Charlottesville : The Cityscape of Change

I had an opportunity to walk around last night and by chance snapped this photo of people dinning at The Local. I enjoyed this scene due to the warm evening and the compliant diners who didn't seem to mind me taking photos of them from the street. I enjoyed playing around with it today at home with some basic photo software. Enjoy!

I have been slow to actually realize what one can do with "film speed" today until recently when it hit me: "the speed of take a photograph has greatly been increased". Because of this advance in the digital age, I can now take pictures at night with little trouble, all I've had to do is bring my tripod and set the ISO on my menu in a high setting and I'm off. Last night I decided to try it out, with some time and various compositions I really did well. Another plus is working with the images on the software once I got the pictures set up on my computer here at home. I can do today what I only dreamt about in previous times. The digital age has done wonders for me in image creation using a camera. It continues to blow me away on a daily basis. I will post one of my night images taken in a night spot that has developed here in my part of Charlottesville. It's called the Belmont Triangle by some, to others it's just another sort spot o…

The day is one of work, it's great for my mental state mainly because work takes my mind off my problems even better than a Scotch on the rocks and a bottle of beer to wash it all down. I use to do just that after work, but now I actually enjoy my work more than most (but not all) of my time off from my job. I never thought work could be like that. I never heard of such a thing, but here I am. Glad to be off from work but not wishing not to have to go back. I don't want to spend my life just working it away but it is nice to enjoy where I go to make my living. It's a school where I work but it's not just another school rather it's a school for and with young men and women with special needs. It's made my life much much better than before I arrived at it.

I am looking at doing a commission this weekend. I'm putting everything on hold until I finish this painting of a local house. It's the residence of the mother of a friend from my past whom I have lost touch with due to finding different roads to travel down. The weather should cooperate and I think I will be able to get two days of concentration in on a rather small canvas. The size of which was a request by her. I'm looking forward to it due to the lack of sales this year. Absolutely nothing has sold this year despite being in a one man opening and having my work hanging all year in a very public venue. I don't think it's because of the lack of quality of my art, at least that is my hope, but more-so because of the economical problems we are all dealing with which in turns stops people from buying art. The saying "art is the first to go" is certainly very true and I've witnessed that over the years. It's just part and parcel of…

This day is one of high winds and bright sun. What a joy to ride a bike in it. Someone asked me "do you still ride?" and I could honestly say "yes, I just rode today." Riding is such a good way to burn off extra energy and to go somewhere without burning anything more than calories.
When I was young, I honestly felt that riding my bike around was God's way of giving me trouble and pain. Man has that attitude changed over the years gone by. I was a fat, husky kid who couldn't wait to get behind the wheel of his own car. My Dad put me behind the wheel once I turned sixteen. And I put away the English Racer three speed that I had been using to travel around with. I ignored it and it fell to the junk pile in no time at all.
I turned that attitude around when I was in my early twenties and living in Philadelphia in Center City down near William Penn Hall (at least I believe it was called by that name) or the original site of the signing of…