ABCD: A Blogger’s Centerline Day

Where were you on May Day 2011?  Probably not sitting on a center line in the middle of a road.  Gary over at USA Tour on a Harley had a plan to get bloggers to post a picture of themselves on a centerline.  The rules are simple:

Rule 1 – the picture must be taken on 1st May 2011.
Rule 2 – the picture must be of yourself, and you must be a person that publishes a blog. You can include whatever else you like in the picture, including other people if you wish.
Rule 3 – the picture must include the centerline of a road.
Rule 4 – you should publish the picture on your blog on 1st May 2011, along with a few words about the picture and why you chose that location or pose.
Rule 5 – when you have posted the picture on your own blog, put a comment on USA Tour on a Harley and include in that comment the address of your own blog post containing your own picture.

Because the photo needed to be of me, or at least a part of me I recruited the Baby Boy to come along.  We headed out of town down the “Frontage” road.  I wanted to find a place that showed the open spaces of Montana and it’s lovely mountains.  That is easy to do without a centerline, finding a shot with a centerline and not put us in perilous danger was a bit more of a challenge.  As it were we would run out snap some shots, then “car, car” and have to dash off the road! Have you ever seen a fat lady scramble from the pavement to keep from getting run over?  Comical I’m sure.

Pictured in the background are the Big Belt Mountains, they are located to the west of Great Falls.  Not to be confused with the Little Belt Mountains, located east of Great Falls.  Also pictured in the upper right hand side is Square Butte.  In between the two belt mountains, lies some prairie lands and Great Falls.

We did several different shots with different poses.  I had a whisk in my hand for each photo, although it is difficult to see against the background.  I wore some Harley clothes and naturally had some food in the picture, it’s tough to be a Kitchen Witch without food.

This was very difficult for me because I hate photos of myself (to truthful), however all in all the Baby Boy and I had fun playing amateur photo shoot.  We dealt with the cold, wind and traffic, I even made the poor boy lie on his belly to get the shots of me sitting down.

Just for shits and giggles (get it?), here are a few other shots we did.

If you look carefully you’ll see a car coming, good thing a brought a bowl so I could quickly gather my items.  The car looks far away, but folk drive 75 to 85 miles per hour on these roads, trust me I didn’t have much time.

It’s been a couple years since I’ve worn this jacket…let’s just say a need to drop a few pounds.

With my arms crossed, I had more of the “yah, I’m bad” look, except I’m smiling and somehow I don’t carry that look off well.

I really liked this shot but decided to go with the one that shows part of my profile.  You can see that it was windy (no surprise it’s windy everyday here).  this was the only photo where my whisk was truly visible.  The Baby boy mentioned that I was sitting in a traditional Native American way, which I didn’t plan but thought it was appropriate.  The land here used to be great buffalo hunting grounds for the local Native Americans.

I used this photo for a Photoshop tutorial to get the grunge look.  McGyver thought that the pasta made me look like I had a bushy tail. I thought it was too photo-shopped looking. Oh well, back to the drawing Photoshop board.  (I really need some private lessons, anyone willing?)

Note: I went to a wildlife photography workshop given by renowned photographer Michael Forsberg on Saturday.  I learned that a polarizing filter would have made all the difference in my photos, it accentuates the landscape background and sky.  If you noticed mine look washed out, I immediately ordered one (along with a new lens from Amazon).  If you have time you should check out his beautiful photography on his site here.