On Christmas Eve

Would she still want Christmas if it didn't look like artificial lights glowing on her street? The same shine down on her from the stores to blind her hazy belief that she wanted something more this time around. Would she still want Christmas if I didn't wrap her material lust in reds and blues topped with little gold and silver bows? The notion never took her as she sleeps without dreaming on Christmas Eve.

Hearts Shine On And You Were There

When the Rain came you were there to laugh with me...

And when the Darkness came you were there close to me...

And when my Fall came you held me back up...

And you shined bright so I could see through the Night.

Turn Away Your Electric Eyes From Me...

"Better At Night" taken Thursday, July 7, 2009.

"Its a light, it's somewhere for us to find, tonight chase this light with me."

- Jimmy Eat World

I go by this lake 1,000 more times and 1,000 more times I'm not going to know those yellow lights on the other side of the water, like yellow eyes turned away from me standing here on the wrong side of the shoreline. This artificial lake puts 1,000 miles between those houses and my home. Because me and my freinds are from south of here. And they're from everywhere but here, from Baltimore, D.C., Pittsburgh and Annapolis, bringing their city money, big money, money that makes those yellow lights shine on.

I just wondered how many stepped out from electric lights tonight to see the moon sleeping on the water. Cause tonight I can actually feel it as it lays there. And they'll just go on taking those lights from across the water, so far from me they don't even look real. But tonight they don't own my light.

That's the only damn thing they could never take from us, this one light. They can't ever own it, lease it, rent it, or list it like everything else in my county now. Thank God for that.

Night Falls on Richmond...time to turn them loose.

The sun finalized its descent on Richmond, Va. last night and 43 of the greatest drivers in the world climbed into the seats for 400 laps at Richmond for the Chevy Rock and Roll 400.

This was my sevnenth trip south to Richmond International Raceway, the three quarter mile track that gives fans the close racing of a short track, but with speeds that suggest the one mile and mile and a half speedways.

Saturday was the last chance for drivers to make The Chase for the Sprint Cup, and their effort in Richmond didn't disappoint.

The Virginia crowd had a lot to celebrate at the end of this one last night, as Virginia native Denny Hamlin smoked the competition, leading nearly three-fourths of the 400 circuits around RIR.

There was no denying how bad Hamlin wanted to win in Virginia. The only other car that had anything for him at any point last night was the 24 of Jeff Gordon. But with flawless pit stops, Hamlin was at the top of the leader board all night. And when lap four hundred went up, the number 11 was still on top.

The great fans in Virginia were loving a Virginian owning the night in Richmond. They didn't mind Hamlin's nearly full-track burnout either.

As for the chase, the big surprise last night was Brian Vickers racing his way to a seventh place finish and making the chase for the Red Bull Racing team in just its third year. On the outside looking in was Kyle Busch and maybe more surprisingly Matt Kenseth, who has made the Chase every year since its inception in 2004.

Another issue a night in Richmond, Va. helped put to rest was the rumors that our sport is going down hill. I was at the Spring race and the fall Race in Richmond, and even with a 10 percent unemployment rate, 100,000 strong still came out last night. So to this, as with any other ignorant comment made about NASCAR and its loyal fans, we can still reply with "Say what you want, we can't hear you!" Race On!!!

Photographers

"For half a century, photography has been the 'art form' of the untalented. Obviously some pictures are more satisfactory than others, but where is credit due? To the designer of the camera? To the finger on the button? To the law of averages?"

- Gore Vidal

"Blessed be the inventor of photography! It has given more positive pleasure to poor suffering humanity than anything else that has 'cast up' in my time -- this art by which even the 'poor' can possess themselves of tolerable of their absent dear ones."

- Jane Welsh Carlyle

I had an art teacher, who I respected (not a word I use much at all) and who had a lot of respect for me. He said that he didn't view photography as art. His reason, as I can best recall it, was that photography was simply recording scences and subjects; the photographer is just recording scenes. Art, on the other other hand, gives us an artist's unique interpretation of the subject.

I would have to agree with his arguement. Artists depict the world in a different way. Photographers see the world in a different way to begin with...one moment and one frame at a time.

Into The Woods, Into My Night

"The impossible it possible tonight."

- The Smashing Pumpkins


One reason, if not the central reason, for making the switch to digital (or selling out as I belief I may have...though still not bowing down to the the almighty Photoshop) was that I wanted to know if what I was doing was that the pictures that I took lived up to my standards of what I believe I was capable of.

Six years into this photography interest and I have to admit that I have never taken a clear, detailed shot of the moon...until a few weeks prior to this post. Back home in Garrett County, where my summer nights were cooler and my night sky clearer, I watched the moon rise over the hills and break through the trees. For the next 30 minutes a shootout between me and the night broke out. There was trial, and error, and trial, and error, and trial...

Finally, I got the settings dead on, the shutter went, and I got the shot I wanted. And after that, the shutter closed and opened, closed and opened, the camera winking at the night sky now that it had warmed up to it.

In this early night shootout I scarcely had the time to notice between shots the adjustments I was making on the camera. I knew I was getting closer and closer to perfect until I had it...

Luckily for this ignorant photographer, my Sony Cybershot allows me to go back and look at the settings for each image.

For the next lunar display, I think I'll wake my film camera from its sleep and and zoom it in on the subject, getting close enough I believe I can reach out and touch it.

The first image you see is titled "No One Knows About The Midsummer Night's Dream." The second one is titled "The Past Does Not Exist."

Photography involves endless discovery in more ways than one, thank God for that.

Hearts in Towson

These are the first good images I have ever taken down here in my new home of Towson. It has been almost a year now. This path is long and uncertain and many times a lonely one, but this afternoon, when the early June sun was descending....

"Simple pleasures aren't as special but I won't regret it never."

- Red Hot Chili Peppers