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When me and a buddy went to the Fort Worth Zoo there were TONS of freakin' kids out there, musta been 30 school buses in the parking lot. I was thinking I'd probably come down with the swine flu 'cause of those little bastards.
I told my fellow photog that I'd rather be on the other side with animals instead of being run past and knocked around by the human animals that were EVERYWHERE on our side.
But that's me. I love animals and hate humanity. Like my literary father figure, Charles Bukowski, said, "Humanity. You never had it from the beginning."
Go to the zoo sometime and you'll know what he means.
When we got to the lion area the big ol' boy, the King of the Jungle, was up on this rock sound asleep (click on photo for a closer look). Some kid said, "He needs to wake up." Which made me say, not too loud but loud enough for people within 10 feet of me to hear, "Yeah, if one of these parents would throw one of their fucking kids into the lion den that'd make him wake the fuck up."
Then, as I was zooming in and focusing my camera on the big ol' boy's face, I heard this little girl's voice.
She said, "You're a naughty man."
The truth, at last.
I thought this shot of an American Pink Flamingo ruled. I took it when I went to the Fort Worth Zoo, one of the world's best, with a fellow photographer from work and I ended up taking 214 shots in the hour and one half we were there. Had a great time taking shots of lions, a white tiger, elephants, birds, giraffes, antelope, rhinos, gorillas, etc.
I never seen a shot of a pink flamingo like this, have you? A straight on shot. Look at the intensity in those eyes (click on the photo to see the large size).
As far as photography goes I don't think of all the so-called rules, dude, because I don't care about the rules of photography. I don't think composition. I don't think about "the right time of day" to shoot a photograph. I don't "scout" out my "shoots" days in advance. I don't worry about that bull-friggin'-school taught-crap. All that schooling does is place limitations on your own creativity because you're thinking instead of doing.
The only thing I think about is this: I pick up my weapon of choice, the magnificent Nikon D700 full-frame digital SLR, aim it at whatever it is I want to take an image of and push down on the shutter button when I feel it's the right time. The "rule of thirds"? The "zoning" techniques and all that other technical mumbo gumbo photography nonsense I read all the time in photo mags? I have no use at all for any of it.
A guy at work said, like others at work have said when they've looked at the 8X10 photos I put up on my cubicle wall (hey, it's gallery space), "You have got a very good eye."
Yeah, I know I do. Why. I'm a very visual person. I was born with it. Charles Bukowski said we're "born into this" life without a choice but I do know that we're also born into this life with certain skills. Look, I'm not trying to brag here --- even though I am --- but it's a God given ability that I can shoot some terrific photos. I was blessed with a creative gene and I use that motherfucker the best I can. I take my art seriously.
Just as seriously as that pink flamingo is staring at me.
Was over at my sister's for something other than taking photos of her front yard flower garden but when I arrived I immediately got out my Nikon D700 and, with a Nikkor 50mm lens on it (it's the only one I had with me), I started firing off shots.
Of course, since I don't know jack about flowers but do like to take photos of them because I'm a big fan of colorful things, I don't know what kind of flower this is.
I know, I know. I should have asked my sister but I was too busy worrying about my camera settings to ask her what the names of them were.
But I've had two women, one from the Internet Tubes, and another I met recently, tell me they think it's a Rock Rose --- or in the Cistaceae family because there's nearly 200 different varieties.
I was driving around with my dad and we found ourselves downtown and he asked me if I wanted to get a photo of Fort Worth Champion Spring Service's sign. I said, "Hell, yeah," and he proceeded to pull right up on the curb.
I got out and snapped this photo. It's an old as hell neon sign. The place has been there since 1928. Their sign features a leaf spring and a shock absorber.
I think it may well be out of business because it was closed, locked up and there wasn't a car in either of its two lots, one on each side of the building.
And it's website address comes up with one of those obnoxious pages you get when a website is long gone, the one with advertising replacing the original website.
This classic beer joint, unfortunately long gone with the revamping of West 7th Street into Dallas West, was located a few blocks west of Montgomery Plaza.
Me and my good buddy, William Bryan Massey III, head cook at Fred's Texas Cafe, used to go to it regularly in the late '90s to drink beer and play darts.
The place had six dart boards and people would be playing at 2-3 of them most of the time we were there. It was simply a good time place. The crowd was older folks who enjoyed each other's company and their drinks and the dart games.
I used a Sony Mavica FD-91 1-megapixel camera that stored images on a floppy disk, and a top notch model in its day (the late '90s), to take this photo and because the photo was so shitty upon looking at it again while going through really old photos from days long past I worked my ass off in enlarging and improving its look by using two image editors, Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 and Capture NX.
Took this pic during one of the parties out at the Hardcore Texas ranch house in Aledo, Texas. It's called "hardcore" because the Texans who attend these get-togethers are hard to the core Texan sumbitches, fellas and gals who like to have a good time, good eats and good company.
William Bryan Massey III, poet laureate of Cowtown (click on link to watch a video of him reading his poem "White Pox") and head of kitchen at Fred's Texas Cafe, is out back walking around doing God knows what while I'm aiming my Nikon D50 for a shot of the back of the ranch house with a gorgeous Texas blue sky in the background.
This place is so old that water tank, used for the laundry room next to it, doesn't work and ain't got no water in it.
I call this shot the epitome of what white trash, redneck country livin' Texas is all about. It's a simple life with no noise from the busy city and no lights from that city either. Out at the ranch you can look up into the night sky and see the stars clear as day.
It's so quiet at night all you hear are the yowls of coyotes and the buzzin' of insects.
The HCTX ranch house is Texas, brutha, and nuthin' but Texas.
At our all night and into early morning parties we take bottles of Miller High Life or Schlitz out of ice and beer filled coolers, pop the tops off of them happy puppies and drink the refreshing alcoholic beverages down while sitting out on the porch smokin' cheap ass cigarettes and talkin' bullshit and listening to some turned up all the way rock 'n roll, whether it's Nirvana or Pantera.
Sometimes we get silly and grab the pump-action BB gun and take aim at shit out in the yard. Or toss horseshoes.
Once this restaurant's namesake, Vivian Courtney (click on her name to view a video tribute to her and photos of the inside of her restaurant), died in 2004 it was closed. The main building, which was as unique as the sign, was leveled (wished I'd taken a shot of it before it was bulldozed) but the place's unique sign remains to this day.
In fact, if you want the sign you can have it. John T. Roberts posted this @ Fort Worth Architecture, "If anyone is interested, the old neon Vivian Courtney's Restaurant sign is available to anyone who wishes to take it away. It is a two-sided exposed neon sign with the letter 'V' on top. It sits at the corner of Jacksboro Highway and Roberts Cut-Off Road @ 5915 Jacksboro Highway. I tried to find a home for it with two organizations but they did not have a place to put it. Now I'm offering it to anyone who thinks they can remove it and preserve it. The sign is about 28 feet tall and about 12 feet wide at the widest point."
Me and my friends ate their several times. It was a cool a place, with photos and posters from Old Hollywood --- we're talkin' John Wayne, Elvis Presley, Gone With The Wind, etc. --- hanging on the walls and in each booth there were equipped with miniture jukeboxes that really worked. You put in a quarter and got to choose three songs.
It had a buffet at lunch or you could order off the menu. The eats were simple good ol' white trash cuisine dishes.
A beautiful place that is now in the dustbin of history. Too bad. To me, the old stuff is, and still will be, the best stuff.
Yeah, as I get older I cherish the good ol' days more.
Yes, I'm sentimental but that comes with age and there's nothing wrong with getting older because you get smarter and realize that the modern stuff is just stuff that's not worth a damn (iPods & cell phones, for example) in my opinion.
My sister, seen here holding Hankette, told me she heard a strange crying sound while she was downstairs in her house when it was raining heavily in Fort Worth, Texas, one day. The sound, she said, was coming from my youngest nephew's bedroom on the second floor of their house. His bedroom windows were open and when they're opened they allow one to crawl onto the back roof. My sister said she went upstairs to investigate.
"I knew it was some kind of animal," she told me. She saw a clump of wet fur on the roof. "I thought it was a rat or maybe a squirrel."
Turns out it was an almost new born kitten.
"Maybe a bird or something got it from it's mother and dropped it there," she opined. "For such a tiny thing she sure was making a lot of noise."
I went over to her house and took pics of the little sweeit pie. I told her to call her Hankette, after Charles Bukowski, since she was found drenched, like a "wet rat in the rain", which paraphrases a line from the movie BARFLY, which Bukowski penned and Mickey Rourke starred in as Bukowski's alter ego, Henry Chinaski.
She couldn't keep Hankette since she already had two beagles and a husband allergic to cats and said she would give her to a rescue shelter or an interested party once she was big enough.
My sister was feeding Hankette with a special feeding bottle and formula for baby cats that she got at PetSmart. Despite my protests my sister said she didn't want to name it Hankette, preferring Yoda based on her little tiny droopy ears.
"I'm not gonna keep her so I don't want to name her anything."
See, if you name an animal you automatically become attached to it and that means it's yours.
Claps of applause go out to my sister for saving a life.
UPDATE: My sister found a couple who wanted a little kitten to spoil. They told her they would get another kitten so Hankette would have a half-brother or half-sister for companionship. "I wouldn't have given them Hankette if they had not made a positive impression on me."
When me and a buddy went to the Fort Worth Zoo there were TONS of freakin' kids out there, musta been 30 school buses in the parking lot. I was thinking I'd probably come down with the swine flu 'cause of those little bastards.
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