Well, actually it’s the trail again.  The 2012 campaign trail.  I’m working for the Michigan 9th Congressional district Volaric campaign so that means getting out and about and the opportunity to meet with other candidates up close and personal.  And lots of photo ops.

Shooting politicians is a lot like shooting wildlife.  I find a good vantage point and wait for my subject to do something interesting.  Harder are the “meet & greet” photos everyone wants so they have a record of their 15 seconds in the immediate presence of someone they think is special.  Because it is for posterity, they want to look their best and I do my best to make it so, though sometimes it takes a good deal of cajoling to get a nice smile out of them.

Even though it’s work, I find it’s pretty fun most of the time.  It’s certainly very different from my regular day job, and I don’t mean just because the ego displays are hideously and exponentially more pronounced.  It is seeing and having the opportunity to speak with people from a very broad swath of society, people with whom I’d probably never interact simply because our paths have no other reason to cross.  Just regular folks who choose to take time out of their busy lives to exhibit their faith in the American institutions of government by participating in the process (which I personally think everyone should do, regardless their party affiliation).

The first big event this year was the Oakland County Republicans Lincoln Dinner on February 16th.  With Michigan a serious campaign stop for GOP candidates, this event was extremely well-attended; some 1,400-odd people bought tickets for the chance to meet and hear Rick Santorum, Ann Romney and Reverend C.L. Bryant as the headline speakers.

Our governor, Rick Snyder, spoke as well.

Of course I wasn’t the only one there to record the event.  The media showed up en masse,  from the local to the national stations and they had a whole big stand set up right across from the stage.

One of my favorite personal moments was chatting with this group of veterans as I wandered around the hall in search of my MIA assignment who had disappeared into its vast recesses on a mission of shaking hands with potential voters.  I have a very deep appreciation for those who are willing to put their lives on the line for the rest of us so being able to thank these veterans from Lovewell-Hill VFW Post 2502 in South Lyon was special.

I eventually did catch up with Don.

This has been one of the busiest years in quite some time.  Last year ended with my mother in the hospital over Christmas but turning the page to 2011 brought only change after change.  My older sister, best friend, photography compadre and all-around mentor, Nonda Surratt, died quite suddenly at the end of March, and her passing was followed in short order by the death of my last cat, Gandalf, and one of my older and most underfoot educational animals, Franklin T. Squirrel.  I also lost my entire team at work to downsizing so was put on the responsible person’s treadmill of too-often 100-hour work weeks.  All of which left precious little time to look, let alone photograph.

But I won’t complain.  The new roof that leaked every winter from the day it was installed was finally fixed so we are finally making plans to have all the interior damage repaired.  I was able to order the parts for and fix my spiffy and equally overworked Fisher Paykel washing machine by myself.  When a distracted driver plowed into the back of my Jeep while I was waiting to make a left-hand turn, neither I, nor our educational groundhog in her carrier in the back, were more than badly shaken and the repair shop has the Jeep looking like new again.  And when my mom ended up in the emergency room again just before Thanksgiving, it turned out she’d been carting around a very dead gallbladder for a while now so its removal means she’s finally on her way to a full recovery.

Spending so much time indoors found me looking up when given any opportunity to be outside for a moment.  While there is no grand vista to be found where I live, we do experience all four seasons and the skies to match; often they have been quite spectacular and I found myself capturing snippets of them.

Summer storms:

 

 

Mid-fall morning:

 

The inherent lesson is that there is really never only down; where there is down there is also always up.

 

“World’s use is cold, world’s love is vain, world’s cruelty is bitter bane;
but is not the fruit of pain.”
(Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

  

It’s cold.  Bitterly, bloody cold.  Of course, it is winter so cold is to be expected; far be it from me to complain.  It does, however, make for some, shall we say, thrilling forrays to capture its beauty in photographs.

I broke down this year and invested in new, very heavy-duty winter boots.  Hunting boots from Danner, with 1,000 gram Thinsulate, to be exact.  They are a thing of beauty and I love them.  But even they were no match for this latest arctic blast.  They got a real test when we took a trip to the local nature preserve after the first in the series of snowstorms came through; an hour and a half in the sub-zero morning, my feet had had enough.  Running and skiing don’t compare to standing around in deep snow so even these extreme boots are going to be stuffed with heated socks or something the next time we go out in such deadly weather.

Despite the cold toes, I was still thrilled to get out.  There wasn’t much going on there in terms of wildlife, but I enjoyed shooting some landscapes of the snowy river, and the stretch of white-capped teasels was good practice shooting white-on-white.

 

We weren’t seeing much of the hawks during this time; most all the furred and small, feathered wilds were sticking very close to home.  The red-tail did show up early in the week, and though very close to the patio I managed to nail it in the heartbeat it took for it to launch and then disappear behind one of the big pine trees.  I had the camera set for a stick-picking shot and was actually very surprised to have gotten only wing blur here.

 

When sub-zero temperatures grip, the brief moments of intermittent sunshine begin to create fantasies of ice as the snow slowly melts off the roofs of the houses.  Often, this light would come late in the afternoon, affording me the chance to indulge my artsy-fartsy eye and try to capture some of what is my personal favorite in Nature’s bag of breathtaking tricks.

  

And what would Winter be without a visit from the Travel Gnome?  In drag.

 

As I write this particular piece, the bitter cold snap continues and I continue to chronicle the lengthing icicles, both on houses and furry tails.  It occurs to me once again that living where there are four, real seasons is one reason that I’m never bored or at a loss for ideas to continue to work on my photography.  I know that to some people, ice may be just ice, squirrels or hawks may be just squirrels or hawks, but as the natural cycle moves ’round its annual wheel, it provides a never-ending rotation of unique players, and each is worthy of attention.

And I’m both grateful and most often simply excited to be able to do this.