| | Certography, Ltd.
 | I was born on the day of my birth;
Which is something I'm proud to know.
At the ripe old age of a youthful six,
It became my duty to play "Chopstix."
Music is mine for the rest of my life.
Instruments with hammers, strings and/or keys
Such as a piano, guitar, clarinet or the fife,
I seemed to learn them with relative ease.
At the age of 12, much to my elation;
I was pianist for the whole congregation.
Then I wasn't at all so keen
When they made me organist at age fifteen.
Two whole ocataves on a Hammond B3
Of bass note petals were assigned to me.
Fast moving melodies with bass to enhance;
It gave me lessons in a new kind of dance.
Time passed . . .
I rode the bus with a traveling crew;
The singers were a motley few:
Guitars, amps, trap set and a bass,
The piano was assigned my useful place.
Our drummer then, a very great pal,
My solos he said were too classi-cal.
"You play like you're part of a big concerto,
But you're not a con, so I'll call you Certo.
Wouldn't you know? It's just my luck!
The whole group liked it and the nickname stuck.
But that's okay; it wasn't a dun.
They called me Certo . . . all in fun.
Dad took movies and Kodachrome slides;
I took his car and went for rides.
The clerk at Walmart convinced me to get
Canon's rangefinder, 35mm, the Canonet.
The date was early nineteen eighty and three;
Photography was set to be a part of me.
The rangefinder didn't get me so far;
Back at Walmart for an SLR.
Canon's popular AE1-P,
Auto exposure was not for me.
Built right in, it metered the light,
So manually I learned to expose film right.
A friend said my composition wasn't worth a look;
He told me I needed to get a how-to book.
The book was great and not "for the birds;"
In it a whole chapter on the Rule of Thirds.
Patterns, lines, textures and light,
Here's how to capture and do it right.
The author made a great observation:
Pretty subjects are not artistic expression.
Use of the rules of light and composition
Are the objective of a photographer's mission.
I married a lady, she became my wife.
She is the beauty of my life.
She enjoys the music, photography and farm;
Looks at Fotki over my shoulder and arm.
A master's degree, a public school teacher;
Her favorite age is the second grade level.
Her class is graced with little queens and princes
And one small boy who is "full of the devil."
I have a tractor, garden and farm,
And now I also have a painful arm.
The work of moving logs was rough
And now I've a torn rotator cuff.
The doctor gave me great assurance;
Just call the agent my of insurance.
Meanwhile I sit with matzo ball soup
And join the Fotki community group.
Thousands of pictures I'll never get to view;
But I offer encouragement and best wishes to you.
Thanks for coming by.
Certo | | General Information | | Profile Type: | Personal | | Rating: |  | | Gender: |  Male | | Age: | 56 | | Languages: | English | | I'm here for: | Photo sharing | | Email: | Certo@fotki.com | | My Cities | | Hometown: |  United States | | Background & Lifestyle | | Marital status: | Married | | Sexual orientation: | Straight | | Smoking: | Non-smoker | | Education: | College graduate | | Ethnicity: | Other | | Body type: | Average | | Height: | Average | | Interests & Personality | | Interests: | The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; the Bible; my wife; I am alife-long musician and audiophile; photography, farming/gardening, spending time on tractor which is anything other than quiet, astronomy (the newest) | | Sports: | Is web surfing a sport? I like photographing high school games. Otherwise farming/gardening is as close to sports as I get. | | Music: | In order: well orchestrated/arranged liturgical type hymns mostly; producing my own music; classical (especially piano, violin and cello / Kreisler, Heifetz, Perlman, Stern, Rubinstein, VanCliburn, Gershwin, Joplin, guitarist-Giovanni De Chiaro); light jazz and blues (if lyrics aren't nasty or amoral); klezmer (Y. Rochman); Floyd Cramer style country "piano pick'n" | | Movies: | Fiddler On the Roof and other such musicals like The Sound of Music, etc. | | Television: | RFDTV - Classic Tractors, various ag reports, tractor/truck pulls, various types of material on the History Channel, Discovery and nature channels; military and other technology documentaries | | Heroes: | The heroes in the Bible, my Dad who lived 95 years and never wrote a bad check or was ever found in a lie and taught me to pursue the arts and told me that thinking is more than brain activity; it is processing facts and ideas to reach rational conclusions. He was a mathematician by profession, a violinist, mechanic, carpenter, handyman. He applied mathematical principles it to all facets of life. He told me many years ago, "The shortest distance between two points is a straight line." That is how he lived. | | Books: | Manuals which include: The Bible, Sonar 5 Producer, Photoshop CS2, Astronomy | | Friends: | Barbara Houston, Chris Filer, Tarbet, bamboomary, Scarlet, Color of Life Photography, trishvandenberg, Ykarelic4, Jill, Nannygoose, Ayyadalnimer, Andyedwards, KellySunshine, Velvet7, Merike, POBrien922, InnerTraveler, Gardenlady110, Cats Photography on Call, Tun (Now in Myanmar), Suegrandy, CKWphoto Gallery 荣少图库, FRANCESCO-F | | Friend of: | Barbara Houston, Seoul, Chris Filer, Karpelevitch, artistech, Anton, trishvandenberg, LBHPhotography, Jill, Nannygoose, Ayyadalnimer, Katifelkai, Andyedwards, KellySunshine, Velvet7, Merike, Gerard-de-f, POBrien922, InnerTraveler, Gardenlady110, Cats Photography on Call, Tun (Now in Myanmar), CKWphoto Gallery 荣少图库, Jassmann-Foster Photography, FRANCESCO-F | |
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