Showing posts with label may. Show all posts
Showing posts with label may. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 30, 2024

You Are My Sunshine ...

“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine

You make me happy when skies are gray

You’ll never know dear, how much I love you

Please don’t take my sunshine away …”

       ~ “You Are My Sunshine”

           ~ 1940

 ~American standard of old-time & country music & one of the official state songs of Louisiana

     ~ Its original writer is disputed. According to the performance rights organization BMI, by the year 2000 the song had been recorded by over 350 artists & translated into 30 languages. Its best-known covers include a recording by Johnny Cash in 1989

 

The beauty of these sunflowers is as bright as the sun on a late May afternoon in Allentown, Pennsylvania.       

 

Young sunflowers move to face the sun, a movement called heliotropism. Mature sunflowers generally stop moving and remain facing East, which lets them be warmed by the rising sun.

 

The sunflower (or “soniashnyk”) is Ukraine’s national flower and has been grown on its central and eastern steppes since the middle of the 18th century. And today, in light of Russia’s horrific invasion of Ukraine, the sunflower is a symbol of “I Stand With Ukraine!”


 

Monday, June 5, 2023

The Yearling Grows ...

“The wild animals seemed less predatory to him than people he had known.”

     ~ from “The Yearling”

    ~ published in March 1938 by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1896-1953)

   & adapted into the Academy Award winning film of the same name in 1946

My favorite yearling ~ Buttons, as I call him ~ strikes a cute pose on a spring evening just before a mid-May sunset at Trexler Memorial Park, Allentown, Pennsylvania.

I began photographing Buttons as a precious white-spotted fawn, then a sweet button buck and then a beautiful yearling, until he migrated away in January 2020. Along the way I tossed him many apples, which he loved eating. It’s a true joy and blessing to me personally and as a photographer to have watched this white-tailed deer grow.


 

Wednesday, May 17, 2023

Steel Blue ...

  “The man who has done his best has done everything. The man who has done less than his best has done nothing.”

            ~ Charles M. Schwab

           ~ 1862 ~ 1939

    ~ American steel magnate, President & Chairman of Bethlehem Steel ~ under his leadership, Bethlehem Steel became the second-largest steel maker in the United States, and one of the most important heavy manufacturers in the world.

The iconic rusted blast furnaces of the former Bethlehem Steel in Southside Bethlehem, Pennsylvania stand tall along the Lehigh River, framed by the green leaves of spring against a steel blue sky, on a gorgeous early May afternoon along the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor (D&L Trail).

I captured this scene after setting out from the D&L Trailhead at Sand Island, Bethlehem.

Bethlehem Steel was an American steel and shipbuilding company that began operations in 1904 and was America’s second-largest steel producer and largest shipbuilder. The company’s roots trace to 1857 with the establishment of the Bethlehem Iron Company. Bethlehem Steel stopped producing steel in November 1995, and the company was dissolved in 2003. It was one of the world’s leading steel manufacturers for most of the 20th century.

Much of the former home plant of Bethlehem Steel, the second largest steel manufacturer in the nation, has been transformed into SteelStacks, a ten-acre campus dedicated to arts, culture, family events, community celebrations, education and fun. SteelStacks has indoor and outdoor venues, hosting festivals, concerts and community events.

Running from Wilkes-Barre to Bristol, the D&L Trail passes through the Lehigh and Delaware Rivers and their canals in Pennsylvania.

Steel blue is a shade of blue color that resembles blue steel, i.e. steel which has been subjected to bluing for protection from rust. The first recorded use of steel blue as a color name in English was in 1817.

Monday, April 3, 2023

Daisy Maze Of A May Morning ...

“… I got daisies in green pastures, I got my man, who could ask for anything more?...”

               ~ “I Got Rhythm”

           ~ composed by George Gershwin,

               lyrics by Ira Gershwin

                        ~ 1930

A maze of wild daisies ~ simple, joyful flowers that are my very favorite ~ dance in the morning sun on a beautiful late May day at Trexler Nature Preserve, Schnecksville, Pennsylvania.

I shot this the morning of May 31, 2022 after taking sunrise photos at the preserve. I spent several hours walking through the preserve’s beautiful spring scenery with the air soft and warm in the low 70s before temperatures soared into the 90s.