Life in Photography – October

Another month is gone. Well, not entirely. Halloween is tonight! My grandsons’ costumes might be classified as unconventional this year, or maybe I should say classified as creative. Walker insists that he will be Hulk wearing a dragon head. Stranger things than that have wandered the neighborhood on Halloween night.

Everything is not completely organized because the mother of two of the children has had H1N1 flu all last week, and I don’t think she will care if they dress in their birthday suits (and one of them might do just that!). The mother of the other two found out out that two will become three next spring. She has been contemplating having three children under four years of age, so Halloween is not at the top of her list of things to be concerned about, either. Karsten doesn’t want a baby brother or sister. He wants a dragon. I guess that is a whole dragon, not a half Hulk/half dragon.

I am going to post my Better Photo contest entries for October, as I did last month. By doing that I will be able to show that October was full of things to blog about. And I intend to do it!  It was also so full that I haven’t had time, yet. Stay tuned for Halloween, a fall visit/art day at Cheekwood with my friend Jayne, an excursion to The Farm, a fabulous photography workshop in Savannah, a trip to Ann Arbor for a reunion of my husband’s fraternity brothers and a photo excursion to Chelsea while we were there, planned by my brother.

I wasn’t into the full swing of October with my first week’s entries. Four photos were of wildflowers I shot from my August Ann Arbor trip.  The Home of Jax was taken while in New Orleans the previous April. I don’t even remember what prompted me to do that. Love Among the Zinnias was snapped in my sister-in-law’s garden during the memorable August trip to Rockville, Md/Burke, VA/DC area when our GPS turned on us, and we were nearly lost forever ‘neath the streets of Washington.  Maybe it was Boston.  It could have been Kandahar for all that Garmin woman cared!  The fall garden was from Centennial Park, a former autumn, but it seemed appropriate.

Finally, we arrive at October’s activities, but not until another wildflower from Ann Arbor, another New Orleans photo, and two typical October shots, which were taken in Nashville, show up. Entries for Oct. 12 and 13 are from the visit to Cheekwood to see the Scarecrow Exhibit.

More Cheekwood entries for October 14 and 15. The rest are from the Savannah photography workshop. I want to go back!

The 21st through the 25th are all Savannah shots.

During the last week of October I submitted all Savannah shots, except for two. Sulphur Creek is from my son-in-law’s property along the Cumberland River, loosely called The Farm, because no farming takes place there.  I have a post planned about that.  White Birches, submitted on Oct. 30, is from the photo trip to Chelsea, Michigan.  There is a post planned about that, too.  There’s hardly room for anything to happen in November, for trying to fit October in!

The Better Photo September contest was judged in October, and Winged Sumac was announced as a Finalist.  That is wonderful and gratifying, but my association with Winged Sumac will forever be standing in that restored prairie area of Long Hunter State Park, unaware of  the Chiggers that were taking their stations at various spots on my body, silently preparing for the attack that would begin in twenty-four hours.  Thanks, Better Photo.

I am grateful for all the wonderful things I saw and photographed in October, for the people I spent time with while I photographed, for the great fortune I have to own such incredible camera equipment.  I can’t honestly say I am grateful for Chiggers and H1N1, but I am grateful for the return to health that follows the misery. I don’t think Chiggers ever killed anyone, although it seemed possible at the time. H1N1, on the other hand, can be dangerous. Don’t brush it off if you happen to know of a few people whose symptoms were light.

Live to photograph another day!