Sunday Drive

It was one of those Sundays with no plans.  The possibilities were endless, as always, but there was nothing that absolutely needed to be done right now.  I cleared the driveway and sidewalk of snow from a light dusting the night before, replaced a burned out light bulb, read a few chapters from a book that I'm struggling to finish (it's pretty good, the subject just doesn't grab me), then turned on the TV and watched a bit of Naked Vegas.  If you're not familiar with this show, let me just tell you that it's not what you think.  In fact, I was not familiar with this show either but it caught my attention as I was flipping through the channels and sort of sucked me in.  I awoke from my television trance after about twenty minutes and was able to walk away.  Good thing, too, as I had a feeling this episode was not going to end well.  Then I surfed the web for a while, checking out a few of my favorite sites.  First stop was onbeing.org.  I was a little disappointed in some of the latest content, though.  I'm a big fan of Krista Tippett.  But I am not a blind follower of anybody and really don't care much at all for Whoopi Goldberg,  so when I saw her being featured I moved on.  My next stop was http://www.incrediblethings.com.  There's always something interesting here.  This time, under the Art & Design tab, there was a feature about how someone had taken historic photos and colorized them.  Big mistake.  I really didn't like any of them. The originals in black and white are exactly as they should be.  Colorization added nothing in my opinion.  Actually made them less interesting to me.  Take a look and see what you think:

The original

              Colorized

I can't see where adding color did anything at all for this picture.

Or, look at this iconic photo and tell me which version you think is more...well...real?

I don't know about you, but I have to go with the black and white. You can decide for yourself if you go to the site and take a look.  Lots of other things to see there, too.  I recommend it.

Okay.  Let's see. Where was I? Oh, yeah, a Sunday with no plans...but endless possibilities.  I watched football for a while, then decided to take a little drive and see if I could discover any photo opportunities.  I'm always looking for photo opportunities.  Lately, I've been wanting to find an old bus to photograph.  Not sure what the attraction is, I just thought an old broken down bus might be a cool subject.  Well, as fate would have it, about twelve miles into my trip I found myself near the little town of St. Onge.  I saw it almost immediately after pulling off the highway onto the dirt and gravel road (but mostly dirt) that served as the main street.  An old bus.  But not just any old bus.  It was a blue bus.  And green. But mostly blue.  

 I don't think it's the blue bus that the Doors sang about.  Or the one the Merry Pranksters named "Further" and had such strange and psychedelic adventures in way back then.  Or even the Magic Bus the Who sang about.  But, still, it's a pretty cool bus.  What happened next, though, really put an exclamation point on the day.  I was getting back into my car when all of sudden I heard music blasting out of the top floor windows in the old abandoned sandstone building I was parked next to.  Live music.  Like a band practicing.  Except, if this was practice, it was serious practice.  Because someone up there was belting out a song like it was the last day of the Fillmore and they were the headliner.  It was awesome!  And totally unexpected.  That's what made it so great.  I'm still not sure if it was a local band getting ready for their next gig or a few musicians getting together for a jam session.  Doesn't matter.  I was just glad I was in the right place at the right time.  That happens to me.  Being in the right place at the right time.  Maybe because I'm always willing and open to putting myself in the right place at the right time. Anyone can do it.  But it might take a little effort.  Sometimes as little as simply deciding to pick up your camera (everybody has one) and go for a Sunday drive.

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