Take a drive down I-75 to Cincinnati and keep an eye to the left and you will see this large statue of Jesus erected next to a church. It has been affectionately referred to as Touchdown Jesus. I know that there are those who find it a bit disrespectful to call it that I kind of do as well but who am I to judge.
First let me say that I tried to find the correct spelling for yesterdays post before I posted it. I should have done a bit more digging before I just believed what the Internet said. After I was questioned about the spelling I thought I would do a bit more checking. The correct spelling is Bridalveil Falls and I have corrected it. Tonight's post however is another falls in the same Cuyahoga Valley National Park called the Blue Hen Falls. It isn't nearly as impressive but then the water levels were down, it may look much nicer when the water is flowing better. Though it isn't as big I still find it pretty.
Bridalveil Falls is a name that is used for many different water falls. This particular Bridalveil Falls in located in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio. A while ago my friend Earl and I took a trip to the park and I took this photo of Bridal Vail Falls while we were there. It is the largest of the falls in the park and by far the prettiest. We were told that the water levels were down and that we would be disappointed. I was not I was quite pleased, I would love to see it when there is more water on the falls but I was happy with the display I saw. Someday I will make it back but there are so many other places that I want to see I don't know when it will be. I am hoping to go to South Carolina this year.
I don't know about you but I don't think I would mess with this guy, he has a stare that lets me know he is not to be messed with. If his eyes don't his talons do, you can't see them in this image but they are very big and very sharp they look like they could rip you up. I once saw an owl that was hunting and when he came up with his prey I was glad it wasn't me. He had a 5 foot long snake in his talons and you could tell by the way the snake was curled up it was in a lot of pain. And just in case you were wondering, no I didn't have a camera with me as I was on my way home from work at the time. I have often said that I want to buy a point and shoot digital camera that I can strap to my belt or put in my pocket so that I won't miss another opportunity like that again. The one that I want is still pricey as it is water proof so I have not purchased one yet. Enough of that I hope you enjoy this picture I do. 
The dog days of summer belong to the cats now. At least they belong to this cat, I don't think there is a dog out there who would try to tell this cat otherwise. I shot this guy snoozing in the sun at the Cincinnati Zoo a while back. He did lift his head at one point to yawn and then he went back to snoozing.
While we were in California last year visiting Global Recordings Network, we had an opportunity to visit some of the beaches. I took this image of a lone surfer walking the beach at Surf City USA. I have heard all of the songs by the Beach Boys and Dan and Jean as I was growing up but I never thought I would ever have the opportunity to walk on these beaches myself. It didn't turn out to be anything grand but it was in a way a dream come true. As a kid I dreamed of living in California one day as I grew older the dreams became more grandiose as I had my eye on foreign travel. A dream is still a dream and I am very happy that I was able to partially share this dream with my children. I still may make it to California as I believe that God is calling me to Global Recordings Network as a full time missionary. I don't know when and though I am ready to go now I am trusting that His time is the right time.
My oldest daughter is doing a science fair exhibit on Fossils and she had to go and find fossils for the exhibit. The little guy in this photo is a Trilobite, don't ask me what that is but it is very cool looking. She needed photos of the fossils for her display so we went fossil hunting. It was really quite fun and quite easy. The hardest part was climbing up the hillside which was pretty steep and covered with loose rock. Going up the hill was actually easier than coming down but we made it and had a lot of fun doing it. We hunted for about an hour at most and came home with 3 buckets of fossils. This was the only Trilobite we found but we probably would have found more if we had stayed longer. This particular Trilobite is only about 1/2" long but I shot it with a Macro Lens and it is much larger in the image than it truly is. I have not done any clean up to the image so you can see all the dirt on the glass table top, I hope you enjoy it anyway.
This is actually the first Self Portrait I have made. I am not sure what it was the caused me to make this image but I know that I did it intentionally. A while ago the local fire and rescue departments were having an awareness day and they had a Care Flight Helicopter come and be a part of the day. I was able to shoot it landing and later taking off. While it was grounded I was walking around the bird shooting and when I noticed the black tail fin shining like a mirror I decided to try a Self Portrait. To my great surprise it came out quite well, the black paint looks very much like a mirror but it is actually black paint.
So as promised here is a photo that I took of my wife's flowers. I took only a few but I really liked this one. I also took some very close up images as I was using my Macro lens but I still chose this one. I was really impressed that the petals had so much texture to them when I shot them up close and personal it really stood out. I was not using any type of lighting equipment just the little bit of sun that was left filtering through my windows at dusk. I liked the soft light but I wish I had started a little earlier as I ran out of light before I was finished. I think I will have to buy my wife some more flowers so that I can practice shooting flowers by painting with light. I had intended to use these flowers to practice painting with light but time doesn't stand still for me and I have been extremely busy lately. So much so that I have discontinued one of my daily blogs. My stock photography has also suffered as a result but my bills are being paid and that is a good thing. My body has not been fairing well as the 14 hour days are wearing on me. I have decided that after this month I am taking a month off from side jobs, I am just going to work my 40 hours and go home. Hope you enjoy the images, tomorrow I plan to show you another self portrait. As long as nothing more exciting presents itself, I mean what can be more exciting than pictures of me? LOL!
Here is my beautiful daughter in a British phone booth while we were in England. Last year when we went to France on a missions trip we had an opportunity to slip over to England for a couple of days and my daughter wanted to get inside a British phone booth and have me take a picture of her, so she did and I took the picture. I just realized while I was typing up this blog that I never even looked inside one of the phone booths. I may never get to England again and I didn't even look inside the booth. Oh well, you live and you learn, I am just glad that I had an opportunity to go to England. I never dreamed I would ever get to France or England let alone both. That is enough for me, and I got to spend the time with my daughter. I am doubly blessed.
I love this image for several reasons, first and foremost it is of my two youngest daughters being kids and having fun. Second, I love covered bridges. Third, this image reminds me of the innocence of childhood and the fun times that all kids should experience. Fourth, it reminds me of Summer. I could keep going about why I like this image but I will stop and just say that this is one of my favorite images and will likely be this months image of the month. I can't wait until summer gets here.
This beautiful little girl is my beautiful daughter. I shot this image for a school project and received an A for it. I have liked this image ever since I took it and when it received an A I loved it. 
As I promised I am starting a pseudo series of Self Portraits, this particular image was shot while we were in California. We were in an American Girl store and I didn't want them to see me shooting so I am looking at my camera while taking the photo. I will dig into my archives and see what other self ports I can find. I am sure that my followers will not want to see to many images of me, I just want to show how there are literally limitless ways to shoot a self portrait.
As some of you know from my earlier posts I had an opportunity to got France last year with my oldest daughter. Her school sends a team of kids there each year on a missions trip and I had the privilege of going with them last year. It was a great trip, not without its bumpy moments but all in all it was a great experience and I loved every minute of it. In the above image I was shooting the two girls that you can see in the window as they were hanging up a scripture verse for passersby to read. I didn't realize until I looked at the image later that I was almost as prominent in the image as the girls. I didn't intend this to be a self portrait but it turned out to be one of my favorite images from the trip. One of the rare times that I am actually in my images.
Sledding is a lot of fun, as you can see from this photo, though in this image they are not really sledding more like rafting. I think they are on an old deflated raft trying to make it down the hill. I can't remember if they made it or not. I do know that on this particular day there were no serious injuries, unlike many other times of sledding on this hill. I don't get it, when I was a kid we went sledding and every once in a while you heard about a kid getting a broken bone, but now a days every time my kids go it seems like someone comes back with a broken bone. Odder yet is that they don't get hurt going down the hill it seems they always get hurt on the way back up the hill. I mean I remember one time we took 4 giant inner tubes and had this really big guy lay on top and hold them together. Everyone else about 20 or 25 of us climbed up on top of him and went down together. I was the smallest so I had to climb up on the top and hold on for dear life. Which I managed to do quite well for the first 25 feet or so, then we hit the bumps that someone had dug into the snow for more fun and the tubes started bouncing and so did all 20 or so of us. It was at this point that I lost my grip on whoever I was hanging on to. As we bounced down the hill I bounced forward of the pile of people and eventually bounced right off the front of the tubes. Yep you guessed it I fell right in front of the tubes and became part of the hill, they tubed right over me like I wasn't even there. As far as they were concerned I was just a bump on the hill that screamed ouch when they hit it. My point is, I got up and went right back down again only not on top this time. I never got hurt let alone broke any bones. 
This 1962 Plymouth Fury is one mean Muscle Car machine. I was shooting for fun one day a local drag strip when I ran across this car and was drawn to its beautiful paint scheme. I asked for permission to shoot some images of it and the owner said sure. While I was admiring and shooting this car he approached and asked me about my camera. The next thing I knew we had made arrangements for him to bring to my school so that I could shoot it for a project. When he drove this car into the building you could smell it all through the place. The fumes from the high octane fuel burn your eyes and smell really bad, but everyone in the building was in the room watching as he pulled in his muscle car for me to shoot. It was quite a night, I had almost the entire studio to myself to make set large enough for the car to fit in. I wish I still had access to the studio.
I took this photo at a local Indian Pow Wow. Each year there is a group of American Indians and their descendants that get together for a family reunion or what they call a Pow Wow. It is open to the public and is quite interesting and entertaining. If you get the chance you should try to attend a Pow Wow in your area.
Photoman
Tonight is one of those nights where I don't really feel like writing but I must if I want to have a daily blog. I don't remember when I took this image but it is a bunch of lights out of focus. I have always liked images like this so when I came across this one I thought I would share it with you. I had a fun day of shooting couples portraits at a local high school homecoming tonight. Now I have a basement full of teenagers in my basement having a very loud after party. I think I am going to be up for a while tonight.
This is just a test post to see if i can change the dimension of my images to show them larger.
This is my 100th blog post so I thought I ought to celebrate a bit. Since I recently had a birthday I thought I would share a photo of me blowing out the candles on my cake. The only photos of a celebration that I have are of birthdays so that is what I am using. So happy birthday to me!
I need help in finding out what kind of flower this is, one of my faithful followers has expressed an interest in flowers, I am hoping that she may be able to help. If any one knows I would really appreciate some help. I have loved this image since I first made it and I have never known what to call it. For those of you who are interested in photography I made this image by painting with light. It was my first real attempt at painting with light and it was probably the best I have ever done. It must have been a case of beginners luck as I have never been happy with my painting with light results since.
This is an old farmhouse that sat empty for a while before a group of crackheads moved in an started making crack. Once the police found out about it they seized the property and burned it. It was good practice for the Xenia Fire Departments and it made for a great photo op for me and a friend. Of all of the properties that I have snuck into to shoot this is the first one and the only one that I have been approached by someone and asked to leave. When we explained to the person what we were doing they gave us permission to stay and shoot. One of these days I will not be so lucky, but hey trying not to get caught is half the fun, shooting is the other half.
Do covered bridges bring back memories from your childhood? If so then you are probably old! I have a few memories of them but not many, there are 6 covered bridges in the Xenia area, this one is the best kept of them all. I really like this bridge it is very photogenic within it's setting. Most of the others are not as easy to photograph. I will go back out to this bridge later this year to check on her but it is to cold right now.
This huge flag used to hang in an even bigger barn in Xenia. The barn is no longer there as it was demolished. You can see my friend Dave standing by the flag to give you an idea of its size. This is also the 2nd floor of the barn it has another level below where the dairy cows were milked. This level is where the hay was stored to feed the cows. It was an amazing barn, I loved investigating it looking for the next cool photograph.
