Before I deal with the point to today’s title, let us begin with the stated purpose of
this blog, photography.

There’s snow in them thar hills. The two images below are pretty much just
average pictures. Not everything a photographer captures is a world beater or
even art.

That is snow in the distance, and the image was made in July. This is in the
Colorado Rockies.

Closer to the subject..

As a photographer, I always tried to remember that when a habitat changes, 
life there also changes. High elevations mean there is very little wildlife. What
exists, is gifted from God in that they have special qualities to survive. Certainly
finding food is one thing for which they will need either unique skills, special
physical abilities, or both, to manage.

The water Pipit, a small high energy songbird, over time has developed an
entirely new race among themselves. In order to live and breed up so high, there
are insects who live at these altitudes, and appear as flying adults for a brief
amount of time every year. The Alpine Water Pipit shows up just when that
happens. Good for the birds, not so much for the bugs. God’s plan.

The Pica is a small plant eating alpine rodent which stays awake beneath the
snow for the entire winter. No hibernation. It survives by caching foods where it
will live. Even in the brutal temperatures of winter, most of those plants will rot
before they can be eaten. God’s plan was simple, grow a plant up there in the
summer, that not only does not decay under the snow, but will contain natural
preserving chemicals which will keep all of the other plants fresh and free of
decomposition.

Also, the Pica just happens to be cute and photogenic. Good for
photographers!

Down at lower elevations.

Thankfully, cool birds live everywhere. Such is the case with this male Goldfinch.
I am sure this was made somewhere near home, probably through the open side
window of one of my cars. Personally, I think he knows he’s good
looking. Show offs are perfect subjects for photographers.

At lower altitudes.

Even this Milkweed Caterpillar is a show off. If memory serves, and maybe it
does and maybe it does not, it seems to me that this one struck many different
poses for me. I likely got my pictures, said thank you and moved on. 

Several consecutive years of finding Red Fox families to photograph, was one
of the most memorable happenings for me as a nature photographer. By the time
they leave the area, you feel as though you are a member of the family.

Wild Prairie Smoke flowers are a unique subject to photograph. They are one
of the few flowers, that we make more pictures of after they have gone to
seed, than before.  Point and shoot, and the flower itself creates an abstract.

This one was photographed in a marshy field that was about a foot deep in
water. I had been there before and knew it would be, and actually wore
Hip-waders, which allowed me to not only kneel, but lie on my belly or my butt to
“get the shot”.

Reflections, particularly ones of tree leaves, especially fall leaves, make for
great abstractions of reality. Simple, colorful and esthetically pleasing. I found
that the best photo abstracts (my opinion) are those that we as photographers
only need to “see”, and then execute a simple straight forward photo in order to
share. The art from the photographer themselves, is all about the “seeing”

———————————————————————————————————

“The whole truth and nothing but the truth., so help me God”. 

We have a judicial system where testimony is predicated on the above quote.
The system was created with the best of intentions and goals, and that fact,
makes our courts better than they otherwise might be. Still, there are “at least”
as many lies told within the judicial system, as is without.

Facts when they are truly facts, are important in ascertaining what the truth is.
That doesn’t mean that the holders of facts, all tell the truth.  The two are not
necessarily synonymous.

Our schools are replete with facts. A lot of facts within those walls. That does not
mean they tell the truth about those facts or with them. They are full of so-called
facts, but they are often absent the truth. 

The same is true about our government, the news media, and even many
churches.

There is only one, I repeat one, perfect holder of the truth, and that is God! 

Neither I nor you qualify as perfect. We have all lied. If God is the only  pure
giver of facts, what happens when God is removed both from society and
individual lives? Often He is “reinvented” to suit the times in churches. 

Making Him different than He is, by lessening Him, or recreating Him, or making
Him secondary to the church itself and its traditions, is not only blasphemous, it
can be in a sense fatal. As in the differences between Heaven and Hell.

God has to be true to Himself. That means that He cannot sin. Lying is sinning.
Our own truth, needs to be modeled and consecrated, by God.

I am forever bewildered by large groups of people, in the U.S. about half the
population, who claim to believe one thing, and then will in a millisecond, turn
180 degrees to the other side if it suits their purpose, with, no explanation of any
sort. They just move on with zero recognition that they have switched. Might it be
that they lie a lot? At the very least, they allow themselves to be fed lies.

In totalitarian  societies such as with communism, socialism, Marxism and
Fascism, the truth is denied, and people are often imprisoned or killed for telling
it.

Those forms of government are the inventions of power mad liars. Unfortunately,
many of rank and file society members in such systems, accept the lies if they
think they can be a part of that group.

Lies bring shackles and death, the truth brings freedom and life.

John 8:31-32
To the Jews who had believed Him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

God Bless,
Wayne

An aside:

Those of you have been here for a long time know that this blog has always been about more than photography. Politics, religion, slice of life, any sort of current events, pages in history, the world’s history, the country’s, mine, and on and on.

Clearly people get the most agitated when I write about political/social issues, and run away embarrassed when I write about religion based subjects, especially Christianity. That’s’ okay, I would not want a captive audience.

So here’s today’s opinion subject, guns, and gun control. Let us see how angry I can make some people.

Contrary to what some might believe, we have volumes of gun laws in America. Why would any freedom loving American, want to see an increase of restricting laws, on the rights of protection and ownership of guns for law abiding citizens, when all we do when we have a genuine criminal with an illegal gun, who carries into a gun free zone, is take him into custody, slap a fine on him that most anyone can pay, and then send him back into the streets to maybe kill somebody this time?

Send criminals with illegal guns to jail, with a bail high enough to prove you actually care about crime and violence. Then if convicted, send them to prison,  and make it count.

There is no true push to remove guns from felons, only to restrict or discourage gun ownership for honest, nonviolent citizens.

We are living in a time when the powers that be, do what they can to give genuine criminals a pass, while violating the constructional rights of non-criminal citizens.

Ask yourself why are so many government types and others, attempting to disarm people with no criminal record,  while feverishly attempting to keep free, actual criminals with guns.