It was windy and warm in Chaumont, NY today. The photo presented here is from my archives, taken in the 1980's. I was driving along interstate route 11 in St. Lawrence County, NY, the heart of the North Country, and saw these two kids trying to lure a calf back to it's shed with the bottle of milk. What a terrific subject to stumble upon.
So, I remain out of sorts. Have been for about twentytwo months. That's how long it has been since my job hours were cut and I have had to adjust to a new routine, I've had to put all of my energy into surviving a huge income loss. I've had to be innovative and try to replace that lost income. By April of 2010 I had settled into a groove of sorts. Then the company I work for increased my hours by four a week. That's better than a sharp stick in the eye, but it came with a schedule change. Something new to adjust to. So now, six moths later, I find I have not settled into this new routine. That's what I mean by being out of sorts. The biggest problem is working a later shift one or two days in the week. The 2:30 to 11:00 shift. On those days I usually do not get to bed befor midnight or 12:30. Consequently, the next day I sleep a little later, or, if I don't, I end up going though the day with less sleep than I reqire to operate at 100%. Sooner or later I will adjust or just make some other changes. Through it all, I try to put in two hours of guitar practice
every day. For the most part I have been able to do that, however, there are a lot more days whenit is less than satisfactory to me. I attribute this to the latest upheaval with my job schedule change 6 months ago.
Speaking of guitar, Im am still trying to nail down a regular gig. I know of some players who are playing two or three nights a week, generally two to for hour gigs. Four hours is a long gig, will really tire one out. I have done it. That's a long time to play a guitar. In an ideal world I would get one or two nights a week from about 5:00 to 8:00 in a nice restaurant or cafe while folks were having dinner. That would keep my repertoire practiced and bring in some extra bucks. The lesson here is keep on hustling.
"Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art." -Frederic Chopin
The above quote by Chopin reinforces what I have said many times: The big secret to playing the guitar is constant repitition, playing over & over all of those notes and chords. From one note, to a phrase, to an entire song or composition. Play it over & over until it becomes simple. Render the complex to simplicity.
I go back in and get a camera and begin to make some snaps of it. I worked it a bit.; By that I mean that I took a few shots varying the exposures, a little underexposed, a little overexposed. The rain drops and the light are what first attracted my attention. After the first few exposures I began to change my angle of view, getting down low, including the homes across the street in the background. So it is that I "worked" the subject. I probably gave it ten minutes. By then the light had changed and the leaf was in shadow. This is pretty typical of how I go about photographing something that catches my eye. Much different than going to a job and being paid to make a picture that satisfies certain criteria with subject matter the client needs photographed.
I have been working on a fairly simple solo guitar arrangement of the Beatles song, All My Loving. Well, it's simple, and not so simple. The arrangement is by Australian guitarist Joe Washington, from his book The Beatles For Classical Guitar. This is a great book, but none of the solos are easy. Some are simple, but, NOT easy. Most I would consider difficult. All My Loving is simple enough to memorize, and most of the chords are simple enough to execute. The difficult part is in playing the piece cleanly and Legato (that is, smoothly and evenly). For me, the most work has involved the last few bars of the ending. There are four chords that I hav had to practice seperately, over and over. I usually practice such fragments 100 times during a practice session. Usually I repeat the part in groups of five or ten times, make a note of it with hash marks, and go on until I reach 100 repititions. Very often I will make these marks in the margins of the music along with the date the practice took place on. Sometimes I use a piece of scrap paper, or a blank page in the music book or sheet. 
The second photo is simply a cropped version of the first one. I cropped out the cars. 
Other flooding photos can be viewed at The Post-Standard web site by clicking on www.syracuse.com .
