End of the dream

I discovered this place on one of my forays into the countryside near our place a couple of years ago. As I wandered around the abandoned property I tried to imagine the lives of the people who built this home, had children, and tried to make a go of the farm.

I made some photos here in b&w but I found the colour contrast significant. Perhaps as one of their last acts as the dream was crumbling around them, they tried to put a fresh face on the inevitable. Who knows ...

(18-55mm  f4.5  1/50 sec  ISO200)

(Day 340) iPod - where it all began

I've often wondered what it would be like to plunk someone from a century or so ago down into today's world. Take someone from 1849 who took many weeks to travel either overland, or by ship around Cape Horn, to California from Boston and tell them it can now be done in a few hours. Or take that person and walk them to the nearest switch in the house and have them flip it to turn on the lights. Or take a Thomas Edison and demonstrate an iPod for him. Can you imagine the utter disbelief and amazement they would experience ?

Today we visited the winter home of Thomas Edison, one of the world's greatest inventors. Among the many photos I made there, here are a couple of some ancestors of the iPod.

I wonder - if we could be transported 100 or so years into the future, what would cause us utter disbelief and amazement ?

(both shots made with a 10-22mm lens at f8, ISO800 and shutter speeds of 1/6 and 1/3 sec)

(Day 48) The good ole days

Isn't it a strange quirk of human nature that quite often we remember the past as being the good old days ? Perhaps it's a blessing that the hard times that we couldn't wait to let slip into history also slip from our minds.

Conversely I'm sure that this barn's good ole days were far better than its present state. Physically we are headed towards a similar state, despite oils and creams and spa treatments that promise to delay the inevitable. We have the real promise that we can put our hope in a future that far outshines any glory of the present, or past. We simply need to take hold of it.

(70-200mm f5.6 1/200 sec. ISO200)