Blog Posts

Where in the World? #14

6/1/2020

We are in Battery Park, across the water from the Statue of Liberty, getting ready to enter the building guarded by these protectors. Can you guess where we are?

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And, where were we last week? Dragonfest in downtown Atlanta is the answer, watching the parade with grandchildren long before social distancing.

Green Lantern and a tommy gunner.

Spiderman working the crowd.

Who you gonna call?

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Where in the World? #13

5/24/2020

Remember crowds? This image is from a few years ago, along a parade route. We are in downtown Atlanta but can you guess the occasion?

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And did you guess? A lot of you knew our last image was from Dead Horse Point State Park in Utah outside of Moab. Here's another image of the bend in the Colorado River from a different vantage point.

And here is a night view. I call the image below Teenage Mutant Ninja Aliens because the meteorite trails looks like look like how a flight pattern might look these were alien space ships piloted by teenagers.

But what is it that makes these meteorite trails so unusual looking. Likely, it is just wind moving the camera ever so slightly during the 30 second exposure needed to capture this image. No one really knows, though. The image title just might be on point.

Where in the World? #12

5/20/2020

The sun begins to set 2,000 feet above the Colorado River, as seen from a famous overlook with an unusual name. Can you guess it? In the 1800s, cowboys corralled wild mustangs here.

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And, what were the four corpulent visitors waiting to see from their chairs in our last post? If you guessed a civil war reenactment, you got it right. You may have noticed a confederate flag in the background.

Years of living in Atlanta and along with a friend who participates in reenactments, not to mention a fondness for the movie Sweet Home Alabama with it's reenactment scene, led me to finally grab my camera and travel to a field outside Aiken, South Carolina to take check out a battle reenactment.

And, this is some of what I saw. A friendly, if not diverse crowd, walked through the exhibits and shops, checked out the northern and southern army encampments, and then gathered to watch a reenactment of this battle that pitted southern troops against an army sent north from Savannah by General William Tecumseh Sherman.

The event's organizers will be happy to tell you that the Battle of Aiken was one of the few engagements during Sherman's campaign that the southern army warded off their northern counterpart. The participants are all volunteers and elaborately attired.

Cavalry skirmishes and cannons were part of the battle.The crowd sat behind a rail fence while the two armies squared off and then did battle. Some of the crowd were more actively engaged than others.

As you can see above, one young man, complete with pink ear mufflers and a wooden rifle, is standing against the fence prepared to defend his family for the battling cavalry in front of him. It is a favorite image from the day, as is the one below for its humorous quality. It looks like someone gained some weight between reenactments.

If you would like to see more images from the day, check out the Civil War gallery at TrekPic.com. Enjoy.

Where in the World? #11

5/16/2020

We are not making this one easy but there are more clues in this picture than you might think at first. Take a look and see if you can guess where this crew is and what they have come to see?

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And did you guess the location of this lake scene from the foothills in the background? We are on a TVA lakes in North Georgia on a late May morning.

Here is what the early morning can look like nearby from a kayak. The sun will break up the fog as it rises but for now the heron has the place to himself.

Where in the World? #10

5/13/2020

Ready for summer? Aching to shelter outside? Admittedly, this could be most anywhere but can you guess nonetheless. You can easily drive there from Atlanta.

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And did you guess our last location with the full-horizon view of the Milky Way? Third rock from the sun is correct but not the answer we were looking for. We are out West in Canyonlands National Park in the middle of the night just after the clouds cleared.

The image is a compilation of seven images stitched together, each about 20 seconds with a nearly wide open, wide angle lens. Post processing software combines the seven images into this one and then Adobe software enables you to highlight the image to make it into what you see above.

The image below was taken from roughly the same spot but a bit earlier in the night while a class for night photographers was stationed next to the canyon rim to take their own images. The red light is from their headlamps - red light is easier on the eyes at night. The white light from the back of their cameras. I call this image Night Stalkers. If you look closely in front of the photographers, you can see the path they took to get there.

It is wonderfully quiet while you are out there, unless there is a class like this one going on. Usually, it is just you and a couple of other people. This night, after the class adjourned, a young man traveling between marathons kept me company. He had finished one that day and could not sleep so he wandered out to look at the sky.

Sometimes, though, there is no company or only the occasional kangaroo rat or other small critter who is attracted by the light you use to set up. It is inspiring to witness the sky without the now over-prevalent light pollution that covers most of the developed world. It is humbling to bear witness to the immensity of our universe.

Where in the World? #9

5/9/2020

What you are seeing is the core of the Milky Way and one of the spiral arms of stars that stretches out from the core. The galaxy's center, or core, is on the right just above the horizon. The bright object near the core is Jupiter.

There are not many places where it is dark enough and flat enough to photograph this much of the Milky Way at one time. It is 5 a.m. in the American West. Can you guess where we are? Or, how this image was captured?

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And, how about our last image. Did you guess where we were last time?

The image above is of the Council House at New Echota State Historical Park in Northwest Georgia. taken one Fall evening just as the sun was setting. This was the governmental center of the Cherokee Nation until the United States absconded with their land and drove them out men, women and children to their new "home" in Oklahoma.

It is from here that General Winfield Scott and his 7,000 soldiers rounded up the Cherokee citizens who had occupied this land for centuries and drove them by foot through winter snows and a hardship that cost many lives on the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma. The Cherokee were a particularly civilized tribe, even by white man's standards, at the time.

They had their own alphabet and published their own newspaper from New Echota. Profitable estates and business were confiscated and, yes, even slaves owned by upper class Cherokee farmers and businessmen.

It was a land grab sanctioned by Andrew Jackson and enforced by the U.S. military, plain and simple. The Cherokee were moved to make way for white settlers.

My first encounter with this particular piece of American history came in the summer of 1973, while I was clerking for a law firm in Rome, Georgia. My first assignment was to run the titles on some properties that were being sold.

As I left the office, the partner advised me not to worry about finding any property records before 1835. There weren't any. That was when the government started dividing up the land in and around Rome that was taken from the Cherokee.

Living history, you might say.

Where in the World? #8

5/6/2020

We are back on the East Coast, this time in Northwest Georgia. It is evening and the State Park that houses this remarkable structure is closed for the evening.

History was made here in the early 1800s, when this building was constructed. It is not an imposing structure. None of the buildings on the site are, but a great nation formed its first legislature here, issued its first newspaper, and signed away its future. Can you guess where we are?

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Did you guess our location from the last posting. There, we shared this image in black and white. Here it is in full color.

And the location? You probably guessed it is the Grand Canyon. More specifically, we took this image after hiking to Shoshone Point to the east of the main park area. Here is a second view from the other side of the monolith on the Point.

Where in the World? #7

5/2/2020

With homage to the great black and white photographers of days past we offer this easier to identify image from the American West. Can you guess where we are?

It is a cold morning and we have just hiked about a mile on a dirt path through a sparse forest with one tree totally mangled by a bear. (Yes, we stopped to survey our surroundings when we saw it.) A light snow accompanied us as we walked and a clear sky greeted us as we came to the canyon's edge. And then the sky darkened as storms rolled in from the west.

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If this has you stumped, did you guess where we were in the last posting? If you are a PC user you may recognize this image from their screen savers. But where is it?

This morning image is from Mesa Arch in Canyonlands National Park. Photographers flock here in the early mornings to catch the sunrise and the soft colors that follow in what photographers call the golden hour. Here's another view of the same arch a little later in the morning from another vantage point. I would not recommend the hiking path she chose.

Where in the World? #6

4/30/2020

Admittedly, this one will not be easy. I have not given you many clues. But you may take some reasonable inference from the Asian photographers attacking what you must figure is an iconic view.

They arrived long after I had finished taking my image (which I will share in the next post) and scrambled to the traditional vantage point to photograph intensely in hopes of capturing the perfect souvenir of what must have been their Western Parks tour. In the process they blocked the view for everyone else.

When I heard and then saw them approaching en mass, I made my way to a higher point to capture this too-typical National Parks moment. One last clue, and we will see if anyone guesses. When I returned to my office after this trip and turned on my computer, the screen saver showed a professional image of this same location.

At least no one has their back to the view to take a selfie.

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If you cannot guess this location, did you guess the one from last week? Here it is again.

We are inside the causeway heading into the interior of . . . ? Well, I bet you can guess from the images below.

Yes, it is the Roman Coliseum, started in 72 A.D. by Emperor Vespasian and completed eight years later by his son Emperor Titus. The wealth used to pay for the construction came largely from the spoils of Rome's subjugation of the Judean Revolt which was begun by Vespasian and completed by Titus.

Rome destroyed the Jewish Temple, confiscated Jerusalem's wealth and built this massive structure. It was a sign of the times and a precursor to future abominations.

The view from inside the Coliseum below is from the second story. What you see uncovered is the slave and gladiator holding and staging area beneath the now removed stadium floor. A portion of the floor is shown near the top.

Where in the World? #5

4/27/2020

We are farther afield this day back a few years ago. From the photo, you can see that we are inside a colossal structure. The soft light of an early morning is streaming through ancient columns.

Broken parts of columns lie all about. Holes in the columns suggest that we are looking at the structure beneath what was once much a more ornate building.

The young family in the lower right has stopped to take in their surroundings. The father is looking inside the structure. What does he see? Can you guess where we are?

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And, did you guess were we were in the sunset image below?

You are looking at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge from the Eastern Shore, Maryland side. We happened upon this pier and this moment after dinner. The location is outside the seafood restaurant (Hemingway's Restaurant) we stopped at while traveling to Chestertown, Maryland for a family event. Our lodgings for the night are shown below.

The White Swan Tavern, an inn preserved since colonial times, is still configured as it was in the late 1700s. It is located in Chestertown where my father-in-law grew up and where the first college was chartered in the newly sovereign United States. Washington College was founded in 1782 and still serves the region.

And, yes, George Washington did visit Chestertown on more than one occasion and stayed in the White Swan Inn.