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Joshua Tree: In God’s Country

Posted in Leica M with tags , , , , on October 9, 2016 by johnbuckley100

joshua-tree-5I don’t want to say that everything I knew about Joshua Tree National Park came from U2’s great 1987 album, or perhaps more specifically, from Anton Corbijn’s photo shoot with the band.  Yet I’d never seen an actual Joshua Tree, couldn’t tell a cholla cactus from a prickly pear, and had only once driven to the Palm Springs area.  But our son has recently gone off to college not too far away, and was drawn like a magnet to this incredible small unit of the National Park Service.  Easy to see why, once we got there.

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We brought along our Leica M-240, not the Leica SL we used all summer for landscapes out West.  It was a delight to have a small, capable camera in our hands again.  And we loved taking it off the main road, though the cholla have spines so strong they can puncture a hiking shoe.

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What follows is an assortment of images from a magical place we want to go back to, and will.  As the lyrics of the U2 song go, “Sleep comes like a drug/in God’s country.”  We look forward to camping out here.

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Above The Cape Of Good Hope

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , on August 6, 2016 by johnbuckley100

Friends enjoying their moment in the Southern-most tip of Africa, the Cape of Good Hope,  on this day in 2014.

Above The Cape

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Reflections On The 2016 Memorial Day Weekend On The National Mall

Posted in Leica M, Uncategorized with tags , , , , on May 29, 2016 by johnbuckley100

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Every year, we go down to the National Mall over the Memorial Day weekend.  It’s a fitting, and moving, visit to make, and a pretty amazing opportunity to capture a wide spectrum of humanity and emotions as thousands of veterans arrive, often on Harleys, and visit the Vietnam Memorial.

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African Americans and rural whites come to the Memorial to reflect on loved ones lost.  In fact, as we were there yesterday, the woman on the left below was saying to her friend that she comes here every year to mourn her father, but that even though he had to die in Vietnam, she wouldn’t want him to have lived if it meant someone else’s father had to die.

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It’s not all mournful though.  The motorcyclists come in force for their Rolling Thunder ride, which takes place today, in fact, and more on that in a moment.

Rolling Thunder Sunday batch MorotcycleRolling Thunder 2016-3Rolling Thunder 2016-4It is, in its own way — and in recognition that this is a summer ritual, a three-day holiday weekend that kicks off summer — festive.  People come to eat and see their friends and there is commerce on the edge of the Mall.  As of course there is.  ‘Murica.

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But what makes this event each year so meaningful is the essential apolitical nature of people coming to Washington, motivated by a desire to celebrate their participation in our nation’s wars, by the desire to shine the light on POWs and MIAs. Rolling Thunder Sunday batch Morotcycle-2

Which is why we found ourselves yesterday — and honestly, today — so disturbed by the notion that Donald Trump plans on coming to the Mall today to hold a rally with the Rolling Thunder riders.  Forget for just a moment the notion of this proto-fascist on the National Mall, mere yards from the White House literally, and figuratively, revving up the crowd of Harley riders.  No matter what he says, he will have spoiled what is essential about this weekend, here, each year.  Which is the essential poignancy of those reflecting on a sacrifice he dodged, and the reminder of the consequences of those who would recklessly send young American men and women off to war.

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Rolling Thunder 2016-12All images Leica M-240 and 50mm Noctilux.  To follow John Buckley on Twitter: @johnbuckley100.  On Instagram: tulip_frenzy.

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Before The Thunder Gets Rolling

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , on May 28, 2016 by johnbuckley100

Rolling Thunder 1

Hundreds, maybe thousands of motorcycles already gathering at the National Mall in advance of tomorrow’s annual Rolling Thunder commemoration of POWs and the MIA in Vietnam.  Mixed emotions this year with the news that Trump, a draft-dodging bloviator, is speaking to the crowd.  Wonder which way this guy will go.

Leica M, 50mm Noctilux, ND filter. Wide Open, ISO 200

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Tulip Frenzy Can’t Wait For Alicia Vikander In “Tulip Fever”… For The Purest Of Reasons

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , on April 29, 2016 by johnbuckley100

Tulip FeverOur friend Allen Goldberg, knowing of our mania for all things tulip, sent us news yesterday morning that the lovely Alicia Vikander, fresh off her Oscar win, will soon grace a movie entitled Tulip Fever.  A quick look at the trailer reveals her to be a pearl-earring wearing young wife of a 17th Century Dutch burger played by Christoph Waltz, who  allows a handsome young Vermeer-type to paint her in private, and of course you knew what happens next even before I tell you Tom Stoppard wrote the screenplay.

Can’t wait.  And I must say that we are somewhat relieved that it’s called Tulip Fever, not Tulip Frenzy.  You see, even though our staff attorney is ready and willing to protect — and as fiercely as a wolverine — our rights to the name of this site, we kind of like the fact that young schoolchildren — doing research on the phenomenon by which the sane and even-tempered Dutch created the most famous financial bubble in history, besotted as they were with the ephemeral glories of  tulips — might be led by Mr. Google to our site on a day when we’re reviewing the new album by, say, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard.  Tulip Frenzy is many things, and at least one of them, we hope, is educational.

We honestly don’t know whence our obsession with tulips comes.  It’s a pretty healthy obsession to have, don’t you think? Could be worse, right? It’s encouraged by our family, even as they know that come the first week of April we will be as fixated on area tulip beds as any truffle pig sticking his snout into the ground.

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And it’s encouraged by friends like Allen who also sent us yesterday’s post in Atlas Obscura on how “The Most Beautiful Tulip In History Cost As Much As A House.”  Jeez, what a day.

Read about the fixation the Dutch had with “broken tulips,” those that are, like the ones depicted above, multicolored.  We are grateful to Allen for sending these stories our way, and we couldn’t be happier than we are right now reading up on  The Tulip Frenzy, preparing to see Tulip Fever in July.

Well, maybe if we could see these decidedly unbroken tulips all the time.

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(Pictures 1 and 3 taken with the Leica M and 50mm Noctilux. Picture 2 taken with the Leica SL and 50mm APO-Summicron-Asph.)

 

 

 

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Walking On Bubbles

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , on April 16, 2016 by johnbuckley100

So close, and so far, from the D.C. neighborhoods P.J. Harvey captures in The Hope Six Demonstration Project, a man walks on the overpass between buildings in D.C.’s Emerald City-like City Centre.  Leica M, 35mm Summilux FLE.

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Not Yet The Tulip Frenzy, But Cherry Blossoms At Post-Peak Perfection

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , on April 3, 2016 by johnbuckley100

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Please Tell Us The Tulip Frenzy Is Arriving Soon

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , on April 1, 2016 by johnbuckley100

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Last Light Atop Sharon Mountain

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , on March 6, 2016 by johnbuckley100

It’s probably time to take that Christmas wreath down, but winter’s hard in Northwest Connecticut. 5:15 PM, Friday, March 4th.  Leica M (top-240), 50mm APO-Summicon-Asph.

Sharon Mountain 1

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First Tulips Of Spring (Indoor Category)

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , on February 16, 2016 by johnbuckley100

Far more reliable an indicator of Spring a-coming than that varmint in Pennsylvania…

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