Henry Powderly » NaBloPoMo09

Photo: The plum-blot test

Henry E. Powderly II — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 10:43:42 +0000

This morning the baby is restless, so I only have time for a quick post. Luckily, I’ve been saving this photo for exactly this occasion.

First, I promise, I did not doctor this photo, which I took in my kitchen, other than change the color mode to sepia.

It may look like an ordinary red plum, but can you see the face in the middle? And once you see it, can you stop seeing it and just see the plum again?

And what shall we name our dark-haired screamer?

On the 1 Train

Henry E. Powderly II — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 11:05:26 +0000

The empty platform, temperate, smells like wet stone and musk, smoke and metal. The young man steadies himself against the tile wall as his friends laugh and chatter, waiting for the train at the earliest brink of morning.

The woman, old and fat, she drips with jewelery and is draped with patterns, an heiress from Dominica, Lola, she had thrown the young man a party earlier at her small West Village flat. He’d written her a song, a simple bossa, gave her the original score and he never imagined it would make her so happy. He’d never been the guest of honor before, other than birthdays, which you really don’t have to do anything to be celebrated. She’d made gazpacho and bought him a bottle of his favorite Scotch. They sat and laughed, he sneered with his roommate because the bassist wasn’t aware she’d flashed her crotch when she sat Indian style on the floor.

At last the train comes, and the scotch bottle is half empty. He hides the bottle under a wool poncho he borrowed from Lola, his arms tucked around it. The train is empty, and the rattle of the metal wheels, the clack like snares in a parade band, is loud. The train tosses. He sits back on the hard yellow seat, reading the advertisements and the messages and monograms etched in the steel walls. He sips, while another rider, also on his dark morning ride home, watches him sip. Tomorrow he will roll out of bed in the afternoon, drink water and smoke a cigarette. He’ll head to school, and on a polished saxophone he’ll play jazz with his friends. He’ll eat Jamaican patties on 125th street, and finish the Scotch over a game of dominoes at night.

While the 1 Train travels back and forth.

The hot platform, full and humid, smells like an old tub, like rust and roasted nuts, like a mud puddle. The man adjusts his computer bag, sweats in his khakis and checks his mobile phone for messages from the office.

He finds an empty yellow seat and he sits, adjusts his computer bag and crosses his legs. He can still taste the morning coffee he brewed in a French Press, at his home on Long Island, where he’d awoken to give his infant daughter a bottle. He had smiled at her when she grabbed his fingers and cooed while she drank. He checks his phone for messages from work as the train clacks and sways, a muted rhythm. He reads the advertisements and the marks roughed into the metal walls where he stares at his reflection. He’s gotten fat, and his hair is thin.

Later, he will head to a luncheon to listen to speakers talk about technology and business. They’ll read results from the study and show charts decorated in colors and dotted lines while he takes notes. They’ll serve wine, which he loves, but he will only have one glass. When it is done he will ride the subway back to Penn station, where he will catch a train to Long Island. In the blue cushioned seat, watching Queens roll by like a reel of film, he’ll open his computer to work on articles and send messages. He’ll think about his daughter and his wife, about the lawn he has to cut this weekend. He’ll fret when his laptop battery loses power. At night he’ll read Whitman and Goodnight Moon to his daughter, he’ll cook dinner for his family and fall asleep before the late shows run on television.

While the 1 Train travels back and forth.

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Photos: Self portraits in glass ball

Henry E. Powderly II — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 10:41:11 +0000

You’ve likely seen those lawn ornaments, shiny, colored glass orbs, the size of soccer balls, that sit on stone pedestals. They’re usually iridescent, glowing a variety of hues of one main color. Well, this weekend I used one at in-laws place to take a few self portraits, using my reflection in these decorative spheres.

The balls give an automatic fish eye effect to the photos, but the multicolored filter that it puts on the shots is wonderful. Also, the dried dirt and dust on the orb created a very nice texture, which stands out more when I changed the photo format to sepia or black and white.

Enjoy.

Photos: The flower coasters

Henry E. Powderly II — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 10:54:17 +0000

My obsession with flower photos took a different turn last weekend.

Amidst all of the junk my family had cleared out of our barn to sell at the yard sale was a stack of plastic coasters that had yellow flowers embedded in them. That alone gave them a pressed, almost paper look. But when I photographed them with different backgrounds the results were wonderful. Against the blinding summer sun the flowers lost their color, turning to shadowy cutouts. Though, against a white backgrounds the thin yellow details of the preserved petals were stunning. In one case, when held up to the sky, the flowers looks like they were swimming in liquid.

I put a few effects on some of them, black-and-white to draw attention to the patterns, and sepia in one for the same effect with a little warmth.

Enjoy.

Music: My piano is chanting

Henry E. Powderly II — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 10:29:54 +0000

Today I share a piece of music, Chant 1, which is last piano piece I’ve written in a while.

The general idea of the piece was to create a melody and to repeat it, each time adding a new note to the harmony. The motive, which is played in unison with its harmonies for the entire piece, starts out as a two part harmony, later picks up a third, fourth and lastly fifth voice.

I chose “Chant” because of the choral nature of the melody, and perhaps I will score it for choir one day. For now, I like how it functions as a piano piece.

Click to Listen:

Chant

And if you’d like to print out the score and play it yourself, be my guest.

And now, the cover of The Host

Henry E. Powderly II — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 10:48:37 +0000

Yesterday I posted the first chapter of “The Host,” and I received a little bit of feedback mostly from Twitter, so thank you. Though my claim that I was done fiddling with it is easier said than done.

But, aside from having to polish what is now my third draft into a final edit, self publishing means I have to come up with a cover, too. Well, I’ve been working on it.

So far, only the front cover is done, and I’d love feedback. Here are a couple of things I did. I took a photo of the back my neck and posterized it in Photoshop to get the main silhouette. I did the same thing to an image of a tick, which I placed on the back of the neck. Also, I used stock art of a lunar eclipse.

As for the title, I spent a lot of time trying to find a font that I liked and kept coming up empty. In the end, I decided to write the title myself in marker, to scan it, and place it in the center with an outer glow around it to match the eclipse. I think it works.

Perhaps the hardest part, however, was figuring out where to put my name, what font to use, what size. I looked at countless book covers, and there is no consensus. I’ve finally settled on streching it across the bottom using a san-serif font.

I’m a fair designer, but no expert, so any criticism would be a big help.

The Host, cover, take two

Old photos of an old city

Henry E. Powderly II — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 06:26:14 +0000

A few years ago my company shipped me to New Orleans for a few days for an “Editors Boot Camp,” a workshop on how to best shape and present a news article. I spent most of the time in the hotel, talking shop. But three were a few times when I was able to sneak out and explore the French Quarter. I loved the balconies dripping with green grasses and tropical houseplants, the voodoo shops, the muffuletta (putting pickled olives, peppers and veggies on on sandwich is inspired), the chicory coffee, and the lights and overblown tomfoolery of Bourbon Street at night.

I had a tremendous dinner of oysters and barbecue shrimp, New Orleans style, a dish I’ve been craving ever since.

At the time, I didn’t have a camera, so I had to use my (crappy) Palm Treo to take a few shots. There are a couple of good ones, featuring the famous Preservation Hall and the house William Faulkner wrote his first book in.

It was only a two-day trip, with little free time, but it was enough for the jazz city to stick to me. I can’t wait to get back.

Photo: The larvae in the water

Henry E. Powderly II — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 10:25:08 +0000

It’s the cardinal rule in keeping down mosquito numbers: Don’t let water pool up in the various pits and vessels around your house. I know I’ve had to empty the stone planters in front of my home a few times this year, given all of the rain we’ve had.

The reason is mosquitoes, which carry West Nile disease in the area I live in. Then lay their eggs in these pools. After they hatch, the larvae swim in the fetid water until they develop their wings and fly from the surface.

A few weeks ago, while I was at my mother-in-law’s house, I noticed a deep metal cauldron at her house filled with a dirty, viridescent broth. Hundreds of mosquito larvae were swimming in the water.

I managed to grab a great photo of one, though the cauldron was too heavy to turn over myself. The larva likely grew to adulthood and drank the blood of some deer in the woods.

The best photo I’ve ever taken

Henry E. Powderly II — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 10:32:33 +0000

Not this one

What started out as a simple interest in taking photos of the beautiful flowers I walk by on a daily basis as turned into an obsession. If I see a flower, I must take a photo of it. And if I don’t have my camera, I get really frustrated that I have forgotten it.

So, my Canon’s been in my pocket a lot these days, including the July 4 weekend, when a usual stroll through the park my in-laws live in led to perhaps the best photograph I’ve ever taken.

On the path, a waxy rhododendron plant was beginning to bloom. Some of the buds were still closed, small, pink cones rising out of a white husk, while some a had bloomed into delicate flowers. My favorite part of a rhododendron flower is the green stenciling that decorates only one of its five petals.

The photos came out great but there was one shot that stood out. When I took the photo, the flower was surrounded by a dark shadow. Later, I switched it to black and white, bumped up the contrast a little, and the result is this brilliant image of the flower swimming in darkness. I love it.

So here they all are. I trust you’ll know which one is the best photo I’ve ever taken.

The last to light up

Henry E. Powderly II — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 10:48:19 +0000

In the summer, at dusk, the lighting bugs turn my backyard into an electric metropolis of blinking and dancing lights that usually goes black by 9 p.m. So last night I was surprised when at 9:30 there was one bug left flashing in the dark.

It made me wonder, was it the leader, the only regal bug with the stamina to flash from dusk to dark? Or was it the only bug left that had not paired off with a mate attracted to his flare.

Or perhaps he had slept in. I’m going with the king of the lightning bugs theory.

A few days ago I tried to take a few long exposure pictures of my yard, hoping to capture the whole scene of these flickering insects putting on a light show out back. I expected the photo to be overflowing with yellow lines, with clusters of glowing bands coming up from the ground. But the photos came out far less dramatic than I thought they would.

Still, I did capture a few on camera, and the photos are rather creepy. In some cases you have to look pretty close to see all of the little yellow streaks.