Hibiscus

This one is being posted by request. A friend and I were at a Whataburger in Houston waiting in the drive-through line. In the middle of our conversation I opened the passenger window and asked him to lean back, snapping this picture with the 3800. We were both surprised at how well it turned out.

When it came time to prepare this one for posting I decided to have a little fun and try to make it look even better - adjusted the midtone range, lowered the levels a tad, darkened the highlights, and cropped out the bright upper left corner.

In the cropped picture the narrow strip of light at the top was darkened some more so that it wouldn't be so distracting, and the sunlit area of the wall was cloned to look as if it were shaded. There were a lot of bird droppings that had to be removed...it's funny how much stuff you notice after looking at it a while.


This picture ended up unique enough to make it in my portfolio of favorites from 2006. Four pictures are placed on a page with title and metadata regarding exact date, camera used, and place.

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My wife showed me a book today called Kaffir Boy, the autobiography of someone who grew up in segregated, aparteid South Africa. Couldn't help but think of the time I ended up marching in a protest against aparteid in New York City.

It was during the summer that I was looking for work in Manhattan. I was walking down the street in my dress clothes, and saw a big crowd gathered near a platform where someone was giving a speech. Getting closer I saw that the guy giving the speech was BB King, and he was really fired up, but I wasn't close enough to understand exactly what he was talking about.

Just a couple of minutes afterward, Mr. King descended from his platform and commenced leading the crowd down the street toward the United Nations building...he passed within a few feet from where I was standing, and as they neared I could see the signs and hear their chants against aparteid. The people were from all ages and ethnic backgrounds.

I thought, "Well, I've never demonstrated before, so I'll give it a try." A few seconds after the lead end of the crowd passed, I ducked under the barrier and marched along with them, raising my fist and shouting "Down with aparteid!", over and over. It wasn't long before my voice became hoarse.

In just a couple of blocks I decided that protesting really wasn't my cup of tea, so ducked back onto the sidewalk. It was on the news that night that my buddies had made it all the way to the United Nations, and eventually aparteid ended in South Africa.

I am looking forward to reading the book, after my wife finishes.