Tag Archives: birmingham

The Beauty of History and Tradition in a Church Sanctuary

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Independent Presbyterian Church in Birmingham AL

The inside of the main sanctuary of Independent Presbyterian Church in Birmingham AL

Yesterday we had the treat of being able to tour the Independent Presbyterian Church in Birmingham on our way home from UAB, and what a gorgeous church it is. If you haven’t been to Birmingham, Alabama before, the Magic City has a ton of things to see, but the skyline around town has several incredible churches that sit nestled into the rolling hillside between downtown skyscrapers and medical buildings. Many of these churches were built around the turn of the 19th to 20th century, and this is one of them, founded in 1915, with the sanctuary being completed in 1926. I absolutely love getting to visit and photograph churches like this, I just rarely get the opportunity to do so.

Unfortunately I did not come prepared to do cathedral-type, stain glass, wide angle vaulted ceiling church photography when I left the house yesterday morning (not sure why, I should always be prepared for anything), but I did have my cell phone with me. The shot above was taken with my iPhone, so it doesn’t quite give you the overall beauty that a super-wide fisheye lens would do (like when I shot this museum in Auburn), but it worked ok yesterday, and I love getting creative with iPhoneography. I know one iPhone photo does not make a photo essay, so call this a preview for “some day.” They say one photo is worth a thousand words, and I could probably do that here, so for now one photo will have to do. Hopefully some day I will be able to go back and do a proper job with tripod in hand.

The Fillmer Birthday Party from October 1953 :: Throwback Thursday

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Throwback Thursday today is from October 1955 and would be Larry Fillmer’s 7th birthday party. I just love these old black and whites. Apparently back in the mid-50′s you dressed up for a birthday party since one of them is wearing a suit and bow-tie and I love the card table, which was probably literally used as a card table. I’m not too sure about any of the history behind this photo, and the only reason I am saying the date is 1953 is because there are 7 candles on the cake, otherwise, there was no date or anything else on the photo. I’m sure someone in the family will tell me a little more about the image, but I’m almost 100% sure that’s my dad as the birthday boy from the way he is dressed, watch and all… always a snappy dresser. Pretty sure that is his brother Les Fillmer standing to the right of Larry.

So it seems, I’ve now been told, the photo was taken in Birmingham in an area called Oak Hills in Central Park, the puppets were Howdy Doody Puppets, and yes, they apparently played cards on that card table.

A Midnight Summer’s Dream in the Night Sky

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Ok, well it’s not Shakespeare but it is just about that time of year when the days are really long and the nights are clear and hot. Sometimes it’s hard to find new and fresh images when your routine seems to stay the same, but there is always a lot more to creation than meets the eye. Out here we actually still have a dark sky at night, most of the time. We can still see the lights from the Auburn-Opelika metro area and on the other side we can just see the glow from Columbus, GA, but it isn’t anything like what the sky looked when we lived in the big cities like Dallas. Those big cities like Atlanta and Birmingham have almost no night sky left. Luckily out here we still do… so… I’m off to try to get some shots of the Milky Way or whatever else my nephew finds while stargazing. Hopefully I’ll have something interesting to show for it tomorrow night.

Alabama Devastated by Storms This Week :: Friday Feet

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This week was one that won’t be forgotten any time soon in the state of Alabama, especially not in Tuscaloosa, Birmingham or Dadeville, but I think in many ways the storms took so us by surprise. At the moment there are at least 320 people dead from all the related storms and tornadoes and the news just seems to just keep coming even days after the storms have passed. It took about 24-48 hours for people around here to even realize what had happened but the videos from Tuscaloosa and Birmingham are just incredible. The Big Picture has a few images from the storm at Tornadoes kill over 200, and they are bound to have more soon. Some of those photo really are worth at least a thousand words.

I am reminded that even among all the damage, the flowers still blooms, the plants still grown, and God is in charge, even if we like to think we really are. A man at a gas station tonight was showing me photos of his cousins mobile home that took a direct hit from a tornado in Dadeville and there was nothing but an empty spot on the ground with a mailbox. He made the remark to me that “what would have taken months to clear by bulldozer a storm did in 30 seconds”. Yes, the power of man is no match for the power of nature.

I took these shots today on my iPhone as I walked around our property. While we did have a tree or two go down we were basically untouched by any of the storm damage and wild flowers were blooming and corn was growing in the fields. Such an amazing contrast for just 30-40 miles away from here. Our church is taking a collection up on Sunday to deliver to Tuscaloosa, if you are in the Auburn area and would like more information please visit Tornado // Disaster // Relief. All of the photos above were taken with my iPhone today except for the one of the rain, which was taken the day all the storms hit as we were driving back from Columbus, GA. I almost didn’t make it this Friday but with 90 minutes left in the day, this is my Friday Feet post. Have a good weekend everyone.

Another Auburn Basketball Season Ends, Life Keeps Moving On

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Today is the last home basketball game for Auburn for the 2010-2011 season (see Deb’s post too), but since we aren’t going to be there tonight last Saturday was actually our last game this year at the Auburn Arena.  It has been a bazaar season, personally and athletically.  For the last several years the Auburn Basketball season has been a time that Deborah and I get to spend with each other that doesn’t have the craziness of football season, is a sporting event that takes place indoors, and is just a nice time for us to spend a little extra time together.

This year’s season felt scattered and intermittent since it started with Deb in the hospital and ended today with us headed to Birmingham for another doctors appointment. In between there was a new coach and a new arena with lots of growing pains. I can’t sit here and say it was one of the most pleasant seasons, but it was certainly memorable and I am truly looking forward to the 2011-2012 season (along with the upcoming NCAA Tournament of course).

For some reason it almost feels like another chapter is turned and life goes on. I am so thankful for the prayers and relationships that have been strengthened during this season. I love this shot of my mom below that I took at the last basketball game, it just reminds me of a look of confidence in her eyes (of course she is looking at my dad who is out of the shot). Maybe next year Auburn will be able to build on this year, either way I look forward to cheering them on.

Rare March Snowstorm in Auburn 2009

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Deborah watching the snow

A rare snowstorm hit the state of Alabama this weekend.  It was 3,319 days since any measurable snow was recorded at the Birmingham airport and today they reported 2 inches of snow.  That said, we are two hours southeast of Birmingham so I am sure it has been even longer down here.  It was quite a storm and it snowed almost all day today until the sun went down.  It is supposed to get into the mid-20′s tonight so all that snow is going to freeze and should stick around at least until tomorrow.

I took these images today on my way to Cornerstone and some here at the house once I got home.  No telling when the next heavy snowfall will come down to Auburn so I tried to take as many photos and video as I could.  The one unique shot here is of our tree swing.  This will make just about every weather season we could get from the same angle.  I now have Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, snow, rain, and several others which I will post all together.  You can see all the photos from the snow storm on my flickr account here or go right to the March 2009 Snowstorm gallery.

Flower in the snow

Heavy Snow on the Trees

Tree swing in the snow

Stop Sign in the Snow

Deborah and Ebby in the Snow

Busy Streets of Downtown Birmingham at Night

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Downtown Birmingham Streets at Night

I wanted to throw something a little different in there today for the image of the day, like an image of the night instead. One of my favorite times to shoot anything, photography related of course, is first light, last light, and at night. At night you can get some really unique perspectives you can’t get at high noon during the day.

This is a shot of a Birmingham Alabama downtown street at night. The exposure was around 10 seconds if I can remember correctly, but depending on the speed film you can take images with totally different results, in the same place, just by changing the speed film (or now the ISO rating on your digital camera).

This shot was of course taken before digital cameras where film became very grainy above ISO-100 and you had to use a tripod to take anything at night.  The difference between what is possible with today’s digital cameras and what was taken below is incredible, but in the time frame this image was taken, I really like the shot and I can remember going through all the setup to snap one or two images of the street life.

Image Specifics

What images have you been able to capture at night, how did they turn out?

Birmingham Botanical Gardens Cardinal Flower in Bloom

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Cardinal Flower in Bloom

Sticking with the Spring feeling outside today, the Image of the Day is a Cardinal Flower, taken in Birmingham Alabama a few years ago.  Birmingham has a very nice botanical gardens and it is always changing.  I would go there to take photographs while I was attending UAB and there was always something new to shoot.  They had at the time some wonderful water lilies that produce a very beautiful bloom and makes for a nice clean background.  This image here was taken a little off the beaten path with a macro lens.

If you ever get a chance to spend some time in Birmingham and are looking for a nice quiet place to shoot, try the botanical gardens right next to the zoo.  I hear even in the winter time there are nice areas that produce some wonderful photographs.

Photo Specifics

  • Body – Nikon n90s
  • Lens – Nikon 105mm Macro
  • Film – Fuji Velvia

Yet Another Cold Day in April on Tax Day

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Red Flower with Spider

This weather for down here is just crazy. It was almost below freezing this morning and we had frost on the roof. It is mid-April, time for the upper 70′s to come back.

Another Cold Day in April

Today is tax day, and yes, I did my taxes today. I usually don’t wait this long to do our taxes but we were in Dallas for quite a while with DK’s mom in the hospital and I never got around to finishing them up and sending them to the good old IRS. They are now finished and filed.

A New Day, A New Image

I unpacked and installed the new scanner today. I don’t have much time to start scanning in all the slides and photos but I did do a preliminary scan of a slide I had sitting in my bookshelf. The results are not bad at all and I am pretty happy with the whole installation and setup process for this Epson.

This photo was taken August 4th 1997 in Birmingham. The scan was from an original slide and then minor adjustments in photoshop. Not bad, can’t wait to scan in all the multitudes of others. I am going to try to do an image of the day post a few times a week with images like these from my stock. We will see how many I can keep up with. I did start transferring all the digital images I had moved over to DVD to the new 1tb HDD. This will take a while as I have over 100 full DVD discs full of RAW NEF files and edited jpg’s.

The Changing View

The property directly across from our house is being logged and left to what looks like a stump filled waste land. They will come in and replant, but I have watched them today as they pull up 50-75 foot trees, 10 at a time and lay them on their side for the trucks to come pick them up. The view was pristine. Should be that way again in 30-40 years or so.

Orders and Dinner

We took in all our orders for the past week, probably about 100 book orders in total and went to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants here in town. The number of boxes we had to pick up today from our book supplier was unbelievable. We filled the entire trailer with books. We have now received about 10,000 plus books in the last few days. Tomorrow I will have a full trailer of boxes of book to unload. I did not get a chance to do my daily walking today since we drove into town, hopefully it will be a little warmer tomorrow and I can put in a few extra miles.

Dinner was nice. First time we had been back to Loco’s since we had to leave for Dallas. This restaurants is usually populated with college kids since it has probably the cheapest drinks in town, but it is always lively and fun. The college kids always have a great energy about them. I managed to get a few blog posts in and some guitar practice as well. My first official lesson will be next Tuesday although I have had a sudo lesson via DK before we left. Tomorrow we finally get a day or two to work at home. The weather should be getting warmer as the week goes by.