Palm Fronds

Cloud rolled in all morning here in Riverside, Jacksonville. It wasn't a question of if it would rain but rather when.

I couldn't get out of the house much before 1:00 pm because I had to suffer the agony of Stoke City's 7-0 defeat at the hands of Chelsea. For American readers, it is the equivalent of your NFL team being beaten 45-0. Cleveland Browns, Detroit Lions fans and Jacksonville Jaguars fans will know exactly what I mean.

With the game over, the rain still held off. I decided on a quick cigarette before heading off to Five Points with two shots already in mind. Wouldn't you know it, as I stood out on the back deck, raindrops began to fall.

I headed out anyway, figuring it would probably be another 10 minutes before the heavens really opened. By the time I got to Five Points, some 1.5 miles away, it wasn't even raining. I took the first of my planned shots but as I walked over to take the second, the rain caught up with me.

The second shot, I soon discovered was a no-go. It was to have been some graffiti depicting several schools of Art -- Impressionism, Cubism, Surrealism --but in the two weeks since I last visited the location, it had been painted out and someone was starting afresh with what I can only assume is a work in progress.

So I ended up relying on my first shot, palm fronds hanging down on the trunk of a palm tree. I followed tips provided by respected Dutch photographer Wouter Brandsma with my B&W conversion, which was done entirely in Adobe Bridge rather than Photoshop CS3, although I still did a little post-processing in CS3.

Zeiss Planar T* ZE 1,4/50.