Shooting in The Covid Part V: Inniswood Metro Gardens

One of my favorite local places to shoot is Inniswood Metro Gardens. It is one of the most varied and interesting metro parks in central Ohio. Many of the gardens are planted by volunteers. There are interesting hardscapes, there are so many different varieties of flowers and plants, and there are natural areas that include grasslands, woodlands, ponds, and streams. You can go any time of the year and find so many different natural areas to shoot. Throughout the spring, summer and fall, there are different flowers, plants, and trees in bloom.

Inniswood is also a place where I have some wonderful and intense memories. There are paved paths all over the park, as well as trails with decking material that allow you to get someone into the woods in a wheelchair. I brought Pauline to the park often. When my father had Alzheimer’s disease, one of my last outdoor visits with he and my mom was at Inniswood. Lots of bittersweet memories.

I took a studio and environmental portraiture class at Columbus State. On a Saturday evening in the fall of 2016, Pauline and I went to Inniswood. I took portraits of Pauline for my class. It was a spectacularly beautiful evening and we stayed at the park through sunset. Some of the portraits I took of Pauline on that evening are among my favorite photographs of her. I am so grateful that I took this class and that I have these photographs of Pauline.

Her memory should be a blessing. Ana hubik, Sitte.

Inniswood is the perfect place for me to shoot with the close-up approach I have been using for my photography during The Covid. I always have my camera battery charged and a memory card in my camera with plenty of room for an excursion. When I’m feeling inspired and the weather is good, Inniswood is an easy choice for me. I’ve been shooting with a 100mm macro lens (on a Canon 5D Mark III) and almost always shoot wide open with my f-stop at 2.8. With this shallowest depth of field, only a sliver of my subject will be in focus. Everything in front of and behind that subject will be out of focus. Using a very shallow depth of field results in bokeh in the backgrounds. Bokeh are the interesting and beautiful circles of light and color. As noted in an earlier blog, I’m always seeking out beautiful shapes, light, textures, and patterns as my subject with painterly, soft impressionistic backgrounds. And no surprise with my personal aesthetic, so many of these images border on or are abstracts. Whether I accomplish my goals, Inniswood always offers me the best of opportunities to find what I am seeking.

This is a beautiful place and sometimes I just take pretty pictures.

March

April

May

I have so many photographs from Inniswood during the time of The Covid. I’m going to publish several blogs from this park. I am not concerned that by splitting up the Inniswood images I might run out of topics for my rants of outrage about our political environment. The Orange Emperor and his Court of Cowardly Old White Guys offer up so many outrageous issues multiple times a day. The man is a chaos machine.

I am not aware either from personal experience or from reading American history that we’ve had a more divisive president than the Orange Emperor. He’s alienated women by his actions, his lack of character and a very long and sordid history that includes accusations of abuse, including rape. It is indisputable because we’ve heard him reveal his disgusting thoughts on recordings. He’s not hiding his repulsive thoughts and actions. He has no shame, embarrassment, or guilt. He would make for a remarkable research subject. Oh, that’s right … there’s a book that comes out about him once a week that analyses his monumentally bizarre behavior. Describing his multitude of personality disorders by those who know him best and who haven’t signed non-disclosure agreements has become a cottage industry.

He’s alienated just about every minority in the US. You can’t refer to his statements as dog whistles because it comes out of him in direct and identifiable barking. He says that there are good people on both sides. To be clear, there are no good Nazis or white supremacists. I never worried about being safe in temple or in any other building associated with my Jewish faith. That has all changed under the leadership of the Orange Emperor. There’s an armed guard in the lobby of my temple during services and when we sit in the sanctuary, we are instructed to identify the closest exit, as in the instructions given on a flight. There just aren’t any lights on the floor to lead one out of the room. We’re on our own with the hopes of being able to drag Bubby and Zadie out the door with us.

His most virulent and hateful speech has been focused on race. His racism is explicit and more than disturbing. I heard on the news the other day that nationally, the polls indicate that he has about 9% of the Black vote. I’m trying to imagine who these 9% could possibly be; I have the same confusion about the minority of Jews who support him. What could he possibly promise to accomplish that would diminish the vile nature of this demented man? I honestly don’t understand why a woman or a member of any minority would think it is okay to support this person.

He won’t acknowledge that racism is a serious problem in our criminal justice system. His AG goes along with this sickness. There are boatloads of studies and data that identify just how virulent racism is in our society. It also shows up on the news every night. Allow me to both simplify and clarify the issue. Racism exists in our criminal justice system as racism exists in every single institution in our society. There isn’t a single solitary institution that escapes this very bedrock of American culture, including our houses of worship. It is undeniable. And he totally denies it. And he found a stooge in the AG who goes along with his evil stupidity. It is beyond amazing. And the chorus of republican senators have entirely lost their voices. If he loses in November, and Lord help us if he doesn’t, it is going to be a fascinating process to watch all these Senators try to shed their Orange Emperor cooties as quickly as possible. Not going to happen. They will own this guy and all the death and destruction he’s caused in these past four years. They are covered in the same suffering, devastation, and death as the Orange Emperor. They are complicit in their silence.

Is it any wonder that the racists, anti-Semites, misogynists and anti-everyone who isn’t a white guy are so attracted to this creature? He has opened the door to their hate. He has normalized their horrible beliefs. He has given them license to come out of their caves. And wouldn’t you know it, so many of these guys are armed to the teeth. Lovely.

Who is confused about why we have violence in our cities? The 17-year-old white guy walking around with an assault rifle in Wisconsin after shooting a few people in the street approached the police, no muss no fuss. They didn’t bat an eye. Meanwhile, unarmed black guys are getting gunned down by police; some in the back.

The injustice and the racism cry out for protest. People are going to exert their first amendment rights and go to the streets. And the Orange Emperor’s legions are going to show up as well. How could violence possibly be avoided. This is the Orange Emperor’s violence. His fingerprints are all over it. And yet he talks about what will happen in our cities if Biden wins. While we watch what is happening in our cities – that he owns, that he caused. This is his America.

His strategy to divide us began even before his election with the whole birther movement. How is that even a thing? It is apparent that the notion of a black man sitting in the oval office made him blindly insane. He reinforced his divisiveness on the first day of his candidacy with his disgusting comments about drug lords. His campaign was filled with speeches that encouraged violence. He’s defended some of the most despicable, hate filled groups of people in our country. He ignores warnings from his intelligence agencies that the most dangerous groups in America are the white supremacists.

The Orange Emperor’s lies about the covid are revealed in the book and recordings written and produced by Bob Woodward. In his own words and voice, he acknowledges that he knew all that was necessary about the virus as early as February and March. He concealed all this information from the American people and lied about the deadly seriousness of the virus. His explanation for these lies was that he didn’t want to spread panic and fear. He wanted to encourage calm. He didn’t want to run around screaming, “death, death.” Really? This explanation is unbelievable, as in not believable.

The following are brief statements he made from a speech he gave in Freeland, Michigan on September 10th.

Joe Biden surrendered your jobs to China and now he wants to surrender our country to the violent left wing mob and you’re seeing that every night.

If Biden wins, China wins. If Biden wins, the mob wins. If Biden wins, the rioters, anarchist, arsonist and flag burners win.

Not only does Joe Biden want to eliminate your jobs, he wants to eliminate your borders. He’s promised to flood your state with refugees. From terrorist hotspots around the world, including Syria, Somalia, and Yemen, Biden’s pledged to have a 700% increase.

He’s also pledged to terminate all national security travel bans, overwhelming your state with poorly vetted migrants from jihadist regions. Making matters worse, he would open the flood gates in the middle of a pandemic.

Biden is waging war against the American middle class.

No major party has ever had a candidate that’s so extreme in his views... including a massive increase in your taxes and a total assault on your second amendment.

…whether we’ll allow Sleepy Joe to impose $4 trillion in tax hikes, ban American energy, confiscate your guns, shut down the economy, and tell your governor to open up your state.

They want to shut down auto production, delay the vaccine. They want to destroy your suburbs. Does anybody want to have somebody from Antifa as a member and as a resident of your suburb?

They want to erase your borders and indoctrinate your children with poisonous anti-American lies in our schools.

Biden and his party tried to lock law-abiding Americans into their homes while they encourage rioters and vandals rampaging through, in all cases, Democrat-run cities.

The murder rate in Democrat-run cities like Chicago, Baltimore, New York, so many others is higher than in Afghanistan, yet Biden supports imposing these failed policies nationwide. You will have crime like you’ve never seen before.

The Biden agenda would collapse our economy and destroy this great opportunity that we’re having right now.

He wants to force you to provide free government healthcare to illegal aliens. He will destroy your social security. He will destroy your protections for pre-existing conditions….

Are we feeling calm yet?

He’s repeatedly claimed that Senator Cory Booker is running a program to facilitate Black people being able to move into the suburbs. First, I grew up during a time when many suburbs had deed restrictions which did not allow a Black or Jewish family to purchase a home. Is this what he means by making America great again? Second, Cory Booker is a senator. He doesn’t hold a position in the Orange Emperor’s government. He isn’t running any kind of program. That statement is a plain and simple lie.

The Washington Post has been keeping track of his lies. Since he took office, they’ve identified that he’s lied or deceived 20,000 times. I can’t say I’ve had 20,000 unique thoughts since 2017. Why would we believe anything he says? It would be safer to assume that everything that comes out of his mouth or that he tweets is a lie. The odds would be in our favor.

Remember the caravans of terrorists winding their way up to our borders during the 2018 election? What happened to those terrorists after the election?

The Director of our Health Department in Ohio left her post because she was being so severely harassed. The Orange Emperor has propagated the craziest ideas about keeping safe during the pandemic. He’s ignored the best public health practices and has made his ignorance and the risk associated with this stupidity into a political cause. These actions have become something more than a concern about the closing down of our economy. His followers have created an equivalence between protesting against public health practices and the exercise of individual freedom. There were people protesting on the front lawn of her home. Some of the protests were anti-Semitic.

After she left (was driven from) office, the governor spent weeks searching for a new health director. She accepted the appointment for ten minutes, and then learned about how the former director was treated and declined the offer. Who in their right mind would take this job? The governor is going to have to provide a new health director with around the clock armed guards. And the most demoralizing piece of this is that we have morons in our state legislature who propagate this insanity. Never in my life have I been such an enormous fan of natural selection.

His fingerprints are all over the violence he’s warning us about if Biden wins. He’s fomented the hate and divisiveness that has erupted in our streets.

He’ll do anything to win. It doesn’t have to be ethical, moral, or legal. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care if people’s lives are risked. He doesn’t care about our constitution or our bill of rights. He doesn’t care about our most cherished institutions, including the people who serve in our armed forces, our veterans or the people who have given their lives for our country. He cares only about himself.

He isn’t hiding that he’s doing everything possible to steal the election. He’s been claiming that mail in ballots will cause a fraudulent election. I can’t remember ever missing a vote and I also can’t remember the last time I went to a voting place. I’ve been voting using a mail in ballot in my state with a republican governor and secretary of state. He’s driving home the notion that the only way he can lose the election is if he’s cheated out of it. He is now saying for all to hear that he needs a nine-justice supreme court because he expects that the election will ultimately be decided in the courts. When asked if he would accept a peaceful transition of power if he is defeated, he’s made the following statement:

We're going to have to see what happens. You know that I've been complaining very strongly about the ballots, and the ballots are a disaster.

Get rid of the ballots and you'll have a ... very peaceful — there's won't be a transfer, frankly, there'll be a continuation. The ballots are out of control ... and you know who knows it better than anybody else? The Democrats know it better than anybody else.

Who needs ballots?

Lots of people say that he doesn’t just love Putin; he wants to be Putin.

All chaos, all the time. Please don’t be distracted. At the end of the day, this man’s total incompetence and evil intent has resulted in the deaths of over 202,000 Americans … as of today. And while he proclaims not to be responsible for anything, the mentally deranged Orange Emperor has also caused the collapse of our economy. He has no strategy to fight the Covid besides everyone (except him) risking their lives until we have a vaccine or herd mentality.

And let’s be clear about this whole Nobel Peace nomination he’s been crowing about. Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin were also nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.