Highbanks Metro Park has been one of the best places for me to shoot during The Covid. The park is only 15 minutes from my home. It is about 1200 acres and includes both woodlands and meadows. The meadows are cut down every few years to keep seedlings from encroaching onto the open land. If left untouched, the entire park would become woodlands. The Olentangy River forms the western boundary of the park. Olentangy is a word from the Delaware Tribe. I’m not going to describe the meaning because white people butchered it beyond relevance. The park is called Highbanks because there are cliffs that form the eastern wall above the river. Standing on these cliffs, it is possible to see eagles that nest in trees above the river. There are deep ravines with shale walls throughout the park.
There are mounds inside of the park that were constructed by Ohio’s indigenous people. Most of the native tribes from Ohio were moved west (Oklahoma Territory) because they were in our way. And the last I looked, no one felt particularly guilty about it. We all should.
There are paved trails in the meadows. I would bring Pauline and Kazu to the park because it was easy for her to get around in her chair. During some of my early morning excursions to Highbanks, I would bring Kazu along with me to enjoy the sights and smells of all the critters in the fields.
Landscape photography can be difficult in the woodlands. Expansive views are blocked by trees. That’s sort of why they call this ecosystem the woodlands. It can be frustrating to be in a beautiful place and not be able to see the sky or the horizon. I’ll often look at a beautiful sky and wish I were able to capture it as I would in an open expanse. When I shoot at Highbanks, I find myself focused on smaller scenes. My landscape photography becomes more about nature photography.
Each of the seasons provides for a different set of challenges and rewards. We are blessed in Ohio with having four very distinct seasons of almost equal length. There is a place at Highbanks where I can capture my favorite abstract photographs of ice. During the late fall and winter, so many of the plants decay or turn brown or go to seed which makes for some interesting shapes and textures, if you look closely. In the fall, the trees are bursting with color and there can be foggy or frosty mornings, each of which offer some wonderful photography just before and during the sunrise. Spring and summer offer beautiful wildflowers. You can also find great patterns if you look for them in the canopies in the woods. It is nothing like hiking into a meadow in the mountains or along the shore at the ocean. The scenes are smaller and more subtle.
I find myself looking smaller and often the words ‘small ball’ pop into my head, a baseball analogy. When a player hits a homerun, the fans come to their feet, there’s screaming and fireworks are set off at the ballpark. When a runner is advanced with a sacrifice bunt, there aren’t any fireworks. It is a more subtle way to play the game to create opportunities to score runs. Those are the thoughts that go through my head when I shoot in the meadows and woods in central Ohio. My compositions are plants, small nature scenes and abstracts. Small ball. No fireworks or shouting, but I can still capture beautiful images.
I’ve always believed that my greatest civic responsibilities involve serving on jury duty when asked and voting. I’ve been called to jury duty three times thus far in my life. Voting is the bedrock of our democracy and we should cherish it. It has been fought for since America’s founding.
The Orange Emperor published the following tweet this week:
With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???
He is being crushed in the polls because while he is pretending that we’re not in the middle of a pandemic, thousands of Americans are dying, millions are getting sick, our economy has tanked, millions of people have lost their jobs, are going hungry and are about to be evicted from their apartments and homes. Millions of people have lost their health care insurance when they lost their jobs, and the Orange Emperor is in court to have the Affordable Care Act overturned so that even more millions could lose their health care in the middle of the pandemic.
Earth to Americans, if you elect him to a second term, you deserve him.
He has no answer for anything. No strategy. During an interview this week, he was asked about the failure to develop a national public health plan for testing. His response was that ‘according to some people’ there can be too much testing. The reporter challenged this contention, and the Orange Emperor told him to read the manuals and the books. Like the Orange Emperor has ever read a book. Imbecile.
Besides assuring us that he isn’t going to allow any Black families to move into my suburban neighborhood (too late for me – we have Black, Latinx and Asian families in my suburban neighborhood – there’s even a Jew), he’s sending storm troopers into cities to show us that he is going to be the law and order president. Think about that for a minute. He’s breaking laws left and right. He’s been impeached. Do some reading about why he wants a new FBI building constructed on the current site. I have no doubt in my mind that we will eventually figure out just how much money he and his family have stolen from our tax dollars. He could actually be a Russian operative (he sure looks like one), and he is going to keep law and order? Precious.
Here’s another awesome irony for you … I’m watching political ads from the Orange Emperor in Ohio showing a woman calling 9-1-1 while there’s someone trying to break into her home, and she gets a recording … because he claims that Biden is going to defund the police. It is a bold-faced lie. Here’s the irony, the Orange Emperor has done nothing to support or encourage the senate to vote on the legislation that was passed in the house more than two months ago which would support relief payments to cities to help keep the police and 9-1-1 operators working. Jackass.
He claims that mail in ballots will cause enormous fraud; that it will be a rigged election. There are many states that will do mail in ballots. There are states that do so today. Only California mails the ballot to registered voters. In the other states that use mail in ballots, you send an application to the elections board and they send the ballot. Then you vote by either mailing the ballot or dropping it off at the elections board. California checks the ballot when it arrives, so do all the other states. There is no fraud. It works. If you aren’t a registered voter, the ballot doesn’t count. If you don’t provide identification that you are the registered voter, your ballot doesn’t count. Pauline and I haven’t been to a voting place in years. It was too difficult for her. We are used to doing absentee voting and it works, and no one complains about it here … not our republican governors or our republican secretaries of state. They don’t complain about fraud because there isn’t any.
There is no difference between absentee voting and mail in voting. The distinction he is making is a lie. Ignoramus.
I assume that if his lips are moving, we’re all hearing a lie. I have no idea how Biden is going to debate him this fall. The Orange Emperor will say anything. He isn’t burdened by reality, a conscience, embarrassment, or shame. Biden will need to come up with a response beyond rolling his eyeballs up into his forehead, because by the end of three hours, he could develop permanent vision problems.
The Orange Emperor is working to sabotage the post office. He has installed his postmaster general and the marching orders to the post office has been to slow down the delivery of mail. In the legislation that passed in the House, money was allocated to support voting this November and to support the post office. Like most legislation it is sitting on the desk of the evil enabler.
What are the odds that it will be safe to go to a voting place in November? I would say not good. In most elections, the disproportionate number of poll workers are retired, elderly, civic-minded volunteers. It will not be safe for them to spend all day risking exposure to a deadly virus. We haven’t made election day a national holiday and we vote on a working Tuesday. How many people do you think are going to take a vacation day to be a poll worker? Do you think millions of unemployed are going to volunteer to risk life and limb to sit in front of carriers all day long?
Ergo, there are going to be fewer polling places available, and they could be packed. Polling places are often school buildings. Bringing lots of people into a school would be dangerous. Where’s a good venue for infection with enormous viral load?
The solution – mail in voting or absentee voting; the same way the Orange Emperor votes.
He is undermining our democracy by creating the illusion that the vote this November will be rigged. Never mind that he’s asked Ukraine and China to interfere with our election. Never mind that he has been silent (and complicit) regarding the evidence from our intelligence community that Russia interfered in the past election and are likely interfering in this one. Why wouldn’t they; the Orange Emperor is Putin’s operative.
If he’s concerned about fraud, incompetence and abuse, he might want to deal with the chaos he’s creating. It was reported in June that the Orange Emperor’s IRS mailed $1.4 billion in coronavirus relief payments to about 1.1 million dead people. Is that a great embarrassment to the USA? Could these be the same dead people who are going to receive ballots in California? Moron.
What is the statute of limitations on blaming his incompetence on the Obama and Bush administrations?
Both my sister and Nancy have expressed concerns about who Biden would pick for his running mate. They were discussing it as though their vote depended on it. I told them that I would vote for a dead person running against the Orange Emperor. There is no doubt in my mind that the dead person would do a much better job than the incompetent, evil, ignorant, mentally ill performance we are witness to all day long, every single day.
Please register to vote today if you aren’t registered. Please educate yourself immediately about how your state is going to run voting this November, and then participate as quickly as possible. Please do not procrastinate. Please follow the instructions you are given. Please sign your legal name the way the secretary of state has it on file. Please don’t give the evil doers any reason to reject your ballot. Every ballot needs to count. We need to send the Orange Emperor to the trash bin of history along with his enablers in the Senate and the governors and state legislators who have made this maniac possible. Our lives depend on this vote. Our livelihoods depend on this vote. Our democracy depends on this vote. The future existence of our planet depends on this vote. Truth matters. Facts matter.
Spectacular photos, Sandy! I miss Highbanks Park When I was a child, before it was a park, my family used to go along the shale outcrops by the river to hunt for concretions. The round stones decorated our back yard for decades. My sisters have them now.
I also AGREE with your ranting, 100%.
Love the photos. I absolutely agree with your ranting.
Sandy --- your photographs are able to still my mind and there are several which cause me to gasp aloud (i.e. the cattails, the sunlight on green leaves, tree bark, flowers......). Thank you for writing such good photodocumentary expose and political views. The Orange Emperor moniker is perfect. I believe he and his cronies ought to be brought up on Crimes Against Humanity and Nature (as were the Nazis who were caught). I cannot understand why Mr. Blatzer disagrees with your intelligent, educated and ironically humorous 'ranting'.... perhaps he supports Trump?
Love the photos. I absolutely disagree with your ranting.