49

So, today I turned 49. After receiving my first "official" happy birthday wishes early in the a.m. from Becky, I slept in until about 10:00, then headed off to have lunch with a friend from work, then to a meeting with my "sort-of" boss.

I awoke to a lovely sight... a couple of inches of snow had fallen overnight, after several hours last evening of a steady, slow, dripping rain. We probably would have gotten five inches of snow had the temperature dropped to freezing earlier.

I grabbed a digital camera that my son borrowed from a friend and took a few shots of the park behind the apartment complex, but we don't have the required interface for uploading the images... I'll get one this week and post the shots. I should have taken the photos earlier in the day, before the snow had melted from the tree branches.

Last night, I had dinner with my friend Meegan, and she asked me what three things I want to accomplish before I turn 50...

I was at a loss for words. I still am, really. A few years ago, I thought I would have liked to record a CD of my songs by the time I turned 50, but I'm not so sure about that these days.

The other day, as I was searching for a wedding photo of my aunt Mimi, I had to rummage through all of my boxes of negatives, prints and contact sheets... in so doing, I began to develop a yen for photography again. It's been a long time since I've done much photographically that wasn't a paid job, and I've begun to miss it.

Just prior to having turned 40, I had a photo exhibit at the Lansing Art Gallery — my one and only show so far — and it was quite a wonderful experience, creating the photographs (a series of portraits of local visual artists), getting them mounted and hung at the gallery. I received a number of compliments from other artists and photographers that provided a bit of validation for me, although there have been times that I wouldn't consider myself in a league that would be described as artistic.

Below is an outtake of the show, a photo of ceramic artist, Carol Wansley... she hated to show her teeth when she smiled because of the gap she had between the front two. If only she knew how sexy gap-toothed smiles are!

At the time of the show, I was going through the initial phases of my separation and divorce from Penny, and I think that the emotional intensity of the project, combined with the emotional intensity of my break-up brought me to a place that — when the photographs were finally hung — I let go of photography as an everyday interest. Once, I ate, drank, slept, breathed photography... now, I cruise a few photoblogs when the urge strikes me.

I think that the dawning of the digital age has begun to tickle my photographic fancy again, and I've been looking at digital cameras. Tonight, I looked at film scanners as well, as I have gobs and gobs and gobs of negatives and slides that I'd like to scan.

Stay tuned.