Mulch Pix

Mulch Maker, Mulch Maker, make me some mulch...

It remains stubbornly chilly here in Chaumont, NY. 35 degrees this morning. The past couple of days have been grey and rainy. You know what they say: April showers bring May flowers. Well, what do May flowers bring?

Mayflowers bring pilgrims. I know, it's an old joke.

These piles of mulch were spotted near my mother's home between Watertown & Calcium. The light, the colors, the shapes caught my eye and were worth snapping. I didn't really work the subject because as often is the case, I was pressed for time. The apartment I have been cleaning up and inproving with a new bathroom floor, commode, & sink is near done. My mother's health has greatly improved. However, she has great dificulty getting in & out of cars, and getting in & out of cahirs, bed etc. But once she is up she gets around quite handily. A month or so ago we all thought a nursing home was in her near future. Tomorrow I have a meeting with the tax man to get my income taxes filed. Hope all is well with you and your world. Now I'm off to Clay St to finish up the plumbing and painting. Yay!

April Fool's Day

It is dark, gray and rainy here in Chaumont NY at 9:00am. I took a vacation day today from the Post-Standard. Guitar practice this morning was frustrating. Like evrything one has good adys and bad days. I will be working on that vacant apartment today. It is nearing completion. I was hoping to have it rented by today, April 1rst. Fool that I am, I should have known better. The photo at left is of my younger brother whom I believe is ten years younger than I am. (Might be 11). I took it back in the early 1970's. Probably '73. I came across the negative a couple years ago and scanned it. I've been meaning to post it here for quite some time. Today was the time. It was taken with Kodacolor film and a Minolta SRT-101 camera. I loved that camera, in fact I still have it.
I am still in the process of reading a Mark Twain biography written by Ron Powers. With that in mind I offer this quote:

"It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and leave no doubt." --Mark Twain

A Year of My Life & World On Facebook

For about 23 years I had what I thought was a secure job at the Post-Standard newspaper in Syracuse, NY. Then the economy crashed and my hours were cut to 16 a week, That's TWO DAYS! A week! That was in January of '09. It was more than a year before I suddenly realized I sould be on facebook. So in March of 2010 I opened my facebook account and proclaimed that I was going to post a photo a day for an entire year. Well, that was easier said than done. It is now the end of March 2011. A year has pased aand for the most part I have succeeded. I missed a a day here and there, but posted several photos on other days so that in the end I have uploaded more than 365 photos.

That brings me to tomorrow. March 31rst is the deadline for the annual Light Work grant applications. So, procrastinator that I am I am finishing my application today. Winning applicants recieve a $2,000.00 grant. I have applied for the grant many times over the years. I have gotten an exhibition and a special award of $300.00, but have never been awarded "The Grant."

The photos posted here are the ones that accompany my grant application. They have been culled from my facebook postings of the last 12 months. That is why I have included the dates & facebook logo with each photo. The represent a small part of my life and world shared on facebook.

For more info about Light Work, visit them on the web at:

Light Work : An artist-run, non-profit photography and digital ...Light Work is an artist-run, non-profit photography and digital media center ... AVENUE SYRACUSE, NY 13244 PHONE: (315) 443-1300 EMAIL: INFO@LIGHTWORK. ...

Quick message

It is driving me crazy that I have been neglecting this blog. I have had so much I could place here, but have had no time. Things have been hectic. I don't know how I can be so busy and so broke at the same time. Anyhow, as soon as I get the apartment finished & rented I can get back to sort of normalcy.

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A quote today from Albert Schweitzer: "There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats."

Halleluja: Looks like a postedphoto

Now I'm too tired to write about it. ... till tomorrow, Love you all.

Appears something is wrong

My photos are not appearing on this bog. For about 3 days I am having trouble. The pix seem to upload. The code for them is in the html, but nothing displays on the blog. Today the photos are strangely distorted in the preview, but still do not appear in the blog. Sorry about this . Hopefully it is corrected soon so I can post something worthwhile.

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Liz Taylor Died Today

So Elizabeth Taylor died at age 79. My favorite movie of hers was one she wasn't in: Night of the Iguana. I've only seen the film once and it starred Richard Burton. A great film. I've been meaning to buy a copy for my collection and to view it a couple more times. I associate Richard Burton with her so much that I actually had a false memory that she was in the film with him. Funny how memory plays tricks on us. Hmm...

Liz taylor, photo NOT by Gary Walts

I love this quote:
When people say, 'She's got everything', I've got one answer - I haven't had tomorrow.



Elizabeth Taylor




I'd love to give somebody credit for this photo of her, but I don't know who took it it. I found it splashing around on FaceBook. I'll credit myself for the time being.

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Now for me. I'm so busy I can't get anything done. Or, put another way, I'm so busy I don't have time to do anything. What I really want is a good beer or a nice, fat glass of red wine. But, I GAVE IT ALL UP FOR LENT! What in the World could a Sinner like me have been thinking? Lent is only forty days, how hard could it be? But, in that time the World could be inundated with water (remember Noah & the Flood?) and nary a drop of beer or wine would there be should I not be one of those drowned.

It's after 10:00pm, I am going to go play a little guitar.  I have a list a mile long that needs attention tomorrow, but some can be brushed off a while, others are more pressing. Like the fuel oil bill for my apartment house. It is dangerously low and my tenants have the heat included with their rent. It is currently $3.99 a gallon, which is horrible. Last year I paid $3.49 a gallon. The year before that it was hovering around $2.00 - 2.50 a gallon. Time to raise the rents I guess.  I have to pay the past due ammount and buy some more TOMORROW. Liz taylor hasn't had a tomorrow. I have them every day and a lot of them suck. Well, the ones that make me pay the oil companies do. Gas at $3.69 a gallon. I've spent a $100.00 on gas in two days, driving all over the place for USA Today and the Post-Standard. 
What kills me are the people that say "Well, gas is still cheaper than a gallon of milk." How would they feel if they were drinking 15 gallons of milk a day just to be able to do their job? The farmer's must be getting rich. The oil companies should buy up the farms and make even more $$$  .....  I don't know. The guitar is what keeps me sane. It's a therapy. It's a challenge. There are some things about it I want to master, the biggest of them being my insecurity playing for people. It's gotten a lot better. I used to shake with fear at performing. Now I can't get enough of it, but when I do perform, I'm never satisfied with how it goes. There's something to it that I need to master, and I suppose it's about ME being in control of MYSELF. I think. I'll know it when I finally get there.
Enough ramble.
Good night.
Gary Walts

Slowly going insane. In a perfect world it would be guitar & wine with no strings attached.

Days are going by & I am too busy to post anything here. Too busy also means too tired.  This photo of my neice and her baby taken at my mother's house this past Sunday.  She was visiting from Philadelphia, PA.

It was 32 degrees with Sunshine here in Chaumont, NY this morning. It is supposed to be warm today, and that could mean a simple 45 degrees for this region (which is ten miles from thye Canadian border). Anyhow, the birds are chirping and it is pleasant.

Another wall photo. What caught my eye here? The shapes. The soft light. It's rather abstract.

I am an outdoors kind of guy. I love being outside, however, this morning I am stuck inside editing a photo shoot that I did last night for the NY state teacher's union. It's just not quite nice enogh for me to take my laptop outdoor to do the work. Later this afdternoon I am teaching guitar.


My mother appears to be recovering from her latest round of health issues. A large part of that is due to my daughter's selfless dedication to her grandmother. As an adolescent my daughter was nothing but trouble. It's taken her a lot of years to come around and today she is someone I am truly proud of. I must say she has blossomed in spite of the fact that I have been a less than ideal father.

It is peculiar how life unfolds, the comings and goings of everyone. The chance meetings and encounters and intertwining of lives and events. How one's fortunes (both monetary and otherwise) rise and fall. Build ups and let downs. I would love to sit here and flesh out my thoughts on this digital noetbook, but I NEED TO EDIT LAST NIGHT'S PHOTOS. I'm on deadline here!

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You can't go to the store and buy a good ear and rhythm.  Les Paul

Dirty Dishes

Usually we put our dirty dishes into the dishwasher right away. However, last night we had some chicken wings while watching TV. The better Half headed upstairs to bed befor me. Then I got too tired to do anything other than place these dishes in the sink and run some water over them so that certian left over matter would not harden onto the surface. I go to be
In the morning I got up and was making the coffee when I noticed a certain beauty and graphic quality to the dishes in the sink. So, foggy eyed, I go get a camera & proceed to snap away.

So what makes this picture work? Well, there are some repeating graphic shapes that adds to the composition. I always see my photographs as a collection of shapes. It is how these shapes are arranged within the frame that makes up the composition. It matters not to me what the shapes are filled in with. In this case the shapes contain the sink, water, and a couple of dishes, and various colors.

Another thing that helps a photograph is texture. The overall texture in this photo is that of softness. The water is murky, subduing the pattern on the plate, muting and softening the colors and the edges.

A third thing that helps thios photo is the light. Light is MOST crucial. Without light we have NO photograph. It just happens that the early morning light was coming in a window and bouncing off the walls near the sink, creating a soft delicate light. No hard edges here. So, we have soft light, soft colors, soft textures, interesting shapes.  All of these things coming together and working together to make a reasonably good photo of of a most mundane subject. 

This is how I go about my day, viewing the world around me as a bunch of inter-related shapes and how the light plays upon them.

Now go ahead and photograph your dirty dishes.