Month: March 2022

Sometimes things don’t go as planned. I took some images that I liked this week, but I felt like showing some of the images that didn’t make the cut.

Here I was gathering some ideas and getting ready to take some pictures. At this point I had some vague ideas about what I was going to shoot, but was still working through the process.

Nacho, the parrot, had a small accident. Stanley and Ivar (the shark and the octopus) were understandably freaked out, realizing just how dangerous the job they had signed up for could be. Nacho is currently in shock at the loss of a limb.

Stanley was right to be afraid, as just moments later, he took a bit of a tumble himself. No one was injured in this incident, but the cameraman was a bit unsteady as he was trying to take a picture and rescue a falling shark simultaneously.

This one isn’t a blooper, but I thought I should include a rose photograph this week just to show some progress on the 52 Roses front.

Hopefully, in the next week or two, I will be able to do some catch up and post a few more photos. Until then, enjoy.

It has taken a few weeks to start getting back into things. Aethbert the penguin is the first of my creations to go into this project. I finally had an idea of what to do with the prescription bottles that I emptied of change. His friends will be showing up as the year progresses and maybe I will do something special with them as the year draws to a close. There’s no telling what will be next.

Inertia had me stalled for a month or so, but once you overcome the stagnation and start moving then you build momentum. It’s still a bit difficult to get into things some days. Truth be told, I never thought I would have a blog. If you have a blog and no one reads it, does it really count?

Pop used to have this duck keychain. If you pressed on a button on the side, an LED in its mouth would illuminate and it made a quacking sound. He used to amuse children with it. Maybe I should have started with a duck instead of a penguin, but for some reason, maybe the fact that it’s the tail end of winter, I went with a penguin. It’s funny the associations you make with things. Not funny – ha ha – but interesting what things remind you of people or places.

I added another rose, for pop. The rose bushes are covered with snow and need a good trimming right now, but I see them almost every day. I remember the time that pop didn’t have clippers and bit the rose off the bush to give to someone passing by. And I remember all the times he left them in his pockets. He did that with chocolate too. Fortunately it was usually still in the candy wrapper or that would have made quite the mess.

I’m starting to consistently work on this now, though and even though I feel a bit behind I’m starting to make forward progress again. Sometimes that just what we need.

I started this project, with the expectation that my father might not be around at the end of it. Is it common to think that we have more time than we ever really do? As I sat down to work on some more pictures and get into the project some more, the phone rang and instead of taking pictures I instead, went to see my pop. It was the last time I got to be with him while he was alive.

It has been over a month since then and this project is still important to me, maybe now more than before. Behind the scenes I have been working on some things, taking pictures, crafting some characters for what this seems to be turning into, and doing some thinking on what my next steps are. But somehow sitting down at the computer to post some pictures and write a few words has just been difficult. Even now, I want to put it off until tomorrow, knowing full well that tomorrow will come with another reason to push it a day.

Today just seems like a good day to start again though. Before March begins seems like the right time to get back on some sort of schedule. Pop used to give roses to anyone walking by the house. Actually, he gave them to people he met on his walking route as well. I found more than one rose in the laundry that I missed taking out of his pocket when I ran a load. While it was a bit frustrating to clean flower petals out of the washer, it is hard to be angry at what was a potential kind act.

So today, I’m just posting some rose photos. I’ll get around to some different pictures shortly. It has taken some time but now I’m getting back to some sort of equilibrium, where I can move forward with this work.