Post 3: MORE BACKLOG PICTURES

 I didn't walk today, so I can catch up a little on my backlog of images from weeks of walking. Some of these are from graffiti walls in Five Points:

Post 2: RANT, SAINT PETERSBURG AND BIRMINGHAM

    I was on my walk through Forest Park this morning, and got to thinking that I was getting more pleasure out of this little side project that I got traveling to Russia. How can that be?
    I suppose that my wife Rachel and I have been traveling all over the world for so many years and seen so many great places and things that we have become blasé and hard to please. So even Saint Petersburg,a place that would delight most people, didn't seem so exciting... Yes, it's has grand perspectives, it's yellow, and blue, and green, the Hermitage has got great Art, it has canals and bridges, and palaces with grand gilded baroque rooms, and gardens with fabulous fountains and gilded statues...And I took pictures, all in 3D, but I just wasn't that impressed, and most of the pictures are still resting unprocessed in a computer folder called RUSSIA.
  Peter the Great visited Europe, and decided he would copy European Architecture to build a new city bearing his name in the middle of swamps by the baltic sea. He hired second rate French and Italian Architects that eventually came up with that over the top Gilded and Painted "Wedding Cake Pastry" Russian Baroque Architectural style, which is a mishmash of Peter had seen in Stockholm, Versailles, Florence, Venice, etc..., with none of the authenticity, variety and charm of the originals.
   So here I am getting excited about graffiti, sewer grates, spray paint, footsteps in concrete and all kinds of junk in Birmingham, Alabama, a place where there is truly by World Standards NOTHING of interest...Funny!
   I have such a backlog of pictures of such humble things that I will probably never catch up, as I shoot more every day. But anyhow, here are a few more...I sometimes do raise my eyes momentarily on walls an such, and play with colors and textures in post processing(Topaz is a great plugin for Photoshop):

Post 1: Why LOOKIN-DOWN?

   Well, first, because neither lookingdown nor looking-down, nor looking.down, nor lookindown, nor lookin'down are available. And actually, that's fine, I even like it better!
   Second, that's what I do when I walk now...  I used to always look up and around and be distracted while walking, and kept stumbling on things and stepping in dog shit. When I was younger, that was OK, but since I got old, have arthritis, and on top of that got a little damaged in a motorcycle accident last year, I walk with a cane and have to be careful not to stumble and fall. So I have finally gotten into the habit of looking right in front of my feet when I take my walks every morning.
   I have therefore discovered that there are all kinds of interesting things on the paths and sidewalks I roam, and plenty of photographic material to collect. So I now always take my Canon G12 with me, and stop along the way to take pictures of stuff that catches my attention.
    I have been doing this for a while now, and just kept throwing the pictures into a "LOOKING DOWN" folder on my computer.
    I was writing to my sisters today, and mentioned what I was doing. To show them, I got into the folder and picked a few Raw files to process and attach to the email. Here they are:

   You might well not agree with me, but I think they are "kinda interesting", graphic, and actually quite beautiful. And it's a throwback to my early days as a "serious" photographer in the 70's, when I professed that anything could be subject matter, even trash, following in that the likes of Irving Penn and his Cigarettes Series. I even taught a Workshop for UAB's Special Studies on that theme at Cheaha State Park. Chris Mc.Nair was teaching Portrait.
   There are plenty more in that folder, and I shoot a few more every day, so I will try to process and post the best as I go...