2019 Westland Photography Contest

Westland Library Photography Contest 2019

Have you ever entered a photography contest?

That's what I did recently. It was the Westland Library Photography Contest 2019.

I entered five photos, one in each of five categories. The rules required that all entries must be taken in 2017 to 2019. It was fun looking back at several dozens in the photo library on my iMac.

Of course, the vast majority were not 'contest' quality. I quickly selected several without much forethought. Then I got to thinking. What is a good photo? So I entered that question in Google. Lots of hits flashed on the screen. After reading several, I liked the one:

The most important element of a good photograph is the ability of the photo to communicate with the viewer. It should tell a story through its composition, lighting, and most importantly its subject matter.

Dario Endara 

Professional photographer, Netherlands

With this definition in my mind's eye, I went back to my photo library and thoughtfully selected the best five for the contest.

This process was a lot of fun. Looking at many, many photos and  wishing there were more photos to select.  Also I was motivated to improve my photography skills.

Would you help me? It's easy. Just give me some feedback when looking at the photos. You could use the definition by Dario Endara (see above) or you may have your own eye for a good photo. Either way I would appreciate your ideas by either leaving a comment at the end of the blog post or send an email to bobfrank11[at]gmail.com

By the way, two of the photos were award winners.

Venice Canal 

#1 Venice Canal
Category: Travel or Landscape

This photo was taken from a bridge on June 30, 2018. There are over 390 bridges in Venice! Two days later I took another photo from the same bridge but from a different angle. I must have liked the view. We, my daughter, Maria, grandson Austin, and  granddaughter Maya were on a Road Scholar Intergenerational educational program. Four days in each city, Rome, Florence and Venice.

Joyful Mary

#2 Joyful Mary
Category: People or Portrait

Mary is my dear friend. It was January 30, 2017 and a very cold winter day in SE Michigan. During a visit, she was wearing a bright red insulated vest. As always, her bright eyes light up the room and her smile warms your heart. So I got out my iPhone 8 plus, opened it up to the camera app, turned on the Portrait mode and here is the result. At 97, Mary projects joy in every way.


Train Station

#3 Train Station
Category: Architecture - Buildings, Bridges, Structures

Nancy and I were on the Amtrak Wolverine 351 train heading for Chicago. It was January 10, 2019. We were meeting our friends Bob and Becky to see the musical play "Hamilton" that evening. As usual the Amtrak train makes a few stops on its trek to the windy city. Fortunately I sat next to a very clean window. With my iPhone on my lap ready to snap something of interest, the train stopped at the Kalamazzo station to pickup and drop off passengers.  What caught my eye, as I peered out the window was the sign hanging from the roof. My thought was 'hey we've got 138 miles to go'. So I got this photo.

Fast forward to my search for a photo for this category. That's when I found the train station image. I liked the building's old design and the sign of course. But what I saw, perhaps for the first time, was the man listening to his music while trudging past the station as I snapped the photo. I'm sure it wasn't intentional to have him in the photo because the sign was my point of interest.

This train station seemed to tell a story. Of course. it's the viewer who actually reads the story from their experience. The story is personal and subjective.

Nancy and I heard a very interesting story about the train station. About a month ago, We went to the FedEx store on State St. in Ann Arbor to have 8"X10" prints of our photos for the contest. Dre, the Customer Salesperson, did an expert job in printing our photos.
As Dre was about to pull out my flash drive from his computer, I asked him if he would take another look at my photos and give me some feedback? He said sure. When the Train Station showed on the screen. He paused. His eyes narrowed as he studied the image. Then with a quiet, soft voice he said, "I went to school there [Western Michigan University]....the homeless hangout there....the bus terminal nearby too....I was the president of the Black Student Union....one Saturday we [the students] served box lunches to them [the homeless] there and the bus terminal....there's a park nearby with a sign showing the same mileage to Detroit and to Chicago."

By the sound of his voice, the soft smile, I got the feeling the photo initiated a memory, a sense of pride in helping others.

From his story, I knew the photo communicated. It aroused an emotion. It was a good photograph.


Woodpecker

#4 Woodpecker

Category: Animals

This woodpecker is about to eat some bird seed. It's on the corner of an observation deck that overlooks Kent Lake, in Kensington Metro Park, about 40 miles NW of Detroit.

Well you might wonder how the bird seed got on the deck on this chilly, April morning. One of our hiker/sailors left the bird seed after feeding some little chickadees from their hand. I belong to the American Sailing Institute (ASI) we have most of our sailboats at Kent Lake during the sailing season. When the boats are in storage, we go hiking every Tuesday morning, weather permitting. 

There are an abundance of wild animals in the park. We often see white tail deer, sandhill cranes, blue herons, and lots of smaller birds such as the woodpecker.

The woodpeckers hang around watching the little chickadees eat from the outstretched sailor's hand. As I was about to return to the hiking trail, this woodpecker landed on the deck. Pulling the iPhone out of winter parka pocket, I snapped off a half dozen shots. The one above was the best of them. It would be a better photo with its peak in the bird seed. Better luck next time.

Challah Bread 

#5 Challah Bread
Category: Still Life

Baking bread is a fun thing to do. For these two loaves I made the dough and Nancy braided them. I often take photos of my bread, muffins and cookies without anything else near the baked goods. But this time I got one of my favorite cookbooks to add some interest. While you might think the bread recipe is in the cookbook, it's not. 

Challah is Jewish bread that is braided for special occasions. However I found a great a recipe in "The Village Baker: Classic Regional Breads from Europe and America", by Joe Ortiz. I use the recipe from this cookbook for all occasions.

Summary

All of the photos were taken with my iPhone 8 Plus. All of them except Joyful Mary and Challah Bread images were taken spontaneously. It was a lot of fun looking at my photo library for these five photos. 

Award Winners

Challah Bread took first place ($50) in the Still Life category. Venice Canal took second place ($25) in the Travel category. What a delightful surprise when I got the phone call informing me of the awards! 

iPhone 6 for $199! Really??

Hey I'm hooked on Apple products. I've got an iMac computer, iPad 4th gen, iPhone5 and a Apple TV. Also my three old iPods that are in use at various times. I like all of them. MacWorld magazine comes into my mailbox once a month. That sounds like a full disclosure. Well it is.

 I've friends that love their Samsung smartphones. One of them asked me why I spend more money for these Apple products when he is very happy in his cheaper  PC/Android world. To answer that question is another story.

Last week the iPhone 6 came out. So being hooked I just had to find out if I was qualified to get a new iPhone 6. I wasn't looking forward to ringing up ATT to learn when my two year contract expires or did it already expire? After all I kept reading that the new iPhone 6 only costs $199 go the 16 GB model. My budget can handle that. 

After pressing a couple of  buttons on my old clunky Panasonic wireless phone, After going through three menus a text message is sent to iPhone 5 saying congratulations I'm eligible for an "upgrade". That's sounds good right from the start. "Hold on" as the Brit's like to say. Does that mean I can order my new iPhone 6! 

Then I go back to yet another menu to press zero to talk to a nice customer sales rep. After about 15 minutes of marketing lingo, she says that I've got to wait until February 9, 2015 to buy it for $199. That's the day after my birthday and when a new contract begins if I sign one, to get the brand new iPhone 6. 

Was I disappointed? Yes. But now after reading this  zdnet article I'm glad I was't eligible.

 I'm re-thinking ATT Mobility and how to pay for the new iPhone. 

A Missing Pet

Oh how painful it is when your pet is missing. It may be your beloved dog or cat. Regardless it's so easy to think of the worst. Did he or she get hit by car? That's the thought I have when my partner's hound dog Willow bolts out the opened door.

The last time this happened was two years ago. It was a warm summer day in Michigan. Blue skies, huge white puffy clouds hung in the sky.

Family Christmas Tradtions

Introduction

It was the first week of December. As a tutor I was sitting in the ESL (English as a Second Language) class listening to the teacher describe an assignment for the adult students. Since it was Christmas time the assignment was to present to the class either a family Christmas tradition, or a Christmas tradition in their home country or some other country tradition that is celebrated.

The assignment got me thinking about my Christmas family traditions. Specifically what are my traditions? What is the best way to tell the story? How should it be presented?

My starting point was a mental image of what I was soon to do and that was putting up my tree and the other decorations. My family traditions soon became clear.

Family Christmas traditions are unique and not usually found in other homes. Traditions have their origins in the past. Mine started nearly 55 years ago.

Family Christmas Traditions

Once upon a time two young people fell in love. His name was Robert and hers was Rose. Oh how they were in love.

One day in August 1958 they got married. The sun was brilliant. The skies were a deep, rich blue. The clouds were huge, pure white and filled with promise. They spoke their vows. The one Robert remembered was “... for richer or poorer” because they had so little money.

The first Christmas Rose sewed two Christmas stockings made from red felt with white trim at the top. One said Robert and the other Rose. These stockings by tradition would be filled by St. Nicholas with little wrapped gifts.  Little did they know, it was the start of a family tradition.

Soon after their fifth Christmas together they were blessed with a baby boy. They called him Randall. Then the next Christmas Rose sewed another stocking. It had “Randall” stitched at the top. In the autumn of the following year this family was blessed with another boy. They called him Roger. Very soon Rose was seen sewing a fourth Christmas stocking with letters Roger stitched at the top. Less than two years would pass when this happy family was blessed with a baby girl. Robert named her Maria. The next Christmas Rose sewed the fifth and final Christmas stocking. Maria’s name was stitched to the top of it.

Christmas after Christmas Santa filled these stockings with small wrapped presents for this happy family.

Then one Christmas,  eleven year old Maria gave her father a beautifully illustrated book, “The Night Before Christmas”. This was the beginning of the second family tradition. For several Christmas’s Rose gave Robert a Christmas book. Each year he would look forward to reading another new Christmas story.

As the years went by the small children grew up to be fine adults. One by one they left home to find their place in the world. Robert and Rose had an empty nest. They were like newlyweds, free to come and go as they wished.

Then one day in July of 1995,  just a few weeks before their 37th wedding anniversary, the sunlight was dull, the sky a lifeless blue, the clouds pale white with dark grey edges and filled with grief. Rose departed. She left this world a better place. Robert remembered another vow of so many years ago, “Until death do us part”.

Then Nancy came into Robert’s life and it became new again. Nancy encouraged him to celebrate Christmas anew.  One year she bought him a small little Christmas tree. The ends of the branches light up and change colors, blue, green, red, and white. This tree makes Christmas new and fresh. Each year Robert places his Christmas books under the tree. The days leading up to December 25 he reads the stories.

Robert finds that Christmas time and indeed the rest of the year is filled with joy and gratitude for Nancy’s love.

December 10, 2012

The Christmas tree that changes colors. A gift from Nancy.

My collection of Christmas books. Note the book "The Night Before Christmas" (lower left)

Robert's Christmas Stocking note the small  bell on the  toe.

Street Food Chain

I am currently house sitting at my Dad's place while he and Nancy are traveling in China. The following is from his recent email. -Roger Frank

Years ago I saw an illustration depicting the food chain. It starts with a large fish (reading left to right) about to eat a slightly smaller fish and that one is about to eat another smaller one etc. until the last one is a very small fish.

After witnessing streets in numerous Chinese large cities in my 2005 trip here and this current trip there is two significant differences. First there are more vehicles and pedestrians. Secondly, there are more roads but still not enough. But what remains the same is the street food chain.

That food chain can be best described this way: at the top are large trucks, then buses, small trucks, 155 cc motorcycles (no fat hog Harleys), motor scooters, bikes (both 2 and 3 wheelers) and then you guessed it, humans of all ages.

The trucks, buses, and cars are seen as blending, weaving, cutting off and horn blowing.

The drivers' strategy appears to be get ahead of the next vehicle as soon as you can, so the option to cut off the driver behind is available.

Everyone knows how the food chain works on these streets.

Turning to pedestrians and how they fair. When people step into the street they go as far as possible, stop and wait for the vehicles to pass before continuing. They must have nerves of steel because I've seen cars pass by within inches with no apparent alarm. There were times my heart was in my throat when seeing such a close call.

Drivers either either slow down or speed up when seeing a person in front of their path. It appears that they don't want to leave their lane anymore than necessary.

I'm not sure this Chinese free for all on the streets and roads with little traffic regulators i.e. traffic lights and stop signs can be sustained. As more and more cars are added to the roadways and smaller motor vehicles too the traffic snarl will demand change.

But then maybe not as one driver said to me "The traffic moves now. Change would make it stop".

-Bob

Li River Boat Cruis

I am currently house sitting at my Dad's place while he and Nancy are traveling in China. The following is from his recent email. -Roger Frank


This time email from China brings a blog post from Nancy...
June 26, 2012

Today's four hour boat ride from Guilin to Yangshou was picture-perfect. Take your best memory of a Lake Superior Picture Rocks boat ride and extend the rocky landscape by three more hours.  Mix in, if you can, views of the Pinnacles, Canyonlands, and Glen Canyon National Parks all covered in lush, tropical vegetation. What a treat! We took many, many photographs.

 Later this afternoon, we will go to the walking streets to see many local handicrafts and then we'll complete the day's adventure by attending a ballet light show, after dark, if the weather holds. Guilin and Yangshou are very special places, for Chinese and for visitors. The pace is slow and noticeably different from other cities we've visited.
-Nancy

Scenic Guilin

I am currently house sitting at my Dad's place while he and Nancy are traveling in China. The following is from his recent email. -Roger Frank

The Guilin metropolitan area is over 4.5 million in population. It seems that every Chinese city has 5 to 8 million people. We are staying in a suburb about 40 minutes by taxi from the heart of downtown. It was raining when we arrived yesterday. It's the monsoon season with high humidity.  It has the feel of the current weather in Florida.

The area is surrounded by mountains with two major rivers flowing through it. The images in this Wikipedia page are representative of what we have seen today. Guilin, as every sizable city in this country, has a history dating back centuries. But I was surprised that it got its name in 1940.

I'm sure people who live in mountainous regions anywhere in the world would laugh to hear people call these foot hill size land forms mountains. But this city has a mountainous feel to it.

I've noticed that the drivers of motor scooters, battery bikes and motorcycles do wear helmets here. Well perhaps 5 to 10 percent do. Compare that to the other cities we've been, where helmet usage is almost zero. Why the difference here? My guess is it's due to the heavy rain fall, not because they are more safety conscious.

Talking about safety conscious, vehicle seat belt usage approaches zero percent. Well, maybe not that low, but I've been told seat belts are just not used in China. Maybe it's because most drivers are first generation and that car usage is relatively new to many people. There was quite a discussion in Chinese when I asked that our driver provide seat belts. The next morning all the seat belts were in place. Our driver actually belted me in as if to show me how it was done. That act brought an internal smile. But I did say thank you. I can just imagine what a laugh he and his buddies had chatting about this silly American wanting seat belts.
-Bob