Day Fortytwo: Tom Jefferson's Birthday

It was 34 degrees at sunrise in Chaumont, NY this morning. Should shape up to be a lovely day.

Happy Birthday Thomas Jefferson.

In my family we like to celebrate Tom Jefferson's birhday. Today, April 13th, 2010, is his 267th. The cupcakes in photo above were made by my mother. I was visiting her house and she adorned a couple of them with candles and a photo op was born. The Jefferson engraving is courtesy the US mint by way of the $2.00 bill.

Here are some Jefferson quotes:

"I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it."
"Be polite to all, but intimate with few."

"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine."

"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."

Day Fortyone: Grilling Those Hoffmans

A lovely day to be a photographer and drive over 250 miles. My travels took me from Sackets Harbor to Cortland. In Sackets area I checked out a farm scene where a silo exploded and killed the Sackets Harbor assistant fire chief. He was 26 year old Garrett Loomis. What a shame. Then I went to a press conference at SUNY Cortland. NY Governor Paterson and NY Jets football team owner Woody Johnson were there making an announcement about the Jets Summer training camp at the college.

Now about those Hoffmans. They are darn good hot dogs, but you need to grill them properly. In the region I travel and work in these dogs are popular and vendors tout them prominently. However, most of these vendors do not grill them to their best advantage. Don't get me wrong, they are still good as hot dogs go, but grilled the way we do them, they are outstanding. Look at the photo. That's how you want them to look. The skin is dark, blackened in spots, but they do not taste burnt. To start, get the dogs out of the fridge and let them reach room temperature before placing on the grill. Or, microwave the chill out of them before grilling. Grill them over charcoal, not gas. There is a difference. Lay the dogs over the colas and keep them moving, turn them over, keep rotating their position on the grill. Let them reach a state where they begin to blister, crack, turn a bit black. Sometimes you will hear a faint whistling sound as steam escapes the dogs. When they have swollen and cracked they are perfect. Have your favorite bread and condiments handy and eat them immediately after taking them off the grill. When they are ready to eat, keep the extras hot & perfect by scraping all of your coals to one side of the grill and piling your dogs on the other side. Put your lid back on the grill. Now you and your guests can march over to the grill and grab a hot dog as needed. Do not remove them from the grill and pile them on a platter. As they cool they shrink and are still really good, but not as PERFECT as keeping them warm under the lid.

Day Forty: Hofmann Hotdogs

It was a nice day in Chaumont NY today. Among other things I photographed these Hoffman hot dogs on the grill. They are made in Syracuse, NY, and are truly the best hot dog I have ever eaten. Tomorrow I am out at 5:30 AM, a full day lined up for the Post-Standard, starting with an early morning weather photo. It's a lot different when you MUST go find a photo and have it delivered by a certain time, than going about your business and just seeing one appear in front of you.

Day Thirtynine: Queen Anne's Lace

Sunrise last Summer driving in Sandy Creek area. Sometimes you need to zero in on details as opposed to the wide scene in front of you. Ever since I was a child I have liked these wild flowers, and especially their name: Queene Anne's Lace.

Day Thirtyeight: Wellsley Island Porcupine

You get up in the morning and you never know what is in store for you. Yesterday I started out with a mission to find a guitar playing gig. It ended with this photo of a porcupine! I've never seen one live before, just dead ones on the road.
Did I find a gig? Yes I did. But still not what I am looking for. I'm guessing I spent a total of two hours on the phone. But they were productive. The end result is that I am probably going to play guitar for at three different functions for the Jefferson County Historical Society. The events are not firmed up yet, but I anticipate they will be. I have one date set up for the farmers market in Watertown, June 30th. I got hold of the restaurant manager at Bonnie Castle Resort in Alexandria Bay. I had a positive chat with her, but nothing solid yet. I called a few other places with similar results, or left messages for the key people. I need to call two of them back this morning. In the end I probably made eight calls.

I also was called by two other people unrelated to my mission. One was my brother, another was a friend from the past who seemed to be in need of conversation. I can't go into all of that-not enough time. Those calls however, tended to prolong my mission. All in all, I'd say I made some progress trying to promote the music side of my life.



Now, back to the porcupine. As I mentioned, my brother called. He wanted to take a drive to Wellsley Island to check out some land for sale. It was a pretty nice day so we set it up for when I got done with my mission. We looked at the land and discovered that it was owned by a man whom we grew up with as kids. Small world. Now, one cannot go to Wellsley Island without driving around and checking out the scenery, the architecture and the like. Thus it was, while cruising, we spotted this porcupine in a tree. Couldn't pass up a photo of that.
I should point out that there are many reasons why I photograph things. Not all of them provide great, artsy photos, or spectacular nature photos. This porcupine photo is rather mundane as nature photos go. The light was terrible, the creature is dark, shooting him overhead against the sky, through tree branches, couldn't be a worse scenario. (Because of that I used a flash on the camera.) Being that I have never seen a live porcupine before I wanted to take it's picture just to be able to show it to family and friends. That's the reason for taking many photos. To document and share your experiences. How would it be if I didn't have a camera with me? I would tell people about seeing it. I would also have been standing there looking at it sayin, "My God, I wish I had a camera!" I have heard that story hundreds of times. "I wish I had a camera with me." My big fear in life is that I'll absent mindedly leave the house with out a camera and run into Elvis pushing John Kennedy in a wheel chair toward a waiting flying saucer! Without a camera, you could tell everyone what you witnessed and they would never believe you. Another thing, if you ever did get photos of Elvis, Kennedy and a UFO you could sell them for a lot of money to the National Enquirer!


Need a photographer? Please visit my web site at: www.garywalts.com
All photos and text contained in this blog are copyright Gary Walts 2010

Day Thirtyseven: Today's Mission: Find A Gig

A lot of nights as I lay in bed the idea machine begins to turn in my brain. At some point before nodding off I make a commitment to act on one of those ideas when I awake in the morning. Last night I committed myself to a mission: Contact ten restaurants and/or cafes to try and land a guitar playing gig. Well, I have been up since 6:00AM and so far have called one place, Bonnie Castle Resort in Alexandria Bay. The manager was not in yet. It's 11:30AM. "Well what have you been doing all this time?" I can hear my better half asking. Well, I placed new ads on the Syracuse and Watertown craigslists for wedding photography. Those ads don't create themselves. I put in three, count 'em, three hours on guitar. Checked out facebook. Now I write this. Ok then, It's back to the phone calls.

Day Thirtysix: Chaumont Sunrise

It was 52 degrees in Chaumont, NY this morning. I looked out and saw some fog. At 7:00am I took the household trash out to the curb and noticed the Sun rising between my neighbors houses. I photographed it. These photos were made with a Nikon D2H camera. The noise in the shadows with this camera are horrible. This is not one of my favorite cameras. Anyhow, I opened them in Photoshop. The colors were all over the place. I fooled around awhile and tried to get them to look like what I saw. In the upper photo I added some saturation which seemed to bring the sky around to something acceptable. On the lower photo I played around with the color balance, taking out some green by adding magenta, and adding some extra red & yellow. When I tried auto color or auto levels the sky went really blue. A strange, unnatural blue. I mention it because it's difficult to make a good sunrise or sunset because of the intensity of the Sun against the rest of the scene. Thus I shoot numerous exposures to try and strike a balance between the Sun and the rest of the scene. Then, when the photo is made smaller and saved as a GIF for the web, the color pallette becomes reduced and more compromises enter into the equation. I'm not sure how well any of this translates in this final blog posting. I'm not sure it even matters.

On another note, notice the power lines. Do they bother you at all? Years ago some of my photographer friends and I used to lament the existence of power lines and how they screw up an otherwise nice scenic. However, I have come to accept them as a part of the sceneery in which we live, and it simply doesn't bother me anymore. If the lines are there I just accept the idea that they are a part of the subject matter. Don't let a few wires stop you from making a photograph.

Day Thirtyfive: Altered Routine

It's been pretty close to 60 degrees or so all day in Chaumont NY. I decided to alter my Tuesday routine today which is why I am writing this at 7:00PM. I did the usual two hours or so of guitar, but, at 9:00am I decided to take care of some banking. I usually do errands of that nature in the afternoon. After I have taken care of other business such as this blog. Anyhow, I went to the Clayton branch of my bank which is fourteen miles away. While in Clayton I stopped in at Winged Bull Studio. Todays photos come from that visit. Greg Lago has several projects in the works. Among them is this carving he is chipping out of a piece of cherry wood. The piece and his tools were lying amid a pile of wood chips, creating a natural still life. You can see from the wide photo how I decided to close in on that scene for the tighter photo. There is a good chance that had I showed up later in the day he would have had the wood chips cleaned up and the photo would have been different, or not taken at all.

All photos and text contained in this blog are copyright Gary Walts 2010
Also, please visit my web site at: www.garywalts.com

Day Thirtyfour: Hallway

It was pretty much 50 degrees in Chaumont, NY, this morning. I would have to say that march came in and went out like a lamb. What will April bring? Showers? If April showers bring May flowers, what do May flowers bring?

Mayflowers bring pilgrims.


How does one go about making a photograph of something? When something catches my eye the first thing I do is determine just what is it that I'm noticing. Then I try to figure out how to photograph it. In the photo above it was the light falling on the wall. I started shooting that. First just the pattern of light. But something didn't seem to be clicking. I began moving around in the hallway, looking through the viewfinder. I shot a variety angles with various exposures and focal lenghs of the zoom lens. Ultimately I liked this one the best. Notice how I carefully utilized the lines that exist in the scene. The lines that make up the door, the hallway, the receding lines created by the boards in the flooring. This is not accidental. I keep adjusting the camera position, paying attention to the lines as I shoot. These lines make up various shapes. Those shapes are the real core of what I see, and how I go about composing an image. Almost all of my photos I see as a colection of shapes. What makes one photo different from the other is what those shapes are filled with.

Day Thirtythree: Happy Easter

If nothing else, I want to wish everyone a happy Easter. Let's not forget that hiding behind the Easter bunny, Easter eggs, and jelly beans is an important message. Should be the other way around. Anyhow, This may be all I am able to give to the blog today. It's 1:00pm. I'll try to add more later.
9:30pm I added this photo. These women dressed up for a special Sunday service celebrating the re-opening of their church after it had been closed for a year for repairs.

Day Thirtytwo: Speaking of Churches...

It's another great day in Chaumont, NY. Two hours of guitar this morning. Then some yard work befor y Better Half goes to work later this afternoon.


I don't seem to have a killer photo that I have taken in the last day or two, but, speaking of churches yesterday, I found this photo of a church in Pompey, NY as I was looking for another church photo. I made this image after my photo shoot and Sunday service was over. I was leaving and looked up at the sky and just took the photo.

Day Thirtyone: Good Friday

At 6:00AM this morning it was 48 degrees in Chaumont, NY. High's will approach 80. WOW! You would have to live here to appreciate it.



This photo I took at a Russian Orthodox church. Commentary to follow later today.

THE COMMENTARY
The Catholic church has gotten a lot of bad press in recent times. That's unfortunate and my opinions about that are a subject for another day. But, Let me start today with the fact that I was raised a Catholic. You won't be surprised then when I tell you I grew up in a family of ten kids. My mother saw to it that we were raised as good Catholics. We went to a small church in Evans Mills, NY. I went through first communion, confirmation and the like. I attended a couple of weeks of church school in the Summer. As a young adult I drifted away from the church, mostly because I didn't fully understand Catholocism. The church wasn't a big part of my life. Now, as a photographer I have photographed many weddings for over twenty years in many churches of many denominations. Because most weddings take place on Saturdays, I have worked Sundays for the Post-Standard for about twentyfive years. Those Sundays have taken me into a great many, diverse churches. I have been in every kind of church you can imagine, for all kinds of reasons and holidays. These include Russian Orthodox from where I made the above photo, to lots of small mom & pop churches and mega churches headed by wealthy evangelistic type preachers. I found some of those churches and their leaders to be somewhat disconcerting. There were a great many Catholic churches I have attended all these years also. The bottom line for me is this: If it were not for the fact that I worked Sundays and were paid to be at all of these Sunday services, I would never have been in church period. (Other than for Saturday weddings). It is difficult to ignore God and Christianity and your own spiritual beliefs when you go to church almost every Sunday, even if you are being paid to be there. Attending and comparing all those different churches and religions has lead me back to the Catholic Church. I have learned the Catholic Church to be solid and unwavering, with a consistent message. The church, like any church, gets blemished by some of the people within it. I reiterate, the problem is not Catholocism, it is certain people within it that have faults and weaknesses.