Seating By Magnolia ...

“Gentle as the sweet magnolia, strong as steel, her faith and pride …”

  ~ “Eagle When She Flies”

   ~ 1991

~ Grammy award-winner for best country song by Dolly Parton, one of the stars of the 1989 film “Steel Magnolias”

 ~ “Steel Magnolias” is the film adaption of Robert Harling’s 1987 play of the same name. The play and film are about the bond a group of women share in a small-town Southern community, and how they cope with the death of one of their own.

The story is based on Harling’s real life experience of the death of his sister, Susan Harling Robinson, in 1985 due to complications from Type 1 diabetes. He changed his sister’s name in the story from Susan to Shelby Eatenton-Latcherie, portrayed by Julia Roberts in the film.

The title suggests the main female characters can be both as delicate as the magnolia flower, and tough as steel.

A sweet and beautiful pink magnolia tree beckons you to come sit a spell on a gorgeous early May afternoon at Trexler Memorial Park, Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Cold Creek December ...

“The good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.”

        ~ “The good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise” is an American slang expression implying strong intentions subject to complete frustration by uncommon but not unforeseeable events. It presumably evokes occasional and unpredictably extreme rainfall in Appalachia, that has historically isolated one rural neighborhood or another temporarily inaccessible on several or many occasions and when most folks in the mountains use this term, that is exactly what they mean.

The cold waters of the Little Lehigh Creek gently flow through Lehigh Parkway, Allentown, Pennsylvania on an early December day, as autumn prepares to segue into winter.

The Yearling ...

“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 pauses to pose on a late spring evening just before an early June sunset in the park.

I began photographing Buttons, as I call him, as a precious white-spotted fawn, then a sweet button buck and now a beautiful yearling, tossing him many apples, which he loves eating, along the way. It’s a true joy and blessing to me personally and as a photographer to watch this white-tailed deer grow.