Category: Blog

11-28-16 Baby Grand

A child prodigy? It’s a little too soon to tell . . . (read more)

By Scott Shephard

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart began toying with the piano at the age of 3 and some say that at age 5 was not only playing competently, but also composing short pieces. Ibby (aka Irene Bernice Shephard), at 16 months, may well be on her way to besting Mozart. Who knows?

What she was playing had no discoverable melody and rhythm. But I’m no musician. Maybe she was playing some avant garde melody well ahead of her time. Or maybe not. Mozart was a tempestuous prodigy. I’ll take a happy-go-lucky toddler over that any day. 🙂

Canon 5DIII 1/125s f/4.0 ISO400 100mm

 

11-15-16 A Quiet Place

No, this is not the Budweiser brewery. (read more)

By Scott Shephard

Deb spent her day in meetings and I spent my day exploring the sites of St. Louis. More specifically, I went on the “Brewmaster’s Tour” of the Anheuser-Busch brewery. And for contrast I visited the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, which is pictured here. Talk about contrast and juxtaposition. If you are interested in more information on the Basilica, check this out. If you want to know what it looks like to tap a giant tank of Budweiser, here you go:

11-13-16 Sunday Morning, St. Louis

What does the Gateway Arch represent to you?

By Scott Shephard

Because Deb and I are frugal travelers, we rarely get a room with a view. Typically, if we stay in a high rise hotel, we are looking out over air conditioning units or the place where delivery and garbage trucks congregate.

But for the next few days, we are staying on the 12th floor at the Hilton St. Louis at the Ballpark. As you can see, we have a river view. And, to my delight, we also have a great view of the Gateway Arch. 

Are we splurging? Not really. Deb is one of four representatives for South Dakota at a midwest college conference, which is headquartered in this hotel. I’m a tag-along.

The Gateway Arch is a monument to the westward expansion of the United States. It is also very close to where Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery set off on their amazing journey up the Missouri River to the west coast.

As a person who spends considerable time on the Missouri River in a part of South Dakota that Lewis and Clark explored, it’s hard not to be intrigued by the opportunity to look out over this symbol. But it also occurs to me that if I were a Native American, I might see this huge stainless steel arch the way many see Mt. Rushmore: as symbols of of conquest.

So how does one balance these two views? It’s difficult, frankly. I guess awareness is a start, however meager that may seem. . . . 

11-12-16 Photographs and Memories

What value does an an informal portrait have? (read more)

By Scott Shephard

At a loss to find something to post today, I simply searched my photo library (229,674 strong as I write this) of photos I took on November 12. It turns out that I had several to choose from. But this one jumped out.

If you are still reading, I would be surprised, since there is nothing remarkable about this photo to anyone outside of the experience of the five of us pictured. Such is the nature of informal group photos of friends and family. Pictured from left to right are Frank Creveling, Betty Creveling (Frank’s wife and my cousin), my aunt Gladys, Deb ( my wife) and me.

What makes this especially meaningful to me is that all four of the others pictured are important to me. And two of them are no longer with us. Frank died a few weeks ago at the age of 91 and Gladys died in 2010 at the age of 97. Betty, Deb and I are “survivors,” I guess

But if we are lucky, we all survive – even in death. Today, for example, Frank and Gladys stand tall and smiling for my camera. And, of course, they survive in our memory. I’ll admit that memory and photographs are ephemeral. But a photograph like this jogs our memory; and it may, after memory fades, ultimately prove our existence to those who come after us.

Canon 20D 1/60s f/4.0 ISO400 28mm (35mm eq:44.8mm)

11-08-16 “I Was Here First”

Is there room enough for two?

By Scott Shephard

Our normal bird bath/bird feeder visitors are sparrows and the occasional pheasant. But yesterday we spotted these blue jays. So I set up my camera and my CamRanger, which allows me to see the scene on my iPad or iPhone and control the camera from another room, and waited for the birds to strike a pose.

Frankly, they aren’t too cooperative when it comes to posing but of the 15 or so photos I took, this one seemed to have the most merit.

Canon 5DIII 1/350s f/4.0 ISO200 200mm

11-07-16 Visiting an Old Friend

Does your dog think you’re perfect? (read more)

By Scott Shephard

This studio selfie was taken 14 years ago on the day that our wonderful springer spaniel Polly was put to sleep. She looks heathy in this photo, doesn’t she? But bladder cancer had recurred and because we loved her, we knew what we had to do.

Is she looking adoringly at me? Maybe. But she’s also looking for more dog treats, which I was using to get her to pose with me. I had run out and this was the last photo I ever took of her.

When I look at this photo, I still get a little sad. But I also think of the expression

“We should try to be the kind of person our dog thinks we are.”

I do think Polly adored me but she adored everyone, except, perhaps, for the UPS Man, due to no fault of his own.

They say that dogs can sense human emotions, including fear and happiness. Some dogs can even sense an impending epileptic seizure, low blood sugar or even cancer in their owners. As I look at this photo, I wonder if dogs can’t also sense goodness in people, even when the people aren’t aware of it themselves?

I continue to try to be the kind of person Polly thought I was. But it’s not always easy. This photo reminds me not just of a good friend who has passed away but also of the fact that I need to keep trying to live up to her high expectations.

Canon 1D

11-05-16 Another World

Can you feel your shirt touching your shoulder right now? (read and see more)

By Scott Shephard

If you drove by these plumeria flowers every day as you entered your driveway, you probably wouldn’t see them. Like so many things that we see, feel, hear or smell all of the time, even beautiful flowers become white noise. To get you to consider white noise, here are two tests:

1) List 5 features of the street side of your neighbor-to-the-left’s house. If you’ve lived in your neighborhood for a year or for decades, you’ve probably seen your neighbor’s house hundreds or even thousands of times. My guess is that while you’ve seen your neighbors house, you’ve never really looked at it. The features of the house are likely examples of white noise to you.

2)If you are wearing a shirt right now, what does it feel like? The skin is a profoundly sensitive organ but because it is in constant contact with something all of the time, the sensations become white noise.

So here’s my point: if you take your camera outside and, with your neighbor’s permission, take 10 photos of various features of the front of their house, those features cease to be white noise. They might even become essential and even fascinating. They might also become something you notice every time you drive by the house. The same could be said for your shirt. Can you feel it touching your shoulders and back? What does it feel like?

So back to these beautiful plumeria . . . Because I had my camera in hand when I walked by them, because I had only been in this neighborhood for a day and because they were new and foreign to my experience, I couldn’t help but notice them. And now you see them too.

Such is the power of photography. As for feeling your shirt, I hope the sensations they cause generally remain as white noise. Otherwise, it will drive you crazy . . . .

How about a view of the neighborhood and a couple other takes on these flowers?:

 

Canon 5DIII 1/750s f/2.8 ISO400 100mm

11-04-16 Present at the Creation

My blog title today is figurative, of course. And literal.

By Scott Shephard

I’m not old enough to have been present at The Creation, which happened eons ago. But I can finally say that I did witness the slow and geologic creation of a little more earth – in this case the Big Island of Hawaii.

I have seen videos of lava flows on Hawaii before and while the lava seems dangerous, it also seems deceptively sedate – it has an amazingly warm glow and it seems to move languorously. But when you witness molten lava flowing into the ocean from as close as 50 feet away, it is anything but benign.

The sound of the boiling sea water, the whiff of sulfurous gas and the crash of the waves against the new-formed earth are both fascinating and scary.

The boat ride to this amazing place wasn’t exactly easy as we were pounding into 7 foot swells most of the way. And it wasn’t cheap, either. But it was certainly worth it.

A few more from our outing . . .

And a short video . . . 

[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAotLMTzZBk&w=854&h=480]

10-04-16 Another Day

The sun has risen 22,936 times during my life. I’ve missed seeing most of those sunrises. How about you? (read more)

By Scott Shephard

It just occurred to me that while the sun rose only once in this place on this day it is otherwise always rising and always setting all day long every day. Of course, it’s more accurate to suggest that the earth revolves all day long as the sun stays fixed relative to our point of view on earth.

As a child I remember wondering how fast you’d have to move so that the sun would appear to stand still. Answer: 1,037.5 miles per hour.

But I wasn’t moving when I took this photo. In fact, I was transfixed. You would have been, too, if you had be up on The Rock with me a few mornings ago. The light you see in this photo lasted about 4 minutes. But it was worth the trip. . . .

Canon 5DIII 1/15s f/16.0 ISO200 47mm (5 frame HDR)

10-02-16 Change Is in the Air

It’s good and bad . . . (read more)

By Scott Shephard

I appreciate fall, of course, mainly because of all of the changing colors. But at the same time, the changing colors also signal the end of summer. Frankly, I like summer best, mainly because of the warm weather and the good sailing I enjoy on Lake Oahe.

But I’m not complaining. And to have been out on a perfect morning like yesterday trying to capture the idea of fall in the Black Hills is hard to beat, especially given that my good friend Bill Z. was there to enjoy it with me. 

Canon 5DIII 1/250s f/2.8 ISO200 100mm