Juxtaposed

February 24, 2026 Sally3 Comments

The Lens-Artist Challenge this week is “to explore juxtaposition as a photographic technique.”

Years ago, I heard Nat Geo photographer Sam Abell give a talk on his photography. He talked about waiting for days for the light to be in the right place and for everything to come together for an amazing photograph. Even with all his planning and waiting, there was a certain element of luck or serendipity or something that came into play with the best photos. That, and shooting rolls and rolls and rolls of film.

Anyway, I snap pictures because I want to remember something. That’s pretty much it. I’m not an artist; I’m a memory keeper — although I think the best artists probably are memory keepers. Amazing memory keepers.

The following are my juxaposition submissions — with a little explanation.

Two #14s in perfect synchronization (2016?). What also makes it interesting to me is that one player is my son and the other his cousin who was on the other team. I only wish I hadn’t taken the photo in black and white but I was playing with settings.

That’s my mother in the foreground “resting her eyes” at her granddaughter’s high school graduation (2010). And that’s my youngest daughter looking at the camera and, I’m sure, wondering how much longer her sister’s graduation will go on.

My sister with her two younger brothers (1964). Juxtaposition of facial expressions?

Is this a juxaposition photo? I dunno. I thought it was funny — kids waiting to see Santa who’s getting a parking ticket from the military police. (circa 1964)

I took this photo today at the Munson Art Museum in Utica, NY. It made me laugh. Part of the museum is in an old Victorian house, with rooms staged with antiques, roped off with those red-velveted cords. Anyway, in one room full of glorious ornate pieces of furniture and statues and artwork, there was this yellow vase with a truck on it. Here’s the card that explains it:

I suppose tire theft isn’t funny, but I laughed. The artist, and the museum in the way it displayed his artwork, were very clever.

Photos — 1964

February 17, 2026 Sally12 Comments

Soooo… I’m looking for challenges or prompts to inspire me.

You understand, right? I want to post on a regular basis, but the question is what to post!

Dawn, a blogger that I follow, posted a photo that she called Triptych Crop. Her photo reminded me of a photo I have on my desk (someday I’ll post a picture of it) that is from Varde, Denmark, circa 1900. It’s the kind of photo that pulls you in. I followed Dawn’s rabbit trail which led me to a photography challenge called Unusual Crop.

Well, after looking at 60+ year old photos of my brothers playing chess, I went back to that album and cropped photos of each of my siblings (and me) from that same time period. I don’t know if the crops are unusual, but here’s what’s left of the photos I cropped:

How did I do?

family · Life

A Story in Pictures

February 16, 2026 Sally1 Comment

I had put out a request asking for seniors who would be interested in playing games after school with the children who come to the facility where I work.

A man stopped in my office. “I’d like to teach kids to play chess,” he said.

He had a magazine that showed a large group of children playing chess on the cover.

“In a lot of places,” the man said, “kids start learning chess at the age of 6.”

I immediately thought of this series of photos of my two older brothers. It’s from 1963 or 64, which would mean my brothers were probably 6 and 9.

Can you tell who won?

photography

Silent Sunday — Saturday’s Walk

October 15, 2023 Sally7 Comments

A to Z Blogging Challenge

House

June 12, 2022 Sally10 Comments

This is my own A-to-Z Challenge for the month of June — likes and dislikes. I’ve fallen behind but haven’t given up! If you want to join me, just add a comment naming something you like and something you don’t like that begin with the letter H.

Also, trying to do Linda Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday (late for this also). Here’s the prompt: Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “a picture from wherever.” When you sit down to write your post, find a picture, whether in a magazine, newspaper, or even product packaging. Write whatever thought or emotion the picture provokes.

I’m such a rule-breaker. I didn’t find a picture in a magazine, newspaper, or wherever. My first thought, probably because of writing about my roots yesterday, was this picture of the house where I grew up.

I found the photo, not where I thought it would be but close. I showed it to my daughter, Mary.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“It’s this house,” she said. Clearly she didn’t hold the deep affection for it that I have.

“But look — there’s the front porch! And the side porch,” I pointed out. “They’re both gone now.”

“There’s still sort of a side porch,” she said.

And she’s right. The side porch in the photo is gone and has been replaced with a room we call the sun porch. I can still remember the year we went to the state fair and my mother dragged my father over to the display of modular-type rooms that could be added to the house. The next year, the side porch was torn down and the sun porch was installed.

The front porch has been long gone. I still remember the hammock that had been hung there and my father telling us ghost stories out there on summer nights.

The house faces west and my parents used to always go sit on the front porch after dinner with coffee (instant — yuck!) and watch the sun sink over Grasslands hill.

I love the house. It holds so many happy memories for me.

Here’s a photo of a house I drive by when I’m going to Syracuse. It’s on a back road, and I’ve watched its slow demise. When I saw that it had fallen, I stopped to take a picture.

When I would drive past it with Mary, she would often say, “I would love to explore that house.”

There’s something intriguing about abandoned houses.

I took the picture to send to Mary. A missed opportunity to explore.

I don’t know that I like abandoned houses. I certainly don’t like the wreckage of a house. It’s sad. I can’t help but wonder who holds the memories of the happy times that may have happened in that house.

Scottish Gaelic:
Is toil leam dachaigh mo leanabachd. I like my childhood home.
Cha toil leam long-bhriseadh taighe. I don’t like the wreckage of a house.

How about you? What’s something you like that begins with H? What’s something you don’t like?

family · photography

Sunset – Sunrise

July 29, 2017 Sally6 Comments

Last night, I picked Mary up at 8:30. She had to work late because of induction weekend. Everywhere in Cooperstown, it’s all hands on deck.

On the way home, I kept saying, “Look at that sunset!” It was red and orange and gorgeous.

She dutifully looked and agreed.

Then I said it again.

Lather-rinse-repeat.

When we pulled in the driveway, I said, “I can’t stand it. I have to take a picture of it.”

“Sunset photograph number four-thousand-six-hundred-and-fifty-three,” Mary said. She knows me well.

I snapped this shot on my phone.

“Dang,” I said. “The colors are never right.”

“You can focus it, you know,” Mary told me.

No, I didn’t know.

She took my phone/camera, pointed it at the sunset, tapped the screen on the sunset itself, and took this picture.

Yes, that was closer to the colors. Still not the same as being there — but definitely closer.

This morning the sunrise was ridiculous. I couldn’t stop looking at it.

“I can’t stand it,” I said to myself. “I have to take a picture.”

In my head I heard, Sunrise photo number five-thousand-four-hundred-and-sixty-two. Someone somewhere was laughing at me.

First shot:

Not terribly exciting.

I tried the Mary-technique and tapped the screen, focusing on the colors of the sunrise.

So much better.

Thank you, Mary.

Sometimes it’s possible to teach an old person a new trick.

family · Life

Good-bye, Odyssey

June 29, 2017 Sally15 Comments

Bud said that he woke up in the middle of the night wondering if it was the right decision.

I reminded him all the reasons why — the catalytic converter, the exhaust system, the timing belt, the short circuits in the electrical system.

Still, our Honda Odyssey had taken us many miles — well over 200,000. Many trips to Florida, to South Carolina, to North Carolina, to Washington, DC, as well as the hundreds, maybe over a thousand trips between Cooperstown and Greene.

It’s almost as old as Laurel.

It has served us well.

When Philip was a little boy and we traded in one of our cars, he drew sad faces in the dirt on the windows. Laurel did the same last night with the Odyssey. My bookend children think the same.

Sad face, broken heart, bird poop (right to left)

We’re trading in the Odyssey. It makes us sad.

We’re getting a new car. It makes us happy.

I told a friend that we get a new car every twelve years or so, whether we need one or not.

We need one.

It was the right decision.

Cooperstown · photography

Lakefront Park

March 23, 2017 Sally3 Comments

I clearly remember that morning.

I had tossed and turned all night. My thoughts were a twisting turning knot of turmoil.

Before dawn, I left the house and drove to the lake.

Water soothes me.

If I lived near the ocean, I’m sure I would have been at the beach, digging my toes into the sand. Instead, I was at Lakefront Park in Cooperstown, walking in dew-laden grass, looking out into the heavy fog that rested on the lake.

As the invisible sun rose and lent a little light, I took a few pictures. The lush green of summer was accentuated by the grayness of the fog.

The fog obscured the distance, but it helped me appreciate what was closest to me.

I haven’t forgotten that lesson.

A to Z Blogging Challenge

November

April 16, 2016March 20, 2017 Sally3 Comments

“Did I do anything for your last birthday?” I asked Laurel this morning.

I honestly couldn’t remember. Laurel’s birthday and my mother’s deathday were too close together.

“Uh-huh,” she answered. “You made rice.”

Not really sure that will win me any parenting awards. Rice. In the microwave.

But it is one of her favorites.

November was a blur.

“Did I buy you any presents?” I asked her.

“Yes,” she answered. “Pajamas.”

At least it wasn’t socks and underwear.

Wait — maybe I got her those, too, and she was too polite to tell me.

I remember so little of that month.

Did we celebrate Thanksgiving? Did I make the turkey?

What did I do for the 30 days that November hath?

I looked through the pictures on my computer for clues.

Here is the story they told:

On the day my mother died, I noticed the sunset.

My sister and I helped my father.

On Laurel’s birthday, I went for a walk.

I made the previously mentioned rice — and some chicken to go with it. Broccoli, too, but it didn’t make the photo.

The kids played cards (probably while I was making rice).

And all through November, life continued.

Family gathered.

We played games.

I sat at the Columbarium.

Laurel swam.

I noticed a sunrise.

And I’m pretty sure we had Thanksgiving.

swimming

Swimming Posters

February 18, 2016January 25, 2018 Sally4 Comments

I loved the idea of reenacting a piece of art for this week’s photo challenge: Life Imitates Art

But what to do?

I asked Laurel if she would sit on my lap and put her hand on my cheek, like a Mary Cassatt painting, but she said no. It probably would have looked kind of strange anyway. She may be my baby, but she’s taller than me now.

So — swimming. I decided to ask my swimmers to recreate some swimming posters.

This one — Michael Phelps doing streamline — I just wanted them to see. Streamline is such a foundational skill. We work on it from Day 1 of swim season — and still, about half look nothing like this, hand over hand, squeezing the head.

I stood on the balcony and took pictures of each swimmer leaving the wall in streamline. For you photo-geeks, all I have is a little Sony Cyber-shot that I bought on sale at Target for $59. I guess you get in clarity what you pay for.

Still, it was a great learning experience for the kids. I showed each one the picture I had taken of them and we talked about how they could make their streamlines even better.

For fun, at the end of practice, we tried to recreate another swim poster.

I pulled our little Kodak PlaySport out of retirement (it can take underwater photographs), charged it up, and prayed that it would work. Laurel was the photographer as each one of my swimmers did a cannonball off the diving board. This was the best shot.

Or this one.

So — thank you Daily Post for the photo challenge. I may not be much of a photographer, but this was fun.