NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals for the first time previously invisible areas of star birth… The tallest “peaks” in this image are about 7 light-years high. The cavernous area has been carved from the nebula by the intense ultraviolet…
I remember first using Kodachrome film. To hold a color print was a delight, an image that represented with remarkable fidelity the mental image achieved by the eye and the mind. Up until I owned the Agfa 35mm camera which took the Kodak color film, I was accustomed to a box camera, which I…
No matter the light showers we accompanied two of our grandchildren to the Fox River for some fishing and exploration. (The fish in the river proved to be totally safe, from our efforts.) The exploration was an adventure of great interest. There’s always a lot to see whenever we leave our accustomed habitat and…
A few minutes ago I presented my Starbucks card. The barista commented, “one day this is not going to work.” The piece of gold plastic is old, by charge card standards. The plastic is split in several places. One fissure is patched with scotch tape. I am attached to the card. I’ve used it…
Another Independence Day weekend. Monday will be the 4th of July. We are planning a family gathering for breakfast in the morning, and then a viewing of the Independence Day parade. On the surface around here life appears to be good, never better for some. Are such generalizations warranted? Of course not but we…
Life itself is not the reality. We are the ones who put life into stones and pebbles. -Fredrick Sommer Since my adolescence I have found photography fascinating. With a machine held in one’s hand, it is possible to make an image of the world of which we participate, a freeze-frame depiction. I felt the…
Yesterday we viewed from curbside the Geneva Swedish Days parade. I have enjoyed a good parade as long as I can remember, the magic, the exuberance of seeing and being seen. A parade is a meaningful social ritual, in a secular time is it not? I took photographs using my iphone 13 camera. However,…
I visited Mundelein where I once lived. We lived for many good years there. Now we live in Batavia to the west along the Fox River Valley. We moved due to a change in circumstance, namely both of us retired. The time was right to move closer to our children and our grandchildren. Now…
It is uncanny, the memories that a sound will evoke. Saturday at Great Lakes Dragaway, often the sound of an idling supercharged race engine could be heard. Sometimes in the staging lanes waiting to move forward to the starting line, or at a distance being tuned somewhere in the pits, — the undulating, rising,…
“Remember that life is short and death is long,” is attributed to artist Fritz Scholder. Perhaps he was channeling Epictetus? The insight could have come from the writings of a Roman Stoic. Time spent with family, with both Nature and community at hand – is time well spent. These thoughts come to mind on…
