Finious's Folly

Review: The Wind Through the Keyhole

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The Wind Through the Keyhole
by Stephen King
The Dark Tower series #4.5
View book info on GoodReads

My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
First Published: April 24th, 2012
Read from: July 1 – 7, 2019

A Storyteller’s Tale

It’s been a LONG time since I’ve read any Stephen King. Not sure why, as I’ve always loved his work. I read the Dark Tower series several years ago, and enjoyed it for the most part. With the books of the series ranging from 3 to 4 stars of 5 and at least one a definite 5. Anyway, for whatever reason I have managed to pick up other authors’ works instead of King over the last few years, and somehow never managed to read this story added after The Dark Tower series was concluded. I’m glad I finally picked it up and read it, as it is one of the best tales by an author who is undeniably one of the best story-tellers of our day.
Read the Full Review

Chicken ‘Loris

I remember a guy named Chick. I honestly don’t know if that was his real name or nickname. And his gal named Deloris. A married couple whose first names were Chick and Deloris. I don’t think I ever knew their last names. To me though Chick and Deloris was never their name. To me they were Chicken ‘Loris, and always will be.

Apparently as a wee rugrat I had once misheard “Chick and Deloris” and combined it in my head, morphing it into “Chicken ‘Loris”… A single animal in two parts. They and the family just adopted my version of their names, and they all came to use that among themselves, at least when we were together.

STOP! Redux

“STOP!” taken 4/29/2007 near Victor, CO
A small sporty Saturn Sky dwarfed by a nearly three-story high dump truck carrying a load of ore to be processed at the Victor, Colorado gold mine.

Another go at this old favorite. Reprocessed the mediocre relatively low res jpg that was all I had for an original and used a 16×9 crop which really helped increase the juxtaposition of the small car and huge dump truck by filling most of the image with the truck. I also applied some vignette. Don’t know why, but I like that darker, faded look 9 times out of 10 it seems. Yeah, I know it used to be created by poor lenses, and maybe it’s an overdone affectation… Still, I usually find I like a photo better with it applied than without.

Flying South Redux

“Flying South” taken 12/31/2014 Denver, CO
Another reprocessing of an old favorite. This was an accidental quick shot that came out a little better than I expected, considering. I was trying to take a closeup of the bird on the wire directly out the apartment window when I noticed geese flying up in the background, swung and tried to widen the angle a little as I shot with no chance to play with aperture or shutter speeds. The result is of course that the geese are out of focus and blurry, but I think it adds to the shot and feel of one bird watching others leave for the winter.

Pretty much identical composition and cropping from my old first attempt, just cleaner and more pop using Lightroom, and a little more dramatic with some added vignette.

No Entry Redux

“No Entry” taken 8/21/2006 Boston, MA
Another new look at an old favorite. I completely reprocessed this one, starting from only a relatively low res JPG I took in June 2006 on an old Nikon of a photogenic alley I stumbled across while walking Boston’s Freedom Trail. My original attempt at this was very similar, but this time I did a single exposure monochrome tonemap instead of just desaturating my original exposure, added some lightroom magic, then cutout & pasted the unaltered street sign. I also made an even narrower 16×9 ratio vertical crop, and a 5×7 ratio horizontal crop, having trouble deciding which I liked. Ended up coming back around to the original composition with just a little bit of cropping to emphasize the framing of the street light at the top.

Desert Rust Redux

“Desert Rust” taken 11/21/2005 Tucson, AZ
original “cutout” post-processing 8/21/2006
Decided to go through and collect and retouch some of my old favorite pics. Here’s the first to receive some Lightroom TLC originally taken on an old lower res Nikon, and processed with an ancient Paint Shop Pro app, but still not too bad.

Alien Squid Lady?

Squid Lady 3 — The Creature from the Colorado Springs Lagoon?

A huge, strange metal sculpture that is part mermaid, creature from the black lagoon, alien xenomorph and squid or octopus that sits on the top of a an old brick warehouse building on the border of downtown Colorado Springs, CO and Old Colorado City. It’s in a location that makes it hard to see and appreciate, being up on a building surrounded by railroad tracks, a major interstate highway and a major road overpass, underpass intersection. Have driven by many times I decided to walk by and see if I could capture some images, but most of the angles except for one side are blocked when you’re on foot.