Write YOUR Caption!

This is the first post in a long time as I've been super busy lately! Everyone of my product lines (children, families, seniors and canines) is keeping me in perpetual motion so I apologize for not keeping up here. Today, however, I've got some fun for you!

The above image was made yesterday when my kind neighbor asked me if I'd like a smoked chicken to take home. "A what," I asked? He proceeded to take off the top of his smoker/steamer and showed me these two chickens, perched perfectly atop a half filled can of beer.

I looked up at him with a purely mischievous look in my eye - "I'll be right back with my camera," I cried, as I ran down his driveway toward my house. While my legs were moving, so was my brain. I was coming up with a few captions that would fit this image. If one put it into the context of the recent Health Care debates one could come up with: "If this HR 3200 passes, we could be smoked." Or there was this one: "Did you bring the deck of cards?"

OK - have at it! Let's see what captions you all can come up with. So have fun, be irreverent, take a walk on the wild side - just keep it PG13 or you'll get me in trouble!

Double Vision

If you're like me, you probably have more than one pair of glasses lying around the house, in the car, at work, in your purse, etc. I have glasses for reading the paper, for reading in bed, for working on the computer, the ones I swear for when I can't find them, . . . you get the idea. I've also been know to take my computer glasses with me on a trip, but leave the reading glasses at home. Hence, my exotic collection of frames and strengths I've collected from places around the globe.

While recently at the cabin, in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve, I'd been working on my images one, sunny, morning when the outside air temp was minus something. When it hit zero, it was time to go out and chase the light! I scurried around getting my gear together and when I finished getting all buttoned up for the cold, I went over to the table to get something I needed, and stopped suddenly in my tracks. WOW! The light was right there in my cabin! No need to go outside!

You got it - I stripped off my down jacket and made a few hand held images of my reading glasses lying in repose in the sun. It wasn't enough for me that the light made the eye glass shadow larger. No. It was the deep shadow in the upper, left corner and the slight one in the lower right, that polished this image off for me. It gave me the feeling that I was in Henry David Thoreau's cabin and he had just put his pen and glasses down after finishing some writing; - "If one advances in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet success in uncommon hours." It's just one of his quotes that has stayed with me since high school and continues to guides me.

What a way to start one's photographic day!

She's Rounding Third Base. . .

Dateline Minneapolis:

Yes, I'm almost home! When our nearly full 747 lifted off from Ted Stevens International Airport in Anchorage at 8:00 p.m. Alaska time, there was cheering and applause for Northwest Airlines. They chartered this hulk of a plane with a flight attendant crew that flew up to AK and back to MN in the same day. Way to go guys and dolls! We arrived @ 4:00 a.m. and I now sit waiting for the 7:00 a.m. flight.

Good things do come to those of us that are patient and this flight was a prime example of "going with the flow" the last few days. My flight was due to leave at 7:30 so I arrived at the airport at 5:30 and stood in line while not 1, but 2 ticketing agents closed down their stations just as I was the next person in line. I get all the luck, right? Fear not, readers! When I walked on the plane @ 7:15 and started to head to row 28G, the flight attendant said to me, "Find an open seat. It's OPEN SEATING."

As I had looked at the seating arrangements of this aircraft online while spending my days in Anchorage, I headed right to Business Class. Snow boots, fleece and all! Sure enough, there was one seat left and it was right behind my Anchorage friend that was heading to Washington for a conference. We had lunch 2 days previously and I had told her about the 747 that they were bringing in for us. As her flight had also been cancelled, she pulled out her iPhone and immediately got booked on my flight. Then we ordered lunch. Priorities DO prevail, you know!

So "patient Peggy" got a full meal on the plane (I ate it ALL!,) a seat that practically became a Sleep Number bed, and a personal Video monitor to watch movies. Yeah, I tried to sleep on that comfortable seat but I just never got there. I think it was the chocolate I ate! The first chocolate I'd had in 3 days! Kurt, my seat mate, told me that he'd been hanging out in Anchorage for 4 days. A fellow Milwaukeean had gone to Alaska for her college Spring Break and got stuck there. And there's a whole gaggle of U.S. downhill and nordic skiers who have just completed their U.S. Championships hanging out in Anchorage.

Just for laughs, I just pulled up the Alaska Volcano Observatory website and Mt. Redoubt has been spewing small amounts of ash up to 25,000 ft through the night and it's slowly drifting towards Anchorage. You guessed it, it started just before we took off!

I LOVE adventures! Here's the OTHER plane I flew into Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve.

Liquid Gold meets Situational Awareness

This morning I laid my Vitamin D3 and Fish Oil down on the countertop and readied my breakfast. Quite a typical routine, nothing unusual. But then I noticed the light on the gel caps . . . S.T.O.P (Stop, Think, Observe, Plan) Yes, I did eat my breakfast but then got out my 200mm macro lens with a 3T dipoter & tripod and went to work.

It is just amazing to me how many different ways you can photograph something! I spent 45" with my vitamins! Now THAT's bonding! Actually, these little "critters" have been a lifeline to me. They've boosted my immune system, done away with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD - what an appropriate acronym!) and keeping my natural killer cells hopping.

OK - so now you know I've gone over the edge when I stop to photograph vitamin gel caps. Actually, it was the light that "made me do it." After reading "The Survivor's Club," I recalled the term "situational awareness." i.e. being aware, at all times, of what you're taking in through your senses. Think of a birder and their auditory awareness as an example.

I think that we photographers have great visual "situational awareness." By this I mean that we "make" images whether we have a camera in hand or not. In fact, I think one of the reasons I like to drive is because I see images wherever I go! (My dogs like it too!)

So I'm sure there's other photographers, birders, security people, etc out there that would chime in with their S.A. (situational awareness) stories. Let's hear them . . .