Memorial Day Meandering

I took to my own street with a 35mm + red filter and a telephoto lens meandering around this Memorial Day. The one thing that struck me the most is what everyone WAS NOT doing outside. In my days, now about to show how old I am, we played outside the first chance we got when school was out of session. I personally could not wait to join my friends and even strangers for a game of basketball – three on three baby! Memorial Day this year felt different. I didn’t even smell one house grilling brisket, chicken, or hamburgers. I can’t be that old, can I?

I don’t feel it…

Memorial Day 2023 was the perfect recipe for black and white photography. Various forms of clouds were out, and having equipped a red filter on my 35mm prime, should come out in dynamic fashion. I was also trying new configuration of camera lens and body when walking – a telephoto and a 35mm prime. I bring a telephoto lens for nature and 35mm for street – a trial for the ten plus miles in foreign environments where all I do know is my gear and capabilities.

Sony a7iv and 35mm. Flowers from my garden cast shadows on the sidewalk leading to my front door entrance.
Sony a7iv and 35mm. No sound is coming from the other side of this fence.
Sony a7iv and 35mm. Renters, like this family, typically move out the last weekend of the month. A bad way to spend a holiday if you ask me.
Sony a7iv and 35mm. I just love the clouds creating leading lines and the pre-afternoon shadows. Call me a romantic!
Sony a7iv and 35mm. My perfect focal point. My back faces the residential neighborhood where I live. Contrast that with the forty or so acre ranch I face from the front. This spot is always prime for nature perching on barbed wire or scissor tail flycatchers nesting in the Crape Myrtles (depicted).
Sony a7iv and 35mm. School ahead.
Sony a7iv and 35mm. No soccer today. It was a perfect day for it though.
Sony a7iv and 35mm. A picnic table free to use for the public. Nobody got the memo it seems.
Sony a7iv and 35mm. An abandoned parking lot leading to baseball fields.
Sony a7iv and 35mm. This lot has been for sale forever. The whole will sub-divide seems a bit desperate, I think.
Sony a7iv and 35mm. What?! Nobody needed their pencil!
Sony a7iv and 35mm. A mockingbird flies up in the air to stay cool.
Sony a7iv and 35mm. I spy a teacher packing up their office! Forcing their kids to assist on a holiday was quite smart.
Sony a7iv and 35mm. Party at the playground must’ve been a hit!
Sony a7iv and 35mm. I love our trees. So many of them died after the Texas freeze a few years back, but not this one.
Sony a7iv and 35mm. I have a previous photograph from the same session of a car entering the frame and the arrow seeming to point at it. However, I noticed the shoe walking back and decided to step back a few steps and retake the shot which I feel is so much better of a composition. The saying really is true. It DOES matter where one stands to take a photograph!
Sony a7iv and 35mm. This scene reminded me of Arizona for some reason…perhaps the clouds…with the exception of colorful wildflowers swaying in the wind.
Sony a7iv and 35mm. I had no idea corporate buildings had a mailbox for junk mail!
Sony a7iv and 100-400mm. A Western Kingbird spots a fly (depicted by a black speck above).
Sony a7iv and 100-400mm. Butterfly on thistle.
Sony a7iv and 100-400mm. Butterfly on Thistle.
Sony a7iv and 100-400mm. A Scissor-tailed Flycatcher flying to its nest.

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