Not long after our good friend Dale Young passed away, I asked a friend of ours if I could go over to his place to take some pictures.  I had an idea rolling around in my head I really wanted to capture and he was kind enough to oblige.  Once there I tried to put some thought into what about the condo made it “his place”; what I was after was a picture of him, without him.  At the time, I had no idea how hard it would be to do that, or how hard it would be to “finish” a project like this.  It has been almost two years of picking it up and putting it down, but today, on what would have been his 75th birthday, I’m happy to finally share it.

    From the house shoes I used to harass him about, to the old books he loved to collect, to his favorite “after dinner drink” and the ornate appointments of his home, it was all secondary to his chair.  Dale would greet you at the door with a smile, a pat on the back and a “come on in here!”, and then we’d solve the world’s problems while he sat in that chair.  It was the kind of chair you just sort of fell in to, and then might need help getting out of, and frankly it’s the one thing of his that would likely reduce me to tears if I saw it in person today.  Of all his belongings, nothing says W. Dale to me quite like that chair.

Happy Birthday old friend.

–Dan Thompson

    Last week I mentioned that I had recently spotted some blue flowers and some white flowers in my neighbor’s yard, so I thought I would share the white ones this week.  I’m not sure why, but I thoroughly enjoy taking these close up pictures of flowers.  These images usually take a while to setup and photograph, and I generally end up putting way more thought into them than the more sweeping photos.  Something about that attention to detail is fun for me.

    Speaking of attention to detail, I hope you’ll join me next week for a very special Picture of the Week I have made as a tribute to an old friend.  I have worked on next week’s image for almost two years and it has become something very personal to me; frankly I am both extremely happy and scared to death to put it out there for all to see.

–Dan Thompson

    So a couple weeks ago I started to launch into a series on Spring flowers, but then got distracted with other things here on Picture of the Week. Ooops… oh well.  Anyway, instead of a series I supposed I’ll just pepper them in for a bit and see what happens.

    Earlier this Spring as I was driving down our hill I happened to glance over in a neighbor’s yard and noticed a couple clumps of blue flowers and a couple clumps of white flowers that seemed to be just growing randomly.  I walked over to investigate and this is one that I found.  I was first looking for a symmetrical one but ended up liking this one the best… something about the flopped over top and the brilliant blue color struck me.  I have no idea what kind of flower it is, but it was cool anyway!

–Dan Thompson

    A few weeks ago I decided to go up to the Foothills Parkway fire tower to work on another star trails shot there with the tower.  I knew it was going to be a full moon that night so I got there just as soon as the sun went down and setup my shot.  As if right on cue, when I was done taking my star trails shot the moon came up over the horizon and it struck me that what I was watching was probably better than what I had been working on.   Sometimes… that happens.

–Dan Thompson

    I have to say that being in Cades Cove first thing in the morning is always an awesome experience.  When my nephew and I went a couple weeks ago we were hoping for nice sunrise colors for a landscape shot or two, and while we weren’t blessed with that, we were blessed with some nice warm light and a good number of deer that didn’t mind their picture being taken.  This trio was hanging around Hyatt Lane when one of the bunch decided to leap over the fence.  So cool!

–Dan Thompson

   I mentioned last week that my nephew and I had bummed around Cades Cove on Good Friday and I had a few more images I wanted to share.  You may have noticed that I’m mentioning my macro lens more and more, and frankly it is my favorite lens right now.  I’ve been really enjoying taking detail shots lately because it forces me to slow down and just look at things to find either interesting points of view or possibly to point out things that a casual observer may have missed; this week’s picture I hope does the latter.

    I have stated several times before how fascinated I am by the craftsmanship of our ancestors; a lot of which is on display in Cades Cove.  As I was standing there checking out this cart, which is beside a barn near the Cable mill, I was really interested in how the hub of this wheel was put together.  Neat stuff!

–Dan Thompson

    I was fortunate to have this past Friday off from work as my company was closed in observance of Good Friday, so my nephew and I decided to head up to Cades Cove.  We arrived at the Cove in time for sunrise but nothing spectacular was happening in the sky and the clouds were rolling in quickly as the morning progressed, so we shot around inside a few of the churches in the loop.  It occurred to me as I was sitting in this Missionary Baptist Church and looking out the window at the many graves, that the people who attended this little church so many years ago lived much different lives than we do but yet struggled with sin just the way we do today, and that the same Savior died for their sins as did mine.  Such an amazing truth.

Happy Easter friends!

–Dan Thompson

   It may not feel like it outside today here in East Tennessee, but Spring has officially arrived here in the Northern Hemisphere.  We had enough warm weather last weekend for the flowers to really start blooming everywhere… just in time for a cold snap to come through and turn all their vibrant colors a little dingy.   Before that though, I did have a chance to go out and do some playing around with my macro lens!  This week’s picture of the week is a bee’s eye view (as Holly has described it) of a periwinkle bloom.  Here’s hoping this cold weather moves back out again so we can all go out and enjoy nature some more!

–Dan Thompson

   This past week the Panstarrs comet came in to view here in the Northern Hemisphere and I was lucky enough to get out to photograph it.  Some friends of mine and I headed up to the Foothills Parkway and got pictures of it from the Look Rock fire tower.  The comet itself was very faint and would have been impossible to find unassisted.  There is, however, another comet that is supposed to pass by earth this fall that should be visible easily with the naked eye… so I would expect to see another comet on POTW later this year!

–Dan Thompson

     Running in to a rhino in the wild sounds like a pretty neat experience (and truth be told… it was) but then it occurs to you that there is a WILD rhino standing right there!

    While Holly and I were touring around Nepal and China, one of the things I really wanted to do was go to Chitwan National Park and see the northern white rhinos that live there in the jungles (and maybe see the tigers, which we didn’t see).  We have never been to Africa (yet), so this was really our first real safari experience with a good number of exotic animals.  Leading up to this particular citing, Holly and I had seen rhinos while touring the jungle on elephant back and in a canoe.  While on the elephants, the rhinos really pay you no mind and in the canoe they just seem annoyed by you and walk away.  This particular adventure though was on foot.   After leaving the canoe we walked through the forest which was amazing!  As we were walking, troops of monkeys would run by about 20 or 30 yards away and you would hear noises and calls not found back in the States.  Then we reached a bank that dropped off about 15 feet down to the river basin.  The grasses down there were tall and thick and your mind races with what could possibly be hiding down there.

    Our guide Brahma scanned the area and then spotted this big guy chowing down on the vegetation and excitedly pointed him out.  We were standing next to a good sized… dead… tree and Brahma suggested I climb it to get a better vantage point for my pictures.  With his help I scurried up the tree to a giant limb and started clicking away.  Just like on the Discovery Channel, birds kept landing on its back and right on cue they all faced the same direction.  About that time I heard Holly say something to our guide; I turned to look just in time to see Brahma pick up a large chunk of wood.  Interesting.  Holly asked if I was in danger; he responded “Oh, he’s fine up there”.  He shook the log and said “just in case”.  LOL Oh, right… we’re not at a zoo!

–Dan Thompson