Alphabet Soup

For full poem: https://medium.com/@wdibble/alphabet-soup-7f36e99d698e Image Description: A line of land is visible at the very bottom of the image. The foreground in the left half of photo is dominated by a stylized wind turbine. It appears as a large slender tower with a full circle of turbine blades around the top, forming a nearly complete circle. Fourteen identical wind turbines dot the horizon in the distance behind it, interspersed along the land at the bottom of the photograph. Just to the right of the main turbine are a pair of small birds. The entire foreground is silhouetted. The sky is filled with purple storm clouds that fade to reddish-orange at the horizon. The clouds are blurred with motion across the sky.

But I've Got Unlimited Data

Full Poem Here: https://medium.com/@wdibble/but-ive-got-unlimited-data-bcf8ec01cd3 Image Description: The picture is low to the ground. Train tracks stretch from the bottom to a third of the way up the photo. Yellow bushes line both sides of the tracks. The tracks are rusty and old. A mountain rises from the horizon line to two-thirds of the top of the photo. Evergreen trees dot the landscape and mountain. The sky is bright blue with whispy clouds.

This Moment Burns Us Alive

For full poem and image description: https://medium.com/@wdibble/this-moment-burns-us-alive-7fc1ce08f9d0

The Valley

It's my first day on the new job I used to teach. Today I'm doing class photos. Little girls, daughters of the parent volunteers, run in circles around my feet. I'm smiling but it's a facade. Yesterday, seventeen people needlessly had their lives uprooted and destroyed. Today people are telling me it's rude to demand gun control and infringe their rights Fucking rude. Today people are telling me it's they're classmates faults for not knowing of the coming hell. There are too many poems about people being shot but we stand here again. Every year the reaper thanks the NRA for padding their wallet. The reaper gets paid a commission of death. They care not that some of the victims haven't known love or niceness, haven't gotten to see their graduation day or get their first job. The politicians got their wages in private jets and personal gifts. They only pay out in meaningless thoughts and prayers while taking payment from the NRA. We fund death and ignorance instead of saving lives. Every school shooting is our reward for complacency. How many souls do we owe to the gun manufacturers? How many souls to the right to take lives at eight hundred fifty feet per second? How many souls to this worship of death machines while our future bleeds out in front of it's locker because we can't bring ourselves to confront the cause? I go to work scared that something will happen and a shooter will show up. It doesn't matter if their reason is because this school has a high Latino population or because they're just another angry white man. Because the reaper doesn't care. They get their pay and we get our heartbreak Either way we just lose and lose and lose Don't give me this thoughts and prayers bullshit if you aren't willing to help solve it Image Description: A rocky mountain valley. A railroad crosses a small steel bridge in the bottom left corner. Most of the plants are either evergreens or scrub-type plants. There’s a sliver of a stream or river in the right bottom third. A big rocky mountain comes down to meet a dirt road in the left half of the photo. A blue sky with fluffy clouds takes up the top third.

The World Moved On

Image Description: A railroad switch signal is in the foreground. It is old, rusted, and all the lights are broken. In the background, along the bottom third of the photo, are rocky mountains with evergreen trees on them. The top two thirds of the background is taken up by a sky with white clouds in it.

Can We Learn to Look Up?

Image Description: A night landscape. A pair of railroad tracks runs through a grassy field from the bottom of the image to the horizon, about a third of the way up. There are trees on the right in the foreground, and building lights on the horizon. In the sky, there are faint clouds and stars.

The Cacophony Assaulted Our Senses

Image description: Black and white photograph. A very reflective building with an all-glass exterior rises on the left. A concrete building with tall, vertical black windows rises parallel to that on the right. In between the two is a building made up of rows of windows and concrete. A few street lights and other buildings are visible at the bottom of the photo.

Commercial Goods for Commercial Gods

Image Description: Black and white photo of a city street. the sky has mild clouds, and there are cars stopped at a traffic light, facing away. Tall buildings rise on both sides, reflecting each other in the windows. The road is centered, and goes up and over a hill, out of sight.

The Gods Never Went Away, They Became New Idols

Did We Ever See The Sun?

Partial Reflections Are Still Part of a Whole

Image Description: A black and white photo of a building corner, looking upward at it. The windows are all black, and there is a shadow across part of it.

Sleepy Eyelids in Brick Faces

Will You Walk With Me?

She Spread Her Wings to Dry, Preparing to Roost for the Night

The Corn Wasn't Cradled, But We Went Through the Motions All the Same

Maybe Stairs Aren't So Bad

At the End of the Day, We Have Our Legacies

Have I Seen You Before?

Hold My Hand, I'm Self Destructing

When I Danced, It Was Full of Joy

Remember When We Smiled?

Art is Revolution

Every time an artist makes a statement in support of something, there are people who wish artists would do a number of things. "I wish they'd stick to photography." "I wish they'd stick to singing." "Why cant they just write?" I have some terrible news for you. Art is political. Art is and always has been and always will be the window to an artist's soul. Look at their art to see what they value. Look at their lyrics. You want a window into who they are? Look at what drives them. Who or what is their muse? What inspires them to put the pen to paper, brush to canvas, image to sensor, song to recording? Art is political. Art is revolution. And us artists? We'll keep doing what we want, regardless of the demands we stay out of politics.

High Noon

I found the patterns on the side of the Wells Fargo Center in Denver, Colorado, to be absolutely fascinating. The appearances of the building change rapidly throughout the day.

Feeders

Old Fall River Road is a scenic and historic route from Horseshoe Park up to the Alpine Visitor Center. It follows one of the park's original roads, with plenty of hikes and waterfalls on the way up. This is one of the earlier streams just above the road's entrance.

Planes and Mountains

Here along the front range, the rising Rockies tower over the flatness of the plains. There are two extremes here, as the planes abruptly become the mountains, and the weather sometimes reflects that. Above all, however, it is timelessly beautiful.

Strange Prairie Flowers

Growing out of the prairies of Kansas, these flowers stand like sentries, waiting for a future time when they are accepted everywhere.

Manhattan, Kansas, April 2017

Taken from the Manhattan letters overlooking part of the city.

Through a Window

As a photographer, one thing I like to do, when I have the opportunity, is to flirt with the lines between foreground and background. In this case, there were small windows along the underground passages at Monticello that allowed a view into the main gardens. One of htem had blooming flowers outside, providing the perfect contrast of light, dark, foreground, background.

Yellow Tulips at Monticello

A Charleston Scene

Alleyways like this are commonplace in Charleston, South Carolina. Nestled between buildings, they might hide entryways, driveways, or even entire garden squares. Some are open to public while others remain locked throughout the day.

Duke Chapel Exterior 01

I have been living in North Carolina for almost all of my life. Even so, I'd never been inside Duke Chapel, or really explored the grounds around it. I am not a religious person. I am an atheist-leaning agnostic. Even so, I had to stop and appreciate the beauty of the building, inside and out. Sadly, I did not have a camera with me that day, and the ISO noise levels on my phone's camera become absolutely useless above 400.

Pike's Peak Cog Railway Departure Platform, Winter 2016

I think I can, I think I can... But the little engine that could... Couldn't. Cog railways are interesting. They exist in places where the rails are too steep for traditional friction rails. Instead, a central toothed rail interacts with a drive cog in the train, which pulls the train up the mountain. In places, the Pike's Peak Cog Railway has a grade of around twenty percent, with a severely tilted horizon line.

Boulder County, Winter 2016

The city and county of Boulder, Colorado, taken from Davidson Mesa.

Moonlight over Lake Phelps

Despite the seemingly daytime quality to the light, this photo was shot by moonlight. A 6 second exposure was needed to help smooth the water yet retain its texture. I also managed to get some of the stars, despite the moon's best attempt to bleach out the stars. This was taken out at the boat ramp.

No Fishermen At Dawn

Morning at Ocean Isle Beach.

Ocean Isle Life

Evening at Ocean Isle Beach.

Into the Void

He looked down the lit walkway. Beyond... Nothing. Night. Endless darkness. It made him introspective, this walkway into the endless nothing. He thought about his friends, his family, those he loved and who loved him. His enemies, those he hated, those who had hated him. He thought about stepping off and falling into eternity, disappearing. With a soft smile, he decided to turn his back, and walk back into the light.

Old Baldy

Old Baldy, located on Bald Head Island, is considered NC's oldest standing lighthouse. It was the second light built on the island, after the first one was washed away by beach erosion. It wil be two centuries old in 2017. Surrounded by a picturesque grove of trees, the lighthouse stands today as a monument to the men and women of the Lifesaving services that preceded the coast guard.

Light of Oak Island

Bald Head Island has been home to two separate lighthouses. Neither is in use now, though. The new sentry over the Cape Fear River is Oak Island. Located near a Coast Guard station, this tri-colored lighthouse is still in service today, It is one of two in-service lighthouses that does not use a black-and-white pattern on the NC coast, opting instead for three different colors of concrete.

Ebb and Flow

Fairy Tale

Just outside of the city, the wizard bought a retreat. He built a castle there on the side of Red Mountain, away from the bustle and noise of the markets and stores. He built it for his wife, so they could live together in solitude. Sadly, she passed away, and in his despair, he abandoned the house to nature. (Fictionalization of the house's true story)

At the Top

Cog railroads are fairly rare. They are built in places where the friction from the rails and wheels will not be enough to keep the train moving. This one is at the top of Pike's Peak in Colorado.

Naval Power

BB-64, also known as the USS Wisconsin, is an Iowa-class battleship. Her keel was laid down in 1941, with her launch taking place two years later. One of the Navy's most powerful WWII battleships, her main guns could fire projectiles weighing over a ton for a distance of twenty miles. She remained relevant through Desert Storm, receiving a chemical warfare and tomahawk missile package in place of several guns and other outdated equipment. Finally, in 2006, she was permanently retired and became a museum ship in Norfolk, Virginia.

Roanoke River Lighthouse

Lighthouses were one of the few ways to safely guide people throughout North Carolina's treacherous waterways. From the lethal shores of the Outer Banks to the Graveyard of the Atlantic, to the freshwater rivers, North Carolian claimed many ships and boats. Roanoke River Light is one such lighthouse. Originally a lightship, several lighthouses were built over the years. The current light was built in 1887, and was moved to a new location in 1955. In 2007 it was moved again to its current location in Edenton, NC.

Guidance

Lighthouses were one of the few ways to safely guide people throughout North Carolina's treacherous waterways. From the lethal shores of the Outer Banks to the Graveyard of the Atlantic, to the freshwater rivers, North Carolian claimed many ships and boats. Roanoke River Light is one such lighthouse. Originally a lightship, several lighthouses were built over the years. The current light was built in 1887, and was moved to a new location in 1955. In 2007 it was moved again to its current location in Edenton, NC.

South Park

The town of South Park is a fictional place... But the valley it exists in is very real. Park County, Colorado, is a surreal valley 10,000 feet above sea level. It looks like somebody just dropped a massive section of the US midwest into the mountains, with snow-capped peaks on all sides.

The Chapel on the Rock

The Saint Catherine of Siena Chapel has a rocky history. One of Boulder County's historic sites, the chapel was almost burned during a massive fire in 2011. Just two short years later, massive rock slides destroyed huge portions of the surrounding terrain. What used to be green land around it is now baren dirt and sand. Even so, this chapel stands strong and tall at the foot of the majestic Rockies.