The brave and daring few





Welcome to jennyweber dot com
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Home of Jenny the Pirate
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Our four children
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Our eight grandchildren
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This will go better if you
check your expectations at the door.
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We're not big on logic
but there's no shortage of irony.
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Nice is different than good.
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Oh and ...
I flunked charm school.
So what.
> Jennifer <
Causing considerable consternation
to many fine folk since 1957
Pepper and me ... Seattle 1962
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Insist on yourself; never imitate.
Your own gift you can present
every moment
with the cumulative force
of a whole life’s cultivation;
but of the adopted talent of another
you have only an extemporaneous
half possession.
That which each can do best,
none but his Maker can teach him.
> Ralph Waldo Emerson <
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Represent:
The Black Velvet Coat
This blog does not contain and its author will not condone profanity, crude language, or verbal abuse. Commenters, you are welcome to speak your mind but do not cuss or I will delete either the word or your entire comment, depending on my mood. Continued use of bad words or inappropriate sentiments will result in the offending individual being banned, after which they'll be obliged to walk the plank. Thankee for your understanding and compliance.
> Jenny the Pirate <
Ecstatically shooting everything in sight using my beloved Nikon D3100 with AF-S DX Nikkor 18-55mm 1:3.5-5.6G VR kit lens and AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 G prime lens.
Also capturing outrageous beauty left and right with my Nikon D7000 blissfully married to my Nikkor 85mm f/1.4D AF prime glass. Don't be jeal.
And then there was the Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-200mm f:3.5-5.6G ED VR II zoom. We're done here.
I am a taphophile
Word. Photo Jennifer Weber 2010
Great things are happening at
If you don't believe me, click the pics.
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Dying is a wild night
and a new road.
Emily Dickinson
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When I am gone
Please remember me
As a heartfelt laugh,
As a tenderness.
Hold fast to the image of me
When my soul was on fire,
The light of love shining
Through my eyes.
Remember me when I was singing
And seemed to know my way.
Remember always
When we were together
And time stood still.
Remember most not what I did,
Or who I was;
Oh please remember me
For what I always desired to be:
A smile on the face of God.
Do not regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many.
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Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not;
But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.
But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:
In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake.
For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.
We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;
Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;
Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.
For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.
So then death worketh in us, but life in you.
We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I BELIEVED, AND THEREFORE HAVE I SPOKEN; we also believe, and therefore speak;
Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you.
For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God.
For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.
For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;
While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.
II Corinthians 4
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Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom and then lost it, have never known it again.
~ Ronald Reagan
Photo Jennifer Weber 2010
Louisa Porter Angel :: Laurel Grove Cemetery :: Savannah, GeorgiaHai all.
Apologies for having been in absentia for most of a week.
If you've been paying attention, you know two things: I like cemeteries -- mostly for the photographic opportunities they afford -- and I love poetry.
Benjamin Humphreys Woodson Monument :: Elmwood Cemetery :: Memphis, Tennessee
My favorite poet by a country mile is Emily Dickinson, the Belle of Amherst. Emily was born on December 10, 1830, in Amherst, Massachusetts.
On May 15, 1886, at the young age of fifty-five, Emily was "called back" -- those are the words inscribed on her tombstone -- and left this earth from Amherst.
Virginia Majette Welch Monument :: Green Hill Cemetery :: Waynesville, North Carolina
On my own grave marker -- which I sure hope I won't need for a long time -- I have asked that these words of Emily's be inscribed:
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In this short Life / That only lasts an hour
How much -- how little -- is / Within our power
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Mary Norcott London Cansler Monument :: Elmwood Cemetery :: Charlotte, North Carolina
A few Christmases ago, Audrey gave me the book The Gorgeous Nothings: Emily Dickinson's Envelope Poems, which offers stunning close-up photos of the scraps of paper on which Emily scribbled her timeless words.
I recently discovered the online Emily Dickinson Archive, where you may view those same photos, and more. If stuff like that interests you.
Lucy Harvie Baldwin Monument :: Bonaventure Cemetery :: Savannah, Georgia
Of all my ambitions in the area of cemetery photography -- and I've got lots -- my primary goal for many years has been to visit Emily's grave in West Cemetery, Amherst.
Until the happy day I am able to do that, on the one-hundred twenty-ninth anniversary of Emily being called back, I am sharing a few pictures I imagine she might have liked.
Martha Ellis Monument :: Rose Hill Cemetery :: Macon, Georgia
In closing I give you my favorite of all the poems written by my favorite poet:
Ample make this Bed --
Make this Bed with Awe --
In it wait till Judgment break
Excellent and Fair.
Be its mattress straight --
Be its Pillow round --
Let no Sunrise' yellow noise
Interrupt this Ground --
Truth be told, that's the poem I'd really like on my someday-tombstone. But the other one is shorter. I'll let the kids decide. When the time comes.
Corinne Elliott Lawton Monument :: Bonaventure Cemetery :: Savannah, Georgia
Until then, let's enjoy life while it lasts.
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Happy Friday ~ Happy Weekend
This will be a short post. Well, shortish. Short for me.
Sometimes I don't have all that much to say. I will thank you not to snicker.
Audrey and I (Erica was unable to accompany us this time) took another mini-day-trip (meaning it took up only part of the day) last Saturday.
You may or may not know this about me but I am more or less obsessed with ruins.
I love the abandoned, the left-to-rot spots. I don't know why. I have a list of ruins I plan to visit, get to know, and subject to my lavish and sincere photographic attentions.
Sometimes I think ruins remind me of cemeteries, where all that is going to be done, has been done, and what is left is the marveling at how quickly it all went.
But I know a big draw for me is the quiet, the calm, the peace, of no more struggle.
Not that cemeteries or abandoned places have given up. They haven't. In fact they supply so much noisy beauty, it takes specially-trained ears and eyes to hear and see it.
As for my eye, it may not be especially trained in any sort of classical or traditional sense involving schooling or anything, but it has trained itself to see.
Since becoming especially enamored of photography within the last ten years -- meaning, I refused any longer to think, you're not a photographer, leave it to those who know what they're doing, you've been told and best heed, you are no artist -- I have learned how to look at things.
That is to say, I've learned a great deal but I hope to continue learning until the day before I'm ushered out of this world.
And I don't care what anyone thinks about any of that. I really don't. But I'm chuffed when they think (of something I wrote, or of one of my pictures): That's pretty neat.
So it was that Audrey, Dagny, and I merged onto I-77 Northbound, destination Fairfield County, home to many historic wonders including the tiny towns of Winnsboro and Ridgeway.
On the way I actually stopped to take a picture of a parked semi trailer emblazoned with Old Glory.
And also the -- ahem -- interesting signage on the brightly-painted building beside which the trailer sits.
Winnsboro was chosen as a preliminary destination because there is a historic clock tower there (not much else, sorry Winnsboro), and Ridgeway, because of the school ruins.
By the way: Winnsboro's aforementioned clock, at over one hundred years of ticking, is billed as the oldest continually-running clock in the United States. I'm only reporting what I've read and what is said.
In addition to the clock and its charming tower, I did get this shot on South Congress Street in Winnsboro -- once a bustling retail community but now not so much -- because you know how I love such upshot perspectives on vintage buildings.
Then on to Ridgeway, a scant fifteen minutes away by chariot.
When old Ridgeway High School was demolished -- I know not when -- a single doorway was left standing.
There's no actual door; only a pedimented archway and enough brick around it, to let it stand there.
Ivy has made it its mission to decorate one side of the structure in a most lush and stylish fashion.
The doorway dominates a field on an ordinary residential street in the sleepy town, only a block off the main drag which I told you about here.
I learned of the school ruins (such as they be) only after not one, but two somewhat recent visits to Ridgeway, which drowsy hamlet turns out to be a deep reservoir of photographic delights. If -- again -- you know where to look and how to see.
And now I'll have to go back because soon after arriving at the ruins, I realized I was there on the wrong day and at the wrong time of that day.
The ruins face southeast; meaning, they're best photographed as the sun rises and strikes the front of the structure.
Also the day was relentlessly bright, nearly cloudless. And as the sun sank behind the ruin, it would render it a mere silhouette.
But we popped The World's Cutest Little Baby up on the ledge anyway, and she began smiling and laughing at her mother, and my lens loved her tiny face and sparkling eyes for a few minutes.
We will take her back too, at which time we will plan better, stay longer, and do it all more justice, if only of the poetic variety.
Before leaving for home, we swung by a quaint lovely church with a small immaculate graveyard, where honeysuckle was blooming rampant, perfuming the warm air like you wouldn't believe.
It was a day for doorways and I'm a sucker for a red ecclesiastical door. It did not hurt that said door was set in a gothic archway itself set into a chalet-style roofline under antique slate shingles, flanked by genuine leaded-glass windows, beyond a perfect wrought-iron gate at the start of a brick path shaded by old trees.
The scene brought heaven to mind.
And there was a nice black amber-eyed dog, who approached and wanted to be friendly but wasn't sure.
We inadvertently allowed him outside the main gate and were concerned until we realized he freely goes in and out. Even so, Audrey offered him one of Dagny's arrowroot cookies to lure him back inside.
But he balked. I was like: In or out, Blackie. Make up your mind. You remind me of that freestanding door down the street: neither here nor there.
Upon which he stepped on a burr (or something), temporarily semi-laming himself, and loped off across the adjoining property. It was our signal to move along too.
Until we return to Ridgeway and environs for further adventures and additional artistic opportunities, I hope I haven't ruined your day.
Au revoir for the nonce, friends and neighbors.
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Happy Wednesday