Throwback Thursday

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It seems like a hundred years ago that I got brave enough to actually take pictures of myself. I have a very long history of avoiding the front of a camera, choosing to always hide behind the camera. I would rather be the picture taker than the subject. 

One day, I decided that I needed to answer some questions for my future descendants, those that would wonder what their "Moogie" looked like.  It was very hard for me, but I know how hard it is to wonder this same thing and have no way to get the answers.

So, here is the Self-Portrait Session of 2011, 6 months after the surgery that gave me a new chance at life.

The last one has a bit of goofiness thrown in.  Our youngest daughter came outside to see what I was doing and decided to take a few shots at of me. It is easy to be goofy with that girl around.

Please be sure to visit David's Throwback Thursday post at Random Thoughts and Observations.   If you have a Throwback Thursday post, please be sure to add your link in the comment section. I'd love to see it!



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Not-So-Wordless Wednesday

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Sunday, David, Laynie, and I went to the Ruins in Glen Flora again. We verified permission to use the place for our photo shoot first because there is a No Trespassing sign hanging across the back of the Ruins (which I still need to edit out). I wanted to be sure that ownership hadn't changed hands and that we still had permission to be there. All was cool. So, thank you to the folks in control of the place.

We took about a hundred photos that day just at the ruins. Don't worry. I'm only sharing 16 of them here. :) We went a few other places afterwards, but the focus of this post is Laynie and Hamlet at the Ruins.

We had a blast!

Note: Sorry for any wonky formatting issues.  Blogger is doing its absolute best to push me completely over to WordPress!

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Throwback Thursday - 11 August 2016

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Frank J. and Mary Wenzel Blecha

Frank and Mary Blecha are David's 2nd great-grandparents through his maternal grandmother's mother.  They are the most recent immigrant ancestors in our family, arriving in the United States at some point between 1851 and 1873. Frank was born in Austria in 1851 and Mary in Austria in 1854.  They were married in Seneca, Kansas on 9 February 1873.  Mary died in 1929 and Frank in 1945. Both are buried in Kansas, but not in the same cemetery, no even the same county, which I find very sad. I think that they look like a very sweet couple.


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Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Large Subjects

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The following photos are from our family archives.  The first one was originally in black & white. I just upped the black a bit. This photo was taken in Shiner, Texas, in 1963, on David’s grandpa’s farm. It is a cotton picker and these things are huge. Seated on the ground is David’s Uncle Glenn. The man standing on the other side of the tractor is David’s grandpa, Leon Wallis Roberts. Seated on the tractor is David’s daddy, Robert Bruce McClendon. He is holding David. In front of them stands David’s older sister, Sandra. We believe that David’s mother took this photo.

Bruce, David, and Sandra McClendon with Leon and Glenn Roberts. Shiner, TX, 1963.

The following photo was originally taken in color. It is of an entirely different kind of large subject.  It represents the big love of a grandpa for his granddaughter and hers for him.  This photo was taken at our oldest daughter’s first birthday party, which was held at McDonald’s in Anderson, South Carolina. My daddy, Jimmy Ray Gunter, is holding our little Laynie. She is wearing a dress that was made by David’s mother, Merle Roberts McClendon, the daughter of Leon Wallis Roberts (in photo above).  David took this photograph.

Jimmy Ray Gunter and Laynie McClendon, 7 December 1991.

Please be sure to see David's contribution over at Random Thoughts and Observations. Thanks!


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Cee's Black & White Photo Challenge: Older than 50 Years

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Hay Rake, Danish Heritage Museum, Danevang, Texas

Outhouse, Danish Heritage Museum, Danevang, Texas

Please visit Cee over at Cee's Black & White Photo Challenge to play along!


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Throwback Thursday - 30 June 2016

4 Generations: Jared, Daddy, Granny, Me, and Laynie, Circa 1991.

This picture makes me both happy and sad. I am very happy to have a multi-generation picture including my daddy and my granny. It makes me sad because so very much has changed since this photo was taken. Granny and Daddy are both in Heaven now and Jared is under the deep blue sea somewhere.  I've gone through some major physical changes. The only thing that has stayed the same since this photo was taken is that Laynie is still the sweet, beautiful girl that she has always been, just a bit taller. :)

Please be sure to visit David's Throwback Thursday post at Random Thoughts and Observations. Thank you!

Photographing Trees

I am still trying to learn how to use the camera on my smart phone. It is pretty bad when a phone is smarter than its user. :)

Some of the pictures are coming out looking like impressionistic images instead of regular photographs. I guess that is because I do not know how to properly use the zoom feature and they were shot in low-light situations. Anyway, I decided that I would go with that thought and play around with the pictures in Photoshop and Painter to try to get an even more impressionistic feel from the images.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this image. I have a zillion more to play with!

Photography: Macro Expressionism

Over the weekend, I read a book about a photographic style known as Macro Expressionism. The book is titled: MACRO EXPRESSIONISM: Manifesto of Expressionism in Macro Photography. You can find the author's blog here: Carlin Felder.

I have heard of expressionism in regards to art (as in paintings), but not so much when it comes to photography. You can read more about Expressionism as an art form here. It was a light bulb moment, of sorts, for me. Much of my photography ends up being in this style and not necessarily on purpose. I have shaky hands, my vision is bad, and the wind is a constant battle in this part of Texas. None of these things lend themselves to tack-sharp nature photography.

I can sit here and moan and groan about not getting perfectly sharp, realistic results like my photographer friends do, or I can see it as an art form in its own right. I am choosing the latter. I am venturing head-on into the art known as macro expressionism and I am having a blast with it!

©2014 Suzanne G. McClendon

Here is what I captured this morning using that as-yet unidentified tree as a subject. I would love to hear your thoughts on this style of photography and, more specifically, on this photograph. There are no post-capture filters added to this image. Except for resizing so that I didn't explode Blogger, it is as it came straight out of the camera.



Disclosure: The linked book title above is an affiliate link. If you click the link and purchase this book, our family will financially benefit from your transaction. Thank you for your support of PS Annie! and the McClendon Family!

Tuesday Muse

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Too Poor for Dignity?

You're probably wondering about that title, eh?

My husband and I are volunteer photographers for the website Find-a-Grave. People send requests for photographs of markers for the graves of relatives as they are working on their family trees. Maybe they live too far away to visit the grave themselves, or are too sick to go, so they need someone to send them pictures. I love doing this!

Anyway, it was on one of these photographic adventures that I saw something on a marker that made me wonder what it meant. Under the person's name, it said "County". Being the me that I am, I at first thought the person's surname was "County". My husband wondered if perhaps it meant that the county buried them. I saw this on what I assume was an adult grave.

Today, I saw it on the graves of two babies. This made me livid!

I know that sometimes people are too poor to afford to be buried and the county has to do it because, well, you can't just leave a corpse lying around just any old place. But just because they are too poor to afford to do this own their own, that somehow makes them less of a person and up for public embarrassment? I don't think so.

OK, so the county had to bury them, but can't they just do it with dignity, without what may as well be a big, flashing neon sign pointing out to the rest of the world that they were paupers?