Wednesday, July 28, 2010

R.F. Orchid Nursery with Sandra Friend

After Castellow Hammock, Sandra suggested
stop by R.F. Orchids on our way home. I'm so
glad we did! What a beautiful find!

Sandra Friend with sign
sandrafriend.com

Pavilion on the way to nursery

entry into nursery





Row upon row of orchids...heaven!






I think I could spend my life just sitting
in this nursery looking at orchids! What
a grand experience!

Catellow Hammock - Niki, Sandra & Katy

Sandra, Katy & Niki

Sandra Friend is an expert on great places to
visit in Florida. Check out her website
SandraFriend.com
for anything...or anywhere...you would like
to go in Florida. I'm lucky to have her
as a friend! ....and so we met Katy here
for a fun day of photography.

Me as a butterfly!
I wonder what it would be like to loosen
the bonds of earth and fly away....

Katy and me photographing butterflies



Front view of butterfly


So many butterflies and so little time...

Heading into the trail


Sandra filming tree snail as
it slowly makes its way down
the trail

Katy photographing tree snail
making its way along the path

Beautiful tree snail

Sandra headed down the trail


Katy and me photographing

Top of spider

Belly of the spider...such pretty designs!

I sat and watched the rainbows form on
this spider web as the breezed drifted
through it...beautiful...

Sandra along trail

Interesting mushroom

Katy & Sandra photographing


The end of a wonderful day with friends

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Hands Across the Sand

For years Clyde and I have been against
oil drilling off the coast of Florida.
Unfortunately, with the explosion of the
oil rig, we are now seeing the full
affect of why drilling off shore
is a bad idea.

Our country managed to go to the moon.
We currently have an amazing amount of
technology available to dramatically change
our energy resources, and yet we fail to
do it.

As a Chinese Proverb says: If you don't change
direction, you may end up where you're heading...

We are heading in the wrong direction. It is time
for us to join together and head
in a clean and healthy direction.

This is an image that I never want to
see on the beach of Venice!
This is a dead sea turtle caught in oil

Singer Robert Jullian came to entertain
us with songs like "This land is your land..."


Sign up area

It was a beautiful day at the beach. Clear
blue sky and turquoise waters
Let's keep it that way! Say NO to drilling
off shore of Florida









The end of an inspiring day

Keep our water blue, our beaches white and
our environment clean...

Printing in the Darkroom

Clyde and his darkroom assistant,
Neal Obendorf, at final wash tank
studying photo to see if it is a good
enough print to print a second one.

Upon a rainy day, Clyde and I spent some time
playing on the web and came up with an amazing
amount of stuff on Clyde...really, we were
astonished at how much! However, some of the
facts were misleading, so I thought I should
correct a few things.

It has been said that Clyde doesn't do his own
printing, nor does he sign his own name on his
photographs.

Clyde does his own printing. Our son-in-law,
Neal Obendorf, is his assistant. Clyde prints
on Ilford Multigrade paper, uses Kodak
T-Max developer, stop, fix and selenium toner.

Each fiber base original silver gelatin photograph
is hand signed and numbered by Clyde.

Clyde also scans his negatives and prints
them using a computer. Those are his Open
Edition Photographs and are not signed by him.


Clyde matching test print for a larger image against
a small photo of same image...trying to get them
to look somewhat alike...