Odds and Ends

That little speck in the upper right is Venus.

And the center-left speck in this one is Jupiter.

There is just no comprehending the size and distance of space. Objects bigger than a human brain can conceive are motes of light. There’s a lot of poetic potential there, but I just like thinking about it. If this post has a theme, I’d say it’s light.

I think I’ve seen more of these halos around both the Sun and the Moon in the last few months than in the rest of my life.

Have you ever heard of honey locust trees? They have clusters of thorns that can reach several inches long, and they’re particularly wicked-looking — thorns can branch off of thorns. I pricked my wrist on one once, and an area the size of a golf ball swelled up and bruised for several days. What I’m basically saying is this tree could kill you if you run into it. It’s not right. And there’s a cluster of them in Walker Park! Yeesh.

This woman is Lucia, sitting outside her World Treasures shop on Block Street. She also appeared in this post wearing big-eye glasses during last year’s Mardi Gras parade. She also went to Fayetteville’s Ferguson protest last November. I always like seeing Lucia around.

Ducks are always a good note to end on. I hope you all enjoyed the warmth this weekend. Thanks for looking.

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Summer’s End

Fall begins Tuesday and highs in the 90s have vanished from the forecast. With summer’s end come fall sports, politics, shorter days and more pants. I tried getting a sample of these changes this week.

I’ll start with the boys surfing cardboard, above. The Razorbacks once again trounced their opponent, and a celebration for parents and families meant a bit more activity around the student union, including some singing along to classic rock covers:

Also on Saturday, the opponents of Fayetteville’s anti-discrimination ordinance turned in more than enough petitions to bring the ordinance to a public vote. The law protects lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people from being fired, evicted or turned away from a business because of their identity, along with a few other groups. (I took some photos outside the City Council’s vote on the law here.)

The opponents question whether such discrimination is a problem and say the law takes away from business owners’ rights. If enough of those signatures are verified in the next week or two, the vote would probably come in December or January.

These next several weeks will bring plenty more politics for us to cover, so wish us luck.

All right, that’s enough news for this post. The rest I’ll devote to summer’s fading light.

The Bikes, Blues & BBQ Motorcycle Rally begins Wednesday and looks to bring a few hundred thousand people to the region. Surely I’ll get at least a couple of photos from the crowd for next time, right?

Thanks for looking!

Dan

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Light Work

Today’s the solstice: the most light in a single day we’ll ever see. It’s only fitting that, while I didn’t set out this past week with any particular event or theme in mind, many of the images I managed to find turned out having something to do with light: its source, its avoidance, its appreciation and its last moments.

Happy (official) summer! And thanks for looking.

Dan

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Halloween Comes Early

Happy Halloween! I know it’s early, and I blame my first freelance photo gig in a while. The married owners of Springfield’s Savoy Ballroom organized 100+ people to dance to Michael Jackson’s zombie-fied “Thriller” this past weekend on Commercial Street, and I got to take some images. There was room only for one in the paper but these regular people went all-out, so I’m glad to be able to put up more photos here.

I’ve also hitched on a few images of an Ozarks autumn in Dogwood Canyon Park south of here. It will fade away to winter before we know it. Fittingly, my search for full-time employment also is reaching its endgame, I think. Lord knows how it’ll turn out.

Thanks for looking!

Dan