Theme Thursday

Fragile - Just two days ago we had a down pour and since then the temperatures have been in the lower 90's. Maybe this poor fellow wandered off too far from the pond and got baked here in the parking lot. Or heavy rains like we had the other day can be called, using a colorful euphemism, frog stranglers and that is just what happened. Either way, the life of a frog can be a fragile thing. (06/23/2005)

Shape - The Macon Braves line up on the baseball diamond before the game for the singing of the National Anthem. (04/21/2005)

Toys - Boy, was this theme timely, sort of. I posted a picture of some of my toys I got for Christmas just last Sunday. I won't post another picture of my new "action figures" of the old Beatles, instead I will post a picture of my older figures of the newer Beatles. These are the Sgt. Pepper variation from the movie Yellow Submarine and I tried to pose them as best I could like they are shown on the Yellow Submarine album cover. (12/30/2004)

Light - 'Tis The Season. These were originally purchased for trimming the mantle in our living room. They looked better in the store than at home, so they were retired to my workplace. I have them strung along the cabinets at the top of my cube. If you look close, in the dark background, the Grinch in his Santa suit sits looking down on the inhabitants of Who-ville. (12/09/2004)

Round - The lights of a beautifully restored Jaguar XK120. Taken on Saturday, October 30th during Aiken's 1st Annual Exotic Car Show. This car won best in show and earned a free entry into the prestigious Amelia Island Concurs held each spring. Kind of a shame I never got a picture of the whole automobile... (11/25/2004)

Machine - If I was playing word association and someone said, machine, the first thing I think of is washing, so I didn't have to go far for this theme. In our house the clothes washing is a shared chore. Donna sorts the loads. I carry the baskets out into the laundry room and load the washer. I swap from washer to dryer. I bring the dried clothes back in where she folds the clothes (sometimes I pitch in here too.) (06/10/2004)

Desperation - Like a junkie desperate for his next fix, such is my addiction to participating in these weekly memes. So vital, that having no clue as how to photograph this theme/challenge, that I went out on my deck last night at around 11:00 PM and set camera on tripod, selected the night mode and started randomly snapping at the night sky. The interesting clouds of earlier were replaced with a near clear sky, leaving just enough haze in the air to create this ring around the almost full moon. (03/04/2004)

Orange - They are completing a by-pass loop around our fair city and they just shifted a road about 15 yards to the right. This shift has led to the liberal use of orange barrels. I went out in the chilly evening to experiment more with the night mode on the camera and try and get an interesting photo of these barrels. In my minds eye the photographs I would return with would be breath taking, things are always easier to imagine....There is a big incandescent street lamp to left that even gave the dirt an orange glow. (02/19/2004)

Repeating Patterns - Repeating patterns are everywhere, but no more so than at work for me. I took this in the room next door to me, minutes ago, where they store the old-fashioned paper and pencil prints from days of yore. Shot looking down a row of handles for the draws in one of the stacks of flat files. The cabinets are a light gray, but I had to grayscale the image to rid it of the noise created by the 400ISO I used so I could hand hold the camera. (01/29/2004)

Wild - On our way to test drive Minis in Charleston back on the 22nd of November, we noticed a whole bunch of Hot Rods sharing the roads with us. A few miles out of town when we exited the Interstate, cool cars were thicker than SUVs at a kids soccer game. When we turned left to go into town, they turned right. After the test drives and some lunch we went back to that exit and drove around a bit until we found the show. For a mere $3 entry fee we were treated to the spectacle of hundreds of wild paint jobs, Interiors, engines, wheels and people too. (12/04/2003)

Scary - I spent about an hour last evening on my front lawn, moving slowly around in front of the camera set on a shutter speed of 6 seconds in an attempt to get a ghost-like image. They were all crap. Some folks find roller coasters scary, so I was all set to use a shot of the Hulk ride at Islands of Adventure in Orlando that I had on file. I didn't think it was that scary, but I had to have something. Then l noticed this thing staring at me from just to the right of my monitor. Yikes! (10/30/2003)

Change of Season - How I tell it is changing from summer to fall cannot be photographed. My wife and I like it cold for sleeping, so the thermostat is set to 70 degrees from 9:00 PM until 4:00 AM and it keeps the AC cranking. When we get out of bed in the morning it is still quite cool in the house. Autumn is here the first day I walk outside to get the paper at 6:00 in the morning and it feels colder outside than it does inside. Here is the next best thing, falling leaves, or in this case leaf. (09/18/2003)

Spiral - In the back of our plant we have around forty machines that turn (pun intended) metal bars into small parts for the valves we make. The process leaves behind an awful lot of metal chips, quite a few of which are formed into elegant little spirals. (08/15/2003)

Neon - There were acres of Caravans, Pacificas, PT Crusiers and Concordes on the Chrysler dealer's lot. A couple of miles up the street the Dodge dealer had a herd of Rams, a dozen Dakotas and double that in Durangos. Way in the back, there was what I was looking for, one lone Neon. (08/07/2003)

Ground Level - Went out Tuesday night to take some pictures of my Miata after being inspired by this site - http://jhayes.dhs.org/automotive.htm.I took along my monopod/walking stick and a Ziploc sandwich bag full of birdseed. The baggie w/ birdseed worked great for holding the camera steady while I crawled around on my belly like a reptile. (07/10/2003)