Green… Lush, wet, foggy, quiet, peaceful green.
Here are some photographs taken early Friday morning at Sugar Hollow Park in Bristol, Virginia. I would like to present both the camera produced JPGs and the PhotoShop enhanced versions made from the RAW files. PLEASE: tell me in a comment which ones you like best! 
In the following three pairs:
NIKON = JPG produced by the Nikon D300 on-camera algorythim.
PSE = PhotoShop Enhanced version from RAW NEF file.
NIKON. Larger View
PSE. Larger View
NIKON. Larger View
PSE. Larger View
NIKON. Larger View
PSE. Larger View
My campsite is only a short distance away. I continue to be amazed and blessed at the natural beauty of this area and that God has called me here.
I would have posted these yesterday morning the day they were shot, but as I was getting ready to do so my SYSTEM hard drive suffered a crash. I now have a new one installed, and no data was lost. But doing computer repair in a campground in the back of a Honda takes quite a bit more time and effort than it does in my shop in Rayville, especially considering that I didn’t bring all the tools with me that would have made it MUCH easier.
Blessings in Christ…
Actually posted Sunday, August 31, 2008 from the Wendy’s parking lot wireless hot spot near I-81 exit 7, Bristol, Virginia.
Arnold Klute | 31-Aug-08 at 12:32 pm | Permalink
I like the PSE versions best. But it’s hard to choose.
I walked around Bear Lake on Thursday… no problem. Used the cane, I’m walking without the cane more and more.
Dad
Jeffrey | 31-Aug-08 at 1:36 pm | Permalink
It’s good to hear from you, Dad, and that you’re getting better.
I like the PSE versions best, also, because they are more true to what I remember seeing and envisioning when I was there. I think our mind does funny things to reality and colors our world in ways the camera doesn’t capture. Besides, the subject matter lends itself to expressionism like a painting. At first when I goosed up the saturation and vibrancy I thought “this isn’t real.” But then in looking at it I came to appreciate that reality is what we think and hope it is, not what a sensor records. That’s what I like about photography: the ability to tweak the photograph during the printing process in order to bring out aspects that you’d like to express.
Thanks, Dad, for getting me hooked on photography all those years ago in the upstairs bathroom in Parkwood.
Your son
Jim Connelly | 03-Sep-08 at 4:16 pm | Permalink
Both are very nice. What a beautiful area. For a while, I thought maybe you were in Indiana in the woods.
Hope all is going well.
Jim
Deb | 24-Sep-08 at 11:19 pm | Permalink
Hi, Jeffrey,
I found my way here by way of Scott Terry’s blog. I live in Colorado now, but did spend 6 years in West Virginia when I was younger.
About your photos, I generally like the PSEs better. Except the middle PSE photo looks a little too fake. I remember those foggy, humid days in the hills where there’s not much sun, and that Nikon shot of the middle photo looks more like what I remember. Too much bright green in the PSE.
Blessings to you and your dad, who it seems, is recovering from something. You tell him there’s no sin in using a cane if it keeps you from falling!
Jeffrey | 25-Sep-08 at 9:39 am | Permalink
Hi, Deb,
I guess we both wandered past Scott’s blog last night. The pictures of his boys are precious.
If you don’t mind me asking, where in Colorado have you been? I spent 21 years altogether in the Fort Collins area, and my parents now live in Estes Park. In my youth I explored around most of the state and climbed a whole bunch of them mountains.
I drove through West Virginia a couple of weeks ago on my way back from Virginia. I remember lots of hills, valleys, trees and pastures. I stopped and shot some photos at Hawks Nest State Park. It was right after all the rain along the Appalachians that came about because of Ike, and the sun was just beginning to come out. Take me home, country roads, to the place where I belong.
Thanks for the comments on the photos. You’re right about the middle PSE, but it does remind me of a postcard painting from the 30’s. I’ve been heavily influenced by my experiences with Kodachrome and Ektachrome which generally both produced photos with pretty high saturation and separation values. Especially Kodachrome. The Nikon produced JPGs are too realistic for an expressionist like me. Fine if you want to be scientifically accurate, but not if you want to express how the different colors leaped out at you when you were there.
My dad is recovering from a stroke, and doing without the cane more and more. I wrote about this in the previous post “Sixty Years with Love, Strokes and Fireworks.”
He’s never been one to put pride over practicality. I remember hiking with him and having to wear my sister’s cap to keep warm, and being told “would you rather freeze your ears off?”
I suppose this is one reason I’m not ashamed at all to travel around the country in my ‘85 Honda Wagon. Would I rather spend more on gasoline for a giant RV? NO! Sleeping in the Honda most of the time enabled me to travel for three months and 10,000 miles worth of scenery on a shoestring budget. But I’m glad to be home to a house with separate rooms for everything!
Deb | 26-Sep-08 at 10:35 am | Permalink
Hi, Jeffrey,
My, what a lot to talk about. But, before I forget, the name Monte Klute popped, unbidden, into my brain last night. Any relation?
I currently live one suburb over from your sister. I lived in Holyoke and Greeley for three years each when I was in elementary school in the 60s. My family moved to West Virginia where I spent junior and senior highs. I missed Colorado so much that I returned to attend UNC, from which I graduated with two degrees (the five year plan!) in 1978. I always thought it was the Rocky Mountains I missed, but I later realized it actually was the wide open sky that I missed while cocooned in South Charleston. I do love spring and fall in West Virginia. My best friend from high school is still there, as is one of my brothers.
All tolled (told?) I have lived in Colorado for 38 years now. Ironically, the John Denver song you quoted was popular when I was in high school (in WV). I used to change the lyrics to, “Take me home, country roads, to the place I belong: CO-LO-RA-DO! …” I read somewhere that Denver had never been to WV when he first sang that song.
Our son, now 14, has climbed three of Colorados 14ers. I am in awe. Especially since he broke his femur in between peaks one and two. This August, he called me from his cell phone (paid for by him, by mowing lawns - for some reason I feel compelled to include that disclaimer) from atop Mt. Elbert. He had someone snap his picture at the summit, and sent it to my phone. What a difference from the lives of the pioneers!
You’re right about the middle photo being reminiscent of a 30s postcard. When I think of it that way, I appreciate the colors more.
I read your entry about your folks. How wonderful that they have stayed married. My parents never made it that far and I envy (too strong a word?) people whose parents are still together. I had surgery at Swedish and remember those tiles on the floor. That place is a crazy maze. And you’re right about hospitals seeming to be in perpetual remodeling.
I will be praying for your dad (and Mom) when I look up Long’s Peak’s way.
Your trip to Virginia sounds interesting. I hope you blog about that. Or maybe it’s there and I just need to poke around your site more. I heard R.C., Jr., speak at our home school conference a year ago (or was it two?). I have been starved for good preaching for a couple of years and really enjoyed his talks. I blogged about it (his lectures), and R.C. haters came out of the woodwork and commented (not too kindly) at my blog, which hardly ever receives comments. It was interesting.
We (my immediate family) are in a church drought right now. We had a very good little church (in Boulder, of all places) for many years. Long story, but it folded about two years ago. We have looked, in vain, for a church with similar ideals as our old beloved church. Reformed, good teaching, good fellowship with ‘real’ people, hymns, rich liturgy, weekly communion. (Not necessarily in that order–all important.) We never realized how uncommon those criteria were (in one place) until we were churchless and searching. It has been two lonely years in a wilderness from which we see little hope for escape. I daydream of a little country/small town church not unlike what you wrote about and a small plot of land NOT in the suburbs.
The little church with a graveyard (what a pity churches don’t have that anymore…) on Hwy 14 looks inviting. I don’t know where that church is, but we have some friends not too far from there who live on a cattle ranch.
Is your church in Rayville the same one as Missouri Rev with Sam and Sadie??
Maybe all of us scattered Christian agrarians (I use that in the loose sense) will cross paths on this earth. If not, what a grand time we’ll have praising our Lord in glory. And I don’t think it’ll be endless repetitive praise choruses!
Blessings.
Jeffrey | 28-Sep-08 at 4:30 pm | Permalink
Deb,
If there is a Monte Klute, then there is most likely a relationship. But I’m not aware of it. Perhaps my folks will recognize the name. I’ll send them the link to this thread.
Which sister of mine do you live near? In Colorado I have one in Westminster, and one in Fort Collins. Whichever one it is, I hesitate to know what they might have told you about me!
I don’t see eye to eye concerning the faith of Abraham with any of my three sisters. One is an athiest, one is a Mormon, and one is a Muslim. Or at least ostensibly so.
Your fourteen year-old son is indeed ambitious, especially considering breaking his leg. I climbed my first fourteener when I was ten. I’m not sure it was Longs Peak, but I know my Mom and Dad went to the top with me. I think I was with them on top of Mt. Elbert, the highest peak in Colorado, by the time I was sixteen, and probably when I was ten. Maybe my parents can remember.
After more than a dozen fourteeners I still haven’t broken anything. But a few years back when climbing Mount Richtofen, I slipped and dislocated my knee (not a fourteener but still up there unconquered by me). That slowed me down for awhile, but the last fourteener I did (which I’d also climbed when I was young) was Bierstadt. A few years back my youngest son and I climbed it in an afternoon hike starting at 3pm and ending after dark. Someday I’d like to finish all 54 fourteeners, but my age is now a number higher than the ones I’ve missed. I better get caught up if I’m going to do it this side of the resurrection.
In remaining faithful for over sixty years my folks did set a good example, one I’ve striven to follow my whole live, and that is to be faithful to your word and covenants for better or worse. As I said in the article about them, they have left their stamp on my being and character.
Thanks once again for your comments on the photos shot in Virginia. As you now know, I appreciate lots of color (or should I say colour?). Maybe it has something to do with Color-ado? The wide open sky is one aspect of Colorado that thrills me, but I would say it is the mountains and valleys that I reflect on the most.
Yes, the church here that I’ve been a member of is pastored by Missouri Rev, and I am an experienced mule logger, having been taught how by Sam & Sadie.
The rest of your comments bring up too much to answer well in another comment. I very much want to reply to them, especially your statements about how much you missed Colorado, as a longing for the hills has influenced my life’s decisions several times. However, you have encouraged me to start writing some posts I’d like make that I see would be of interest to you and other readers. I’d like to address the topics you’ve brought up, especially about The Place Where We Belong, from a biblical perspective, and talk about a love of music, the hills and mountains, along with some of the best photographs taken this summer in Colorado and Virginia. Lord Willing I’ll get something ready with photos concerning these topics in the next few weeks, but it has to take back-burner to more important tasks and prior obligations.
If you get tired of checking my blog for this content, which should be of interest to you, please feel free to visit the page “Subscribe To Posts” in the sidebar.
We will indeed have a grand time praising our Lord in glory on the Rock of Mount Zion. See ya’ there, sister!
Respectfully,
Jeffrey
Deb | 29-Sep-08 at 12:26 am | Permalink
OK, subscribing sounds like a good idea.
I live one suburb away from your sister in Westminster.
I understand about family members who don’t see eye to eye on spiritual matters (which of course spill over into all other areas of life). I’ve got unbelievers and Unitarians in my family tree. I keep praying for softening of hearts and for the scales to fall from their eyes. A Bible study I attended this evening is reading “The Gospel in a Pluralist Society” by Lesslie Newbigin. Newbigin was a British missionary and theologian, and this book was published in ‘89. It’s excellent (I think). It’s given me some understanding for why it’s difficult to have productive discussions about matters of faith between such disconnected people, even when they love each other.
I didn’t write very precisely in my earlier comment. My son didn’t break his leg hiking. He climbed his first 14er at age 12. He broke his leg one month later, had complications with surgery (long, icky story), and had a long and painful recovery. (I blogged about it a little. I think it’s filed under a category I labeled My Son.) But, he was able to climb his second 14er the next summer. (Of course, I was home praying constantly!) We were very proud of him.
I’ll look forward to further posts from you. I appreciate the need for other things to take precedence over blogging. All in due time!
Blessings to you and your congregation.
Deb
Deb | 29-Sep-08 at 12:30 am | Permalink
P.S.
Is the title of your blog related to the movie “The Sound of Music”? And is your byline one of the lyrics from the opening song? I never knew what those words were…
I love that movie. It was the second movie I saw more than once, the first one being “Mary Poppins.” And I’m old enough to mean: saw more than once IN A THEATER, back when it wasn’t that common to do so. At least, not in the circles WE traveled.