Tag Archives: photography

David B. Coe, Not at all Writing Related

Photo Friday: The Little Things

Good morning. I am welcoming the end of what has been a difficult week. I am distancing from some news, though certainly not all. I am avoiding some social media, but again, not all. And I am trying to find my own personal equilibrium, an emotional place from which I can function and observe and comment without tipping over into obsessing and panicking. Not easy in today’s world.

Fortunately, I still live in a beautiful place and I still have my morning walks. Recently, on a cool, wet, foggy morning, I found this droplet-covered bloom of what I believe is Grassleaf Golden Aster. Wonders, large and small, are all around us, if only we pause long enough to see and appreciate them. I try each day to remind myself of this.

I wish you all a lovely weekend. Stay safe, be kind, keep the faith. See you next week.

Fall Aster and Dew, by David B. Coe

David B. Coe, Not at all Writing Related

Photo Friday: On Our Golden Pond

It’s not quite fall here on the Cumberland Plateau, but the days are cooling off, the nights are crisp and lovely, and the sunlight is taking on that autumn quality.

Earlier this week, late on a still, golden afternoon, I walked down to the pond near our home and snapped this photo.

My life does not feel very peaceful these days. I am struggling, to be honest, and I am desperately in need of the sort of calm conveyed by this photo. I wish I could bottle it, and give myself a small dose whenever necessary. Sadly, life doesn’t work that way.

I wish all of you a peaceful weekend. Be safe, be kind to one another.

Pond Reflections, by David B. Coe

Blogging, David B. Coe, Not at all Writing Related

Photo Friday: Three Butterflies

Butterfly season is winding down here in Tennessee. We may get a few fall species before the weather turns cold, but many of the summer regulars are gone now. We had a slow start to our butterfly watching, but in the last few weeks of summer we made up for it. I’ve posted other photos already, here, here, and here.

Today, I offer one more collection of images. The butterfly with the bold eye spots on the wings is a Common Buckeye, one of my favorites. The small yellow one is a Sleepy Orange, and the butterfly with the complex pattern has a name to match: the Variegated Fritillary.

I hope all of you have a wonderful weekend. Stay safe, be kind to one another. See you Monday.

Common Buckeye, by David B. Coe
Sleepy Orange, by David B. Coe
Variegated Fritillary, by David B. Coe

Blogging, David B. Coe, LonTobyn Chronicle

Photo Friday: A Gift From Amarid

As Jaryd and Alayna reached the bottom of the marble stairs and stepped onto the cobblestone street, people from the crowd approached them. The first to reach the pair was a young girl, accompanied by her mother, who stopped in front of Alayna and dropped a small feather into the woven basket the mage had been handed moments before.
“Wear your cloak well, Daughter of Amarid,” the girl said softly, with a glance back at her mother. “May Arick guard you.”
Alayna had no time to thank the girl. A young man placed an­other feather in her basket, and said solemnly. “Wear your cloak well, Daughter of Amarid, and may Arick guard you.”
An elderly man placed a feather in Jaryd’s basket. “Wear your cloak well, Son of Amarid, and may Arick guard you,” he said with a wink and a grin.
So it went for the entire journey around the Great Hall and through the streets of the city to the First Mage’s home. The procession wound through the darkened streets, which were lined with crowds of people. And as they walked, literally hundreds of men, women, and children approached Jaryd and Alayna, dropped feathers in their baskets, and welcomed them to the Order with the ritual greeting. Some smiled, or even laughed, while others remained serious, but all seemed sincere in wishing the mages well.

I’ll admit it. Since writing Children of Amarid, my first novel, I have thought of the feathers I find as “gifts from Amarid.” For those unfamiliar with the LonTobyn books, my mages, the so-called Children of Amarid, drew their magic from the psychic bond they formed with avian familiars — usually hawks, eagles, falcons, or owls. With every act of magic they performed in service to the land, they left a single feather as a token of their devotion.

This particular feather, which I found on my morning walk yesterday, originally belonged to a Blue Jay. I’m grateful to him or her for leaving it for me.

I wish you a weekend filled with unexpected wonders, large and small. Stay safe, be kind to one another.

Blue Jay Feather, by David B. Coe

Blogging, David B. Coe

Photo Friday: Another Butterfly — Appalachian Brown

Welcome to this week’s Photo Friday post. Early in the summer, Nancy and I lamented the lack of butterflies in her garden, at least relative to recent years. Well, no more. The past few weeks have been butterfly-rich, and I have no doubt that I’ll be sharing more such photos with you in the weeks to come.

For today…

This lovely fellow, recently stopped by to hang out on the Black-Eyed Susans. He is an Appalachian Brown, a larger relative to the Little Wood Satyr I posted here back in late May. He’s a fairly unusual butterfly for an open garden, preferring moist, denser woodlands. But as you can see, he was very cooperative and let me get right up close for my photo.

It has been another crazed, disturbing week, and I, for one, am ready for a quiet, disconnected-from-the-world weekend. But today, once more, I am reminded that there is beauty and calm and solace to be found in the simple pleasures nature affords.

I wish you peace, laughter, and joy this Labor Day weekend. Be safe. Be kind to one another. Enjoy time with the people you love.

Appalachian Brown, by David B. Coe

Blogging, David B. Coe

Photo Friday: Late-Afternoon Vista, and a Message

Last Friday, at the end of another week of work and screaming headlines, I spent my late afternoon, exploring our little college town, enjoying the golden light and ever-changing cloudscapes. As I’ve mentioned before, our town is perched atop the Cumberland Plateau, and we are fortunate to have several viewpoints that offer dramatic vistas of the valley and extensions of the plateau. This particular one, which faces north, is called Green’s View. Nancy and I lived a short walk from it many, many years ago, when our first daughter was just a baby. Despite the passage of more than twenty years, the view has remained stunningly beautiful.

This has been sad, painful week — another police shooting, more protests, another senseless act of gun violence, a national convention that offered little more than falsely apocalyptic warnings, blindly revisionist history, and a cult of worship for a man who deserves anything but.

And so I offer this simple image as a reminder — to you and for myself — that beauty remains in our world, that even as things seem to be getting darker and harder, there remain places of peace and solace untouched by the passage of years. We will get through this. Better days lie ahead.

I wish you a peaceful weekend filled with laughter and love. Stay safe, be kind to one another.Green's View, Late Afternoon, by David B. Coe

Blogging, David B. Coe

Photo Friday: Sunset Among Friends

Last weekend we had a socially-distanced get together with friends at the home of one of the couples. Their house, as it happens, sits right on the bluff in our little corner of the Cumberland Plateau, looking west and north toward Nashville.

It was a glorious evening. Cool, breezy, clear. During the course of the night, we were treated to the calls of Eastern Screen Owls and Great Horned Owls, a few beautiful shooting stars courtesy of the Perseid meteor shower, and this stunning sunset.

Best of all, we had a lovely evening with friends — talking, laughing, catching up, feeling at least somewhat normal in this time of historic abnormality.

Wishing you a weekend of simple joys. Be safe, be kind, take care of one another.

Bluff Sunset, by David B. Coe

Blogging, David B. Coe

Photo Friday: Thinleaf Coneflower

Happy Friday, all. Another week has drawn to a close — another spate of news, some of it maddening, some of it tragic, some of it uplifting. And another set of work tasks — editing, writing, revising, online convention panels. Even stuck at home, with the pandemic continuing to tightly circumscribe my life, I feel that from week to week I’m doing different things and struggling with new emotions.

The one constant in my routine is my morning walk. A bit over three miles on the rails-to-trails path not too far from our home. This week, I found a bloom I hadn’t noticed before. Superficially, it resembles the Black-eyed Susans blooming in Nancy’s garden, but it’s substantially smaller — the plant itself and the blossoms. A bit of research leads me to believe this is Thinleaf Coneflower, but I could be wrong.

Whatever it is, it’s beautiful.

I wish you a wonderful weekend. Stay safe, be good to one another.

Thinleaf Coneflower, by David B. Coe

David B. Coe, Not at all Writing Related

Photo Friday: Fifteen Years Ago Today

Today’s Photo Friday images were captured exactly fifteen years ago — August 7, 2005. We had moved to Australia for the year only days before, leaving the States on August 1 and arriving at Sydney Airport August 3 (it’s an International Dateline thing). After taking a few days to settle into our home in Wollongong, along the Illawarra Coast south of Sydney, we went up to the big city to explore.

Erin, our younger daughter, who was all of six at the time, wanted to touch the Sydney Opera House. It wasn’t enough to see it, we had to touch it. Hence the picture of Nancy, Alex, and Erin doing just that. And, I’ll admit that, after snapping the photo, I touched the Opera House as well. It would have been bad luck not to.

We had a glorious day in Sydney — we visited museums, shopped, ate out, got ice cream, walked across the Harbour Bridge. Several months later, as our memorable year Down Under was drawing to a close, we returned to the Opera House to see a magnificent production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute.

Honestly, I can’t believe it’s been fifteen years.

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend. Stay safe. Be kind to one another.Family at the Sydney Opera House Sydney Opera House and family

Blogging, David B. Coe, Not at all Writing Related, Uncategorized

Photo Friday: Silvery Checkerspot

Another crazy week gone by, another month in the books for 2020: the year that lasted forever and yet somehow flew by. I honestly don’t understand what has happened to my sense of time.

This butterfly has been hanging around in Nancy’s garden, mostly on the Cheyenne Spirit Echinacea, with two of his friends. He is a Silvery Checkerspot, a not-so-common garden and open country butterfly that can be found in much of the Eastern U.S. With his wings open, he is barely two inches across. I won’t tell you how many photos I had to take of him to get a couple of good ones. Let’s just say he wasn’t the most cooperative butterfly I’ve ever encountered…

Wishing you a wonderful weekend. Be well, be good to one another.Silvery Checkerspot I, by David B. Coe

Silvery Checkerspot II, by David B. Coe