90:365 Reading Material

90:365 Reading Material
These paperbacks were in a take one-leave one bin. There are really some good books in there. Theme # 252 Reading Material.

89:365 Purple

89:365 Purple
I'm not sure why you would want a purple wig, but you can find one at this wig shop in Rome, Georgia. Theme # 246 Purple.

88:365 New

88:365 New
Went to the bike store on Saturday to pick up new bikes. Theme
#198 New.

87:365 Stuck

87:365 Stuck
I am using the theme stuck here for two reasons. One reason is that this old rusted lock is permanently stuck in the locked position. The other reason being that I have now been stuck in the house for four days while the rain is pouring outside. I have, by necessity, started learning a little about inside photography. This is theme #307 Stuck.

86:365 Classic

86:365 Classic
I went to a very small high school and I had the same English teacher in the 10th, 11th, and 12th grades. I hated her with a passion then, but when I got out into the world, I realized that she had given us a pretty solid background in language arts. She made us read what she called the “classics”. I felt that most of those books were totally dry and boring, but she did spark my interest in John Steinbeck. His books are true classics. This is theme #52 Classic.

85:365 Fads

85:365 Fad
We are having terrible weather in Georgia, so I got out my lightbox and started searching for things to photograph. Who can forget the California Raisins fad from the late 1980's? This one is named Captain Toonz. This is theme #90 Fads.

84:365 Colored Glass

84:365 Colored Glass
An old Avon bottle. Theme # 59 Colored Glass.

83:365 Symbols

83:365 Symbols
This looks simple, but it took just about all of my knowledge of photography and Photoshop to get this image. The photo challenge on Elements Villages this week was Roman numerals. I looked through all of my things and found this old medicine bottle from the early 1900’s. It was found on my parent’s property about 30 years ago. The funny looking symbol at the beginning is an apothecary symbol for ounce, so this reads 16 ounces. Photographing a small symbol on a clear bottle that has stains on the inside and outside was very hard, so I learned some things today. This is theme #315 Symbols.

82:365 Black and White

82:365 Black and White
I love calves and this one has the cutest little face . . . This is theme #27 Black and White.

81:365 Discounts

81:365 Discounts
CVS Pharmacy has a system of discounts and rewards that has quite a following among bargain hunters. In fact, CVS is now a verb. Bargain hunters like to go CVSing. I am totally hooked. This is theme # 77 Discounts.

80:365 Groceries

80:365 Groceries
Backyard groceries, that is. By the time you buy the onion sets and all of the things that you need to grow them, you can probably buy onions a lot cheaper in the grocery store . . . but, there's nothing that tastes better than a fresh onion from the garden. This is theme #131 Groceries.

79:365 Small Town

79:365 Small Town
The entrance to the Pay & Save in Lineville, Alabama. I like the Coke advertisement in the window. This is my chosen theme Small Town.

78:365 Something Borrowed

78:365 Something Borrowed
I have never borrowed anything from General Motors Corporation, but they sure don't mind asking to borrow my tax money. This is theme #294 Something Borrowed.

77:365 Out West

I caught these two men at a local festival. I couldn't decided which picture to use for the theme, so I decided to post both images. The men were enjoying being dressed up like a cowboy, and they were very receptive to having their picture made. When I looked at the pictures, I really saw the difference in the personalities of the two men. The first man was shy and reticent while the second man seems to have an outgoing personality. This is theme #219 Out West.

76:365 Broken

76:365 Broken
Broken windows in the same abandoned school. At one time, I taught in one of these rooms. The big windows made it one of my favorite school rooms. I had a birdfeeder in a dogwood tree outside of the window, and my first graders and I would watch the seasons go by. The near-by cotton mill moved to South America, and most of those first-graders have grown-up and moved to other places to try and make a living. This is theme #36 Broken.

75:365 Closed

75:365 Closed
Chains bolt the door of an abandoned and deteriorating school in central Alabama. The school was closed about 7 years ago because the county consolidated all of their schools. This building is in a depressed area and the county cannot sell the building nor afford to keep it from deteriorating. It breaks my heart.

My rooms are now vacant. My corridors still.
No sounds of the children. My structure to fill.
No longer the sound of the teachers I hear.
Shaping the lives that to me were so dear.
-Unknown-

74:365 Past Its Prime

74:365 Past Its Prime
This is one of two gas pumps that are still standing in front of an old gas station on Highway 9 in Alabama. According the the price on the pump, gas is 39.9 cents a gallon. This is theme #227 Past Its Prime.

73:365 Chair

73:365 Chair
When you are traveling through a small town and you see a chair like this one in Goodwater, Alabama, you know it is not for show. This chair has seen a lot of sitting and gossiping and watching the world go by . This is theme #45 Chair.

72:365 Halls of Justice

71:365 Halls of Justice
Originally uploaded by Bamagirl7

The Clay County Courthouse in Ashland, Alabama, is a regal and historic building. It was built in 1903 with Italian Renaissance Revival architecture. If you are an avid reader, you may recognize that Ashland is the setting for Daniel Wallace's book, The Big Fish. Be sure to look at post # 71. This is theme #137 Halls of Justice.

71:365 Oops

72:365 Oops
Ashland is a very small and staid southern town, so imagine my surprise when I looked at the close-up of Lady Justice and realized that she had a . . . let's call it a wardrobe malfunction. . . Who knew? (Click on the picture to look at the larger version)
This is theme #211 Oops.

70:365 Spiral

70:365 Spiral
A spiral staircase that leads to the top of an observation tower at Wind Creek State Park in Alabama. This was at one time a grain silo, because when Alabama Power built the dam that formed Lake Martin in the 1920's water was backed up over many farming communities. This is theme #298 Spiral.

For this week's Be Creative, I decided to change the image to black and white and add a texture. Here are the results.

69:365 Painted

69:365 Painted
Ran across this little pony while walking through a state park in Alabama. This is theme 222 Paint or Painted.

68:365 In My Neighborhood

68:365 In My Neighborhood
The Bartlett Pear trees in my neighborhood are in full bloom this week. As always, they are a beautiful sight. This is theme #157 In My Neighborhood.

67:365 Kite

67:365 Kite
This afternoon was perfect for flying kites. My granddaughter absolutely loved it. This is theme #164 Kite.

66:365 Deja Vu

66:365 Deja Vu
I am not a big fan of car shows because all those "antique" cars look too much like the parking lot of my high school in 1969. It always gives me a strange feeling, however, to see a vintage car like this 55 Chevy just driving down the street. This is my chosen theme Deja Vu.

65:365 Buttons

35:365 Buttons
A card of buttons from my mother's button box. The price on the card was 35 cents. This is theme #38 Buttons.

64:365 Logs

64:365 Logs
A log cabin in the Cades Cove area of the Great Smoky Mountains. I forgot to post this image earlier. The Carter Shields cabin is the most photographed cabin in the Smoky Mountains. It it very picturesque as you can see. This is theme #175 Logs.

63:365 Out of Date

63:365 Out of Date
My mom likes to go to yard sales and she bought me a whole box of old Workbasket Magazines. I was looking through them and these 1970 covers caught my eye. This is exactly the look I was trying to achieve in 1970. Hmmmmm . . . This is theme # 217 Out of Date ( and perfectly happy.)

62:365 Aged

62:365 Aged
Another birdhouse. This one looks like it has been hanging for quite a while. This is theme #10 Aged.

61:365 Metallic

61:365 Metallic
My mother has little birdhouses everywhere, and this particular birdhouse is made of metal. I liked this picture because of the bokeh. This is theme # 183 Metallic.

60:365 Up on Top

60:365 Up on Top
The Galinburg Sky Lift has been the highpoint of a Smoky Mountains vacation for more than 50 years. The lift was actually purchased from the Sugar Bowl ski area in California in 1953 for 3000 dollars. It was then dismantled and moved to Tennessee. Been there every since. This is theme #344 Up on Top.