Summer Thunder

Driving through and listening today to storms that build from summer heat. This from 2009. Had taught myself Manual Exposure (it isn’t rocket surgery). Started carrying a camera to work. This is an afternoon inbound flight to RDU, seen from from the Lenovo Parking Lot in Perimeter Park. About 8 months before I was finally unable to bridge the cultural gap between mainland Chinese managers and Moi. 2,000 years of Chinese Civil Service history and an ex-U.S.N. Submariner simply couldn’t c0-exist – at all.

Maybe Not Done – “Into The Sun”

This 16 year old image visited me today, about sun rise. Sleep has been elusive. And I finally slept, all through the day. There may be room in my “Permanent Gallery”.

“Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife” – Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard By Thomas Gray 1751

Hatteras Sunrise – Outer Banks, North Carolina

All That Jazz

Making Art is hard. Recorded this image in April of 2012. Finally figured out how to “see” it, last week. FedEx delivered today from my printer. The last of my “Permanent Gallery” aka my apt living room walls. Not what the camera saw, what I saw. Yes, photographers can be artists. I am one.

Me & CBC & The Muse

Made this photograph 4 July’s ago, the summer before I retired. In a building that is now a bank and a lifetime past for a very young dancer. Peeking at the school’s Facebook page, I learned she was recently awarded a scholarship but they had no photograph. She was, the second time “The Muse” appeared to me. And you just know, you know?

Cary Ballet Conservatory Summer Intensive – July 2022

Legacy I/T, Art & Optimism

Residual to my IBM PC Company/Lenovo 11 or so years as an I/T Architect (hired as an “Experienced Professional” sans Degree), I still have a Google Voice DiD Telephone Number and IMAP e-mail accounts that I access via “Thunderbird”.

The Google Voice number became my “Brooke Meyer Photography” business number with a PolyCom handset on my desk attached to an Ethernet Switch attached to my router. Also, setup for “distinct ring” as a second line on home phone OOMA network. And of course, support went away for the Polycom. As did Google’s forwarding of SMS texts to another DiD. But that’s not what this is about.

Musée d’Orsay 2016

Google did preserve the forwarding of Voice Call Notification and Text Messages to my Gmail account! I detest “SmartPhone” itty-bitty screens and soft key boards (Ancient Flatulent aka Old Fart). My daily driver is a lightweight, $149 Chromebook with 15″ screen, full keyboard and all day battery life, I get SMS Texts to my e-Mail. And can respond, from the Gmail app! Tres convenient!

Text today from my recently moved adoptive granddaughter/dog rescuer/soprano/teacher/recipe sharer who is visiting NYC this week. From MoMA. A photograph made with her, what else, phone. And I responded with my version from Paris in 2016 and explained the Degas wax original is in the National Gallery of Art in D.C.. The young lady visiting New York renews my hope in humanity.

Artistic Gravity

Started a book a year ago. And then, procrastinated. Today, the literary dam finally broke and I was submerged in the torrents of “Atticus”, “Bookwright”, DocX and PDFs. Too hot to go outside, so format and write, I will. “Maybe”, as Shirley Horn sang, “September”.

Waterfall, Bute Inlet B.C. – Aboard M.V. Aurora Explorer – 3 Sept 2009

Lady Friend Visits

The Viburnum by my apt. window is reaching full bloom. I trim it by hand, protected from the weekly “Landscaping Crew” and their “Two-Cycle Symphony”. Its density provides nesting for Chipping Sparrows and shade relief for Rabbits. Bees discovered it week ago. Today, hiding out “a la Paris”, from heat & humidity due to an errant Jet Stream, while enjoying a libation, had a visitor, an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. Feeding, “She” (Blue Spots on Tail) , allowed me time to fetch a camera and my favorite portrait lens.

103 in Paris! Mon Dieu!

Shocked by the news today! My memory of Paris in mid September through October is wonderful! Open the windows! And the beginning of the Paris Opera Season! Ballet! This is from our 4th floor apt. (they start at 0 which explained the 52, 300 year old oak steps) on Rue Ferdinand Duval in the Marais.

Seeing the news today, while in the comfort of my apt., in Caroline du Nord, where air conditioning is a given and rare in Paris – how awful with no relief for Le Parisien. Tar Heels know! We’d be nude! Okay, maybe that would work 😉

View from our apartment window

Discovery

Working on a retrospective for a dancer, digging through a decade of programs, the light bulb went on!

These two images are 20 x 16 full bleed prints, Fuji Deep Matte Paper on Standout Mounts in Nielsen Float Frames hanging in my apt. living room gallery.

October 2010 at Cary Ballet Conservatory and December 2010 at Meredith College, Jones Auditorium. Finally realized the two young dancers and friends in the middle of the first image are the same two on the right of the second image. Vitamins for an old, world weary heart. The best of us.

Sunday Ruminations – Part Deux

My previous post was written with the idea of “Ruminant” as “chewing cud” or mulling something over. Had no idea I was, AI wrong: “Rumination is the act of endlessly replaying or dwelling on negative thoughts without reaching a resolution

Nah. It’s thinking – which AI never does. Wonder how it defines “mull”? Or ponder? Or Wish List?

Sunday Ruminations

It is a great luxury to be disassociated from modern manic madness: Amazon, Anthropic, Apple, Cable TV, Chat GPT, Door Dash, Facebook, Google Gemini, Instacart, Instagram, LinkedIn, Lyft, Meta, Open AI, SpaceX, Tik Tok, Uber (weekly phishing scams) and WhatsApp – nah.

My “I’ve had it with I/T” post IBM PC-Lenovo merger decision to take early Social Security has now achieved financial parity vs waiting for “full retirement age”. And gave me and my sweet heart most of a decade we wouldn’t have had together. And Paris.

Mac aka Melanchetes “MacGyver” AKC CGC

Got a roof, rack, good chow and peace. No dental or medical or money issues. Full frig, freezer and pantry. Balanced meal plans (old guys can cook). Pile of TBR (To Be Read) books, good music, an I/T Pro’s low cost, robust Internet connection. A book to write and 12 years of photographs to curate without the time pressure of commerce. Mac knew.

Brooke Can Cook!

Lazy, lazy, hot, hot weekend. Tonight, it’s:

  1. Butterflied pork chops (.75lbs), Lowe’s Foods discount case, $1.64 total. Overnight wet salt brine, brush with Duke’s Mayo, Shake & Bake with leftover Mi Nina Tortilla Chip Crumbs, Wondra & Bread Crumbs – NC ABC Paper Sack.
  2. Portion of diced Yellow Squash/Zucchini/Tomato with pepper, salt & olive oil.
  3. Grains (Millet, Lentils, Barley and Brown Rice) in homemade chicken broth.
  4. Chunk of LaFarm Bread.
  5. Water with lemon slice & ice.
  6. White Wine

Raleigh State Farmers Market – 2013

Mentor

Hiding out from record heat, needing no supplies and zero commitments, allows time for the Muse. This is in transit from my favorite Used Bookstore. Discovered his work in 2012. That summer, was an epiphany. This explained it- Kodak Essential Reference Guide for Filmmakers – Pages 135 to 140 – epiphany. And realized why I was home in the theater.

Cary Ballet Company Rehearsal, Cary Arts Center – 12 December 2012

Evening Remembrance – 6 June 2026

My apartment is on a East to West axis. Late afternoon sun back lights clouds on an azure sky. I never planned to make a photograph of cirrus clouds like I see today, but I did. On a country road in Belleau, France. For “Teufel Hunden”.

Cutting Fool – Politely*

*I’ve lived in the American South a total of 37 years. I know collards, shrimp, grits and boiled peanuts (just establishing my Bubba Bona Fides).

Monday, 1st of month: Budget update, pay rent, shop for kitchen Post-It lists. Expected a Lease Renewal Proposal. Envelope in door was a xeroxed broadcast admonition to provide income confirmation with the disclaimer of “even if you had” – which I had. The young lady in the leasing office explained they hadn’t gotten info from ( I’m guessing here) corporate somewhere. Which explains how this place has become “Income Restricted” – which is no problem as I am, “Income Restricted”! Bless their Tax Credit and Depreciation Schedule Hearts!

Sooooo – I took the same documents and statements and ‘splained – again. We’ll see. Moving is a pain but yeah, corporate somewhere, go ahead and increase your non-performing vacancy rate.

Levitation Part II

Wrote this nearly two years ago. Reading the news today about RFK Jr being bitten by snakes, I was astonished that he did not know what a 12 year old knows – go in slow and pick up Racers behind their head – duh! He is a jackass!

Photo by JD Willson

Except for it atop my HoA directed six inch thick, leaf free, pine straw a la golf course sterile landscaping in front of my town home, this one looked just like the one that greeted me upon arrival home from Saturday shopping chores.

And it held the same pose during four trips past it with groceries. Okay, there was a stop at Total Wine and that trip wasn’t groceries.

Having stowed all away, I peeked later and saw it gone. So with some outdoor leisure time before evening meal prep, I have a story.

Somewhere in the very early 1960’s, there were some large open fields in easy walking distance of home. Before the developers scraped them clean for sub-divisions. In an after school afternoon, I found and picked up by hand, a beautiful Blue Racer Snake, probably 3+ ft long. I draped it around my neck and handled it gently as it explored it’s new and temporary environment.

My guess is, it was about 4:30 in the afternoon, before Dad got home from work. Mom had dinner simmering on the stove as I came through the kitchen. I walked through that now impossibly small bungalow to where she was trying to nap. Her days were long, something I only realized much later.

In the dim light of the bedroom, sunlight diffused and reduced by a window shade, I proudly and brightly said “Hey Mom, look what I’ve got!” and I lifted the snake for her to marvel at.

She opened one eye and I swear “Levitated”. My reptilian conquest was immediately returned to its site of capture.

In Memoriam

This Memorial Day weekend, through no plan at all, I read “D-Day” by Stephen Ambrose and “The Longest Day” by Cornelius Ryan. Without distraction, but for food and sleep. And thought about, memorials, I’ve visited. And my luck.

WWI: Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, Belleau, France

WWII: USS Yorktown CV-10, Charleston, South Carolina

(Renamed before launch to replace USS Yorktown CV-5 sunk at Midway)

WWII: Detail of WWII Memorial, Washington, D.C.

Vietnam War: “Three Soldiers” Washington, D.C.

Pourquoi, Bubba? “Corrected”

“I mis-remembered the Island name. While waiting for my “Brand New” 2005 Silverado W/T to be serviced today, I remembered!

For no reason whatsoever, I was thinking about, long ago, stopping at a roadside stand for Boiled Peanuts on a two lane blacktop to Johns Island from Charleston.

Angel Oak – Dec. 2017

And a Paris Restaurant, on a side street, discovered while walking back from shopping at Marche Bastille.

Marche Bastille – Sept. 2017

Found the Boiled Peanuts last weekend at the Raleigh State Farmers Market (Not these Strawberries from May 0f 2014).

And maybe, I’ll find an excuse for dinner at a proper French Restaurant, in my Tar Heel home.

From Tour Montparnasse

Pourquoi, Bubba?

For no reason whatsoever, I was thinking about, long ago, stopping at a roadside stand for Boiled Peanuts on a two lane blacktop to James Island from Charleston and a Paris Restaurant, on a side street, discovered while walking back from shopping at Marche Bastille. Found the Boiled Peanuts last weekend at the Raleigh State Farmers Market . And maybe, I’ll find an excuse for dinner at a proper French Restaurant, in my Tar Heel home.

Travels With Jane #10

The Blackball Car Ferry from Victoria Harbor, B.C. to Port Angeles, Washington lands you close to this National Park – which my Boss Lady knew about and I had no idea. She guided me in Seattle & Hawaii. Yes, back in 2009, at sea!

Hurricane Ridge, Olympic National Park, Washington -16 May 2008

And So It Goes

Made this photograph long ago (27 Dec. 2010). Had just found my footing as a photographer. This corner at Academy & Chatham Streets is being converted from an automobile gas station & repair shop to a restaurant.

Catty-corner at the intersection, Ashworth’s Drug Store is being converted to the Once in a Blue Moon Bakery & Cafe.

The Town of Cary was my landing place in late 1998. New job, new house, fresh start. Today, I don’t need a GPS to get around. And just down the street from the above photography is La Farm Bakery, where I buy my daily bread – weekly! The only constant, is change. Yet, it still feels, like home.

Un “LinkedIn’!

Thought I’d gotten rid of “LinkedIn” after closing my Photography business. Recently, been getting Spam Broadcasts from LinkedIn accounts I have zero interest in. Googled “How To Delete LinkedIn account” – found answer. So finally, no more oxymoronically named, “Social Media” presence.

Jane Smarter Than Tarzan

Reading this today, I was surprised that young men could be so stupid. Ok, not really surprised, I’m an old man: Women Home Buyers & Men Dating.

Long ago, a 21 year marriage blew up and I lucked out, finding a woman who’d made a similar poor decision. We shared her apartment until we decided we could afford a house. I presented a stack of cancelled checks, my half of rent & utilities, written to my late Sweetheart, to the Mortgage Loan Officer handling our application, as proof of her income. I was “Miscellaneous Income, Other”. It made the numbers work for the bank and we became homeowners – unmarried and living in Sin. We did Marry and I bought the next house with a VA Loan Guarantee and my first pay stub from my new job at the IBM PC Company. The proceeds from selling our first house together improved the lives of a combined five children plus some grand kids.

Marché Bastille, Paris

She was way better with budget than me. I was good for fixing stuff, gutting & renovating kitchens and lifting heavy stuff. The Italian Julia Child , spoiled me rotten. And we both thrived in Paris. Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien. It’s okay to have a Boss Lady. Tarzan knew!

How To Pour A Beer – II

Before a lazy Sunday, Slow Cooker, Low Oven and Rice Cooker dinner of Collards, BBQ & Rice, I remembered how the very young woman, pictured below, taught me how to pour a beer – down the side and halfway up, in the middle. This photograph was made years before she became my Mom. And I still use her advice. She taught me to dance so I didn’t embarrass myself before a High School Prom. And I dearly miss her Chicken Paprikash. I was one lucky kid.

The Lost Gallery

As reported here before, I discovered that I’d never edited the rough photography gallery made at the 2018 Cary Ballet Conservatory 6 PM Sunday performance of the “Nutcracker”. Literally, unseen. My discovery was prompted when the wonderful Dancer and Actor who has performed as “Herr Drosselmeyer” in the Cary Ballet Company productions of the “The Nutcracker”, asked for some photographs. To show some folks who had never seen it. Retired as I am, I set off into archive land, thinking I could give him a well deserved chronology and evidence of his artistry, from my work of 2011 to 2021, in an afternoon or two. Not even close.

So here it is, finally! – The Lost Gallery: 6 PM Sunday, 2018 “Nutcracker”

It was a bit of photographic special. The last of a long week, had everything, let’s take some chances! Added a 1.5x Tele Convertor to my tripod mounted 100-300 F4 Zoom. So I was at 150 mm to 450 mm focal length – capable of making head shots from rear of theater. But high risk, including the loss of an aperture stop and narrower Depth of Field -lots of soft and out of focus images. Still had my 50-135 mm on the other body. 20% kept.

Before The Call -Redux

Almost finished printing & framing my living room gallery. Ordered this version from my printer today – 20″ x 16″, Fuji Deep Matte Paper on Standout Mount. Destined for one of the Neilsen 13 Float Frames I have on hand. I was never satisfied with my framed prints until I saw a Herb Ritts Exhibit at La MEP in Paris, 2016. And couldn’t “see” this image, until now.

Wildly different from the color version I posted here, in 2011. But much closer to the spirit of dancers in theater. Much closer to the magic.

Stage Rehearsal for “Anastasia” – Cary Ballet Conservatory, June 2011

Across Generations

A full afternoon waiting in an automobile service dept. offers free coffee and library-like quiet. Finished reading and looking at this today, a 1952 re-issue. Found a kindred artistic spirit. And belatedly discovered his foundation was a short walk from the vacation apt. we rented in Le Marais. My late Sweetheart would have chewed me out for highlighting passages and bending page corners – but it is, my book. And I found a communion of artistic spirit. My pile of notes for a book about the alchemy of the How and Why of photography making Art are nearly plagiarism. I was two when this was published. Some ideas are timeless and transcend technology.

Henri Cartier Bresson “The Decisive Moment”

Stupid Human Tricks

Dog sitting with this sweet dumpster rescue for the next half hour while her rescuer “Vacuums” their apartment. Time for a story.

Started to mount these on lights stands I had with 5/8″ studs and 1/4 20 male threads. Went to Lowe’s Hardware and bought some knobs in the hardware aisle with female threads to mount them. Back home, could not make them fit! Until today!

Realized I had transposed 1/4 -20 with 10-24 – not only a different thread pitch but the thread diameter is .190″ vs .250″. Duh!

A trip to my local Ace Hardware for 1/4 -20 Wingnuts fixed the problem. Tossed 8 bucks of mis-purchased knobs. Dinner tonight is “Crow”.

The Wisdom of Children III

Photographed at weekend event at Ashworth Village in Cary, long ago. I was making photographs for Cary Citizen. And discovered that the lack of guile in children is, vitamins for the adult spirit.

Nearing 76 turns about the Sun, I get spiritual renewal watching kids invent play with shopping carts at the grocery. My late Sweetheart & Boss Lady thought I was embarrassing, riding our grocery cart, downhill to the car. Tried it the other day – I weigh too much, cart tilted backwards. Or maybe, it was empty and light, shopping for one. And 16 years later, I remember the unvarnished honesty of this child.

Chewing Through Ropes

Safe at home on a damned near perfect afternoon, with Beer and Bourbon. Mary Chapin Carpenter’s “Shooting Straight In The Dark”, playing on my bookshelf stereo. And reading a gift, from my young dog rescuing neighbor, a wonderful book, “Dog Songs” by Mary Oliver. And taking a license with a title, “Ropes”. Like the dog in the story, been chewing through ropes, as long as I can remember. Like a lot of us, looking to be free to discover. Free now.

Tungsten Fresnels

This arrived today, none of which I needed but the price was irresistible. As was the possibility of making a portrait. Smaller than my Mole-Richardson gear that I sold on retirement. But maybe, a good fit for an apartment , to make a portrait of a young friend I greatly admire, a la the following image, made after my 2012 lighting epiphany.

Travels With Jane #9 – Pac West

Made this photograph in September of 2009, on the back end of a wonderful voyage aboard the Aurora Explorer. The car ferry from Victoria to Seattle, via the Strait of Juan de Fuca, allowed me to be topside, something ex-Submariners find, astonishing. Saw this on the stern quarter. Big Boat – 560 ft vs the 425 ft Lafayette Class Polaris Boomer I was aboard. They’re sailing for a “Nuclear Strategic Deterrent Patrol” aka “Making a hole in the water for a few months”. In 2026, they’re still on Patrol.

Ohio Class Fleet Ballistic Missile Submarine with USCG Escorts, outbound.

Travels With Jane #8 – Marais, Paris

This is wildly ahead of the chronology of my Post Plan but:

A mid-April, windows open, 90 degree Saturday in North Carolina, with good Hefeweizen from Bavaria & Bourbon from Kentucky, listening to Bonnie Raitt’s “Nick of Time”. Deciding on the last prints I’ll order for my home gallery and an exhibit plan I’ll submit in mid summer. But that’s not what this is about.

Made this photograph on another Saturday, in Sept of 2016. Print arrived last week. I’ll frame tomorrow. That September afternoon, after wandering about Le Marais near our apt., we lounged a few hours at the cafe on the right. Shared a meal with my late sweetheart. It was, the very best of times.

Place Ste. Catherine

Like a lot of others, we’d both made poor marital decisions, had child custody battles, witnessed the deaths of parents and got corporate downsized. And we struggled through two years of Stage 4 Cancer consequences. Yet, we’d found each other – “In the Nick of Time”. Arriving home in North Carolina, we decided the kitchen renovation could wait a year and revisited Paris, the next September. Which included the 5oth Anniversary Performance of Balanchine’s “Jewels” in a good box at the Palais Garnier, aka the Paris Opera House. Which the Paris Opera has announced for it’s next Season. I won’t attend because my love, to paraphrase Etta Jones, won’t be there.

Robert Burns Was Right!

“The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men often go awry”

The wonderful Dancer and Actor who has performed as “Herr Drosselmeyer” in the Cary Ballet Company productions of the “The Nutcracker”, recently asked me for some photographs to show some folks who had never seen it. Retired as I am, I set off into archive land, thinking I could give him a well deserved chronology and evidence of his artistry, from my work of 2011 to 2021.

Was going well until I discovered I’d never edited the rough gallery from the 6 PM Sunday performance in 2018. And it was a bit of photographic special. I do remember thinking, last show, I have everything, so let’s take some chances! Added a 1.5x Tele Convertor Lens to my tripod mounted Sigma 100-300 F4 Zoom. So now, I was at 150 mm to 450 mm focal length – capable of making head shots from rear of theater. But high risk, including the loss of an aperture stop and narrower Depth of Field, so lots of soft and out of focus images. Still had my 50-135 mm on the other body. And I’ve spent the last two afternoons winnowing down my mistakes. I forgot how much work this was. Stay tuned!

Easter Thoughts

This AP News article took me back to another Sunday morning, standing at the intersection of Rue de Rosiers and Rue Ferdinand Duval, near our Paris Apt Rental. I’d walked down the very narrow street to a Jewish Bakery for our daily bread – and some goodies.

And nearby was a plaque, that I made this photograph of. And after I read it, closed my eyes and opened them and saw nothing that could not have been 1944 and I was there, then, being taken to Auschwitz. And it was the most terrified I’ve ever been.

And thought, I’d served in a Missile Control Center on a U.S.N. Polaris Fleet Ballistic Missile Submarine. Willing to be directly responsible for the unimaginable, collateral incineration of millions of innocents.

I need to have a serious discussion with The Great Spirit.

Travels With Jane #7 – Vancouver BC

Mid May 2008, an airport rental car got us from Seattle to Vancouver, British Columbia, where I made my photography transition to Raw Image File format. My complete kit kit was a Pentax K10 DSLR and a Tamron 28-75 f2.8 lens.

Most Camera brands have a proprietary Raw file format: Pentax “PEF”, Nikon “NEF”, Canon “CR2”, etc.. Each require software specific to the Make & Model of camera. My Pentax camera also offered DNG aka Digital Negatives, an open standard, originally published by Adobe and which they tried to give away to a standards body. It was supported by the free software I had on my laptop, Google’s “Picasa”. So the day after leaving Seattle, I switched to DNGs and have used them exclusively ever since. It’s like cooking from scratch vs a TV Dinner.

My Sweetheart and Boss Lady showed me Vancouver, a place she knew. A Taxi took us to the wonderful Vancouver Aquarium at Stanley Park. Next day, a car ferry took us to Nanimao on Vancouver Island

Click images for full size.

Downtown Vancouver, B.C.
Grid
Stellar Sea Lion
Crabby
Moon Jellies
Car Ferry to Naniamo
Strait of Georgia

Travels With Jane #6 – Seattle

2008 was a busy travel year. Tokyo in Feb., UK in Mar. and Seattle in May, to visit old friends of my Sweetheart & Boss Lady. I’d been commuting for business to Beijing and had a LOT of Air Miles, so RDU to SeaTac, in First, was a freebie. It was a place she wanted to show me.

Before our trip was completed, I changed my camera to record RAW images vs the JPEG default setting. These were the last JPEGs I ever captured. It was one more step on learning to take control of my work

Click images for full size.

Sublime

Ansel Adams said “The Negative is the equivalent of the composer’s score, and the Print the performance.” The Digital Darkroom allows me the same tools as a Painter and the work process is pretty much the same, sans the odor of paint. Having real time to look through the 12 year catalog of my “scores”, aka “Digital Negatives”, I’m finally figuring out how to perform them.

Cary Ballet Rehearsal at Raleigh Memorial Auditorium – June 2017

Carolina In My Mind

This week has been acoustically interrupted by the young couple in the apartment behind me, moving out. Discovered via a neighbor that job issues dictated a move back to Texas. Lucky for them, it’s to Austin. I am Old Man Grateful to be able to stay where I belong. At peace and comfort. Yep, lucky!

Click images for full size

Mis-Fire

My Main or Key Light, above her on a Boom, didn’t fire. Wireless Triggers and Receivers are generally reliable. And I was a half count early on my shutter, before she was over her leg. Still, 5 years later, I find this wonderful young dancer transcendent of my shortcomings.

Studio Session at Cary Ballet Conservatory – June 2021

87 Today – In March!!

It was a lot warmer when I made this photograph (Squirrel Splooting). But much later in the year, when the Carolina Long Leaf Pines were not adding a thick, sticky layer of Yellow Pollen that caused me today, to surrender $15 to a Drive Thru Car Wash (a downside of apartment life without a garden hose connection). And aggravated my informally adopted Grand Daughters and a lot of other folks, Allergies. Good news is, a. Lower Utility Bill and b. Open window and door screens for ventilation with a gas range. Meanwhile, trees are having sex!

Life Saver

Dog sitting today triggered this post. It was good for both of us.

1999 and the breeder of our Labrador Retriever “Mac” had a “Puppy Cam” on a litter which I watched as I pretended to work from home for the IBM PC Company. And my Sweetheart and Boss Lady said “You want a second dog, quit smoking”. So “Mr. Two Pack A Day” quit. And we drove round trip from North Carolina to Ohio. And has since saved me six figure plus of dollars that literally, would go up in sm0ke. Saved my life. I owe him.

Melanchete’s “Rocky” AKC CGC – 26 Dec. 2010

Deja Vu – IV

Spent a good part of today with some accomplished young artists of the Cary Ballet Company, performing for the very young audience at a local Elementary School. And 14 years disappeared, remembering this photograph.

Side By Side Jazz Concert , Cary Arts Center – August 2012

Kid Stuff & Modern Parents

My post retirement work as a photographer is pro bono and vitamins for an old heart. Last Thursday, I made photographs of about 125 2nd Grade Students, singing at their Spring Concert at a local Elementary School. Their teacher ( whose ability to wrangle 125 kids in a theater I cannot comprehend) is a neighbor, dear friend, dog rescuer, soprano and fortuitous confidant.

I have no Model Release or permission for the photographs I made – they are given on a USB drive to the school for the Moms & Dads. So I cannot show them here. I even blurred this image. Yep, had to work around an audience of camera phones. I can find five in this image, besides the one making a photograph of them. The photographs I made, with a tripod mounted camera and bazooka sized lens (and two other camera bodies with 28-75mm and 50-135mm lenses), I hope, will make Mama’s cry and kids grin. It may have been a freebie, but I came to work. 30 minutes of performance time worked out to about six hours of selection and edit. Not gonna “Phone” it in.

“Shadetree” AeroSpace

Warning! This has nothing to do with Photography! But it’s a pretty good story.

Long, long ago, about 1971, I was Navy, on a surprising Shore Duty Tour. After completing Polaris Electronics “A” School (26 weeks) and Mk. 84 Fire Control “C” School (26 weeks) and Basic Enlisted Submarine School (8 weeks), I got orders to “Pomflant”. Say what?

East Bay Street & St. Philips from the Cooper River

Discovered “Pomflant” was the USN acronym for “Polaris Missile Facility Atlantic”. Which was about to practically change to “Poseidon Missile Facility Atlantic”. It was up the peninsula from Charleston, part of the Naval Weapons Station, Charleston. Naval Base Charleston was between. Charleston is still there (for awhile, sea rise is a thing). Pomflant is long gone, last converted to an Army Munitions Depot, it’s genesis before becoming Pomflant. Almost poetic.

Discovered the Navy and Lockheed Missile & Space Company and General Electric Ordnance Systems had a new bird to produce: the C-3 Poseidon. Bigger than a Polaris, longer range and MIRV capability. So along with the Lockheed, GE and Civil Service Inspectors, Sailor bodies were needed, like moi.

Naive beyond belief (19 years old) it didn’t occur to me it wasn’t normal to be in a single barracks of Sailors adjacent to three barracks of Marines who patrolled 24×7, with loaded weapons, between twelve foot high barbed wired topped fences, all lit up like daylight. Turns out the grass covered mounds stored the largest concentration of thermonuclear weapons in the US Arsenal. But that’s not what this is about.

I had convinced the Loan Committee at the Navy Federal Credit Union that I was ok for an $1,100 loan to buy a 1968 Mercury Cougar (after a trade in offer of $700 for my 1965 Mercury Comet). And being miles out in the Piney Woods, there was a fully equipped Auto Hobby Shop behind the barracks! One of my first mechanical adventures was replacing Shock Absorbers. Sears had “Heavy Duty” ones for about $8. And I spent a Saturday in the shop and installed the new ones. But practical as I was (am), thought the rubber grommets, beveled washers and nuts and bolts too good to just throw away. Saved in car trunk.

Okay, so this is what this is really about. I worked in “MACB” aka Missile Assembly Checkout Building. Looked like a basketball cut in half and covered with sod. Underneath the sod was multi feet thick reinforced concrete. Entrance was though massive, double blast doors. It was surrounded by Missile Assembly Buildings. My day job was testing the new Poseidon Missile under the watchful eyes of Civil Sevice Inspectors, following step by step procedures, often “Reader Worker” rountine. And the main piece of purpose designed test equipment would put an appliance store Refrigerator Showroom Display to shame!

It required “Calibration and Certification” every 90 days, a very strict procedure. Inside one 19″ multi-door bay was a squirrel cage blower for cooling. It had a belt driven split sheave so the speed could be adjusted to spec. It was mounted to an adjustable aluminum frame at four points, by rubber grommets with bonded nuts & bolts. Found a couple broken. An “older” Sailor who’d been there awhile told me they would just “Super Glue” them . The replacement parts were $$$$ and scarce. And here’s where I got in trouble.

Remembering the left over hardware in the trunk of my “68” Cougar, I cleaned up my old “Shock Absorber” parts and installed them in lieu of what I thought was poor design. Used a “Stroboscope” to calibrate the RPM (thanks Doc Edgerton). It met Calibration Spec and was WAY quieter. BUT, somebody ratted me out (probably the Super Glue guy). A Lockheed Engineer showed up and had me open the equipment door. He saw and nodded, said “very nice” and then said “Take it out!” It wasn’t and I wasn’t, “Mil Spec”!

In Honor of Women’s History Month

Saturday, I started Chicken stock in my slow cooker with a bag of bones from my apartment sized freezer – added water, peppercorns and bay leaves. Put up today in freezer, with clean, saved Salsa jars and labels I printed. Then washed and repeated Sunday with Beef and Pork Rib Bones. Today, Monday, I put up the Beef/Pork Stock with plans to make Vegetable Stock tomorrow. Its nearly free and I know what’s in it.

My neighbor/adopted Grand Daughter/Rescue Dog Owner/Elementary School Teacher stopped by (dragged by treat conditioned dog) today and I knew she was late, on a Cary Concert Singer Rehearsal night. She was late due to a Mom being late picking up a child. So she waited.

Click images for full size.

And I told her about my channeling “Martha Stewart”, including replacing Air Fresheners and Soap Dispensers and how my Father would have been aghast. And she grinned and said, “Somebody has to do it.” And I said, yep, usually a Woman.

It is liberating to escape societal preconceptions and just get stuff done that needs doing. Which is why Submariners understand doing Laundry and cleaning Heads and Cooking, while submerged for months. Mama ain’t there.

Travels With Jane #3 – Tokyo

A few months after returning “camera less” from Paris, I added a newly purchased DSLR to my laptop bag for a business trip to Japan. I’d bought a Pentax K10D and a Tamron 28-75mm, 2.8 Lens. I still have and use the lens. Still use Pentax bodies but I’ve proved the axiom “you date your cameras but marry your lenses”. It’s been on been on 12 or 13 DSLR bodies. Even replaced the rubber zoom and focus sleeves that I wore through.

Tokyo Tower, Feb 2008

I’d read the camera manual front to back but was still using “Picasa” and shooting JPEGs. That didn’t last long – within a year, I had a calibrated monitor, Wacom Digitizer Tablet, Photoshop and had switched the camera to DNG’s aka Raw. It was Step One of of my photography journey.

And before my flight left from Narita, my work Boss Lady told me we were okayed for travel to Scotland. So about 12 or 14 hours later, between flights at O’Hare in Chicago, I called my real Boss Lady and asked her if she would like to go to Scotland. And she said yes!

Like A Rock – Maintained

The young man setting up my service appointment at Hendrick Chevrolet Cary was curious about my hearing his Connecticut accent. Told him I’d spent a lot of time in New England and especially Connecticut – Submarine School, Electric Boat, Digital Equipment Corporation, et al. And he was surprised I’d bought my truck, new, in the adjacent show room, in May of 2005, for $13,600.

Had a “Check Engine Light” come on last Saturday. The code was for the Catalytic Converter. My truck is old and exempt from NC Emissions Inspections. As long as all the OEM parts are “visually” there, I pass my required Annual Inspection for N.C. Registration Renewal. Which seems to me, sort of a “Potemkin Village” solution.

So I had them order the aftermarket part (General Motors no longer makes them) and sacrificed 5 hours of waiting and a year of CD interest to fix it properly. The NAPA Part Warranty roughly aligns with my life expectancy.

Travels With Jane #2 – Paris

Our first non-business trip to Paris, made with a 3.2 MP Sony Cyber shot. The camera was obsolete but what I had. Days later, a skilled Paris pickpocket “liberated” it from my jacket, hung on a chair back while I went to the loo in a Bistro. Which post travel, triggered my justification to buy a replacement and the discovery that was the basis of my post-corporate photography career.

I owe him. Also proved the wisdom of daily downloads from camera to storage. He did get my Metro Sign photo. Bless his heart!

Tour Eiffel, Paris 2007

Travels With Jane -#1

Woke to a Carolina “Window & Screen Open” March Day – 76 & sunshine!! Dreams had brought vivid memory of my late sweetheart. Later, post caffeine and fully conscious, I thought about the question I hear when I tell folks I’ve retired – “Are you traveling”? Nope, already did that! A lot! Some for business, some for us. Some for both. While we could.

My Boss Lady & Sweet Heart – Bastille Market, Paris 2016

Memory of Moon Shadow

Clouds and a low Horizon position will make the Lunar Eclipse tomorrow almost impossible to see, from the Raleigh area. And it’s a couple of years until the next one!

Nearly a dozen years ago, it happened on a clear night. Lived behind a Golf Course. A short midnight walk with my tripod and I had an entire Fairway to myself. And no tree line to interfere, like the tall Pines that surrounded our home (and provided welcome shade in Carolina summers).

“Choo Store”

Wandering through galleries, thinking about entries for a Juried Exhibit – okay, insomnia. Realized I need to organize “Places I Remember” (thanks Paul McCartney).

Made this in Waikiki, late 2013. High end shopping district: Cartier, Chanel, Hermes, LV, et al. This store has since closed but I could not resist the pun.

La Petite Danseuse de Treize Ans

I’ve been struggling on how to start curating 12 years of my roughly edited dance galleries – on playing for my Muse. Figure I’ve got about a decade or so left. That ought to be enough time. Could not resist the title (guessing at her age). Didn’t want to step on the Degas Sculpture Title.

Bravo Academy of Dance, Recital Rehearsal – Chapel Hill, N.C. 2017

As for Degas, I did try to get an introducton to make photographs at the Ballet School of the Opéra national de Paris. Having made friends with a retired dancer during a Master Class who I learned was connected there, I asked for an introduction. And she told me not to mention her name, she hadn’t gotten along at all, with a director at the school. C’est la vie, y’all!

The Only Place In Paris It’s Unseen!

Made these from the Observation Deck, way up high . Click images for full size

Tour Eiffel from Tour Montparnasse
Tour Eiffel from Tour Montparnasse
Tour Eiffel from Tour Montparnasse
Tour Eiffel from Tour Montparnasse
Gare Montparnasse
Louvre & Eglise Saint-Sulpice
A Quarter Mile of Louvre
Basilique du Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre
Saint-Louis-des-Invalides Cathedral
Notre Dame Before The Fire

The Gift of Teachers

Gave some fellow grey hairs a presentation today at The Cary Senior Center. Went well but I was as nervous as blind cat in a dog pound!

Home, my informally adopted Granddaughter & Dumpster Puppy Rescuer & Elementary School Music Teacher & Soprano & Confidant stopped by ( okay dragged by now grown dog for treats) on a rare Feb. 70’s, screens open afternoon before the Dog Park. Told her how it went, 4 years after my last class, cleaning out the cobwebs. She smiled and said ‘Teaching is hard!”.

And I said it is and it’s also wonderful! And she smiled, again.

Deanna Seay and student – Cary Ballet Conservatory – 2011

It Ain’t Rocket Surgery

Been overthinking a presentation this week to some fellow gray hairs about Lighting for Photography – in this case Table Top. Do it well, better numbers on eBay, something I know first hand!

Regardless of purpose, principles remain the same. And wandering around the Web-O-Sphere, found lots of noise and little understanding. And surfing some local Headshot Photographer offerings, was wildly underwhelmed. Everything looked flat. There ain’t no silver bullet, including “Nano Banana”.

This from my last Headshot Session in 2022. Made with obsolete Mole- Richardson Tungsten Fresnel’s, some flags, the Inverse Square Law and a young lady who renews my optimism for humanity.

Zucker Bucks & Tax Free!

A Financial Bluebird visited, twice!

Zucker Bucks: Closed my Facebook account years ago and forgot about responding to a Class Action Privacy Violation Settlement Notice afterwards. Bought stuff in January via PayPal and reviewed the monthly statement today. And discovered a Deposit in my PayPal account. Yep, Class Action Payout! Thanks, Mark!

Tax Free: Been using H&R Block Tax & Filing Software forever. Gave the latest discount mailer pitch to my young neighbor. And wondered if I still had to file. Google searches said I didn’t but to make sure, I went to IRS.GOV for the authoritative answer.

Answered the Questionnaire honestly – Age (Old), Filing Status (Just Me), SSA Box 5 and the 1099 INT of the accounts at my Credit Union. Nope, I’d need to earn a LOT more than the photography gigs I recently turned down.

Between Zucker Bucks and Tax Filing Expense savings, I’m up about $200!

Paris Redux

My Curmudgeonly disregard for the noise of popular culture has, until recently, reduced my television time to new episodes of SNL, where I discover current popular culture. Emotionally thawing, I’ve lately (with the assistance of the Mute button during commercials) watched local 6 PM & and national 6:30 news.

7 PM curious, I discovered a post Notre Dame fire Rick Steve’s program on PBS about Paris – a very dear place to me. My sweetheart made it so – and especially Marais, where we and Rick, spent time a lot of time. Click images for full size.

Enlightenment

Rare Carolina Ice & Snow necessarily caused hibernation. But the “Web-0-Sphere” knows no such limits. During last weeks weather events, received two paid offers that boosted my ego! Turned down one but accepted the other, Pro Bono. Bunch of gray hairs, like me!

Spent a full afternoon at my desk, thinking, editing and putting together a presentation appropriate for the audience. These were made before I had a literal truck load of fresnels, speed lights, mono lights and grip gear. Minimalist!

Sunday Ice

The Ice & Snow Forecast was correct. Underneath the modest snow fall is a sheet of ice that’s going nowhere for a few days, same as me and my truck Apartment Maintenance liberally spread rock salt on the walk yesterday. Futile.

This AM, watched a young dare devil in his “Pocket Rocket” discover the ice layer and impossibility of motoring up the modest grade. He backed to his parking space, walked to where he got stuck, brushed the snow with his foot and found the ice sheet. And wisely went home.

Chihuly At Biltmore – 2018

Between Paris and a kitchen reno, I had little choice but to attend an exhibit at Biltmore House in Asheville, by the Glass Artist Dale Chihuly. The Boss Lady was a ginormous fan, which explains a previous trip to Seattle Tacoma. Plus she visited with old friends. Click for full size

This Old House – 10 Years Later

I never planned to rip & replace kitchens in two houses – but I did. We sold the first to downsize in 2013. Wasn’t long before the next renovation began. The image below is what we started with.

2013 MLS Photo

Found a local cabinet maker who made to order. He and my Boss Lady designed it – I was just cheap labor. I did take longer than the first one – budget and trips to Paris were priorities. The image below was “Work In Progress”, 2018.

This was the end product – except for some minor trim. I did finish that bit before selling, a promise kept. She selected the large photograph I made of the “Chihuly Exhibit” at Biltmore House.

This Old House

Mostly recovered from a nasty head cold, spent Saturday on the couch doing something I rarely do any more – watch TV. Saw an old favorite “This Old House”. My sweetheart made this photograph in 2007 (2.3 MP Sony P&S) when I finished gutting the kitchen of our home for renovation. The 8 ft bed of my pickup was full and ready for the Wake County Convenience Center Construction Debris Dumpster. Twice!

The image below is how it looked when we sold in 2013 – except for the appliances being replaced for newer Black ones and obvious water damage to the oak floor I laid from a leaking dishwasher. Image is from it’s recent listing and sale – more than 3x what I paid in 1998! I’d need to be back at IBM as a Band 9 to buy it today. Wait, I was a Band 9 – never mind.

Just looking at this makes me glad I’m done with all that. Except for the “WKRP” t-shirt which is still in my closet. And I still have my “like new” 2005 Chevy W/T.

History Rhymes

On the recovery side of a multi-day, nasty head cold, prepping the dinner I’d planned two days ago and gratefully dog sitting for a young neighbor whose weekend will be embedded with the wedding of a lifelong friend, got back to this:

And discovered the work of photographer Toyo Miyatake. He was born in 1895, in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan, a place I spent a brief time in, for work.

A naturalized US Citizen, he and his family and 80,000 native born American Citizens were taken from their homes, with what they could carry in suitcases and locked up in essentially, prison camps, like “Manzanar”.

Which I think, echoes the current persecution of Somali American native born citizens. And this book is inbound: Seen And Unseen.

Ready To Begin!

Finished the 2026 I/T refresh today! Data backups, Telephony refresh, physical re-config of new office furniture, “New” refurbed laptop (replaced 2016 Fujitsu Lifebook hacked with Rufus for Win 11) and made USB Bootable Sysvol’s of Desktop and “New” Laptop! And a clear calendar for months- feels good!

Starting To Get Ready To Begin

First week of this New Year had been an in-house I/T refresh. Data backups (N+3), Telephony refresh, Desktop physical configuration for new office furniture and an incoming “new” refurbed laptop to replace my 10 year Fujitsu Lifebook I hacked with Rufus so it would run Win 11. But that’s not what this is about.

This is what my studio shoots looked like when I had access to open hours at Cary Ballet Conservatory. The building, since sold, is now a Bank that I drove by today, after shopping Habitat, before shopping Target.

Walking into Habitat, I was greeted with a smile and hug from an ex-neighbor and customer. The Senior Portrait session of her youngest was my very last portrait session. The print is on her wall, with the others I made of his younger sisters, both of who suffered my fussiness in this building. And she also hired me for “Truck Day” at Bright Horizon Day Care Centers.

So what I’m starting to get ready to begin is thinking about and curating a dozen years of Digital Negatives (about 6 TB) and writing a book and leaving a family history for the next generation. I have the luxury of time without demands and the ability. It is, as good as it gets.

Brand New Dance – For All

On the first day of this New Year, I kept self promises – included making an unvarnished and sustainable budget. And finally, back on my Rowing Machine. Felt good! There is great utility in making the equivalent of a U.S.N. Submarine “Plan Of The Day”.

Killer good meal ready soon and I want for nothing. And the memory of my Sweetheart sustains. I wish y’all a good New Year.

Old Guy – Version 2.1

I wrote last January, 2025:

Post retirement (old guy) reflection on my work as a photographer, created an itch I’ve been scratching, to curate and show the result of a dozen years. Still early on and skimpy. May take a year or so: http://www.brookemeyer.com

Almost January 2026: Nah! It’ll take a LOT longer! Just imagine, an endless supply of paper and crayons with no Bell Schedule! Can spend hours reading about Lady Day and Dorthea Lange! After 75 years of perpetual motion, time to savor my great good luck.

And I think Kurt Vonnegut had it right: “The moral of the story is, we’re here on Earth to fart around. And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And what the computer people don’t realize — or they don’t care — is we’re dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And we’re not supposed to dance at all anymore.” 

Photographer & Clients at “Picture Days” 2016

Bravo Academy of Dance – Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Old Dogs In Winter

Like “Mac”, I find sleep and comfort irresistible. And good food . I made all of his. No convenient bagged junk. Real Chow: Half can of Salmon with a shot of Olive Oil in AM (and Cosamin DS for bad joints, same as I still take to not need knee surgery) split with our attitude Lab, “Rocky”. PM, Bone In Raw Chicken Wings. Later, as he and Rocky got older, ground up raw Chickens, cooked Rice, Collards and Sweet Taters.

Mac

Saturdays, a “Trotter” on the deck, from Nahunta Pork Center at the Raleigh Farmers Market – which got disappeared in 45 minutes! Never had to have their teeth cleaned.

Disclaimer: I once wrote to a young lady from a Navy Training School who later told me my letters were complex and hard to read – she was right).

We both aged to relish and enjoy quietude. This is almost, a self portrait. We both got grey muzzles. And shared a deep love of our missus, whose side he would not leave in her illness. As she would not leave his. The hard part of love is good bye. Eventually, account balance is zero, with no credit line. So it goes.

Sunday Oasis

A friend told me about this a few weeks ago at the Cary Photographic Artists Holiday Party. Found and purchased on Goodwillbooks. Merry Christmas to me! $8.58, delivered!

My bookshelf AM/FM Receiver/CD/USB Player has an audio out jack – key to my purchase decision. Headphones & extension cable facilitate couch lounging and blocks the howls and barks of the poor dog in the apartment behind me. Acoustic peace and great music! Add Lager & Bourbon – I’m good!

Ray Sings Basie Swings

A Christmas Tradition

Watching the Cary Ballet Company “Nutcracker” last night was wonderful.

I didn’t know it then, but this photograph from 2021 would be the last I would make, after a dozen years of CBC productions. It was inevitable. As Chaucer wrote in 1395: “Time and tide wait for no man.” Decided the next fall, without regret, it was time to retire.

Cary Ballet “Nutcracker” Final Bow | Cary Arts Center | 19 Dec 2021

The extraordinary performance I saw last evening was deeply life affirming. Being part of that, lasts forever. About as long as it will take me to really curate about 5 TB of Digital Negatives! The luxury of time & absence of needing to earn is a new kind of freedom that I fully embrace. Like the hugs I got last night.

It Snowed On Christmas – IV

Last week, driving by the spectacular Town Hall and Academy Street Christmas displays, the child in me, marveled! The old man in me, finds peace and comfort in the simplicity and elegance of 15 years ago.

Ambassador Loop Lamp Post| Cary Town Hall Campus | 26 Dec 2010

It Snowed On Christmas – III

Page-Walker Arts & History Center started life as a railroad hotel next to still used train tracks. So I occasionally had to pause teaching Thursday night Photography Classes on the second floor, while Trains rumbled by with their warning horns. Freight and Passenger!

Page-Walker Arts and History Center | Cary Town Hall Campus | 26 Dec 2010

Brooklyn Bungalow

We are, I believe, tied to our upbringing. A 75 year old in a mirror, finds it, inescapable. Along with all the stuff NOBODY could make up. Like being six and parked on a sofa in pajamas with my younger brother as EMT’s took my father out the front door – I can still see the flashing red lights.

Didn’t know then about my Maternal Step Grandfather who:

1. A Widower and Hungarian Immigrant, married my Hungarian Immigrant Divorced Grandmother (Catholic Shame but the hubs left!). My Mom was 3.

2. Rolled a 30’s Dodge Touring car with a trunk full of Bootleg during Prohibition. Cost him a year in a Federal Pen

3. Ran Charlie’s Cafe at Woodhill & Buckeye in Cleveland through Prohibition. Defied Cleveland Police for increased bribes by replacing the “Water Heater” full of Bootleg with a real one, before the raid he knew would come .

4. Flew up from retirement in Florida after my Dad was hospitalized and next day, paid his Step Daughters Mortgage – my Brooklyn Bungalow & home.

5. And explains my Fathers relief when I walked in as an adult as he’d just hung up the phone (Long Distance) having sent Charlie the last mortgage repayment.

That post-WWII house was where my Dad kept a Blue Star in the window all nine years I was Navy. And where I never dared think about inviting my best friend in the Navy, who was Black, to visit. Later, I had to tell my Dad he would die soon (Lifetime Smoker) and that we would look after Mom. And later, I would lie to my Mom when it was no longer safe for her to be alone – tricked her to a safe place. And made sure she was safe and not alone when she died.

It was refuge for a brother during a divorce. He took care of it, had the old foundation properly repaired. Which made it a reason for me and my Sweetheart to do the next generation Mom & Dad thing and helped her daughter buy it. That didn’t last, she chose as poorly as I did with my first marriage.

Strangers live there now (owned by an LLC so I suppose, a rental). Strangers live in the home I sold a year ago. And so it goes.

The Trouble With “Modern”Men

When I met my Sweetheart, I couldn’t even find the light. She was all I could think about. Still is, five years a widower. And we’d both do it again.

Now, a 75 year old Male Curmudgeon, I’m astonished hearing my 20 something Neighbor/Dog Rescuer/Teacher/Soprano/Fellow Chef and Fortuitous Confidant about modern relationships. Discovered there’s even a name for it: Hetero-fatalism! Maybe, a la William Shakespeare, it isn’t a really new idea.

It Snowed On Christmas

Early last evening, I went to the Cary Photographic Artists Holiday Party at the Herb C Young Community Center in Cary.

Got waylaid by a bunch of Labrador Retrievers on the way in. Sent my heart into overload. Never did find out what the meetup was for but – oh my.

Christmas Day through the 26th of 2010, it snowed in Cary, North Carolina. Rare event. Beginning with my two Labs, I made photographs of our “White Christmas”. Spent the next day making photographs in Downtown Cary. Which looked a LOT different tonight, driving down Academy Street.

But this is really about two dogs whose ashes I’ve kept to go to sea with mine: Melanchete’s MacGyver AKC CGC & Melanchete’s Rocky AKC CGC.

Serendipity: Santa Claus 2011-2015

3 Dec 2011, I expected to visit the North Carolina Museum of Art with timed Tickets to a Van Gogh Exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of Art with the company of dear friends and house guests, visiting from Toronto. Phone rang: Lindsey Chester of “Cary Citizen”.

“Our photographer called out sick, can you come make photographs with Santa Claus?” I stalled, said I would call some folks I knew in Cary Photographic Artists. Did and got zero response. Sweetheart said, “Oh just go do it, we’ll be fine.” So I loaded my truck with what I thought I needed and headed to Downtown Cary. Courtesy of Joy & Dan Pike, found a pop up tent and chair in Chatham Street, in front of what was then Ashworth’s Drugstore.

Putting up a 9’x20′ Vinyl background I used for dancers in studio, wind was an issue. An energetic and diminutive lady in the next booth graciously lent me a roll of gaffer tape!

And until 2015, I made photographs of Santa for the Heart of Cary Association.

It was wonderful!

Abigail Adams On The Paris Opera

Watching the Ken Burns film tonight about the American Revolution, put me back in a Paris Vacation Apartment, in Marais, after an evening at the Opera for the 50th Anniversary of Balanchine’s Ballet “Jewels”. I was coincidentally reading David McCulloughs biography of “John Adams”. This is an excerpt from Abigail Adams letter of 20 Feb. 1785:

My Dear Sister,

The first dance which I saw upon the Stage shoked me, the Dress’es and Beauty of the performers was enchanting, but no sooner did the Dance commence, than I felt my delicacy wounded, and I was ashamed to bee seen to look at them. Girls cloathd in the thinest Silk: and Gauze, with their peticoats short Springing two foot from the floor poising themselves in the air, with their feet flying, and as perfectly shewing their Garters and draws, as tho no peticoat had been worn, was a sight altogether new to me. Their motions are as light as air and as quick as lightning. They balance themselves to astonishment. No description can equal the reality.

Cary Ballet Company Rehearsal – Raleigh, June 2017 https://www.miamicityballet.org/discover/meet-our-dancers/maddie-goodman/

They are daily trained to it from early infancy, at a Royal academy instituted for this purpose. You will very often see little creatures not more than 7 or 8 years old as undauntedly performing their parts as the eldest amongst them. Shall I speak a Truth and say that repeatedly seeing these Dances has worn of that disgust which I first felt, and that I see them now with pleasure. …. The art of dancing is carried to the highest degree of perfection that it is capable of; at the opera

I have Scarcly room left to say that I am Your affectionate sister

A.A

The Comfort of Late Life – Part Trois

Made a menu today for the rest of this & next week. Then, shopped at Total Wine, BJ’s Warehouse and Lowe’s Foods. My list would be, Doctor Approved!

And there is, I’ve discovered, a freedom, a release from “Worry” with a comfortable, late life. It is simple and elegant. Like an open stage, in theater.

3D Jazz Project at Cary Ballet Conservatory – Rehearsal

Cary Arts Center, February 2016

Something Fishy!

Sunday evenings tend to memory – favorites. This market, in walking distance from our vacation apartment, was a favorite place to shop, with my sweetheart. Way different than Harris-Teeter.

And I promise, walk along Rue De Rivoli with Leeks and a Baguette poking up from a shopping bag, dressed like Americans and a tourist will ask, in English, for directions.

I’d say, stifling a smirk, “Parlez vous francais?” And get an admonishing poke in the rib from my sweetie (who had no French at all, even my pathetic skill). “Yes”, she’d say, in English, “Where do you want to go?”

Marché Bastille, Paris – Sept 2016

Sunday Night Muse

Tuesday, I’ll deliver photographs (not these) for display at the 2025 Cary Photographic Artists Members Show at The Cary Arts Center. The exhibit is coincident with the Cary Ballet Company Annual performance of “The Nutcracker”.

My last participation was 2019 (the second photograph) . Which her father made certain to take home. With luck, I might get to visit with both this young lady and her parents. All are still in my heart.

Cary Ballet Conservatory “Nutcracker” Studio Rehearsal- December 2015

Cary Ballet Conservatory – Youth America Grand Prix Preview – April 2019

Genuflection

The luxury of unhurried time without schedule is a great gift of late life. Especially when the Muse refuses to allow sleep and demands attention. It’s taken me a very long time to “see” this image. I hope to get the print right.

Cary Ballet Company Rehearsal for “Cinderella” – 31 March 2011

The Comfort of Late Life – Part Deux

WCPE Thursday Night Opera tonight is “The Tender Land” by Aaron Copland. Long after the nights I drove home from teaching Photography at Page Walker in Cary, listening to Operas I had no idea of the language -just went with the music. So, long time Copland fan: Appalachian Spring, Rodeo – yep.

There is, I believe, a communion of the human spirit in Art that some find in Religion. It may be the same. Pretty sure it is.

A Cary Citizen

In 2024, I moved back to Cary from the hinterland of an unincorporated part of Wake County, behind a Golf Course where my sweetheart & me snuggled in our last years together.

From 2011 and after downsizing in 2013 (I was burnt on I/T jobs) and before 2020 parted us by death, I made photographs for the now closed but still available publication “Cary Citizen”.

A legit Press Pass was my Magic Carpet to try and portray humanity. Here’s the evidence: Cary Citizen Archive – Brooke Meyer

It’s In The Oven

Discovered the lowest temp setting on my little apartment gas oven is 170F.

My late sweetheart, long ago, left meals for me, as I was doing what is now called a “Side Hustle” and a note “It’s in the oven”, for when I got home to “our” apartment at 3 AM. It was my home after leaving a failed marriage . She had to be up and out early, on a regular work schedule for her job. We both got it really right in marriage, the second time. Till death we did part, almost 30 years later.

I was lucky then, to have a customer (now called a Client) from my day job who wanted and was willing to pay for out of the box techie stuff. My manual Invoices financially papered over the mess of a failed 21 year marriage. Kept my sons covered with Health & Dental.

So 33 years later, it’s “In The Oven”. What I cooked last night – really good! But I wasn’t hungry then. Am now. And so it goes.

No Regrets

This is: A. Old & B. A Favorite!

I’d handed a camera to a dance teacher at the long gone “Bravo Academy of Dance” in Chapel Hill, cheek by jowl with the “Governors Club”, a gated & exclusive rich people place.

Set up background & lights and made Dance Recital Photographs with a wall of Moms behind me with phone flashes setting off my light triggers. No matter.

The owner let me go full Brooke – Shtick , On Ladder, On Belly – yeah we made Photographs! Not the usual mechanical, repetitive setups of “Volume Photographers”

So, now in my dotage, waiting for a Killer Good dinner to “rest”, I was thinking how lucky I was to get to try. Non, je ne regrette rien. I was, a very lucky duck!

Intimate of The Muse

Recently, I got skunked in a local Juried Photography Competition. This evening, for a completely unrelated reason, was reading an interview with Joni Mitchell. The interviewer wrote “like Miles, Joni never really played to her fans, speaking directly only to her muse. ”

That is, I do believe, the deal. And how I played.

Call For The Company

The Comfort of Late Life

Yesterday, I went to the Early Voting Site at the Herb C Young Community Center in Cary, North Carolina. Same place that Cary Photographic Artists hold their monthly meetings. Thought, Wed., gray and wet, won’t be anyone there. Wrong! Forgot it was one of the Wake County Early Voting Sites!

My Ballot was slim, one Elective Choice for an “At Large Cary Council Member”. Still, it took an hour. Which was not a worry. My time is my time. Met and visited with some folks in line. Told some lame jokes. And Voted. With my Real Photo ID! Didn’t see ICE! I did park in the Garage, got 300 steps in each way plus down 60 and up 60 steps to the top deck.

Before Voting, I stopped at “Paris Baguette” for Croissants with Egg, Cheese and Bacon – Heavenly! But as I’ve learned the hard way, often sold out by 11 AM. Scored 2 of the last 3 – then Voted! Next, stop at Harris Teeter for Gouda Cracker Cuts and BOGO Ben & JERRY Pints!

I’ve no debt, a like new 2005 Chevy W/T needing nothing, good chunk of dough in the bank in CD & HYS ( sold house in 2024 for double paid in 2013), full frig and nothing but routine visits to Dentist & Doc I’ve seen since 1999. And Tax free income and household budget that leaves plenty of wiggle room each month. As Miss Piggy advised, the “Secret to managing money is managing to have enough!” And I do!

Good pile of “To Be Read” books, the luxury of time to plan and cook meals and no demands on my time. Time to dog sit and listen to “NightBird”.

All the Legal stuff is done. Following House Sale and as a Widower, made all new: Will, Power of Attorney and Durable Power of Health Care Attorney. Plus an Advanced Medical Directive for whenever one of my vital parts hits the expiration date. Had a frank and candid discussion with my PCP: palliative care only, no surgeries, chemo or radiation . Just a morphine drip (not keen on suffering) and lemme go.

Left to do and soon, is to prepay my Cremation and execute a Disposition of Remains – which means my ashes go 3+ miles off Hatteras (NC Law) with the ashes of two Labrador Retrievers. We all 3 liked the ocean.

Estate is the stuff in my 1BR Apt that will get tossed into a “Habitat” donation or more likely, a” Junk Doctors” truck (last move cost me $500 to throw away the big stuff). Accounts in my Credit Union, already designated, no probate.

Yep, like the 1MC Announcement & Klaxon

“Now Dive, Dive “ Klaxon

To borrow a lyric from Laura Nyro:

Give me my freedom for as long as I be
All I ask of living is to have no chains on me

All I ask of living is to have no chains on me
And all I ask of dying is to go naturally
Only want to go naturally

Saturated Fat

Journalism Photography was different from my work at Cary Ballet Conservatory. My Press & Fair & Parking Pass to the NC State Fair via Cary Citizen was to tell a story. I never made photographs to laugh at anyone. With, yes. At, no.

So seven years later, I still struggle with this image. The hat says “Navy” which as an ex Submariner, still really bothers me.

2018 North Carolina State Fair – Photographed for Cary Citizen

Aboard USS Andrew Jackson SSBN 619, there was once a a crew member who ate so much during a two month patrol, he could not fit through a hatch to leave the ship. Literally, stuck aboard.

Solution was to: 1. Not feed him for a couple of of days 2. Strip him down to skivvies. 3. Oil him up (don’t remember if it was vegetable or Shell Tellus Hydraulic). 4. Put a few pounds of air pressure in AMR and pop him out out the hatch. He probably had a waistline north of 58″, triple the diameter of a 19″ hatch.

Not humorous. Not at all. Yep, he got out. Before stuck making another Patrol

“Salon des Refusés” – Part Deux

Just like in 1863 Paris, when paintings by Gustave Courbet, Édouard Manet and Camille Pissarro were rejected by the Paris Salon, I again received the same from a Juried Photography Competition, sponsored by a local camera club. So in the tradition of the Salon des Refusés, here are my rejects.

Disclaimer: These prints are on my apartment living room wall and are NFS. It did get me out for the reception to visit and talk story. And flirt!

Circus

Psyche & Eros

iPointe

When You Get To Be Human

By December of of 2012, I’d found my artistic & spiritual home at Cary Ballet Conservatory. Especially in Theater.

Made this image on 12/12/12 at the Cary Arts Center. Didn’t realize she was my “Muse”. Stage Makeup and Street Clothes. Later, home at my desk, after downloading and backing up the photographs I’d made at rehearsal, I stared at this, with my Bourbon & Beer and realized :

  1. I loved it without knowing why.
  2. I had no idea why it looked this way.
  3. I understood nothing about light. Theater was a comfort zone, the lighting was just there. I was completely ignorant of lighting design and the properties of light!

Spent the next summer learning. Found the work of George Hurrell, another Painter turned Photographer. And Yousuf Karsh, whose work changed after he became involved with an actress and discovered theater lighting. And found my Lighting Bible – for free (Pages 135 through 140)!

And I spent the next 10 years trying to get it right. Haunted eBay:

Mole – Richardson Tungsten Fresnels

And found young dancers who were willing to let me try to make their portraits.

Bonds

The North Carolina State Fair, besides rides and crazy foods (delicious fun), is essentially about farming. A hard, uncertain life. My Fair & Press Credential permitted access to the barns behind the Show Rings. I was careful to be respectful. Click images for full size.

2015 North Carolina State Fair – Photographed for Cary Citizen

Today’s Opening Day Fair News!

Not News: “Traffic worries driving some crazy as NC State Fair begins – WRAL”

2012 North Carolina State Fair

This is news: “Food Vendors not returning to the NC State Fair – Raleigh N&O”.

2014 North Carolina State Fair

Photographed for Cary Citizen

Walk Along A Country Road -Redux

Some memories, persist. Maybe due to Sunday quiet. Or old age. Or both.

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In this Sunday memory, Departmental Road 9, Belleau, Departement de l’Aisne (France), FR. It was a Monday in Sept. of 2017, 99 years after War.

The local American / French Museum was closed, so we walked along farm roads in gorgeous late September sunshine and quiet, to our destination.

You can get there easily from Paris, by Metro to Gare de l’Est, then express train to Château-Thierry and local taxi to Belleau. And can walk the battlefield in silence. Click images for full size.

“The Americans”

After two side trips, wandering about my local Barnes&Nobles bookstore and handling, twice, a plastic wrapped copy of “The Americans” by Robert Frank, I went home and discovered the Wake County Library didn’t have it. So I surfed my favorite book store, Goodwill Books . Us down sized Widowers know what old folks get rid of!

Found a copy near me, in Gastonia, North Carolina. Ordered and it arrived today. It is, extraordinary. And highly recommended.

Blue Hour

“Blue Hour” isn’t an an hour. It’s 15 or 20 minutes of Twilight. In mornings, before Sunrise. Or Evenings, after Sunset. And borderline magical.

Yep, I’d consulted the almanac. And watched my watch. And wrist compass.

2011 North Carolina State Fair – Photographed for Cary Citizen

Deja Butt

The news this week reminded me of an embarrassing incident I caused as a photographer, so focused on the image, the ride was was stopped!

The 2016 North Carolina State Fair featured a new “SkyRide” transporting visitors high across the Fair. Fascinated, I used my Fair & Press credentials to talk myself into the passenger loading area. Solely focused (no pun) on making a dramatic image, I (innocently and ignorantly) backed my butt up to the “Emergency Stop”. And it worked! And I got highly disapproving looks from the folks working the ride. Sheepishly, I slinked away.

So watching the video of a videographer riding an escalator backwards, ahead of the President & First Lady – yeah, no way he’s going to ‘fess up to the butt stop.

More Semi Legal Fun With Rodin

My first attempt at a High School Senior Portrait Session was 13 years ago. I’d made Prom Pictures in a neighbors home and was recommended to another neighbor. It was also about a half year before my lighting “Epiphany” and subsequent truckloads of gear. So outdoor ambient light it was.

After okay (and way better than Life Touch Prestige) sessions in the garden of Page Walker Arts & History Center (which I discovered later was illegal as I was being paid and did not have a Permit) and Raulston Arboretum (where it’s legal if you don’t interfere with Visitors or damage the horticulture), I suggested a visit to the North Carolina Museum of Art.

Rodin Garden at North Carolina Museum of Art – June 2012

Confession: I’m a a failed B.F.A. Major and Rodin fan. I’ve made multiple, full afternoon visits to Musée Rodin in Paris and spent quality time with the large scale marble sculptures on the mezzanine of the Musée d’Orsay. So I felt a kinship. And the young lady and her chaperone Mom agreed. And it planted the seed of an idea for my Illegal Sunday, 6 years later. And I bet if Auguste Rodin was still around and saw these, he’d grin.

Illegal Sunday

The month before making this promo image for “Collabo”, a joint performance by the Ballet & Jazz Companies at Cary Ballet Conservatory, I discovered, while visiting the NCMA (North Carolina Museum of Art) Booth at Cary’s “Lazy Daze”, it would not be allowed. There were new rules against “commercial” photography. Being well versed in corporate inanity, I acted surprised, nodded and smiled, saying I certainly understood.

Having previously photographed performances by the non-profit Cary Ballet Conservatory at NCMA and me working pro-bono and content I was breaking no rules, I devised a work around. First, I didn’t tell anyone. Second, it was planned for a Sunday and I knew the NCMA Rep at Lazy Daze wouldn’t be there. Third, I deployed Dance Moms on the perimeter and nobody messes with Dance Moms – plus they were also VALS (Voice Activated Light Stands) and held a bunch of “speed lights” triggered from my camera.

There is a 24″ x 36″ framed print of this image on my living room wall. I would be willing to lend it to NCMA for display – Gratis! Seriously!

North Carolina Museum of Art – 23 Sept 2018

To Dance and Dream

It’s hard to comprehend this was only four years ago. I was still a “Widower Novitiate”. Work provided balance. This studio session was with a stunning natural beauty and drop dead graceful, elegant dancer. Proof that the Great Spirit was in a really good mood when she was born. To work, to collaborate with such hard working artists was a great gift. I was very, very lucky.

Studio Session at Cary Ballet Conservatory – June 2021

Almost Fair Time

The North Carolina State Fair begins next month, 16 to 26 October.

This gallery from 2009 was my first visit and I was overwhelmed. It is color and crowds and noise and crazy food and animals and rides and wonderful.

From 2010 to 2019, I had Press Credentials from the Fair & Cary Citizen! Which included a Parking Pass to the Vendor Lot at Carter Finley Stadium and a Shuttle to the Fair! Plus, before opening day, I would select two images from the previous Fair to enter into the Photography Competition. Winning “Best Fair Scene” in 2016 with a Ribbon and a Check, I think made me an Official “Tar Heel”!

Re-visiting those galleries is a project I hope to finish by the start of this year’s Fair. Meanwhile, here is my skimpy, amateur maiden voyage. Click each for full size

Rejected! – “Salon des Refusés”

In 1863 Paris, paintings by Gustave Courbet, Édouard Manet and Camille Pissarro were rejected by the Paris Salon. Today, I received the same from an online Juried Digital photography competition, sponsored by a local camera club. So in the tradition of the Salon des Refusés, here are my rejects.

Dubious – “This Tap Dance Croc Rock thing doesn’t really work for me!”

Seen – “The guy with the long lens on a tripod – he looks legit.”

Tough – “Glamorous, my foot!

Not Ducky

Early today was a trip to the Post Office for some family business, then a self promised visit to the Downtown Cary Farmers Market.

Downtown Cary Park is a wonderful place to visit and walk and get vitamins in your heart from seeing dogs and children and their attendant grown-ups, play. So I was smitten by a 2 or maybe three year old tow head, looking down in excitement by activity in the pond below a wonderful walking bridge.

Curious, I learned over the railing to see a pair of female Mallard ducks bobbing for food. Without thinking, I said aloud, mostly for the excited little boy “those are girl ducks”. His father, who looked like a prosperous and well groomed “30ish” said aloud “how do you know?”

Stunned, I said Mallard ducks are very common around here and the Males (Drakes) have dark blue green heads and neck rings. Silence.

So I looked at Mom and said “There are lots more at the boathouse at Bond Park, you’ll see what I mean”. And it was like I had revealed a “secret”.

And I wondered how far we have removed ourselves from our native environment while addicted to the nonsense of oxymoronically “SmartPhones”. Which sort of explains the one handed left turning young man driving a Honda while holding his phone in the other as I waited to cross Academy Street to the park.

We are, I think, as Neil Postman wrote “Amusing Ourselves To Death”.

“Saturday, I go out to play”.

1947, T-Bone Walker wrote this lyric. My hearing of it is Eva Cassidy.

Today, this old carcass got out to the Cary Downtown Park to test drive some new gear. A monochrome only sensor (take that Bayer Filter!) and some colored filters traditionally used on B&W film. I was today, a novitiate.

Another gray hair did a presentation at Cary Photographic Artists and I hit that thing like a bass to a lure! Turns out, odd duck that I am, been using Pentax gear forever. So I already had the glass.

Weather turned from ugly to wonderful. So test drive today aka “play” with a monochrome only sensor and colored filters (it’s a physics / visible spectrum / traditional B&W film thing). Saturday, in the park. Click each for full size.

A Horse, Of Course!

Halfway through a new edit of four (ok, five) photography sessions for an ex co-worker & /friend from my corporate days. Roughly a year before my exit/nearly fired by mainland China Managers, I’d been self teaching photography after a 2007 incident in Paris where a skilled pick pocket “liberated” an already obsolete Sony P&S from my jacket, hung on the back of a bistro chair while I went to the loo. But that’s not what this is about.

May 2009

A trusting co-worker and horse owner bought into my photography enthusiasm! We set up a shoot session at the stable where she boarded her horse. It was my first introduction to:

A. The inexplicable bond between horses & women.

B. Discovering all Stable owners are crazy.

C. I had a LOT to learn about making photographs. A lot!

So with enthusiasm and naivete, we made some photographs. Which I was embarrassed by. So I asked for and got a d0-over. Looking at the photographs I made for her 3, 7 and 11 years later (different horses), I can see the difference made by the experience of a wearing out s bunch of camera bodies and maybe 6oo to 700 K clicks. How to get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice!

Showtime!

Today, finished editing and posting (including a play I mis”played”) all the dress rehearsals of Cary Player production I photographed for Cary Citizen between 2011 and 2016! Online galleries are here, just click on the name: Cary Players Galleries.

And 2016 was, “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever!

Dress Rehearsal – Cary Arts Center – 28 November 2016

In Quiet and Peace

USS Andrew Jackson SSB(N) 619 – U.S. Navy Photo

Long ago, three addresses and two houses and one widower hood past, a summer visitation to Grandmas settled one evening to watch “Band of Brothers”. A grandson by marriage, left to his room while watching, finding it too violent. Which I thought was, “good on him”.

I cannot, not remember the scene where Dick Winters is portrayed on D+1, of 7 June 1944: “I would live this war one day at a time, and I promised myself that if I survived, I would find a small farm somewhere in the Pennsylvania countryside and spend the remainder of my life in quiet and peace.”

As an old man, I cherish my quiet and peace. And understand how much of modern noise is exactly that, just meaningless noise. I remarked today, to my very young neighbor and dog rescuer, that as much as her dog has learned to trust me, she still suffers from unimaginable treatment before her rescue as a puppy, from a Dumpster. Some scars are always felt.