A Slightly Different Focus

Update: Links fixed. Sorry for the error!

It’s after midnight Friday, and the promised Garden Tour photographs haven’t been posted yet. Sorry.

As if that’s not bad enough, last night — my first available photo-editing time since getting back in town — was spent out and about, first at Cocktail Hour, then at Mark Brooker’s good-bye party at the SoChi Gallery in downtown Macon.

Thus, quite a backlog of photographs to get to.

I’ve updated the Florida gallery with this new one:

(Tropical) Flower Amongst Foliage

More will be added next week sometime. Please check back.

I was in Florida to celebrate Mother’s Day. Can’t do that without a photograph, of course:

Happy Day, to Mom

Really reminds me of my aunt Mary; the family genes are strong. Pretty darned spry, too — not sure that I, almost 40 years her junior, don’t have more gray. Love the reflection on the glasses here, especially.

Meanwhile, Cocktail Hour was hosted this week by Sean and Angela. I really needed — and enjoyed — an evening out and about. As it turns out, I wasn’t the only one there with a camera:

Vance’s Shooting (Hand)

An 18-55 kit lens is, at best, a good place to start. Here’s looking forward to his exploring something more interesting soon. [I'd share some lenses, but his camera's a Canon, not Nikon. Sorry. —Ed.]

Julian was the event’s “host boy,” but another stole the limelight:

Happy Blues

Younger babies are not necessarily easy to shoot. Was glad to get a good one of both mother and child:

Mom’s (Proud) Smile

Then there was Doolin, the house dog, who spent the evening dutifully making sure to clean up after food spills. It was quite a task, requiring a nap as the festivities wound down:

Doolin, Relaxing After the “Hour”

Afterward, headed downtown to Terrell Sadefur’s SoChi Gallery for Mark Brooker’s good-bye party (he’s heading to Arizona). Pretty amazing space — and I was there sans flash, relying on natural light … after dark.

Despite the challenging lighting, got some cool stuff:

Welded Focus

Some of it is, by necessity, in black-and-white; the predominantly-red lighting was giving the camera a run for its money. Thankfully, it’s up to the task: here’s an ISO-1000+ photograph, as deserving as its subjects:

Terrell and BJ

Earlier in the evening, Walter Elliott and I had discussed the relative value of Nikon’s 35mm ƒ2. I opined that while not perfect, it did good stuff; I offer this post up as proof. Indeed, the SoChi gallery is full of multi-starred photographs. Nice.

Alas, Mark looked a little sad to be leaving — but still sang like no tomorrow:

Mark’s Good-Bye

Best of luck to you, sir. Glad that so many turned out to wish the same!

The full set of eighteen photographs from SoChi have been posted. (Several really good photographs in the set, too — please check the gallery.) [Links fixed. Sorry. —Ed.] More will be posted to this week’s Cocktail Hour gallery soon, along with more Florida, and, somewhere in there, the Garden Tour. Then, maybe, those back posts I’ve been after for … too long.

As always, thanks for stopping by.