Proj 365 Feb 28th

WOW, the price of gas. On the 5th is was 3.05 (see post for that day). It has shot up 15 cents in just a few days.

Proj 365 Feb 27th

Don't you just love old trees? A tree I pass on my way to work.

Proj 365 Feb 26th

More Signs of the times. Home Depot is closing in Rocky Mount. They join Circuit City, Goodes, Quiznos and others. Rocky Mount was listed as the 9th most impoverished city in America in fall 2009 by Forbes magazine.

Proj 365 Feb 25th

State of the Economy - An old house that used to be a Christmas store many many years ago. Love this house as it has charm. If you look closely at the sign, there was a sign underneath the "current" wording where it used to be a Country feed store next to the railroad tracks (that I am standing on).

Proj 365 Feb 24th

Another sign of the times. The local independent car dealer I go past on the way to work has folded. Saw a utility notice in the door where they cut off his power.

Proj 365 Feb 23rd Mispelling at McD's

 Ok, since Brian got to use two the other day, I need to use two toady also.

Now Lord knows my spelling and my typing leave a whole lot to be desired (the folks at Piloteers.org still remember the time I misspelled as with two many s's and I did it twice BUT what is wrong with this picture? The top photo is one side and the bottom photo is the other side.

Proj 365 Feb 22nd Go Wolfpack

Go Wolf Pack (North Carolina State University). Seen in the parking lot where I work. (With apologies to my UNC Tar Heel son and my Duke Blue Devils wife) (Me I'm in the school of hard knocks with no end in sight!

Proj 365 Feb 21st Good Cup of Joe

You want a good cup of coffee? Go to Caribou. It beats Starbucks hands down. Last time I went to Starbucks in the Target in Rocky Mount, it was so bad I almost poured it out in the parking lot. I called and complained. They sent me coupons for two Starbucks coffees. I tried one in Raleigh. Don't know what I did with the other coupon but I didn't miss it. It was bad. Had burnt taste. Love my Caribou. (Unless you want to grind it yourself with a burr grinder and then buy 8 O'Clock Dark Italian Roast and use a brown (non-bleached filter. Yummy!)

Proj 365 Feb 20th Hip Hop Car

 Wild Car

WOO- HOO My next car or vehicle or whatever it is!!! I  followed him to get a picture and caught up to him in the gas station. He loved having people talk to him about his car. (Cap size kept getting bigger by the minute). I asked him how much he had in it. Wheels are about $4000. He didn't know exactly what the rest was. Meanwhile the rest of us with old roadbeaters just looked and wondered about what we would do with that much money. (This is one of many cases where I am glad I had a P&S - Easy to have and not so likely to attract unwanted attention.)

Proj 365 Feb 19th BLD B'Day

And a afternoon well spent with my son and the rest of my family on my son's birthday. Happy 23rd.

Proj 365 Feb 18th Sing of the Times - Borders Closing

Feb 18th - Have two previous days to post but have to leave in 4 minutes! Had to get this up. I put those signs up in our store! The end has started. Can't believe how many people thought our store was better than the others in the area but now only one store left. (not counting the airport which you have to have a ticket to get to). This economy is scary.

Proj 365 Feb 17th Which Side Do You Ride On?

Why do we need bike lanes in Chapel Hill and Durham (as well as other places)? I am not ass close as it looks as I am zoomed in but still you can see oncoming traffic. Speeds on this stretch of road are about 45 - 55 mph. To run up behind a bicyclist going 8 mph (?) with traffic in the opposing lane is a bad situation. Note no shoulder for him or vehicles to pull off to.

Side note question - When did it suddenly become the rule to travel in the same direction as traffic? When I was young (and dinosaurs roamed the earth!) we always walked or bicycled facing traffic so we could be seen as well as see. Still seems much safer as this person has zero idea I am coming up behind him.

Proj 365 Feb 16th Fuzzy Wuzzy Bears

Wuzzy Wuzzy was a Bear, Wuzzy was losing his hair - Hey wait a minute that's me thats losing the hair. These are a pair of bedroom slippers I got for Christmas a few years ago. Got them when we ordered a set of wolf ones for my NCSU daughter (Wolfpack).

Proj 365 Feb 15th Dinner

Well, sometimes the clock is ticking and its almost midnight and you haven't taken a photo. Well, something out of my life. Got off work at 10PM, got home at 11, fed the dogs. and sat down to dinner. (Fridays and Saturdays its even later, usually get home at midnight). Had coupon for BOGO at Burger King so had one for lunch and this was dinner.
Will try to do better but sometimes you get caught late at night and perhaps that too is part of Project 365, reflecting the hectic part of our lives to do so much else than photography.
Have to admit that Steve's funeral has left me pondering a lot of things about life and priorities and what we achieve as we rush and work so hard.
Meanwhile, have to fix grill handle that broke, inspect photos I had dry matted for show, reorder to replacement prints where matting ruined two (at least), finish processing funeral photos (575 I think), and get two photos framed and delivered for a show by Friday morning. Oh yeah, work and go to the allergist. Busy, busy.

Proj 365 Feb 14th Home at Last!

Home and unloaded at last. Dogs are home from being boarded at the vet. Wish my to do list was this empty.

Proj 365 Feb 13th At Pop's House with My Family (Most of)

Didn't get a lot of photos today. Got up and hit the road. Here is a photo of three of the four people my life revolves around.(My son couldn't go to the funeral). my father-in-law, my daughter Hayley (as in the actress - the comet is named after a scientist named Hall'ee, not Hayley) , and my wife. Every photograph needs a support team and this is mine. My wife sent me out to get some photos while she was cooking dinner and company was coming. Got to love a photographic support wife like that!

Proj 365 Feb 12th Steve Barrett's Funeral

Steve was given a military burial. His widow asked me to photograph the funeral. At this time I am not going to post any of the photos except this one. They are in the process of giving him a 21 gun salute. As I was driving my father in law and wife, I couldn't get the shot I wanted. As we left the funeral home and the hearse started to pull out, a Senior Master Sergeant stood at attention and saluted the hearse. We thought it was part of the military honors but it was simply an old friend saying goodbye and giving the honor due him. (Sergeants never salute other sergeants so that made this especially poignant).
He was 63 and used to be a hunter and fisherman. Great outdoors person. He ignored a heart attack (never went to the doctor, didn't think it was a serious one) and continued to smoke. I saw him 3 weeks ago and he could barely walk. Heart and lungs down to 20% capacity. If I smoked, I would be quitting right now!

Proj 365 Feb 11th South Georgia Church with Spanish Moss

Now I get the shot of some of that Spanish moss on trees. Coming back from the funeral visitation I had my Nikon with me (Steve's widow asked me to bring my camera and photograph the funeral. I will post on my regular blog more on that in a day or so, I am still knee deep in things to do.)
I loved the way the sign shows just under the moss and the sky is clear. (Just spotted that red traffic sign, need to crop that out later.)

Proj 365 Feb 10th Relaxing while my Daughter Drives

Aaahhh, on the road and my daughter is driving so my wife and I can relax. I take advantage of the freedom to take some pictures along the way. Tried to get some trees with Spanish moss but the P&S didn't capture them too well. So here is my daughter, "This is so easy I can drive with my eyes shut!!" <Really, "If you point that camera at me one more time, I'm gonna smack ...."> She really is a good driver (and a good daughter.) (and my son is a good son also!)

Proj 365 Feb 9th No Wonder My Hands Get Cold!

The day before we left, I had to get up early (after working late and having to go to work early) in order to get the beagles to the vet until we came back. I hope this is the last time in a long while that I have to break the ice on their water dish and add warm water. That ice gets cold on the hands.

Proj 365 Feb 8th Allergies

Well, for those of you keeping a close watch, I have been "off the grid" quite literally. My brother in law passed away last week and I, my wife and daughter (son couldn't go) drove to south Georgia for the funeral. But I have gotten a shot every day so here is the catch up.

Wednesday, before I left I had to swing by and get my series of allergy shots. One for Trees and grass, one for cats and dogs, and one for dust. (yes dust in organic. If you knew where dust came from you would go nuts with a vacuum cleaner everyday!) One of the nurses there that administers my shots (and puts up with my humor) is into photography also and I am encouraging her to pick up this 365 challenge. (and anybody else that wants to hone their photography skills.) This challenge really makes you prioritize and work on composition and subject , not just technical parameters such as shutter speed and aperture.

So I got my shot (Oooouuuuuccccchhhh!!! just kidding )  and hit the road.

Proj 365 Feb 7th Beagles on the Run

For those that looked at the photo I tried to get of the beagles on their morning run around the yard, I tried again. Again you can see, not much luck. Since I am trying to use my point and shoot primarily for this project, I have found (I already knew) that the shutter delay is significantly greater than the shutter delay on a DLSR. Also, the focus takes significantly longer so achieve. I will keep working on this. Maybe I need slower dogs!!

Proj 365 Jan 6th Self Portrait

I had to do a self portrait for the camera club. This wasn't it but I decided to have some fun at my own expense.
I call this one "oxymoron" as it seemed to fit like Jumbo Shrimp - me with a hairdryer!
Actually I am not loosing my hair but my brain has pushed my skull upward and my hairstylist forgets and my hair is cut too close. (Rolleyes. If you believe this, I have some land to sell you in the Everglades).

Proj 365 Feb 5th Cheap Gas!!

Now here is one I enjoyed getting. Stirred my imagination. Best I can remember is 30 cents a gallon back in 73. (Nobody better ask "Which 73" it was 1973!!) By the way, you will see the 3 in $3.059 is laying at the bottom of the photo. I didn't see it until post processing.

Proj 365 Feb 4th Ice on the Roof

Not a wow photo but I liked waking up and finding a little ice on the roof. Surprising. (But the forecast for this coming Thursday is snow - again!!)

Proj 365 Feb 3rd A Good Friend

It's great to have friends, especially photographer friends. Sterling Stevens is a fellow photographer I met doing a volunteer shoot for Big Brothers/Big Sisters. We both go to the Cary Photographic Artists Club (Camera Club) now. He is an architect and an architectural photographer. He does really good work. He thinks I do good photographing people. Guess you can fool anybody sometime. Anyway, I got this shot of him at the CPA meeting.

Proj 365 Feb 2 Another Old Tobacco Barn to Capture

My next tobacco barn. Another reason to have a P&S. I was going down the road and spotted this old tobacco barn. (The roof vents and the LP tank helped me spot it.) After I go back and get permission to photograph it and use the photos (I am looking at producing a coffee table book about old tobacco barns in North Carolina) I will get my DSLR to go photograph it inside and out. But for now, I was able to get a few quick shots that I could review later as to how I wanted to photograph it and see a little bit about the lighting. (By late spring it will be a totally different situation with the green coming out.

Proj 365 Feb 1 Beagles on the Run

Yes, its a bad photo but that is why I am posting it. For those who ooo and aahhh about somebody's photos, there are a truckload of stickers no matter who they are.  Don't get discouraged about the stinkers, learn from it what to do better next time.
I was trying to get a photo of my beagles as they raced around the backyard when I brought them out of the house and let them go in the back (they do this every morning). It was a little bit earlier than usual and when I dropped their leashes, they took off. P&Ss are slower to react and set up and by the time I could even get it turned on, the beagles were halfway around the backyard so I had to hurry to get anything. This is what I got. The streak of bright light you see is a single light, blurred by the panning action as I try to follow the dogs.

Could I have done better with my DSLR? Probably. No shutter delay, easier to reach and set controls. I may try to capture this shot with my DSLR later but then again, I have to be more prepared. With my P&S I could put the camera in my pocket and go out with the dogs. With my DSLR, I will have to preposition it in the backyard as I wouldn't want to walk around with in while the dogs are pulling. (In the morning they tend to be excited about getting out.)