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A friend of mine leads a writers club. I attend each meeting, but never wrote a fiction story – I attend his meetings to be more of an observing learner than a participant.  But, he and I have been talking about setting up a sub-group of folks from the writers club and

the photo club to write stories around photos we take.   Last week he assigned this challenge – write a story around this photo:

I took it a step further and said let me try to illustrate each paragraph that I will write.  So, rather then take time to photograph the needed illustrations, I went to the internet and found some photos.   I was testing an idea – How many photos, where to place them – with or without captions – Wow, I have much to learn. But, for this test, I was sure borrowed photos would work OK, since it was only a test.  Read on and tell me what you think.

FIRST: Click on the TGO Photo Club page in the left column.  Dave Cesari posted some  photos of winter in the North country that you will not want to miss – not only for their beauty but if you study them, as we talked in our last meeting, what a learning experience you will have just by studying these photos – they are great.

“IT IS A GOOD LIFE” by Jim Brubaker: Here is my first fiction story:

 Woody was a farm boy in the mountains of Pennsylvania. From day 1 of his life he was surrounded by love. His parents were Brethren church members, his aunts and uncles were Brethren, his 6 neighbors were Brethren church members, and they were all farmers.

Did you know that part of a special church service four times per year was a foot washing and a love feast – a feast of fellowship and love. 

The farm was large enough for Woody to have a portion of the farm for he and his new bride. But, OOPS!

Where did woody go to school – on the bus – the first generation that did not attend the two room school in the middle of the 7 Brethren farms of woody’s birth place. No, the county decided that all local schools would be closed and all would be bussed to a central school in Center City – a headquarters for the coal  mine that literally owned the company store, all houses, the streets, and even th

e swimming pool in Center City.

  They did not own the 2 Catholic churches, so they said (Roman and Russian).  Of course the Brethren folks did not wish to acknowledge such a life – there was never a bad word spoke of it – just sort of a “They do not really exist as real people – they are a foreign sort of human”  

Let’s leave this back ground stuff and jump ahead to when Woody married Mary

– both age 18 -Yipes Mary was Mary Sloviechi, a Catholic, from Center City.

Would the “simple life”  traditional Brethren share the farm with Woody and embrace this Union?

In short, they did not get their share of the farm.  So, to quickly move on – Mary and Woody hitch-hiked to California.

What happened there? You guessed it, they turned to drugs, parties, small burglaries to support their life style.

Mary was not satisfied with her life of small drugs, sleeping in the park and laying on the beach. She needed more money – You guessed  it, her new boy friend

and her schemed to do the First National Bank – did not go as planned – that was obvious when the boy friend jumped in the getaway car and left Mary standing there to shoot it out with the police – not a good shot proved to be the end of Mary for this story.

Jump ahead two years.  Woody, to Block Island off the coast of Rhode Island.  Just out of rehab, taken in by Mary’s mother, Mrs Sloviechi, who by this time owned the Mining Company and had a home on the cliffs of Rodman’s Hollow on the south side of the Island.

They became family, Woody clean of drugs – Oh, he did keep one dose of drugs in plain view on the mantel, just to prove to Mother Sloviechi that he was clean.  Mother completely relying on him to feed, dress and care for her for 2 years. Woody expected to spend the rest of his life on this very expensive estate on the cliffs of Rodmans’s Hollow – THE GOOD LIFE

Monday morning after the reading of the will. Woody got nothing, the Nature Conservancy of the Island got the estate with instructions that Woody should leave the estate within two days – this legal requirement was done to show how much Mother Sloviechi hated Woody for taking her daughter to California and destroying her.

Monday Noon – The mantel is empty.  The crashing of the Atlantic waves are hitting the rocks below the top of the cliffs on Rodman’s Hollow.  Woody’s mind is back in the Brethren Pennsylvania farm community, dreaming he is running along the farm road, arms outstretched as if he is a California glider plane about to launch from the end of the road at the cliff’s edge.  WHAT HAPPENED NEXT in the story of “IT IS A GOOD LIFE” by Jim Brubaker

FIRST:    Click on the TGO Photo Club page in the left column – I want you to see what two of our club members do with their photo knowledge and fine equipment – WOW – I can not say enough about their wonderful images.

SECOND:   As you swing thru life, your photo is good, if it is the photo you want.  I hope our Photo Club helps you learn to know what you want and helps you practice to get it more often.  Well, it is not only the Photo Club that helps you.  The helper is you. Oh my, read on to see what I mean by that confusing statement.  

Generally, you only have seconds to know what you want before snapping the shutter. Therefore everything you do in those seconds must be automatic.  You do not have time to stop, think, and analyze.

The club will focus on helping you to automatically declare the subject of the photograph, capture the light that gives the feeling you want, and compose the image that controls the eyes of the viewer.

It does not matter weather you are snapping a cell phone photo or setting up an expensive camera on a tripod with a bag of filters and lenses, the quality of your photo depends on subject, light, and composition. 

AUTOMATIC – Snapping a photo must be like answering the phone – It must be automatic.  Automatically pick the subject, compose the photo, and use light & color for effect.

When you bring photos to the meeting to share, please come prepared to tell the group how you picked the subject, composed the image, and/or selected the light.  The subsequent shared discussion is bound to be enlightening to us all.  

Please view this part of our meetings as very important.  The club will have some  lectures, but we adults, also, learn by listening to each other. Then, we can go home, try it, and return to the next meeting and share what we tried.  That is how you can help make that part of our meetings a very successful fun learning events.

See what I meant, it is not only the Photo Club that helps you. The helper is you.

I am a cell phone photographer – But you know, I must know the principles of good photography better than a photographer with expensive lens and a tripod – why? ’cause I do not have time to think – using the elements of a good photograph must be automatic.

Here are some of my cell phone photos that explain why I like the cell phone:

In September, I killed time while waiting for a hurricane to hit.  Of course, if I was 18 years old instead of 83 years old I would be killing time on my iPhone, playing a digital game. 

Guess what, this old dude can use digits to kill time too – we all can. On the internet I found this story.  Over in Paris and Singapore they are Doodling and using the digits of Facebook to share the doodles.  Here is one story about Singapore doodlers:

“When commuting on trains or buses in Singapore.  Erwin Lian whips out his trusty fountain pen and sketchbook and starts doodling away.

While other commuters take naps or busy themselves with their phones, the 37-year-old Lian sketches to kill time. His creations, which can sometimes take up to 20 minutes to complete, typically include the people he sees on public transport.  He says “The public commute presents a unique and safe setting to practise what I love.”

The adjunct lecturer at Singapore’s Ngee Ann Polytechnic is part of a small group, known as the Commute Sketchers, who document their surroundings while traveling on trains, buses and other forms of transport.

Then they digitize their doodle sketches and share them world-wide on Facebook.  Some of their sketches have gone on display at several train stations and bus interchanges. And their sketches and doodle art may soon get even more exposure on the internet!

We all have waiting time to kill – waiting for an event we know will happen to us. The northeast folks were told of an impending Nor’easter days before it hit.  In Florida, we are told of the Hurricane days before it hits us.  I flew for my job in the 1980’s  – every week I sat for hours on planes heading to Europe or California – lots of time to kill. On Drummond we stand and wait for the old-fashioned credit card machine at the grocery store to process our card.

The store owners Dale and Kelly, put an 8 x 10 card on the shelf that we will use to sign the receipt. Some of us doodle on the card while waiting for the receipt we need to sign.  

Today I am waiting in Florida again. I am just killing time until Monday when I go to the hospital for a heart valve replacement procedure.  

So, how do I pass time?  I DOODLE.  But this time, waiting for Monday to arrive, I am even more modern than the commuters in Singapore or the doodlers on Drummond Island. I digitally Doodle.  Often, starting my doodle with a digital photograph.  I will show you a few digital doodles I did just this week:

My Mom was a reader, a reciter.  If you did not grow up in a farm community of the Church of the Brethren and Mennonites, as I did, you may not know what a reader or reciter is.  Dunkards, as we Brethren were colloquially called, had readers.  At special church services, instead of preaching, the “reader” recited poems from memory. I always thought it was better than preaching anyway.  But, Mom was one of the “reciters” – she was the best, I must say –  could go on for nearly an hour reciting poem after poem – of course with the singing of hymns interspersed. 

What is poetry anyway? I looked it up on the internet:  Poetry is a type of literature, or artistic writing, that attempts to stir a reader’s imagination or emotions. The reader conveys this by carefully choosing and arranging words and intonations for emotion, meaning, sound, and effect.

I remember tough old German farmers wiping tears from their eye as Mom recited poems. She really brought meaning and emotion as she recited poems like this:

Gently, Lord, oh, gently lead us 

Through vale of tears, 

Though thou’st decreed us, 

Till our last great change appears.

Angel voices sweetly singing, 

Echoes through the blue dome ringing, 

News of wondrous gladness bringing… 

Ah, ’tis heaven at last!

Why in the world am I telling you all of that – I guess the impact of the first 20 years of our lives are the foundation for what we are – and 20 years of the full immersion in the Brethren faith stayed with me even through careers and marriages that took me to enjoy many other lives and geographies – my mind can still go back home and vicariously through the my apple computer’s digits, ponder early years.

So, I got to playing around with Photoshop – took a selfie – and created four surreal images that needed an explanation or a descriptive title – I thought of poetry as a way to do that. That is how I got to the subject of poetry: 

From The Song of Hiawatha by Henry W Longfellow

Before I try to make sense – Donald Wyllie sent a photo and some words that do make sense:

NOW I WILL TRY TO MAKE SENSE:

I have read this: In the Roman empire, many many years ago it was carved in stone -“Repetitio mater studiorum est.” If you are not sure what that means I will tell you.

It says:  “Repetition is the mother of all learning” – Those Romans were smart say I.

Cambridge University found you can learn a new language at any age.  Their research determined that all you need to do is say a word 160 times in 14 minutes to truly know it.  Say they, repetition is the key to learning a new language.

Ask I – how does that apply to Birds-of-a-Feather (BOAF) in the TGO Photo Club?  The answer is: The concept of BOAF is to focus on one photographic topic of interest, repeat only that photo interest for awhile, and share with others in your BOAF group:  

These are two learning elements for us older folks:

1. REPETITION — BOAF have selected one subject to photograph over and over until we get it right or get bored with it. Then we can move on to something else.

2. SENIOR LEARNING – Learn by doing and sharing with other BOAF members – not from a lecturer and text-book.

So, that is my advertisement for the day.

Here is a partial list (Two dozen) of photograph genres that you may want to choose to BOAF with – on the first three I posted some of my photos –  I wish I would have been able to shoot them with a group and get to see their ideas on how to photo the same subjects:

1.  Clouds

2. Reflections 

3. Seasonal changes

4. Photo art                  (I had one person ask could this be a BOAF group)

5.  Words and pictures (I had one experienced writer in the TGO Photo Club suggest this as a BOAF group)

6.  Bird Photography – (I had one experienced photographer in the TGO Photo Club ask to be part of this BOAF group)

7. Auto rallies

8.  Home and community to show friends your Florida home

9. Aerial photography

10. Landscape                                                                       

11. Cityscapes                                                                                                   

12. Night Lights

13. Portrait Photography                                                                                                                                                        

14. Photographing Trees                                                                                      

15.Photographing Flowers                                                                                     

16. Urban and suburban animals  (Rabbits, squirrels, skunks, armadillos, etc)                                                                                  

17. Farm animals

18. Zoo animals

19. Auto races

20. Creek beds

21. Churches

22. Pets

23. Texture

24. Food products 

Before you look at my photos and before you read my idea for the Photo Club this fall, Click on the Photo Shoots images  in the left column.  Dave Cesari and Bob Hazlett sent some great photos.  Jim Dick said I could use any photos he posted on Facebook – I downloaded two and also posted them  on Photo Shoots images.

MY PHOTOS:

MY IDEA FOR THE PHOTO CLUB:

In the last 6 weeks I been telling you of my pondering.  Pondering about how we, as individuals, could better enjoy our photographing experiences. 

Now, I have been pondering about how we, not as individuals, but as bird-of-a-feather, might help each other improve out photographs.  

First, I will tell you two short stories to explain how I came up with the idea of adults helping adults learn:

Story 1 – I am very fond of a 58-year-old person who is the manager of 30 millennials.  He tells me of the challenges the millennials give him – Says he, “They just don’t think the way I think and they have different values and work habits.” 

I ask “Or is it that you have not studied how to work with them and accept their new way of thinking?”  He said back to me, “You are right, I am not really studying. But, I am learning.  Day by day I do the job. Each evening we managers get-together.  We are all going through the same challenges. We are like birds-of-a-feather learning from each other.”

Story 2 Many years ago I took early retirement from IBM. Part of the package was that IBM would pay to retrain me and my wife for a second career.  We chose a Masters Degree program at the University of Rhode Island in Adult Education.  We had a challenge learning from text books and lectures. After many years of learning on the job, Gloria and I were no longer in the mood to learn from text books and lectures. So, we discussed this conflict with our professor.

Professor “Dr L. Vandenberg said, in addition to attending education sessions, adults are motivated to learn if learning involves:

1. sharing their experience.

2. a specific area of interest.

3. contributing to the learning of their co-learners.  

4. an immediate application of what they learned.

Now I got it! As adults, Gloria and I were different from all of the young students. They were comfortable with learning from text books and lectures. Gloria and I were two birds of a feather. We were more comfortable with the adult model of learning.  We shared our past teaching experiences, our interest was limited to learning how to teach adults, we helped each other, and we planned to teach adult classes at the University of Texas just as soon as we graduated.

After that discussion with the professor, Gloria and I were more motivated, learned a lot, and completed together our Master’s Program. We learned by being two birds of a feather.

Last week, I pondered, “Can this birds-of-a-feather idea help us in the TGO Photo Club learn to improve our photographs.”

Here is some details on my pondering: 

In our regular bi-monthly meetings, this 2019-2020 season, Donald Wyllie’s Education Committee will have education sessions, and Ed Swan  will have sharing time as in the past.  These meetings are a gathering of all of us – all with a general interest in photography. Then, Nancy always plans numerous great field trips for us. I am assuming she will continue field trips this new season.

I have been pondering – In addition to these regular meetings, maybe the club should formally encourage “Birds-of-a-Feather” – groups of members, with specific interests, getting-together on days other than our bi-monthly meeting.  

These  Birds-of-a-Feather get-togethers would have no teacher. Just a group of people wanting to learn from each other.  Not to teach but simply get to gather to share interests and expertise. 

For example, areas such as studio portraits, bird photography, post processing software, nature trail photography, video photography, travel story photographs, real estate photography, landscape photography, and the list goes on.

Tell me at jimbrubaker@earthlink.net what you think of the “Birds-of-a-Feather” idea.   Do you have a specific area of interest.

Bob’s photos of Bar Harbor made me ponder, why do we take photos, especially when we travel and most travel photos are available on-line. I will tell you of my pondering about this after you look a Bob’s photos below: 

Jim’s Pondering:

Bob’s photos really took me back to Bar Harbor 30 years ago.  It was my favorite go-to spot in the world.  His photos awakened my mind to that – awakening many wonderful feelings that were sleeping in the back of my mind for years – Thanks, Bob. 

Bob made me think of the evening strolls in Bar Harbor after a great dinner of Lobster, of the Village Green, the house we put a bid in to buy, the cruise ships coming into the harbor, the trips to Jordan Pond, of Mount Desert Island, Thunder Hole, Carriage Roads, Bike rides through Acadia National Park, Frenchman Bay, Cadillac Mountain, Kayak rides with friends by Bar Harbor Camp Ground, Waiting to select the best camp site in the morning, Wild blueberry picking for breakfast – and the list goes on – each one having a whole “STORY” to be told.

There are many importance reasons to have photos.  One reason is, photographs play an important role in everyone’s life – they connect us to our past, they remind us of people, places, feelings, and STORIES.

Even if we could find a copy of the travel photograph on the internet – our photo is our story. It is the story that we hear whispered into our ear years later! 

Not just photos of Bar Harbor not just photos of far off travel trips, but photos of trips anywhere in our life – maybe just a trip to our dinning room with family is a trip sufficient for us to photograph it and create a story that we tell and subconsciously gets whispered into our ear as we ponder our journey years later.

I went back into my photo history and selected a few photos to think about stories I could write.  I silently whispered, into my ears, the story behind each one – I smiled as I did it.

Now, go look at your collection of photos and smile as you whisper, into your own ears, the story each photo holds for you. Then remember to often add to your collection.