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Almost a year ago, I had a great experience at the Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont.  The Fall Photo Workshop pumped and refreshed my love of both the mountains and photography.  Over three days, the 20+ attendees hiked over ridge lines to waterfalls, awoke before dawn to drive to sunrise vistas, stumbled in the brush among old abandoned cabins, and setup tripods in the middle of ice-cold streams while taking hundreds of pictures. A few weeks ago, I received an email from the Institute inviting me to attend again, but due to work commitments, it just isn't doable.  But they also added that Will Clay, the instructor for the past couple of decades was retiring from teaching the class after this fall.  As part of the celebration, they asked prior attendees to each send one or two pictures from their time at the workshop. So, I began looking through my pictures for two to send.  I went through the ones we self-selected as our best at the workshop, and picked one of a

Its down to 80 at 7pm with only 52% humidity and a nice wind out of the north!  It may not seem like much, but it's enough of a change to make walking in the evening a pleasure.   We might see 90 once or twice more, but the cooler weather is a very nice change.

We first discovered swamp hibiscus in Dan Gill's Louisiana Gardeners Guide while looking for perinnial flowering plants for our house off East Broussard in 2003.   Hibiscus moscheutos  are prolific, low maintenance, moisture loving plants that regularly grow back more profusely each year. We planted a few at our Elmhurst Park home after we moved in a few years ago. The five, 1-gallon nursery plants have become a ten foot wall of blooms. Here is one of this morning's blooms: The blooms are one-dayers, so we always try to enjoy them before we leave for work, as they'll be droopy by late afternoon.  You may have to hunt for them, we found ours at a locally-owned nursery. When cold weather arrives just let them die off. Cut off the dead stalks before spring. Straight green shoots will start appearing in late march to late April. As they grow, you may decide a lattice would be helpful to keep the stems upright.  Give it a try! FWIW, we live in Lafayette, LA, USDA Hardiness Zone

After almost two months, I received my Olympus E-M5 back from shutter repair at Olympus Service, and all seems well, so far.  I have a six month warranty n the repair, so I need to shoot a bunch of pictures! After receiving the E-M5 back a couple of weeks ago, I didn't have much chance to use it due to work, but this past weekend I put it to use. We went up to watch daughter-in-law Amanda's graduation from Graduate school, and other than a couple of shots, kept the m.zuiko 45/1.8 on the camera the entire time. Jack The 45mm lens -- particularly at wide apertures like f1.8, produces a wonderful out-of-focus background, providing great separation for the subject.  And the wide 1.8 means that available light photos are the norm. Watching Dad The E-M5 has a focus setting that detects eyes -- you can select preferences for the nearest eye, the right ey, the left eye, or let the camera select an eye to focus on.  In eye-focus mode it does a good job of not getting

This winter has been a challenge keeping my weight down.  Our old house is very cold in cold weather. I put my instant read thermometer on my counter Tuesday afternoon and it read 72f.  Then I put it on the floor: 47.  Needless to say, when you're cold, you want hearty meals. Gumbo. Chili. Stewed chicken. Chicken paprikash. All with rice and thick gravy, with Albertsons fresh French bread.  Oh, can't forget good old Chicken Mac. The last thing you want is a cold salad. So the pounds pile on.  But starting yesterday, temps have been rising, and we may have broken the long, cold winter. So today, I started back trying to eat smarter.   I had a wonderful boiled shrimp salad with fat-free Ranch dressing -- it was filling and wonderful. Maybe I'm back on the right track...