Photo 101: I’d treasure a return to the green plus B&W4

/ March 23, 2015

We’re into the fourth week of Photo 101, classmates, and Michelle has instructed us to look closely at something we treasure.

I pulled a couple of my golf clubs out and sat them down on my still brown lawn, perched them against the rail outside the front steps of the Little Bitty my dear wife Karen and I share in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood.

There have been years when I’ve been able to sneak out to our traditional Central New York golf course opener, Westvale, right around this juncture, welcoming spring with my buddies KP, Tater and Netti, and truly raising my spirits.

Golf has been my close friend since my Great Uncle Pete gave me an old club and beat-up balls and pointed me toward the park behind our house before I was a teen, and then patient older folks took me out to cheap courses and driving ranges on Long Island, and my father put together enough bucks to buy me my first used set, and I fell in love with the feel of a club making solid contact with that little white ball.

It’s freeing, it is. Satisfying, especially those times when the big dog driver behaves enough to send signals that keeps my Bridgestone on the short grass. So wonderful, to hear that plunk after the ball leaves the face of the putter and tracks through twists and slopes to the bottom of the hole.

Spring hopes.

Spring hopes.

Alas, it’s 18 F this morning in upstate New York. As you can see in my photograph that signals my love of the game, snow lingers, so much so that I’ve yet to spring-clean the leaves that blew across from our neighbor’s big front tree late last autumn. It may be weeks before that first liberating trip to Westvale, when the guys and I loosen up the muscles, the story-telling and the spirit.

Looking at the putter, the big dog driver, three balls and a few tees, though … I find a treasure chest in waiting.

Well-worn Nikes. Yes, water-proof when new.

Well-worn Nikes. Yes, water-proof when new.

The course will still be mucky, yes. We won’t wait too long. At least I won’t be ruining a new pair of golf shoes. I’ll clean them up the best I can after the first round.

And, for Post 4 of the Black & White Challenge laid down by PriorHouse, here the shoes are again.

Still dirty.

Still dirty.

Interesting what it does to last season’s mud spots.

I tag Katy Breen Allen, whom I’ve met through Photo 101. Have fun, KatyDid!

Is there a personal treasure that you’ve put on hold because of the lingering winter? How might you have gotten more out of the golf club photo? Do you prefer the color or black-and-white golf shoes, and why?

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39 thoughts on “Photo 101: I’d treasure a return to the green plus B&W4”

  1. I LOVE the clubs photo! That’s a perfect arrangement you made. I love the snow and dead leaves in the composition. I like the color shoes photo better only because I don’t ever get to see golf shoes, so this helps me know what they really look like. But I do like the shadow play on the BW. 🙂

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  3. I used to like going to the driving range. For me, the activity I put on hold for winter was going for walks on the local trails. I am glad to be getting out there again now that the weather is warming up 🙂

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  6. I treasured your green grass under what you treasured, Mark! The shoes in black and white are really cool, I liked this shot a lot! I also know how much you want to get out and golf. You never know, it may be sooner than you expect. Do you go anywhere to ‘putt’ in the snow? We have some big places where you purchase a bucket of balls and you can send them soaring out into snow. When you are finished with the bucket, you don’t have to go find the balls…. What is this called? A putting place? smiles!
    I used to take my son to counseling, sometimes we would go bowling, he taught me how to play pool, sometimes to play Putt Putt or miniature golf. When he was angry I would take him out to Oakland Golf Course where at the top of a hill they have this covered place, still outdoors, but you can just whack away at the balls!

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  7. I like the b & w photo, though I can’t say why exactly. I am using that filter more and more so just preference.

    Love the new theme! 😀

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    • Thanks, Sheena. I’ve had a blast with the Photo 101 course and the B&W challenge. I’m glad you like my new look, my friend. Same theme, believe it or not. I just monkeyed with every background photo and color. 🙂

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  8. I put planting out tender plants on hold – you just never really know whether there will be a late frost in march/early april.

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  10. Love the shoes! They remind me of, perhaps, Ty Cobb’s spikes in Cooperstown, only the golf version. I know next to nothing about the game — is there a comparable hall of fame, with artifacts?

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    • There is a golf hall of fame, Jim, in St. Augustine, Fla. And none of my equipment will ever get in sniffing distance of its hallowed hallways. I must add that before the last time the PGA was held in Rochester at Oak HIll, my golf writer friend Chris Wagner invited me to play in his foursome for media day months prior to the Major tournament, and another foursome member and I, Dave Junod, got their early and walked their clubhouse, uninvited, posh and lined with treasured memorabilia from U.S. Opens and PGA events, clubs and balls and photos from Palmer, Nicklaus, Trevino, Greg Norman. I loved it. No dirty shoes that I can recall.

      See you tomorrow or Wednesday?

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  11. Definitely tells a story of potential energy…all those things just waiting to happen! Yep, think I like the sneakers in black and white. Makes them look even older, heh, heh. It’s funny because with modern technology we have all these colors to play with, yet there’s something to be said about a black and white pic!

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