A fellow educator friend of mine and I went back up into the Creek Fire area near Shaver Lake. Pineridge Elementary School is at the top of four lanes on Highway 168. The school was saved, but the playground was right next to the road and the fire jumped over it and burned the vegetation bordering the school playground. It broke my heart to see their play structure looking like this. They're doing distance learning and will be coming back to their recess fun looking like this.

To the right of where I took this picture was a chain link fence bordering the parking lot. The kids had put up dozens of signs thanking the fire fighters for saving their school. I will be putting up that picture soon. It was really emotional to me to see the destruction right next to such positive messages. It could have been worse.

Centennial Park, Sarnia

The fun things you can do on a play structure.

52 Weeks of 2018

Week No: 14

Theme: A Child's Perspective

Category: Creative

Don't use this image on websites, blogs or other media without explicit permission.

© All rights reserved

Photos taken at Mt Tabor Park in Portland, Oregon for Our Daily Challenge: A Child's View.

And December Scavenge Challenge #12 What's the weather like in your hemisphere?

All photos, taken on a foggy morning, are SOOC.

Sigma 50mm Art sample JPEG shots straight out of EOS 5D3. All wide open.

Canon F-1 N camera. Canon FDn 50 mm f/1.2 L aspherical SSC lens. Agfa APX 100 film @ 100. Self developed in Instant Mytol non-aqueous 1 + 39 (similar to Xtol 1:1) for 10 mins. 20 C. Digitized by DSLR. The subject appears to experience exultation in finishing the obstacle course.

On the play structure

Another abstract bit. Nothing has been added to this photo except a slight manipulation of the color curves.

I'm not even going to let you guess what this is because no one will get it. While my daughter Gia went up and down a small slide on top of a play structure, this is a picture of a small opening in between the bars.

Now after I pimp-tified it, I don't see that anymore. Here is what I *do* see, can you spot them too?

1. Chef with a mustache holding a pie and a menu.

2. A Sundae with whipped cream on top.

3. An underwater sea creature

4. The silhouette of a black cat

CLUE: A real spider web from the actual pic can be seen around the "pie"

CLUE #2: A leaf from the actual pic can be seen near the "whipped cream" on the sundae.

In other news, the cowboy has a +1.5 baseball cap hat advantage in the latest Vegas odds over pimp.

Vegas: pseudo +1.5 @ pimp

Over/Under: 40 Top Hats

Money Line: +140 Beanies

I think I'll announce the fight date with picture 364 of my already completed but not yet posted 365-project. Anyone wanna be special guest referee?

Still on the playground, lying in the snow; still in the cold.

GIMPist: adjust brightness and contrast, unsharp mask.

Morning frost lingers on this plaque, crediting a young man for his Eagle Scout project.

Rose poses on the ship in Kid's Kingdom at the Bristol Renaissance Faire in the costume she decided to wear that day. She used the scarf in two different ways during the day, sometimes in her hair, and sometimes as a veil. I think she thought it made her look more piratical.

Griftpark, Blaukapelseweg, Utrecht

My lens wasn't really that wide; I used a 12-24mm f/4 Dx on a D300 for this shot. I'd love to retake this with a fisheye one day.

Taken at a local school's play structure. If you click here you will see my daughter smiling proudly after climbing to the very top.

jungle gym seen through a "climbing hole" in another play structure at the playground

* * *

IMG_4976

[25:52]

Superman never made any money

For saving the world from Solomon Grundy

And sometimes I despair the world will never see

Another man like him

Superman's Song - Crash Test Dummies

-----

Well, after totally dropping the ball last week and missing my chance to shoot a father's day picture, Dad and I were able to get a photo in this week.

You know how most women worry about turning into their mothers? I'm pretty sure that's not something I need to worry about, because the man I'm goofing about with in this shot and I are very alike. Mom always says "Ugh, you're so much like your Father", which doesn't seem like a bad thing to me. I'm pretty sure I'll turn into him, and as long as I don't lose as much hair, I don't see a problem with that. He's pretty awesome (and I'm not just saying that because of our similarities, although, that helps too)

Thanks for being a trooper and shooting with me Dad! Sorry I messed up my weeks and skipped a Father's day photo, I'm glad we were able to reschedule!

I'm a bit disappointed with the quality of this shot, the focus could have been sharper and a bunch of other things, but c'est la vie right?

Hope everyone has had a good week!

Click "L" for a larger view.

July 26, 2013

I went to the park at dusk on a rumour that a massive murder of crows were at the ballfield. They had gone, but the sunset was lovely.

I wasn't upside-down; she was.

Back to my school yearbook duties. Taken during Back to School Night when parents were inside the classrooms and some of the kids were playing in the schoolyard.

Before dawn again, trudging through snow, cold, and darkness to get to this structure (at a different park). Lying on my back, shooting up, with every flash I wondered whether someone was watching from a neighboring house.

~James Openheim

yep, another birthday balloon image; I can't even promise this will be the last one. :)

Octopus play structure in Hattori Ryokuchi Koen park in Osaka, Japan.

The weather was pretty warm for February this weekend and so we took the opportunity to get outside and head to the playground. Slides are an endless source of fun.

A pretty simple snapshot but I had no inspiration for anything else yesterday and in my opinion getting to the end of a 365 day project requires a certain relaxing of standards when you're not feeling it.

Fortunately I have my adorable children as ready subjects when nothing else presents itself. :-)

Toro Canyon Park, Santa Barbara, California 2009

If crossing the monkey bars were an Olympic sport, Booh would be a Hopeful! You should see this girl cruz across the bars. She has developed calluses on her palms and loves to practice her "technique." It's one of the criteria she uses to judge the different playgrounds in the valley, "I don't want to go to Pulaski Park. I want to go to Look Park. It has better monkey bars!"

RELATED WEB SITE: icybooh.wordpress.com

The play structure at the park down the hill is closed until further notice.

120 Pictures in 2020: #2 Am I Dreaming

of many...

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