John's Apothecary

Musings on photography, art, film, freedom, lovingkindness, poetry & the Holy Ghost.

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Trube Castle, Galveston. (2012)

~blanchefleur

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embarrassment of riches near needville tx. (2025)

~blanchefleur

I prefer wildflowers curated by God, but on a roadside near Needville TX, an inspired florist produced something magnificent, a perfect production. One is with butterfly, one without.

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neo-barbizonist photography. austin, tx

~blanchefleur

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Bethlehem

~blanchefleur

09mars2020

— first tent, then mint tea. afterwards we walk into the desert, endless dunes, towards egypt a mile or two, unsheperded camels, this one alone — turning away.

i shoot ten, twelve frames, the camel moves away from the lens. this frame, the 4th shot n the reel, has a necessary balance that the others lack, so that the frame becomes better than the others. the thing in my soul is captured outside of the frame, and is somehow imbedded in the frame, almost like a memory.

camel’s roam the Sahara, eternally. a single moment in time, the slope of the creature, an unknowable angle from the lens, a nudge from the ghost of luck, rhythm of the saints — create something from nothing, a feeling that is bigger than elements in the photograph. sand, negative space, horizon, camel. i feel the import these objects, as i drop the shutter. the other photographs in the loop will fail. only this one. the essence of the moment. yeat’s poem in a millisecond of chance. the feeling of dread, a second coming, slouching towards Bethlehem to be born.

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Pattern of God (2014). 16:9 aspect ratio. cotton photographic paper

a tangle of wild daisy & firewheel growing 200 meters from the gulf of mexico. late summer 2014 —

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island facade (2018)

~blanchefleur

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gobsmacked by the first volley

~blanchefleur

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ignoble white

~blanchefleur

the land of milk and honey. in spring, an abundance of wildflowers, tall grass, rolling. the massive trees fed by an underground limestone river, begin to leaf, oak and sycamore and the later pecan, and then form a verdant canopy. all the greens rush in effortlessly, so that its easy to overlook this natural embarrassment of riches!

and many times, underneath the lushness, the white poppy appears, silver-green stems, white flowers 2 to 3 inches per bloom. they have little barbs which remain benign to the touch but visually allow an almost thornless. although they tend to grow in isolation from each other, amidst other spring flowers, they will occasionally turn up in bunches. i have seen this poppy species as far as galveston island, infrequently. but they manage there in the salty swamp.

in central texas, however, the white poppies grow much larger, maybe by 20%. they tend to cluster together more. i found a patch in eagle lake, west of houston blooming profusely, perhaps 30 blooms simultaneously, happy no doubt that they were far enough from the coast to avoid the stagnant air and briny wetland far more suitable to a robust lily or bushy blue stem.

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three framed flowers on the side of the road

~blanchefleur

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c t garcia, bastrop

~blanchefleur

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IN THE SEVENTH YEAR THE LIGHT BLINKED & THE PASSION SWOONED & IT ALL LOOKED GREEN & IT FELT LIKE A BIG DAY COMING, & SO AGAINST HIS BETTER JUDGEMENT, HE BEGAN TO WRITE IT DOWN.

I’m back.  This, of course, means very little to anyone who may have accidentally bumped into this blog, which is not a blog.  Today, Monday Ferbruary13, 2017, I will begin again.

  Here is the thing -- for as long as it takes & as often as it changes and as foolish as it may look, I pledge to write the Great American Novel.  This humble scroll will help me organize as I write.  The first sentence follows.

The butterfly was gigantic, more than three inches wing-tip to wing-tip with a split tail & a small head the color of polished anthracite, even where its eyes were supposed to be, like a black rubber mask so dark that it seem impossible that it might see through its opacity.

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June 2012.  In the World about to come.  A perfect house on Avenue S.  Before the police.  Before orgaized crime.

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Gustave Doré    Donkey Skin

Fairy tales are quite spooky, as above illustrated.   The conflict in this Cinderella like story is, apparently, paternal incest. 

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Olga Tremblay

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An Homage to Jim Lahey — c.s.Blancheflower

Lahey:  (slurred) Its not me, Randy, its notme  Iswear  toGod.  It's the liquor, Randy! (even more slurred) The liquor IS the anger!

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Landscape, Banks of the Yerres - Gustave Caillebotte

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Yerres, the Aviary in the Ornamental Farm - Gustave Caillebotte