Scenics Archives

December 8, 2011July 17, 2016

Chickens in the City

Florida Foodie buddy Jan Norris sent me a link this morning about how chickens became a war crop during World War I. I thought it was interesting, but not that exciting.

Now I see chickens everywhere

I was shooting a building in th 100 block of North Main Street for a story when I stepped into the alley for a different angle. In my newly chicken-sensitized state, I immediately was drawn to these stencils.

If I was back in the Fine Arts program at Ohio University, we could spend hours analyzing the hidden meanings behind this work of folk art. Is there a significance to the order of the colors? Does the red signify blood? Is it a political statement about the Trickle-Down Theory? Let’s dissect the racial angle. Is it significant that there are no black chickens? Is the white chick on the bottom for a reason? Why are they perched on a drain?

I have to admit that it is curious that the “artist” went to the trouble of using four colors, plus red. Was he / she trying to figure out which color was most suitable for concrete?

Cape has been made safe from chickens

With all of the other obsessions with regulations, I just KNEW Cape would have had to legislate chickens in some form or another. Indeed, an Oct. 10, 2010, Scott Moyers‘ story in The Missourian said that an ordinance that would allow Cape Girardeans to keep up to 10 hens (no roosters) per tract for non-commercial uses was headed for adoption.

Unfortunately for folks hoping to be able to get their fresh eggs from their backyards, the city council switched gears during its Nov. 15, 2010, meeting and put the kibosh on chickens in the city.

Let the Hen Whip the Kaiser!

While trying to find examples of chicken posters, I came across this great site with lots of war era food posters. It’s worth a visit. This poster was from the College Station, Texas, Extension service in 1917.

Keeping chickens: patriotic and profitable

This USDA poster urges farmers not so sell laying hens. You could make more money selling the eggs than the chicken, it pointed out.

When you look at the posters from those eras, it’s clear that the American public was expected to sacrifice to win the wars.

Where’s THIS message?

Here’s a piece I did when gas prices were headed to four bucks a gallon this spring. It talked about the June 11, 1943, Missourian Phillips 66 ad headlined “You are a Soldier in The Battle of Transportation.”

Have you seen this World War II message delivered on TV, radio or print or by any politicians?

“Every bit of rubber and gasoline you save on the home front is a contribution to the combat needs of our fighting men on every battle front.

“You can help hasten the day of victory by confining your driving to a patriotic minimum. Use your car only for going to and from work …for needed shopping…for war-time activities like vegetable gardening…for travel to and from places without other transportation facilities.

“Remember, your Government asks you to do your part to prevent a transportation breakdown, asks you to care for your car–for your country.”

The concept of shared sacrifice for the common good just isn’t popular these days, I guess.

December 6, 2011

Calendar Sneak Peek

Here’s a sneak peek of a project that I’m way overdue finishing. I’m hoping to get to the printers this week to have a 2012 calendar available before it’s 2013. I’ve got folks proofreading and swatting technical flies, so these two pages may change. The cover shows Tower Rock in the autumn. I’ve tried to pick photos that you won’t mind looking at for a month at a time. (Click on the photos to make them larger.)

World’s longest suspension pipeline bridge

March is a pastoral look at what is said to be the world’s longest suspension pipeline bridge. The other months will have photographs taken in Altenburg, Wittenberg and Frohna. Every once in awhile I slip up and let some real facts show up in a caption, but I try to keep the same breezy style you find here.

The calendar, like my book, Tower Rock: “A Demon That Devours Travelers,” will be available at the Altenburg Lutheran Heritage Center & Museum. Don’t worry, I’ll be sure to tell you when it’s available. Carla Jordan and the folks at the museum have been great to let me dabble in publishing before I try to do some bigger projects I have on the list.

December 1, 2011December 1, 2011

Tragedy at Neely’s Landing

Oct. 27, 1869, the steamboat The Stonewall, heavily laden with about 300 passengers, tons of cargo and 200 head of livestock was southbound on the Mississippi River near Neely’s Landing, bound for Cape Girardeau, Memphis and New Orleans. The river was low and the boat was running “slow wheel.”

A candle or lantern overturned or a passenger dropped a spark onto hay on the lower deck, which caught fire. Before the blaze was discovered, it had gained considerable headway.

Burning boat ran aground

An Oct. 27, 1936, Missourian reprised the incident on its 67th anniversary, drawing upon the memories of R.W. Harris, who was eight years old when the boat burned not far from his home at Neely’s Landing. When the crew couldn’t extinguish the fire, the captain headed the boat to the shore but struck a sandbar. The boat gradually turned in the current, causing the north wind to carry the fire through her.

Passengers caught like rats

“Panic stricken passengers were caught like rats on the blazing boat, between which and the Missouri shore was 150 feet or more of swift, icy cold water.” The flames were visible 1-1/2 miles away.

Some held onto horses

Four oarsmen went out on a skiff to rescue passengers. They were Lowrie Hope, Martin O’Brian, Frank West and Derry Hays,”the latter being a Negro.” They managed to rescue some passengers. Others were seen to walk into the flames; others jumped into the river, some forcing horses from the lower decks to swim while they clung to the animal’s tails.

209 to 300 drowned or burned

Depending on which account you read, somewhere between 209 and 300 persons perished from fire or drowning, making it one of the nation’s worst inland waterway disasters. Sixty or 70 victims were buried in a mass grave on the Cotter farm.

Scorched paper money found in safe

When the hull had cooled, what was left of the freight was salvaged and sold. Mr. Harris recalled that his father bought a firkin of butter from Wisconsin. One of the horses, scarred from burns, was long owned by Franklin Oliver, who called him Stonewall. When the boat’s safe was opened, only paper money, scorched to a crisp, was found, much to the public’s disappointment.

Bones still found 67 years later

Since the catastrophe, the paper said, the location has been called Stonewall bar. At low water, broken queensware, coal, nails, bits of iron and even bones are still reminders of the disaster.

Two accounts of the Stonewall’s burning

Large quarry north of Neely’s Landing

Neely’s Landing Quarry is located north of what remains of the town.

November 27, 2011January 16, 2024

How to Shoot a Barn

Well, that title is a bit presumptuous, but studies have shown that using the words “How to…” in the headline causes the story to rate higher with search engines.

When Friend Shari and I were on our way back from shooting Tower Rock Quarry and taking the scenic route where I discovered High Hill Church, she said to keep my eye out for old barns; there was one in particular she’d like to shoot again. She recalled doing it years ago and wanted to have another crack at it.

STOP!!!

We were tooling along down 177 near Egypt Mills when she hollered, “STOP!” She was always good at that. I locked down thinking she saw an 18-wheeler getting ready to hit us head-on and heard everything loose in the car slide forward.

She had spotted her barn. I threw it in reverse and cut over on CR 634 (I think) and pulled off on the side of the road with the hazard flashers on.

What are you looking for?

Being a former shrink, she’s always curious about the thought processes that go into making a photo. After dismissing her (and most other folks who ask that question), I’ve started to think about it. I told her that I would try to explain how I looked at the overall scene and then drilled into a detail here and there. As we walked around, I explained that sometimes everything would fall into place. Other times, I’d shoot a frame and decide that something didn’t work. Sometimes a slight change in angle would fix the problem; other times, there would be some extraneous object that would intrude that I couldn’t work around, and I’d move on.

I’m a sucker for contrast

I love dark photos where the light hits something and causes it to pop out. Sometimes, like in this shot, the light is striking it directly. More often, I look for a strong back or sidelight to make it translucent.

Signs that it wasn’t a good shoot

Leica made some great photo enlargers. One of the neat things about them was that their negative carriers were cut just a little larger than a 35mm frame. That let pure white light project down on the photo paper if you printed full frame. It was a point of pride to have your print have that black border around it because it showed that you “cropped in the camera.” In other words, you visualized the final product when you pushed the button.

When I looked at these pictures, I found myself reaching for the Crop tool to hack out pieces that didn’t work for me. I might have thought the composition worked, but I hadn’t successfully ‘cropped in the camera.” When we did that in the real darkroom, we’d call it “pulling it out of our rear orifice (or something close to that).”

Here’s an example. This is the full frame photo of the splotch of red paint with an orange leaf in front of it and some tendrils of vine and their shadows on the gray, weathered wood.

I couldn’t find the center of interest. Is it the leaf? Is it the vines? Is my eye supposed to follow the vines up and down, left and right? What’s important?

Cropping helps, but it’s not the answer

In this print, I’ve taken the same picture, but I’ve cropped up from the bottom and down from the top so you don’t see any of the gray wood there. Your eye tends to go toward the lighter area of a print, so this keeps you in the frame better. It also brings your eye to the leaf. I would have cropped a little more off the left, but I like the shadow of the vine over there. If you look closely, you can see the vine, then the shadow. The shadows of the vines on the right become more prominent and more interesting. Still, if the first photo was a D-, playing with it barely raised the grade to a C+.

Photo gallery of barn pictures

It’s not one of my best barn sessions. I shot this particular barn when I was riding my bike in this area about eight or nine years ago. I didn’t capture Essence de Barn then, and I’ve missed it this time, too. Maybe this barn and I just don’t click. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side to move through the gallery.