Rain puddles held in the warp depressions of porch deck boards slowly chilled to grow amazing ice crystals across the board surfaces. These large, thin, low-profile crystals slowly grew overnight. The left-hand half of the photo shows several long crystals whose edges appear to form palm fronds or the glasswork dragonfly wings. Williamson County, TN USA. ###

Rising above the surface of the board, multiple angular crystals in random orientation appear as elegant heavy cuts in a crystal platter. Williamson County, TN USA. ###

#ThursdayVibes #winter #IceCrystals #originalcontent #photography #blackandwhite #monochrome #shareyourparadise #samsung #S23Ultra

The gentle freeze ahead of the Southland's first (hopefully only) Snowmageddon of 2026 has the crystals pumping up at the gym to show off chiseled, art board abs.

A view of just one of the dozen (or more) ornately decorated Christmas trees at Cheekwood Mansion in Nashville, TN. The spruce tree is accented with silver and gold branches, leaves, multiple sizes of glass ornaments in matte, shiney, translucent, and clear finishes in multiple shades of blue. Ornaments are spherical, teardrop-shaped, bejeweled, and engraved oblong glass. Blue ribbons wind their ways between branches. The background is of the blue painted walls of the cabinets holding the family's Sterling silver serving items, several of which are visible in the shelves. ###

A Blue Christmas 📷📱
The season's gone, but some of the beauty of the museum lives on.

#TuesdayBlue #TreeTuesday #TextureTuesday #glassworldtuesday #originalcontent #photography #photographerlife #shareyourparadise #samsung #S23Ultra

The image is a close-up view of the interior deep into a hollow log that is fully engulfed in flame. At the forefront is a protrusion in the lower half of the view. Its shape and mixed coloring is the appearance of the neck and head of a bird facing to the right of the view. The smooth head, placement of a round black eye, the shape of a beak or bill includes outlines and shading accentuating the upper and lower halves of the beak. A dark comb runs at the back of the neck. Though less defined, a wing edge appears to be folded. The illusion seems comfortably nested in the flames. The background is a hellish blur of smoke, charred wood, ash, and orange and yellow flame of a wooden brimstone landscape. ###

Viewing deep into a hollow log burning in a campfire… birthing a firebird?

#ColorfulMonday #abstractartmonday #AlphabetChallenge #WeekCforCloseup #originalcontent #photography #photographerlife #shareyourparadise #samsung #S23Ultra 📷📱

This is the unique rear view of a one-off French automobile, the 1947 Castareda. A three-wheeler, the single wheel centered at rear provided the power. The sausage shaped body gave it the streamlined look of racing models of its day. Centered in the view, the blue painted body is a worn and rusty likeness of the nose of an aircraft fuselage. The vents in the body and engine cover create a scowling face. The two outboard wheels that provide stability and steering are visible in the upper half of the view. Each is covered with a full fender, likely from the motorbikes they originally serviced. Like the rear body, the fenders are covered in rust patches where the paint has worn away. In the top quarter, the open cockpit of the left-seat driver exposes the top of the steering wheel and much of the white dashboard and chrome edges of instrumentation covers. A few other automobiles of the museum's extensive and exotic collection are visible at the very top. Lane Motor Museum, Nashville, TN USA. # # #

#TuesdayBlue #TravelTuesday #TextureTuesday #originalcontent #photography #photographerlife #shareyourparadise #samsung #S23Ultra 📷📱

Even Bardot's curves got a bit rough after decades of running around.

Appearing more like an apocalyptic skyscape, this is a less deadly macro view of the inferno inside a burning vertically stacked hollow log. The rock-like features in the left hand quarter and the lower right corner of the view are charred wood at the edge of the hollow opening. The char is blurred as the focal point is deep into and through the log. The rest of the view imitates a flaming sunset or dawn on an imaginary horizon. The apparent brightly shining sun is the active yellow flame burning deep in the log. The red-orange storm clouds are the interior walls of the feeding from the flames rushing up to the top of the hollow. As if a storm was passing through, smoke paints both light and shadow over the roughness and glow of the glowing interior tunnel walls. © Copyright 2025 by David B. Stewart. All rights reserved.

A World On Fire 📷📱
#Stunday #ScenicSunday #SkyScape #SkySunday #fire #originalcontent #photographerlife #photography #shareyourparadise #samsung #S23Ultra

No, not the sky... not ours anyway. Perhaps a fire dreams of new worlds?

Appearing more like an apocalyptic volcanic eruption, this is a less deadly macro view of the inferno inside a burning vertically stacked hollow log (see video clip). The base of the photo is charred and covered with mineral droplets left as the moisture escaped. it appears much like the dark base of a mountain top. The upper two thirds displays the active burn of the hollow. The mix of white smoke, deep orange and red-orange colors of the fire burning from the inside-out. Red magma seems to erupt. It mixes with white smoke, yellow flame, and the errie orange, red, and yellow embers that are the walls of the log to paint a picture of volcanic eruption. Flame and smoke billow with embered walls filling the upper two-thirds of the view.

Fire In The Sky 📷📱
#SaturdayArt #SaturdayScenes #SaturdayOrange #MacroSaturday #originalcontent #photographerlife #photography #shareyourparadise #samsung #S23Ultra

The view is more subtle in the light pollution of encroaching progress just beyond the trees, but always magical. Christmas laser lights illuminate the dark forest in this nighttime photo. Red and green light reflects from trees and sparse leaves in a dark forest as if holiday designer snowflakes are falling. A stack of firewood sits in the lower center. ###

Each season I leave a few bottles of hard maple cream eggnog and a case of space lasers on the stoop to let the wee folk in on the merriment. They seldom disappoint.

#Stunday #ScenicSunday #Christmas #holiday #originalcontent #photographerlife #photography #shareyourparadise #samsung #S23Ultra 📷📱

This monochrome night view is of 2024's Christmas lights at Anakeesta in Gatlinburg, TN USA. A walkway through circles of rope lighting led some visitors to feel as if they'd been transported through the mountain. Light peeks out from a solid black background. At top, pinpricks of lighting from buildings speckle the horizon of the surrounding ridge lines. Two bright, thin semicircles appear to be flaming at the edges of a portal. A person stands near the left edge deeper into the dark space as if floating half in the shadow at the left side near the smaller curve. The larger curve illuminates the person's torso from the right. ###

#AlphabetChallenge #WeekYforYearPast #SaturdayStillness #SaturdayScenes #MagnificentMonochrome #blackandwhite #originalcontent #photographerlife #photography #shareyourparadise #samsung #S23Ultra 📷📱

The photo is a nighttime view of a cloth lantern sculpture representing the Year of the Pig, a zodiac sign of the Chinese calendar. The sculpture of a green bush sits at lower left. The right-hand third of the scene displays the cloth sculpture of a 7-foot tall pink pig in traditionally male dress of the period. He carries a staff. A large diameter (2 meters or more) circular sign explains the Pig zodiac. it portrays a round bamboo form with yellow design of intricate wood framing in the leftmost third of the circle. The remaining circular space is a blue field with yellow text description, as follows: "PIG 1923, 1935, 1947, 1959, 1971, 1983, 1995, 2007, 2019 Calm, resolute, kind-hearted compassionate, honest, loyal full of passion. You are always willing to help others. You are very calm and deal well with stressful situations. You will not step back when you face difficulties. You are very faithful in love. Your luck with finances is generally better. You trust others easily, so people can fool you easily, but your good traits even this out. You are always cheerful and optimistic. Lucky colors: Black, White, Gold, Cream White, Stone Gray, Green, Yellow, Purple Inter-restricted Zodiac signs: Snake, Pig, Monkey Inter-promoted Zodiac signs: Tiger, Sheep, Rabbit" ###

The Year of the Pig? What a prophetic difference a year makes. 📷📱
#AlphabetChallenge #WeekYforYearPast #ColorfulMonday #MoodyMonday #CircleShapesMonday #originalcontent #photography #photographerlife #shareyourparadise #samsung #S23Ultra

Sunset in Williamson County, TN USA. It's not even 5 PM. Daylight leaves more quickly nearer the edge of a time zone. And, yes, it really looked like this. It looks as if Prince's purple rain is about to let go and extinguish the sun. A violet sky fills 80 percent of the upper background. High clouds spread upward left and right from center at 10 to 20 degrees. Spotty views of clearer sky arc in a bluer hue beyond the violet clouds to near the top edge of the frame. Blackened against a low, red-orange glow at the horizon, the bare bones of a silver maple tree fill the center of the view. Low and intensely bright yellow sunlight radiates behind the branches. The base of the horizon glows so ominously that folk in the Great Plains states might sound an alarm as evidence of a massive prairie fire. Long electrical distribution lines sweep downward left to right in the leftmost third of the view. Hundreds of other dark tree branch silhouettes are raised across the horizon as if shielding against the burn. ###

Even A World On Fire 📷📱

Sunset in purple clouded majesty. Porch sitting is a time where even God reconsiders burning it all down. For now. The blessing is in noticing it at all.

#ThursdayVibes #skyscape #sunset #originalcontent #photography #photographerlife #shareyourparadise #samsung #S23Ultra

A view of an onion-shaped whiskey still wine port at Heaven's Door Distillery, deep in the hills and hollers of Pleasureville, KY USA. This enclosure looks more like a deep sea diving helmet or a diving bell where faces might look back through the glass shield. Heavy glass is placed front and rear allowing distillers a view from two vantage points. The windows are spotted with droplets of distillate. The glass reflects exterior lighting and tubing. The interior view ripples slightly with distortion of real and reflected images between the two windows. The copper is tarnished brown after months of heat. The polished steel frame of the window seal is a mix of rainbow stains of intense heating, light reflected from exterior windows and softer colors of the wooden interior. Steel, plastic, and copper tubing is visible in the surrounding spaces and behind the globe. Below and out of view, the copper still sits alongside two others at the front of the barn. Pots sit at ground level. Their distilling towers rise past this second story walkway amidst stainless steel piping hung in endless runs and coils snaking through the airspace. Mash bins fill the middle of the building left and out of view. # # #

#TextureTuesday #glassworldtuesday #originalcontent #photography #photographerlife #shareyourparadise #samsung #S23Ultra 📷📱

A view of an onion-shaped whiskey still wine port at Heaven's Door Distillery, deep in the hills and hollers of Pleasureville, KY USA.

Wire frame lantern sculptures of flamingos, this one more than 8 feet tall, surround the flamingo pond. Most are strutting and the shoes definitely make the girl. The background is the pitch black of nighttime in the forest. A spiral wrap of pink LED lights adorns the tree trunk just behind and left of the sculpture. The bird wears a large pink sun hat, matching sunglasses, and (of course) matching feathers. Pink stiletto shoes are tied at each ankle with pink laces that, unlit, appear black in the photo. The annual festival of lights covers acres of zoo property with large wire and cloth sculptures painted in bright colors and illuminated inside and out by various colors of LED lighting. The artworks are taller than a man, some as tall as 60-feet, or more # # #

Baby Stepping Out 📷📱

#ShoesMonday #ColorfulMonday
#PinkMonday #MoodsOfMonday #originalcontent #photography #photographerlife #shareyourparadise #samsung #S23Ultra

Nobody puts this baby in a corner.

Left to right, a brown slug (eyes and head visible at the lower left corner) follows a bright red-orange ant up a bright green bamboo shoot leaning from the ground onto a vertical culm, or cane, of bamboo. The background is pitch black. Other bright green culms and new conical shaped shoots lean into the darkness at the right-hand third of the view. The annual festival of lights covers acres of zoo property with large wire and cloth sculptures painted in bright colors and illuminated inside and out by various colors of LED lighting. The artworks are taller than a man, some as tall as 60-feet, or more # # #

#AlphabetChallenge #WeekVforVowels #ColorfulMonday #MoodsOfMonday #originalcontent #photography #photographerlife #shareyourparadise #samsung #S23Ultra 📷📱

Insects and animals attract humans to the nighttime lights at Zoolumination, The Nashville Zoo, Nashville, TN USA.

Photo inspection of a water heater bypass valve filter port. It's a circular opening in the brass fixture. Some 5-6 cm deep, it's filled with shadow. The exterior brass is tarnished in a pattern of dark waves flowing left and right to either side of the opening. The effect seems one of a curious eye staring back at the camera. # # #

Unfiltered 📱📷
#CircleShapesMonday #originalcontent #photography #photographerlife #shareyourparadise #samsung #S23Ultra

Nothing to see here, but interesting light play on milled brass. Or, just maybe... an eye staring back.

Monochrome studio fan photo of actor Vic Morrow as Sgt. Chip Saunders in WWII infantry gear. The character is in a crouched run (right to left) through a forest carrying his signature M1928 Thompson submachine gun.

Combat!
Fan photo signed on location during the 1966 filming of Episode #134, "The Letter." The late Vic Morrow as Sgt. Chip Saunders.

#AlphabetChallenge #WeekTforTelevision #originalcontent #photographerlife #photography #shareyourparadise #samsung #S23Ultra 📷📱

A rainbow cuts upward left to right just above the steel power distribution poles. A damp green and brown grass field fills the bottom quarter of the view. A tree borders the lower half of the left edge. Two large steel power poles rise to the center and center-right. They support as many as 14 heavy regional distribution lines. Just above the grass in the lower third, additional poles distribute another dozen left and right. Williamson County, TN USA ###

#PowerlineFriday #somelines #originalcontent #photography #photographerlife #shareyourparadise #samsung #S23Ultra 📱📷

Somewhere under the rainbow.

A large onion bulb shaped lamp base finished in turquoise glaze sits to the left and fills more than half of the frame. It reflects every light within reach from ceiling fixtures to its own light and shade. The ceiling lamps distort into round poppy like blossoms. Rounded shadows paint the wall and table. The right-hand view shows a 30-degree slice of the wood grained table top intersecting the canvas-like texture of the wallpaper. A shadow arches like a bridge across the wallpaper. ###

#Bluesday #TuesdayBlue #TextureTuesday #glassworldtuesday #originalcontent #photography #photographerlife #shareyourparadise #samsung #S23Ultra 📷📱

The art glass globe of a candle holder chimney glows in a orangish-golden swirl of of streaks and bubble lit by a tea light. It shines from the left looking like a galaxy spinning in the dark void of the. tablecloth. The light casts a purple glow that fades to black at the right-hand edge of the view. Dark shadow streaks spread like veins over the cloth.

#AlphabetChallenge #WeekSforShadows #SaturdayStillness #BlueSkyArtShow #originalcontent #photographerlife #photography #shareyourparadise #samsung #S23Ultra 📱📷

A view of 'Untitled (4x8 View)', a 2022 steel sculpture by Virginia Overton. Cheekwood Gardens, Nashville, TN USA. The sculpture appears as a framed window or door both in and viewing a clearing in the upper left of a green woodland with lush green grasses. Sunlight fills the clearing beyond the structure. Depth of the piece (several feet thick) is elusive. The rectangular frame is filled with metal tubing of various diameters (between 8 and 2 inches, inclusive) set lengthwise and viewed end-on. Interior shadows offer a hint as light from the far ends of the tubes is occluded presenting oblong cutout views of the scene behind the sculpture as if it were a habitat for gigantic mason bees. # # #

#Thartsday #ThursdayArtwork #ThursdayGreen #originalcontent #photography #photographerlife #shareyourparadise samsung #S23Ultra 📷📱

No longer so green this time of year, but not so long ago… waiting.

The view is from near the driver-side door of a black Porsche 911 parked in the corner of a public garage. Steel cabling of the exterior safety barrier is visible along the wall at front. The yellow shade of the wall fills the reflection in the car's finish. The curves of the car body distort the dark lines of cables and their shadows into patterns resembling ribbed cords or heavy embroidery. The lines join in pairs flowing over each surface and terminating as sharp vanishing points like the letter “V.” Silhouettes of branches and leaves appear in an open space, top left, just beyond the cabling. The edge of the opening is framed by brown brick. The front curve of the fender wraps the dark shade of the leaves in a squashed black oval thickly lined with the color of the brick to resemble an open mouth or a darkly shaded eye. The windshield reflection appears like an open book displaying two pages of sheet music. ###

Reflections in the windshield, fender, and hood of an older black Porsche 911 in lighting of a public parking garage. 📷📱

#Stunday #SundayYellow #Porsche #ScenicSunday #SomeLines #originalcontent #photographerlife #photography #shareyourparadise #samsung #S23Ultra

The architectural design seems a bit like an aircraft landing strip sweeping upward from the wall to the ceiling. The wall treatment continues upward and overhead as the continuous surface of parallel strips with small gaps between them. Along a vertical line dividing the left and center thirds of the view shows long LED light fixtures the same width as the ceiling strips appear as the center stripe of a runway. Two large, tall exterior windows extend vertically from the bottom to just above the horizontal center of the view. Deeply recessed into the rising curve of the wall, the window views are skewed into trapezoidal shapes. They're filled with the blue of the sky and shadows of horizontal grilles extending at an upward angle along the shadow box walls. ###

#SaturdayStripes #somelines #originalcontent #photographerlife #photography #shareyourparadise #samsung #S23Ultra 📱📷

A view of one of the terminal ceilings at the Austin–Bergstrom International Airport, Austin, TX USA.

Viewed through an access walkaway in the pit garage, framed by a steel door between team garages, the end of Kick Sauber's green and black striped pit gantry hangs in the top of the opening, in front of and above the marshall's head. In the top right, two race fans seated in the bleachers on the far side of the track can be clearly seen behind the heavy safety fencing. The marshall fills the left-center third of the view. He stands on a raised platform against the barracade between the front straight and the pit garage entrance. Clad in an orange vest, he wears a white safety helmet and adjusts his protective radio headset. The left side of the door frame displays top-down interior painting of light yellow to gray wall paint separated by a horizontal red stripe. The right side is nearly hidden in darkness of the interior shaddows. The blue cloth arm rests and half of seat fabric of a folding hammock chair can be seen at lower left of the view. ###

#WallsOnWednesday #COTA #photography #photographerlife #shareyourparadise #samsung #S23Ultra 📱📷

A view from the paddock to the pit and outer track walls at the 2025 Formula 1 U.S. Grand Prix. A pit marshall is gearing up for the start of the next event.

A window view into a mirrored room filled with black spiders, candles floating in midair, polyester cobwebs, and trees reflected from exterior windows. The ceiling is a metal structure of hexagons framed in square tubing with round bar spokes. Mirrored walls expand each reflection into an infinite horizon.

#WeirdWednesday #WindowsonWednesday #photography #photographerlife #shareyourparadise #samsung #S23Ultra 📱📷

Halloween decorations at the Museum of Illusions, Austin, TX USA.

Early at the Circuit of the Americas for the 2025 Formula 1 U.S. Grand Prix. Fevered work in the distant paddock and no sound but the wind. This view is from the Club SI grandstand from Turn 12 toward the far end of the back straight. The sky is blustery. The seats are empty. The track is quiet. A gigantic lone star Texas flag appears lost in the view, upper right.

But for the wind, a grand silence.

#AlphabetChallenge #WeekQforQuiet #COTA #Formula1 #USGrandPrix #originalcontent #photography #photographerlife #shareyourparadise #samsung #S23Ultra 📷📱

A disused whiskey barrel has a jack-o-lantern face cut into its staves. The barrel is upright. Its staves are weathered grey. All of the barrel hoops are heavily rusted. Triangular eye holes sit atop a gaping three-toothed smile, less one tooth on the viewer's right. A whole cheek is missing as the stave pieces dropped out. The black cat, however, has dropped in and lurks in the darkness of that smile. Safe in the wooden mouth, he's peeking toward the cornfield (unseen in the photo) to the viewer's left.

#Caturday #originalcontent #photographerlife #photography #shareyourparadise #samsung #S23Ultra

The distillery cat is enjoying the season in the barrel jack-o-lantern. Whiskey Thief Distilling Co., Frankfort, KY USA.

A wooden slab tabletop fills the bottom of the view toward and through the open front door. The door is folded against the wall to the right of the opening. The square-cut logs and broad chinking are visible to the left and right. A view of a forested lot, grass, and a gravel path fills the open door frame. Light from the opening reflects across the table top.

#FrontDoorFriday #photography #photographerlife #shareyourparadise #samsung #S23Ultra 📷📱

An interior view through the front door of the 200 year-old turkey-roof log cabin. Heaven's Door Distillery, Pleasureville, KY, USA.

A view up to the first floor windows from the "Bourbon Pompeii" excavation and restoration of E. F. Taylor's original O.F.C. (Old Fire Copper) distillery works beneath the O.F.C. building's basement floor at Buffalo Trace Distillery, Frankfort, Kentucky USA. The opening is surrounded by a rough wooden railing in front of a large window in the upper right quadrant. A rectangular wire grid of steel fencing can just be seen in the upper left quadrant. Thick spider webs fill the spaces between the fence wires and the railing timbers.

A seasonal view from “Bourbon Pompeii.“
#WindowsOnWednesday #photography #photographerlife #shareyourparadise #samsung #S23Ultra 📱📷

A view inside the shell of an old factory finds a starburst of structural iron beams beneath harsh lighting. The background is a dark mix of black and brown shades. The center of the star hangs in the middle of the lower third of the photo. The glowing edges of the beams and brightly lit wiring offer the appearance of a tall ship's spars, masts, and rigging. The nearly horizontal spar almost completely hides a row of small windows at the upper edges of the ceiling. An insulated steam pipe with multiple square bends rises higher in the background and left of center. It erases the tall ship illusion and lands the view back in a factory or refinery. ###

#WeekLForLines
#AlphabetChallenge #MyTownTuesday
#originalcontent #photography #photographerlife #shareyourparadise #samsung #S23Ultra 📷📱

Empty bar seating. It was a bit early or maybe they opened a door and slipped away? East Nashville, TN USA. A local bar used reclaimed antique doors to build its bar front. Cut to height, but the doors are left in their distressed and chipping paint in earth tones of sage, mustard, and tan. Ornate rusted doorknobs remain set at equal height for each door. The barstools are modern, minimalist, backless, square-topped stamped metal. Painted yellow, each seat is artistically decorated as if dripping with fresh paint spilled over the seat and running down each leg. The drips are accented with heavy black outlines. Left to right the colors alternate blue, red, green, blue, and black. The floor is dark brown made of exterior composite deck boards running the length of the bar. ###

#cafesaturday #SaturdayScenes #SaturdayStillness #SaturdayArt #originalcontent #photographerlife #photography #shareyourparadise #samsung #S23Ultra 📷📱

A classic sign of decades past marks a bare concrete slab and slyly lifts a three-fingered pour to the no-tell motel out of view and just up the hill, stage left. Center-view is the dilapidated sheet metal and neon sign of a once active nightlife near Roanoke, VA. Its back stands straight near a creosote-covered wooden power pole. Black insulated power and telephone lines run left and right above the street edge behind the sign. Green treetops fill in the spaces beneath the wires. A bright blue sky with cumulus clouds completes the background. Badly weathered and peeling, its basic blue exterior coat is mostly there with large grey patches of primer beneath and very little rust. It's like something out of the 1950s-60s that would be at home along any Route 66 relic. A semi-triangular body with rounded corners rises vertically from the ground to just beneath the power lines. Three horizontal rectangular sections extend rightward from the body. The hold white neon tube signage in front of white painted block lettering of single words per extension: DAVE'S RESTAURANT COCKTAILS A faint outline of a right-pointing arrow shares the line with “DAVE'S,” but the neon tubing is long gone. Only the structural holes remain near the faded outline. ###

Dave's Place 📷📱
#TuesdayBlue #Bluesday #TextureTuesday #TravelTuesday #originalcontent #photography #photographerlife #shareyourparadise #samsung #S23Ultra