear and no hearing at all in the other. The biggest problem I have with the complete loss in my right ear is that when I do hear something, I can’t tell what direction the sound is coming from. I assume it’s coming from my left side! This causes me to do a lot of spinning around to locate the source. And this happens regardless of whether I’m wearing a hearing aid in the “good” ear. People with normal hearing can talk on the phone and when one ear gets tired, they can move the phone to the other. I haven’t been able to do that for 16 years.

Imagine what it’s like when someone wants to share a secret with me and starts whispering in the “bad” ear. Yep, it will remain a secret that way, that’s for sure. If I don’t hear it, I can’t spread the word anyway, now can I? It’s foolproof! (And a note to all my friends—Sue, in particular—who are sensitive to my hearing loss and always accommodate me by being on the left side or facing me when they’re talking without my asking—I sincerely thank you for those thoughtful gestures.) I also get overwhelmed if there is too much noise because I can’t block any of it out as a normal-hearing person would—there’s just too much distraction and I can’t focus on what I do want to hear.

Humor on the high seas
Fast forward just a few years after I lost the hearing in my right ear. I’m on a Caribbean cruise with my friend Norma and we meet two gals and end up spending time hanging out with them at dinner and other social events. One evening we’re sitting around in a semi-circle in the piano bar and I’m listening to Norma, who is on my left (the good ear), talking away. One of our newfound friends is trying to talk to me on my “bad” side and obviously reasons I can’t hear her. (#1. Got no hearing in that ear, lady and #2. I’m engrossed in conversation with Norma, so I’m focused on that task). She knows I’m listening to Norma, though.

Eventually she taps me on the shoulder and asks, “Hey! What are ya? Deaf in one ear? I’m trying to talk to you!” I realized she phrased the question that way in jest, of course, but imagine the look of horror on her face when I turned to reply, “Ummmm…yes, as a matter of fact, I am deaf in one ear.”

What are the odds of that happening again? She spent the rest of the evening apologizing profusely.

In the studio: Micah Doughty

Just a few images of Micah Doughty from the photo shoot yesterday morning

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

In the studio: Katie Doughty

I photographed Reed Doughty and his family about a month ago at Green Spring Gardens in Alexandria. I’ll have some of those photos to share shortly.

Reed Doughty (#37) is a defensive player for the Washington Redskins and was profiled for the November/December 2008 issue of Hearing Loss Magazine, which I design and produce bimonthly for the Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA). Click here to read that blog posting, see my cover photo of Reed, and download the full Hearing Loss Magazine article. Reed is serving as the 2009 Honorary Chair of the Washington, D.C. Walk4Hearing™ to bring about awareness about hearing loss, its implications and causes. In the upcoming July/August 2009 issue of Hearing Loss Magazine, Reed comments, “Hearing loss might have a stigma sometimes, but I am in need of hearing enhancement. I’m going to wear hearing aids. I hope others will get the help they need.”

This morning Reed’s wife, Katie, came to my studio with the boys, Micah and Caleb, for some indoor head shots to round off the collection of photographs. While Barbara Kelley, editor of Hearing Loss Magazine, entertained 2-1/2 year old Micah, I was able to get some beautiful shots of Katie. Although she says she has never modeled before, she takes direction beautifully and, as you can see, is quite photogenic. I got some really cute shots of the three of them together and more of a very animated and talkative Micah that I’ll share as well.

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Much more of the Muchemores

Okay, I couldn’t resist…with a last name like that, this blog post title was inevitable! Muchemore to come…

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Amazing tree in downtown Key West

I’m fairly certain that a Ficus aurea, or strangler fig, has taken over this tree (or group of trees) in downtown Key West. I did some research online and learned that they are common throughout the Caribbean and tropical Americas. You’ll find excellent and very detailed information about strangler figs with illustrative photos on this site: http://waynesword.palomar.edu/ploct99.htm

Michael serves as my scale reference in the first photo. Doesn’t the second photo look like a backdrop from a Harry Potter movie? If I have misidentified this unusual tree, enlighten me!

THIS JUST IN…Artist Val Webb posted a comment on my garden-only site, www.gardenmuse.wordpress.com. Here is her comment:

“It has been many years since I visited Key West, but I seem to recall that the tree in question is a banyan tree. There is a large one on the Thomas Edison property there.”

I looked up “banyan tree” and learned that a banyan is a fig tree that starts its life as an epiphyte when its seeds germinate in the cracks and crevices on a host tree. The seeds germinate and send down roots toward the ground, and may envelope part of the host tree…giving them the name of “strangler fig.” So apparently banyan is another name for it. Thanks for the input, Val!

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

AHS Great American Gardener Awards

Last Thursday night, I photographed the American Horticultural Society’s 2009 Great American Gardeners Awards dinner, hosted by AHS at their River Farm headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia.

AHS BOOK AWARDS

Amy Goldman won a book award for her latest tome, The Heirloom Tomato: From Garden to Table: Recipes, Portraits, and History of the World’s Most Beautiful Fruit, published by Bloomsbury USA. Goldman (left) is presented her plaque by Susie Usrey, Chair, AHS Board of Directors (right).

I mentioned Goldman’s other books, The Compleat Squash: A Passionate Grower’s Guide to Pumpkins, Squashes, and Gourds and Melons for the Passionate Grower, in a posting in March here. I have both of these titles in my library and plan on adding her beautiful tomato book as well. All three books are the most beautifully designed and photographed books I have ever come across (and I own 1,000s of books, so I can attest to this without hesitation!). Photographer Victor Schrager’s work is hauntingly beautiful—he turns humble fruits and vegetables into stunning works of art.

Gwen Moore Kelaidis received an award for her book, Hardy Succulents, published by Storey Publishing. William Cullina received an award for his book, Native Ferns, Moss and Grasses, published by Houghton Mifflin. Scott Odgen and Lauren Springer Odgen received an award for their book, Plant-Driven Design, published by Timber Press. This year, AHS awarded two Citations of Special Merit: Garden Primer by Barbara Damrosch, second edition published in 2008 by Workman Publishing; and Herbaceous Perennial Plants by Allan M. Armitage, published by Stipes Publishing.

TEACHING AWARD—given to an individual whose ability to share his or her horticultural knowledge with others has contributed to a better public understanding of the plant world and its important influence on society. Dr. Michael N. Dana, Ph.D., is the recipient of this year’s award. Dana teaches horticulture in the department of horticulture and landscape architecture at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Left: Michael Dana with his wife, Beth, who is a physical therapist.

THE LIBERTY HYDE BAILEY AWARD—This award is given to an individual who has made significant lifetime contributions to at least three of the following horticultural fields: teaching, research, communications, plant exploration, administration, art, business, and leadership. This year’s award was given to Panayoti Kelaidis (right), senior curator and director of outreach at the Denver Botanic Gardens in Colorado.

THE LUTHER BURBANK AWARD—This award recognizes extraordinary achievement in the field of plant breeding. This year’s winner was Jim Ault, director of environmental horticulture at the Chicago Botanic Garden, in Glencoe, Illinois. We have Ault to give thanks to for breeding the first orange coneflower, Echinacea Orange Meadowbrite, and the first three-species Echinacea hybrid, Pixie Meadowbrite!

THE PAUL ECKE JR. COMMERCIAL AWARD—This award is given to an individual or company whose commitment to the highest standards of excellence in the field of commercial horticulture contributes to the betterment of gardening practices everywhere. This year’s recipient is Ronald E. Gass (left), president of Mountain States Wholesale Nursery in Litchfield Park, Arizona.

THE G.B. GUNLOGSON AWARD—This award recognizes the innovative use of technology to make home gardening more productive and successful. This year’s recipient was Soil Food Web, Inc., in Corvallis, Oregon. Soil Food Web, Inc. analyzes soil samples to determine the presence of a range of beneficial soil organisms that are key to sustainable landscapes.

THE HORTICULTURAL THERAPY AWARD—This award recognizes significant contributions to the field of horticultural therapy. This year’s recipient is Karen L. Kennedy (right), who has spent 23 years using horticultural therapy to improve the lives of people with disabilities and chronic illnesses. She is the manager of wellness programs at the Holden Arboretum in Kirkland, Ohio, and also teaches introduction and programming courses in horticultural therapy for the Horticultural Therapy Institute in Denver, Colorado.

THE LANDSCAPE DESIGN AWARD—This award is given to an individual whose work has demonstrated and promoted the value of sound horticultural practices in the field of landscape architecture. This year’s recipient is Paul Comstock (left), head of Comstock Studio, a landscape architecture and planning practice that is part of the Valley Crest Design Group in Malibu, California. He is formerly the director of landscape design for Walt Disney Imagineering.

MERITORIOUS SERVICE AWARD—This award recognizes a past Board member or friend of the American Horticultural Society for outstanding service in support of the Society’s goals, mission, and activities. This year’s recipient is Carol F. Carter Morrison of Barrington, Illinois, who served on the AHS Board of Directors from 1999 to 2008. Carol (center), is pictured with former president and CEO of AHS, Katy Moss Warner (left) and Susie Usrey, Chair, AHS Board of Directors (right).

THE B.Y. MORRISON COMMUNICATIONS AWARD—This award recognizes effective and inspirational communications—through print, radio, television, and/or online media—that advances public interest and participation in horticulture. This year’s recipient is William C. Welch (at left, with his son), who has taught horticulture at Texas A&M University and currently works for the Texas AgriLife Extension Service in College Station. Welch is the author of Perennial Garden Color (Taylor Trade Publishing, 1988), Antique Roses for the South (Taylor, 1990), and The Southern Heirloom Garden (Taylor, 1995). He is co-author of The Bountiful Cutflower Garden with Neil C. Odenwald (Taylor, 2000). He is also the editor of the Southern Garden website and contributes regularly to Southern Living magazine and other publications.

THE PROFESSIONAL AWARD—given to a public garden administrator whose achievements during the course of his or her career have cultivated in widespread interest in horticulture. This year’s award recipient is Claire Elyce Sawyers. Since 1990, Sawyers has been direct of the Scott Arboretum of Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Previously, she worked at the Mt. Cuba Center, a 650-acre non-profit horticultural institution in Greenville, Delaware. She is the author of The Authentic Garden: Five Principles for Cultivating a Sense of Place (Timber Press, 2007).

THE JANE L. TAYLOR AWARD—This award is given to an individual, organization, or program that has inspired and nurtured future horticulturists through efforts in children’s and youth gardening. This year’s winner is Shawn Akard, the outdoor education coordinator for Hollin Meadows Science and Math Focus School in Alexandria, Virginia. The School’s Outdoor Education Program started in 2005 as a volunteer effort to beautify school grounds using native Virginia species. It has grown to include numerous working gardens that serve as active outdoor classrooms for 600 students.

THE URBAN BEAUTIFICATION AWARD—This award is given to an individual, institution, or company for significant contributions to urban horticulture and the beautification of American cities. This year’s recipient is America in Bloom, based in Columbus, Ohio. This independent, non-profit organization is dedicated to promoting nationwide beautification programs and personal and community involvement through the use of flowers, plants, trees, and other environmental and lifestyle enhancements.

On a personal note, as a self-proclaimed “gardener obsessed,” I must say that it is exciting to meet anyone in the horticultural field, whether they are plant hybridizers, authors, or teachers. I especially enjoy meeting the garden book authors since books and gardening are two of my passions!

Josie at 8 months

My garden club’s newest sprout is growing like a weed! And she has quite the fan base, too.

Check out Josie’s first debut on my blog here. See Daddy’s little girl here, “au naturel” in my studio here, with Mom & Grandma here, and turning 147 days old here.

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

What 20 bucks will get ya in Key West

(Delicious bruschetta not included) While eating dinner Saturday night at Caroline’s on Duval Street, we watched a cockatoo dancing in time to reggae music on a nearby bench. The bird is on exhibit at Jungle Greg’s Rescued Animals booth in downtown Key West. A sign lists prices at $10 for each animal for photographs. He also had various birds and two large snakes on display. So Jungle Greg must have been feeling pretty good that night because he attached four birds to Michael for just $20 so I could get this shot. Whatta deal! The money goes to his rescue projects (at least that’s what the sign purports; the  animals on display aren’t rescues). I did observe that the animals were far more lively and conversational than the proprietors. But $20 isn’t too bad considering he usually charges $30 (plus tax) to shoot a photo for you and that gets you one 4×6. As we were leaving, two twenty-somethings came up and said, “we’re scared to death of birds, but can we get a photo of the python wrapped around our necks?”

Coming soon: See how fast you can part with $35 in 15 minutes in the tropics!

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Cloudspotting: spinal column

Key West sky photographed Tuesday, June 2, during a dolphin-watching tour

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Here lizard, lizard, lizard

Every time I hear the word lizard, I think of that Taco Bell dog commercial shown here.

On Sunday, Michael and I visited the Key West Tropical Forest & Botanical Garden, the only “frost-free” botanical garden in the continental U.S. The garden showcases flora native to South Florida, Cuba and the Caribbean and emphasizes cultivation of threatened and endangered species of the Florida Keys. This “biodiversity hotspot” is home to many species of plants and animals. Common animals includes box turtles, Green iguanas (one greeted us in the parking lot), Mangrove Skipper Butterflies (which I saw and photographed), and various turtles, crocodiles, birds and snakes. And there were lizards virtually everywhere…on the walkways, benches and in trees. I saw at least six different species, three of which are in the collage below. There were so many that as I was photographing one lizard, another would crawl into the frame or run past my subject! And I had to look closely to be able to spot them—they were so well camouflaged. More photos to come…

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Weekend in Key West!

That title should explain my brief (and abrupt) exit from my blog. Michael and I flew into Key West on Saturday afternoon. We spent that evening exploring Key West, followed by a visit to a botanical garden and a butterfly conservatory on Sunday. Late Sunday afternoon we met up with the parents of the groom, Kathy and Kevin (groom’s parents), who are my parent’s neighbors in San Antonio. They had asked us to join them at their timeshare in Key West; the trip soon morphed into the impromptu sailboat-at-sunset wedding of their son, Austin, and his lovely bride, Chantell. I was asked to photograph the event and was thrilled to do so. This is just one of the photos I’ll be posting. I shot this shortly after they said their “I do’s.” (Notice the sunset behaved well for the shot, too!) It was the most fun wedding I’ve ever photographed (and I’ve shot over 100 of them since college)! Chantell and Austin—with their unbridled energy, enthusiasm, and sparkling white smiles (not much to improve in Photoshop there!)—were such a joy to photograph. Perfect weather, perfect wedding, perfect couple with perfect smiles, perfect day!

We had to get back so I could photograph an event for the American Horticultural Society (which I’m leaving for now, in fact), so we (sadly) couldn’t stay with them the rest of the week. This was our second time in Key West, but we saw quite a bit more than we did on our first trip many years ago. I felt like we were in some exotic country—almost forgot we were still in the U.S. It’s quite a different atmosphere—lizards, iguanas, roosters and chickens running loose everywhere…very laid-back atmosphere…brightly colored cottages and exotic flowers in bloom…and bicyclists and mopeds galore. It was a short but very adventurous four days!

More photos to come of botanical garden lizards and flowers, butterflies, Key West shots, parrots, Hemingway’s house, cats, boats, interesting clouds, dolphins, snorkeling…and, of course, more wedding and sailboat shots.

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

So that’s why they cost an arm and a leg!

My friend Ed (a fellow photographer) just sent me this video on youtube—How camera lenses are made—from the Discovery Channel. Six weeks to produce a single lens. Who knew? Fascinating stuff!

It’s a jungle out there

Shot of our front yard garden taken this afternoon…

Just past bloom: White & purple Bearded Iris and Purple Sensation Allium 

Debuting now: Beard’s Tongue, Catmint, Veronica Speedwell, Creeping Thyme, Sweet William, Penstemon, Rose Campion (blush pink-white and bright pink varieties), Hellebores, Sedum, Yellow Yarrow, Nasturtium, White Dianthus, Pink Phlox, Hosta flowers, Ageratum, Evening Primrose ’Lemon Drop’, Strawflower, Geraniums 

Very-soon-to-bloom: Globe Thistle, Lavender (various), Coreopsis, Tickseed, Lilies (various) and Salvia

And later in the season: Butterfly bush (pink, yellow, purple varieties), Coneflower (various varieties)

Platycodon Balloon Flower (purple and white varieties), Shasta Daisies, Black-eyed Susan, Monarda Bee Balm, Lamb’s Ear, Morning Glory ‘Heavenly Blue’, Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’, Maximilian sunflower

Ha! And this is just the list of plants in the front yard. Proof enough that I’m a gardener obsessed.

Got a question for my fellow gardeners…what is the weed (looks a lot like the tops of celery plants or almost cilantro-looking leaf) that is taking over my entire garden in spades? Why have I not noticed this prolific pest in previous years? Is it a new invasive? Do I need to photograph it for identification?
  
© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

 

The Vendor Client Relationship

This youtube video was posted in the Graphic Designers Professional Group on LinkedIn. It could easily apply to any business situation. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Funny how some professions allow this type of behavior and others don’t. When I get my car repaired, I can’t haggle with them on the price. Why is that? Because my car is held hostage otherwise? Yup.

I would be out of business if I were not a little flexible. And it has nothing to do with the present economy—it has always been that way (from my perspective). Fortunately, I haven’t run into too many clients like this (I’m very lucky in that regard), but the ones who have behaved that way…well, shame on them (and me for putting up with it)!

Brilliant—but sadly real—video. There, I’m off my soapbox. How ’bout some more flower photos?

My Kenilworth bounty

The previous posting about Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens prompted me to look through my photo archives. I’ve been to Kenilworth three summers in a row (and 100% sure I will do so again this summer). While I have posted on my trips to the gardens, I didn’t gather all of them into one collage until now.

If you’re in the D.C./Virginia/Maryland area, be sure to visit the gardens, particularly in July. The main attractions are obviously the lotus blossoms, which bloom during the truly hottest time in our area (sigh), but I’m sure there are water lilies in bloom throughout the summer.

You can view my previous posts on Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens by clicking on the links below:

http://cindydyer.wordpress.com/2008/07/20/kenilworth-park-and-aquatic-gardens/

http://cindydyer.wordpress.com/2007/07/22/kenilworth-gardens-7222007/ 

What a muse that place is!

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

A Wilson Bridge Too Far

Last Thursday I accompanied my friend Jeff to an office complex in Fairfax where five of his floral images are on display as part of the office decor. The woman in the top left photo with Jeff (below) is Sylvia Zuniga, who purchased the prints for the Fairfax Intelligent Office location.

The poppies were photographed at Green Spring Gardens in Alexandria, Virginia, and the lotus blossom was photographed at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens in Washington, D.C.

A few weeks ago Jeff shared an essay with me that he had written to accompany his photos for his entry in the Nature’s Best magazine photography contest last year. The essay was about one of our field trips to photograph the lotus blossoms at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens. I’m sharing his essay to Nature’s Best magazine here, along with a photo I shot of him in the garden.

A Wilson Bridge Too Far   by Jeff Evans

The Plan: A Sunday morning trip to Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens in Washington, D.C. to photograph the sacred lotus, which is found in large numbers in the ponds of the gardens, not to mention dragonflies, butterflies, and other insects drawn by the water and plants such as milkweed which surround the ponds. Maybe even photograph a water lily or two. An early start would allow us to beat the crowd and have good light.

The co-conspirator: Cindy Dyer, good friend, head of the neighborhood garden club (fondly dubbed Head Weed), and excellent photographer.

The Route: Easy enough—the Beltway from Springfield across the Wilson Bridge to 295 to Douglas to Anacostia Avenue to the park. Easy-peasy. And early on a Sunday there would no reason to expect much traffic.

But this day…this day fate would not be a kind mistress. This day she would reveal the capricious nature of her temperament, the kind of day where she seems to channel the spirit of Ghengis Khan…and Conan, and acts as if the greatest joy in life is to crush her enemies, to see them fall at her feet—to take their horses and goods and hear the lamentation of their women. And this day we were the enemy. Woe unto us.

Because you see, the Wilson Bridge was scheduled for an opening that morning. And not just any opening, but an opening for a ship no doubt named “Slow As Molasses On a Cold Day.” We sat on that bridge, on the bridge mind you because of how close we had been to making it across, for at least 45 minutes, as the sun moved higher in the sky, and the light grew harsher. Woe onto us.

And then, safely parked in the parking lot at the park, I hear myself saying, “you know, the breeze feels really nice.” Doh. Double Doh. You appreciate the power of even a light breeze on photography when faced with flowers and leaves big enough to seem to want to act as living kites and float away into the sky, that seem to want to dance like teenage girls at a Ricky Martin concert. Oh, the gnashing of the teeth and the cursing of the Powers That Be. Woe unto us.

But hey, you play the cards dealt you right? And I had brought a secret weapon, an artifact so powerful that it might transcend the fickle will of Fate. A light, white, plastic artifact that puzzled some and earned startled exclamations of appreciations from others. A step stool, about three feet tall, to maybe help me get a little better perspective on both lotus and lily. Tall folks looked at me like puzzled dogs hearing a high-pitched noise. But short people knew. They understood. And thus armed, the battle was joined.

I don’t know if I won the war, but I at least won a skirmish or two. Got a punch in here or there. They’re there, on the enclosed CDs, in high-def and low-def. Take a look and know–-I fought the good fight. Thanks for your time and consideration.

Jeff “Blood and Guts” Evans

Photos © Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.