Commercial, Advertising and Editorial Photography. Greensboro, North Carolina
(image copyright 2008 by Dan Routh)
Environmental office portrait from a recent website redo for a local Greensboro company. This was an interesting job because I was allowed and encouraged by the art director to look for unusual and different angles. It’s great to have the opportunity to think outside the box.
(image copyright 2008 by Dan Routh)
(image copyright 2008 by Dan Routh)
Recently I had the pleasure of photographing Dr. Oliver Smithies, Excellence Professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in physiology/medicine. Dr. Smithies shared the prize with a UK scientist “for their discoveries of principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells.” Smithies has been at UNC for 19 years and is the first full-time UNC faculty member to win a Nobel Prize.
At age 73, Dr. Smithies is also an avid pilot. He owns a Grob 109B motorglider that he often flies out of the Chapel Hill Airport. It’s sort of like a Piper or Cessna with really long wings. You can fly it like a small plane, or if the conditions are right, cut the engine and use it to soar. Dr. Smithies told me, “It’s not a great sailplane, nor is it a great airplane, but it is a lot of fun.”
(images copyright 2008 by Dan Routh)
Revolutionary War reenactors do their thing in Greensboro at the annual reenactment of the Battle of Guilford Courthouse.
(image copyright 2008 by Dan Routh)
Native Dancer
Devin Routh
The earth blurs beyond his skin as the drums pulse.
Lines of light trail in the black and white and
Gray of his bustle and vestments, a ghost behind the breeze.
His face is a stone on a riverbed, motionless beneath the torrent.
Borrowed feathers crown his head, drape
Down his back like quills on a porcupine;
The sullen eagle feather perches above his eyes,
Sovereign of the skies, impetus of his movements.
Is he a son of Crazy Horse? Is he Lakota? Is he a warrior?
Look for a lightning bolt across his face and hail stones over his torso,
Symbols of the Shirt Wearer at Little Bighorn when he killed Honska.
No, all I see are tracks and claws on his sleeve, beaded totems in his hand.
When brothers are dead, movement becomes memory.
Chief Joseph told his Nez Perce, the real people,
“From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever,”
But the dancer will always feel the wind beneath his feet
And hear the whispers of all the tribes.
(image copyright 2008 by Dan Routh)
Charlie.
It’s that time of year again. Summer is ending and the kids are heading back to school. Though schools start up in August now, the day after Labor Day was traditionally the time children began their new year of study. These images were shot for a local school system reading program.
Tomorrow I get to go to school myself. I’m covering for an instructor and teaching digital workflow and post-production at Randolph Community College in their Photographic Technology program. I’m looking forward to it. I really enjoy the opportunities I get to teach. RCC has a 2 year Associate Degree program in photography that is second to none. The Photography Department blog is http://rccphoto.blogspot.com/.
(images copyright 2008 by Dan Routh)
My Dad’s first cousin Thomas lives down the road from us. He is a retired dairy farmer and he and his wife Lula Mae raise vegetables that they sell at the local farmer’s market. Both in their upper eighties, they grow their plants from seed, transplant, tend, harvest and transport all their produce by hand, by themselves. This year Thomas told me they were going to cut back. I asked him how many tomato plants he had transplanted this year, and he replied, ….. 680.
(image copyright 2008 by Dan Routh)
This image was shot from the front seat of a Waco RNF biplane built in the early 1930’s. The pilot, Ken Brugh, was in his mid-80’s at the time. Something pretty cool about cruising along at about seventy with the wind blowing through your hair. I shot this several years ago for a “day in the life” book on North Carolina. Ken was an interesting man with a world of aviation experience. He grew up barnstorming in the 20’s and 30’s. During World War II he ran a flight school for the Army and ran the fixed base operation Air Services in Greensboro after the war until he retired. He owned and flew this airplane as well as a Waco cabin biplane and an Aeronica.
(image copyright 2008 by Dan Routh)
(image copyright 2008 by Dan Routh)
When I told my younger son Devin that I had started a blog, all he could do was stare at me with a odd look on his face. You’re doing what Dad? Guess I will have to work hard to prove to him that the old man can learn a few new tricks.
Speaking of my son Devin. He’s an undergrad at UNC and an aspiring writer and poet. Here’s some of his work:
Where I’m From
Devin Routh
I’m from rolling pastures
Veined by dry creek beds.
Where centenarian white oaks,
Younger than great-grandma Lucy
And her calamine feet,
Shade the black angus mixed with
The santa gertrudis as they
Chew their cud.
I’m from kitchens
Where green beans
And ice cream
Make music when we
Cook them,
Gardens and orchards where we
Grow corn and tomatoes,
Watermelons and apples,
And enjoy the occasional persimmon pudding.
Ambrosia isn’t coconut and pineapple,
It’s two cups of sugar,
Two cups of milk,
Two cups of flour,
Four eggs, cinnamon, vanilla,
And two cups of persimmon pulp.
I’m stuck between Erect
And Climax,
On the way to High Point
But I never go there.
I go down yonder
And ask ‘chup to?
I buy hay from Jack Fagg,
Honey from Janice Horny,
Meet John Brown at 3 a.m.
To discuss politics and watch
His drunk father drink more.
I see my cousins
When I drive 22 to town,
“Routh Oil Company,”
“Alvin’s Automotive.”
Eric, adopted Cherokee,
Still my blood kin, gives me 5th Avenues
To say goodbye.
In the barnyard,
I smell the diesel
Granddaddy Routh used to scrub
The grease from under our fingernails.
At the dinner table,
I taste fire in the peppers
Grandpa Cranford collected in his shirt pocket.
I’m from coldwater springs
Where we lose boots and calves
To the mud, like quicksand but only knee deep.
I’m from flower gardens
Where opossums slumber,
Where they wake under the moon
To eat the leftover cat food.
On my farm,
We build cairns as monuments
For the dogs and cats,
Feed corn to the deer and save them
From the hunters.
Sanctuary. “Jesus is Lord
Over Gray’s Chapel,”
But my grandpas taught me
How to fish, how to sow,
To kiss the catfish
And throw them back
(Their lips look just like a person’s),
Taught me how to look for pine hearts
And cut wood already fallen,
How to give life
And only borrow it.
Dan Routh Photography 