Justfolk's photos

My sternlaw was teaching her granddaughter, her son-in-law, and me (plus, out of the frame, her granddaughter's boyfriend) how to whistle with fingers. None of us really got the technique.

B is my nephew's daughter, so a great-niece. And a great niece she is, interested even in photography. I posed for her and she then posed for me. The picture was a garish one with flash so I took the opportunity to tone it down, and "texture" it too.

As part of a quinquennial family reunion last week, a few dozen of us walked up a path to the top of a piece of land B's great-great-great-grandfather had owned 125 years ago or so. (Her gt-gt-grandfather gave it up for a public park about fifty years ago, after it was designated undevelopable city watershed land.) B and I were walking companions much of the way, with her asking questions about the flowers and berries we saw, and learning how to use my Pen FT half-frame slr. She was a very good student.

My grandfather-in-law's favourite drink was London Dock, a sweet and rich rum; a bottle of it gets brought to family events when his memory is raised. So, on the occasion last week of the 95th anniversary of his and my grandmother-in-law's wedding, we shared around a bottle of the stuff and drank to their health at their graveside. His own father's headstone is the white one; his is the brown one just behind; his wife's headstone is just outside the frame. There were about thirty of us there. The oldest present for the toast was his 89-year-old daughter, in blue, bottom left. There were young ones, though not in the picture. A little rum was poured on his grave afterwards; twenty years after his death, he may not be in any condition to appreciate it, but one should not be too sure.

The annual city holiday here is the Regatta which normally falls on the first Wednesday of August. People set up their booths the night before to be ready early in the morning when the races begin and the crowds come. *If* it goes ahead, because the weather can postpone it for a day, or a series of days. On Tuesday night, though, thousands of people show up to check out the booths under construction and perhaps selling fairground foods already. This was an hour or so ago; these booths were open for business though most potential customers were elsewhere on the Regatta grounds.

It's not really a neighbour's garden, but it's only five minutes' walk from my door. This was an hour after dark a few nights ago. I deliberately grew comfrey for two years, about 35 years ago. Then I spent three years eradicating it from my garden because it grew so aggressively into everything else.

Lots of parties have moments when eyes get cast down, conversations seem less frivolous, and no one seems to be raising their glass. They pass quickly enough. This was taken in colour, but at a high ISO, the colours seemed best converted (via a virtual green filter) into b&w.

This fledgling starling came down our chimney into the fireplace where the glass door kept him from flying into the room. I spent all night trying to figure out how I'd catch him and prevent him from flying around the room. Many's the slip 'twixt cup and lip -- my elaborate method didn't work. Instead, this morning I used the rather simpler method of dropping a towel over him when he lit on a windowsill. But here he was, a few minutes before, drawn to the light of my flashlight.

I was on the back step listening to the radio and this fellow dropped by to join me for a few minutes. He listened to the radio too and I thought he was rubbing together with some glee his what-pass-for-hands. Perhaps I was mistaken. . I must learn how to do focus-stacking with this camera.

Have a Pint / Make a Face / Be Art.

Bittersweet nightshade growing along the former railway tracks a couple of hundred metres from my house. They are often called "deadly nightshade." The berries look like tiny tomatoes, less than a cm across. In my youth, in the early 1970s, I chewed some up (and spit them out); they *tasted* like tomatoes, too. I was interested in the berries as a potential wild food, and didn't know until I got home later that day and looked the plant up in a guide that it was nightshade. Lucky man to be still here, hey? (Apparently though, the ripe berries have a lower toxicity than the green unripe ones, or the leaves.)

What can I say? I like trucks' arses. I like wild skies. I like b&w conversions to make 'em wilder. I like grab shots from my car in traffic.

This was a few days ago, not 1966. A small crop from a picture taken in St Pierre.

Me taking a picture of some flowers left in a hospital window. And the picture toned down somewhat.

We were waiting, at L'anse du Gouvernement on Ile Langlade (part of St Pierre et Miquelon) with a dozen or so other people for the lighter to take us to the ferry. It was three days ago, on the French fête nationale, Bastille Day. We'd been to some of the festivities at Miquelon, about 30 km over the dunes from this spot and had come back here in the afternoon to catch the return ferry to St Pierre for more festivities. (Of course, much of that festivity was dampened a few hours later by the awful news from Nice.) Here, new arrivals at Langlade are getting off the Zodiac as we stand back waiting to go aboard of her.

As a child, I used to eat the bitter seeds of the blue tufted vetch, though I never liked them. I imagined they were wild peas. I have never roasted them, but I wouldn't be surprised if they toasted up very nicely. Maybe someone has tried it. In any case, I like the flowers. More than the seeds.

Jack and I were looking at the glass dangly thing hanging from our friends' dining-room light. We both thought a nice picture could be made. So I tried it. Here then is our friends' living room, with an empty chair at the table; only one of the guests made it into the picture; he's on the right.

Arlo Guthrie played here last night. And, of course, I went to hear him. It was just him, two guitars, two mouth organs, and the hall's piano. Even if he hadn't played and sang, it would have been worth the price of the ticket because he's such a story-teller. This was when he was telling how Steve Goodman sang him "City of New Orleans" in an effort to get Johnny Cash to record it. Cash wouldn't, so -- with no reluctance -- Arlo did. I took a few dozen shots, all in flashless manual mode and, without driving my neighbours nuts with the camera's screen, it took me a while to get the exposure and focus right. This is one of the decent shots, though sized way down for posting.