Scenics Archives

March 14, 2013

Fraternal Organizations

Small towns used to be populated by Moose, Elks, Eagles, Masons, Oddfellows and other members of fraternal and social organizations. Today we have Facebook.

When Friend Jan and I traveled across Ohio, I was struck by how many small towns had buildings associated with fraternal organizations. In some, like in tiny Nelsonville, two of the largest buildings in the downtown area were affiliated with organizations like the Fraternal Order of the Eagles. (You can click on the photos to make them larger.)

Knights of Pythias

This is Nelsonville’s Pythian Building, built in 1905.

Shawnee Knights of Pythias

When I shot a collection of architectural photos of Shawnee, Ohio, I roamed the former Knights of Pythias building, which had also served as an opera house and theater. Rotting lodge robes were still hanging in a closet.

Visitors scrutinized

Visitors to the lodge meeting room were checked out through this peephole before being admitted.

International Order of Odd Fellows

The IOOF – International Order of Odd Fellows – met a few doors down.

What organizations did Cape have?

I was prepared to say that Cape didn’t have many fraternal organizations, but a quick scan of the 1979 City Directory turned up quite a few:

Calvery Shrine #8 (Masonic Temple) – 2307 Broadway (includes other affiliated organizations)
Circle Number 603 Daughters of Isabell – 318 S. Spanish St.
Epsi Lota Memorial Lodge – S. Sprigg St.
Lodge 639 Benevolent Order of the Elks – 2751 Thomas Dr.
Oddfellows Lodge 675 – 825 S. Ellis St.
St. Vincent’s Council No. 1111 Knights of Columbus – 318 S. Spanish St.

March 7, 2013March 7, 2013

Barn on Hwy 74

I’ve passed this barn hundreds of times, and every time I’ve wondered if it would still be there the next time I was driving Hwy 74 between Cape and Dutchtown. I guess it must be made of some strong stuff, because it’s still standing.

Still, I pulled off the road “just in case” a spring storms would be The One. As I looked at the photos, it dawned on me that one of these days old wooden barns will be as scarce as covered bridges. New, modern steel buildings are fast to put up, cheap to build and are efficient, but you can’t beat an old barn for aesthetics.

If it had been summer, I’d have stopped to ask the owner if I could wander around. My desire to make art diminishes in direct proportion to the wind chill, so I was content to shoot these pictures from the roadside.

Barn photo gallery

Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the image to move through the gallery.

March 2, 2013

I-55’s Big Rock Cut

If you are in a family where the Dad builds roads and bridges for a living, going for a ride is a whole lot different than it is for most families.

For one, Dad would slow to a crawl anytime he passed another contractor’s job so he could see what techniques the guy was using. If his competitor had some kind of new, spiffy piece of equipment, he’s say, “I wish I had his and he had a better one.”

We couldn’t make a trip from Cape to St. Louis without him pointing this area out as “one of the biggest rock cuts on I-55 in Missouri.”

By the time I got to St. Louis on February 25, those clouds were dropping snow from the sky. After I finished my exhibit in Ohio and drove back to Cape from St. Louis on March 1, more clouds were causing snow to swirl across the road.

What IS it with snow this year? It seems like everyplace I’ve gone lately has had snow. I’m afraid to go back to Florida next week for fear I’m going to cause it to snow on Wife Lila’s new vegetable gardens.

February 24, 2013

Nearly Full Moon

I was headed out the door to grab something to eat when Mother said, “There’s a full moon tonight.”

“Oh, I wish you hadn’t told me. I’m too tired to shoot it,” I lamented after a day of cutting wood. (I’m also too tired to write about THAT, too, despite promises I made on Facebook. It’ll come.)

That’s when I remembered my early birthday present from The Boys: my Nikon 55-200mm lens. How could I pass up a chance to see what THAT would do with the moon.

Not bad. It’s always more interesting if it’s lower in the sky and if it has some kind of interesting landmark in the foreground, but this will do for a lens test. You can click on it to make it larger.

Photo geek info

I shot the photo with my Nikon D3100. The ISO was 400 and the exposure was 1/320 @ f5/7. The lens was zoomed to the maximum 200mm, which would be the equivalent of 300mm on a standard 35mm film camera.

I underexposed five stops from what the meter indicated (because it was reading all that black sky). It was taken with manual focus instead of automatic because it kept wanting to either grab onto some tree limbs in the foreground or not fire at all because it didn’t think there was anything there. One of the nice things is that the focusing ring on that lens is big enough to grab; that’s not the case with my 18-55mm lens.

It would be a little sharper if I had bothered to drag a monopod or my new Vanguard Alta Pro 263AT tripod out of the car, but I was too tired and hungry to fool around with fancy stuff.

Oh, and when I got home, I found out that the moon wasn’t all the way full. It was only 97% full.

Tag: Scenics