Sometimes one need not go to exotic destinations to find a photographic subject. I pass this field every day on my walk. It is right across the street from my apartment.
The other day, I decided to put the D700 on the tripod and take a few shots and play with the depth of field. I spent only short time there as it was evening, rather warm, the insects were hungry and I was what was on the menu. 
Nope. Not a slip up in grammar. I am doing well, but on this past Sunday, I was doing good. I was volunteering at Chapman’s Dachshund Rescue in York, SC about 30 minutes or so from my home.
How I got there. As you may know, I attend The Peaceful Dragon, where I practice Tai Chi. Well, my Sifu, Eric Sbarge and his wife Debra are, shall we say, big fans of Dachsunds. As a matter of fact, when I started the school, there were always 4 dogs running around: Two dachshunds, a beagle, and a maltese. Both of the dachshunds belonged to Sifu. They were both older dogs, somewhere near 15 at the time. One of them died, leaving them with Amy. Amy was wonderful to see. She would walk around PD like she owned it. Eventually, you’d always see her in Sifu’s lap during our Zen Super Boot Camp class. She’d walk into the room, walk right up to his chair and wait to be picked up.
Everyone liked to stop by and pet her. She died a few weeks ago, leaving them with but one dog, Chauncy, a cool beagle who uses his nose to great advantage to sniff out any bag left on the floor, looking for foodstuffs.
To say that Sifu and Debra like dachshunds, would be an understatement akin to saying that I like photography! Not surprisingly, they adopted a couple of more wiener dogs: Hershey and Emily. Now, they can be seen around the school, getting acclimated to the comings and goings of the students.
Now that I am finished with the backstory, here’s how I got into this. Sifu sent out an email indicating they he and some other students would be volunteering at Chapman’s Dachshunds Rescue and all were invited. So, I decided to attend and help out in any way that I could. As he and another teacher were handling carpentry duty, I asked what I could help with. Gina, the wife side of the dynamic duo that is doing the rescue said that I could just socialize with the dogs. Hmmmmm. That’s a big task – just walking around petting, picking up, and playing with the dogs. I thought that I could handle that and I did. For four hours I got to meet the dogs and learn a few of their names. She, of course, knew all of the dogs and their histories!
My favorite of the group was Frank. Frank is 9 month old long-haired dachshund. He was friendly and had lots of attitude. Any time that there was some barking, or as I call it ‘regulating’ to be done, Frank could be counted on to do it! He was always on the move, so this was the only good photo that I could of him that wasn’t blurred. If I didn’t like to travel so much and wasn’t such a one-dog person, this fella would have come home with me that day! I liked him that much!
It was a fantastic four hours and I look forward to doing it again. Perhaps I’ll take my photography gear and make some portraits for their website! I used to volunteer a lot as a youngster and then started again a couple of years ago while in Charleston. It’s a good way to do something good, to give back, and the folks that you meet are the real treat! I highly recommend it for anyone.
Try as I might, I tend to slow down when a camera is in my hand. This morning, I didn’t do my usual walk. I was feeling a bit lazy, honestly, so I postponed it until this evening.
Today was rather hot, it was still close to 90 degrees at 5:00, so I decided to wait until the sun was a bit lower in the sky. I went out around 8:00, camera in hand, but determined (somewhat) to keep a decent walking pace. Who am I fooling? I had my camera in my hand. LOL
Before I could make it one block, I saw this Robin perched on the fence with his evening meal in beak and I had to stop and take a few shots. All in all, these were the only shots that I took during the walk because the sun was setting fast and the bugs were getting hungry. I made haste for the remaining 45 minutes of the walk, no longer satisfied with a slower pace.
Something that I noticed, after the fact, this fella has only one leg, but that doesn’t seem to stop him!
Red-bellied Woodpecker
I like when something is almost a sure thing. The appearance of this guy is almost a sure thing if I take this particular route through the neighborhood. All that I need to do is show up around 7:30 AM, or so, and he’ll be outside of his hole, pecking away at the tree and getting his breakfast. He has a very distinctive voice that can be heard from a few blocks away. Click here for more information about this guy and his kind.
This morning was no different except that I had a camera with me that could get the shot. As I rounded the corner, I heard him pecking away. I looked up, saw that his back was to me, so I had to wait. As this was near the end of my walk and the morning was getting warm, I was dripping a bit with sweat and had to stand in the sunshine and be patient. Fortunately, he was in the mood for moving around and soon scooted around to the back of the tree, completely out of sight. Gee, thanks! More patience …
Eventually, he came around to the side and I moved to the same side and we were able to get our photo session going. We kept the session going for a few minutes while he moved around, posed, moved some more, posed some more and I … well, I sweated. 
Finally, a lady and her dog came down the sidewalk, but they were very polite, waiting until I finished my “set”. There were really no worries about frightening the bird off, though I appreciated the gesture, because he was about 50 – 60 feet in the air, well out of reach of the dog and probably most cats.
I’m sure that I’ll be having more photos of this guy as well as the local rabbit population. It sure is an interesting neighborhood if you look around.
Joe
Joe, for the most part, is part of my morning ‘routine’. That is, I see him most every morning while he and I are out doing our walks. He’s always happy to see Hobbs and gives him a nice rub on the head.
Occasionally, we’ll see him walking his daughter’s two schnauzers, Ginger and Fred. Hobbs like to stop for a sniff-fest when they are around.
On this particular morning, as you can see, it was very foggy. So foggy, in fact, that Joe didn’t see us across the street. I waved, but he didn’t respond. I’m pretty sure that Hobbs didn’t see him either.
Of course, I love fog and I thought that this was a nice, moody shot.
Make sure you get one of me ice cold drinks – It’s hot out dere!
“Now! Make sure dat when we stop that you try some conch. Dat’s a shellfish, available only in da Bahamas. Here, we locals call it Bahamian Viagra. It’s guaranteed to add ten years to ya life and ten years to ya sex life! It’s an all-natural aphrodisiac!”
~Biggie
Our driver, ‘Biggie’ touted. Our first stop on the city tour took us to a small street with vendors flanking us on either side of the bus. Before Biggie opened the doors, he let us know that a lady was coming aboard, who needed no microphone. Indeed he was correct. We had no trouble hearing her!!! None at all. She was there to tell us how hot it was outside and how one of her cool Bahamian specialty drinks would cool you off on such a hot day as this.
After she finished her spiel, we got off the bus. Right there in front of us, not surprisingly was a place that sold conch, fried, soup, or salad. As we had only 30 minutes, Deb and I stepped up to the counter and orders a salad. I’d had one before, long ago, and knew that I liked conch.
The lady doing then preparing was very sweet and engaging; you could tell that she loved her work. She asked me what was my name and then told me to come around the corner to see how the conch was prepared. First, she asked: if I show you how it’s done, are you going to still eat it? I said: of course!
She grabbed one of the shells and the conch retreated back into the shell in response to the movement. Did I mention that this was FRESH?!!!
She picked up her hammer, I, my camera. She adjusted the hammer, claw side toward the shell and struck the shell. Next, she took a knife, inserted it into the new opening and cut the conch free and pulled it out. Then, step by step, she have us instructions on how to remove the ‘digger’, which is used for jewelry, the eyes, the guts, and the skin, leaving a nice hunk of white meat for the salad. The rest of the pieces are used for fishing, the skin for soup. No part goes unused. I could appreciate that.
That done, she cut the meat into small cubes, added onion, tomato, juice from a lime, juice from an orange, some hot pepper, and a little salt. Then, served it up in a large styrofoam cup. Yummy!
She practically demanded that we have a beer with it and told us where to buy it. We went across the street, bought a local beer, Sands, then came back, ate our salad, talk a bit more, then we were off.
It was a pleasant 30 minutes. I could have sat there all day, talked, laughed, and had fun.
Saturday Morning
Gratitude is like a flashlight, it lights up what is already there. You don’t necessarily have anything more or different, but suddenly you can actually see what is. And because you can see, you no longer take it for granted.
M.J. Ryan – Attitudes of Gratitude
Quite frankly, there are those moments when I am simply ‘there’, filled with gratitude.
This was the scene, Saturday morning, just off of the coast of West Palm Beach, FL. Taken from the aft (rear) deck of The Bahamas Celebration cruise ship as we returned home.
