Tag: Conservative Art

The Waterfall at The Old Mill Restaurant in Pigeon Forge Tennessee

Color Photography, Uncategorized

By special request of my dear friend Sophia Ismaa I’m going to share with you the waterfall at the Old Mill in Pigeon Forge Tennessee.

I was asked to describe the atmosphere of the scene.

As the late fall sun eases it’s way West the crystal clear blue sky fades into a soft purple in the Eastern direction and a golden band on the Western skyline. The shadows of the Great Smokey Mountains began to grow long as the crowd makes it’s way from shop to shop in the little tourist village. Pigeon Forge is a showcase for Appalachian artists. Paintings, pottery and woodworking can be found in almost every shop. The breeze carries wonderful aromas wafting from the Old Mill which is now a restaurant. As we make our way down to the Pigeon River below the mill the sound of falling water overcomes the clamor of crowd in the streets above. The golden sun is now disappearing behind the mountains and the streetlights are starting to come to life. This is magic hour and I have the power to freeze time.

Cardinals in Springtime

Color Photography, wildlife

I would follow you anywhere.

You are my whole world.

It hurts when you are not in sight.

You are the other half of me.

– Lloyd A Dempsey II

Living outside of office at my day job is a pair of mated Cardinals. (Cardinalis cardinalis) . Their marriage is strongly based on commitment. Cardinals mate for life and engage in courtship on a regular basis. Every year before nesting the male (bright red) brings food to the female and feeds her beak to beak. She is completely devoted to him. As he patrols his territory she never seems to be more than fifty feet away. If he leaves her sight she chirps sharply and he answers. The males have a distinct song. The song is a combination of loud high pitched tweets followed by several low pitched ones. The males fiercely defend their territory. They are small birds but what they lack in size they make up for in tenacity and vigilance. They’re known to orchestrate Blind Side surprise attacks on cats, dogs and people. I’ve watched the male pictured here simultaneously attack and chase away two crows that ventured too close to his nesting spouse. (Hey, it’s a guy thing. We’re not fulfilled unless we’re being protectors) Even though they seem to be antisocial jerks at times I have been able to pet one. He had defended his territory against his own reflection in a window and was lying on the ground unconscious. I thought it was dead but when I knelt down to check it out he sprung up and pecked my finger. After a few minutes he decided that I wasn’t such a bad guy after all and allowed me check him for injuries. Don’t worry about his mate rejecting him. That’s an old wives tale. They were still together for years afterwards.

I recently commented on another blog that marriage was about commitment and that true love grows out of that commitment. I can think of no better example than the Northern Cardinal.

On Justice and Vengeance

black and white photography, Thoughts and Musing

Above is the Nicholas County Courthouse. While taking the picture I began to think of it as a place of justice. But what is justice?

We’ve all been there. Somebody does you wrong and you cry out for justice. The world seems out of balance you just won’t rest until things are set right again. But, is it really justice that we’re seeking? Or, is it vengeance? Common sense would seem to imply that the two words describe the same thing but do they really? As I contemplate the terms and try to sort out the answer I have come to find more questions.

Can justice truly exist without mercy and grace? ( which incidentally are not the same thing either). Mercy is when we are found guilty of some infraction and yet, we are spared the consequences of guilt. Mercy also has a tendency to come with conditions. When a police officer lets you off with a warning instead of a full blown citation as long as you’re not caught speeding on his street again. He knows that you’re guilty. He can prove it. But, he doesn’t pursue the charge. Maybe it’s your first offense or he just likes you or he he’s sympathetic to your circumstances. Whatever the reason, he granted you mercy.

Then what is grace? From the time I was a child I was taught that grace is the unmerited favor of God. We don’t deserve it, but he gives it anyway because he wants to. Now, let’s take our same police officer and same situation. Only now, he gives you money for lunch in place of the ticket. Our good officer has just demonstrated both mercy and grace.

So with the above example in mind let’s re-examine the difference between justice and vengeance.

Does vengeance allow for mercy and grace? Not really. We might claim to have shown mercy or grace or both but if we’re honest with ourselves we must admit that isn’t really so. We have either grown weary of vengeance or we felt that the other party has suffered enough. In either case, we didn’t allow the escape of a certain amount of punishment.

Justice however does allow for mercy and grace. Punishment is avoided under the right conditions.

One other thing about vengeance. Is it possible for an innocent person to suffer undue vengeance? I’m sure each of can find at least one example from our own past of a person being paid back for something that they didn’t do. However, if justice is true, then true guilt is established prior to pay backs.

It would seem that under a close scrutiny that there could be holes in what we call common sense if we can’t separate justice from vengeance.

Common sense may be easy to understand but in reality it isn’t always accurate and it isn’t always neutral.

The Historic Old Main

black and white photography, Summerville

The featured image for this post is the Old Main School building in Nicholas County West Virginia. This is where the notorious bat incident of 1983 took place. I mentioned it in a previous article but in short a young man that was taking a class in introductory literature misused his borderline criminal genius to add some realistic excitement during a reading of Homer. Unfortunately as an adult I’m actually held responsible for my actions today. It’s just as well, at her age the teacher probably couldn’t handle the shock. The yard you see in the foreground is one of the places where we would have lunch. In the Early 80s there would have been two or three boom boxes powered by large (by today’s standards) battery banks. You would have seen some Walkman radio/cassette payers. These bright yellow boxes were carried on the belt or in a pocket. Today we do everything on our phones but when I roamed the halls of this building a mobile phone was the size of a shoe box (or larger) and had to plugged into a car. When I attended classes here the building was heated by steam pipes and occasionally we would see large accumulations of Ice near the vents.

The historic building is one hundred and fifteen years old. It serves as a center for the arts now. Perhaps one day day I’ll see a play based on the the Odyssey there. But, I’ll bet that when the adventure gets to the river Styx they don’t have real bats for effect.

Caves of Ice and a nod to Samuel Taylor Coleridge

black and white photography

On my way to my day job I spotted this snow capped mountain. In spite of my fuss old man winter persists. Since Old Man Winter wanted another portrait I obliged him once again. (Hopefully he’ll be satisfied enough to leave this time.)

As I sat in my warm pickup truck along the Kanawha River looking up at the mountain my mind brought up the poem Samuel Taylor Coleridge‘s Kubla Kahn and I wondered if one were to take the trek up to the peak if he would find the entrance to Xanadu. Can you hear the dulcimer and the song of Mount Abora? Do want to explore the caves of ice? But alas, responsibly calls and there’s little time for adventure today. I snapped a few shots and head down river to my day job. Perhaps they’ll serve honeydew for lunch and I’ll still feel like an adventure when I clock out.