Weekender
There is a neat little website that allows folks to share some of their black and white photographs each weekend. The website's host is located in Ireland, and the folks who participate come from the world over. The rules are simple: One photo per person per weekend.
Each contributor for the current week is listed, and you can see all the photos by clicking through the list. Along with the week's list, a selection of photos that are the host's favorites from the previous week are shown.
If you visit this little site and enjoy these photos, you will be visiting with photographers from every continent of the world.
I found this site not very long ago, and immediately wanted to participate. The images here are the ones that I have contributed.
Enjoy these. And please visit the website, The Weekend in Black and White.
Dried Thistle
10-22-21
When you quietly wander along through a field by yourself, you have time to think the little thoughts and see the little things that are often ignored or overlooked. This is when you see something as simple as a stalk of dried thistle and think that it should be a photograph.
Birds in a Tree
10-15-21
Sometimes birds just like to get together. Meet and greet. Have some face time. What better place for all the birds to congregate – flock together – than in a tree with few leaves? This bird convention was a December meet-up on the wetlands of the bay side of Galveston Island.
Utility Pole in High Key
10-8-21
"The woodpecker pecked out a little round hole
And made him a house in the telephone pole."
Elizabeth Madox Roberts
"...their fearsome crowns of bolts, trusses,
struts, nuts, insulators, and such"
John Updike
"I am a copper wire slung in the air,
Slim against the sun I make not even a clear line of shadow."
Carl Sandburg
Utility poles are a part of our life. They line the towns' streets and the narrow, 2-lane rural roads. They may carry just one or two wires or they may hold a host of them. Until we look up, we don't know. And they are so ubiquitous that we seldom look up. But some people do look up, and so we have poems.
The Family Crosses
10-1-21
In an old, defunct graveyard that had its last burial almost 80 years ago, there is this grouping of wooden crosses, weathered and askew, in a small family plot. The crosses are complete with little American flags that were perhaps put there by some Boy Scout troop or veterans association. Look closely and you can see a bit of the plot's old fence under all the weed and vine.
These ragtag wooden crosses are throughout this small old cemetery, someone's one-time effort to rehabilitate it.
A CONVENIENT PEE
9-24-21
After a day at the beach, this young lad along with his little brother and his mom, who was carrying all of their beach stuff, climbed the steps to the top of the seawall. Once they reached the top, this little guy apparently told his mother he had to pee. All packed and ready to walk to their rooms, she sent him back down the steps to take care of things quickly.
PARENTHOOD
9-17-21
On one of our Galveston spring birding trips, we went to a known breeding area for egrets and spoonbills. I managed to capture this image of a lovely Great Egret, still in breeding plumage, tending to its chicks. The original photo was made with a 500mm lens as the egrets nest on a small island in the middle of a pond. The island is protected from predators by alligators and is just overflowing with Great Egrets, Snowy Egrets, Roseate Spoonbills, and Cormorants.
YELLOWSTONE REFLECTION
9-10-21
Few places have as much beautiful scenery as Yellowstone National Park. With over 2 million acres there are opportunities to see almost everything nature has to offer. This charming little lake with the hills reflecting in it is but a small example of the beauty that seems to be everywhere in Yellowstone.
PORTRAIT OF AN EAGLE IN PROFILE
9-3-21
I saw this magnificent bird at a zoo in Colorado. This bald eagle is a rescue and has been in captivity for several years. But living in a structured environment does not seem to have affected its dignity and imposing bearing. It kindly posed in profile long enough for me to take this portrait.
NO PICNIC TODAY
8-27-21
By May of 2020 the pandemic had pretty much closed down most public places and activities everywhere. Here is the closed and empty day-tripper picnic area at Galveston Island State Park on the Gulf Coast of Texas. Fixed rows of picnic tables with canopies and charcoal grilles silently waiting for families to return.