Greetings, and welcome to my blog. Please check back occasionally to read my most recent musings. More from the mind of that mystical Celtic Bard of Maryland, “The Poet-Provocateur” ....
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The Struggle at Gettysburg
February 13, 2016
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The 114th Pennsylvania Infantry, also known as the Collis Zouaves, were a distinguished Army of the Potomac (AOP) regiment with a long battle record during the American Civil War. They fought at all the major battles in the eastern theatre: Shenandoah Valley Campaign, Cedar Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburg 1, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. The...
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The Honored Dead at Gettysburg
January 09, 2016
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Make no mistake, the Civil War era is filled with many fascinating military characters. The most gifted fictional writers could not have invented a more colorful character than the Confederate General, Stonewall Jackson. But for the Union, not many, if any, are more intriguing and compelling than the grim warrior, Edward E. Cross, Colonel of the 5t...
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The Devotion at Gettysburg
December 05, 2015
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Nineteenth century America was a nation of immigrants. This first installment of my five-part serial blog essay begins with the story of one of those ethnic groups - the Irish Americans. Orr is an Irish surname. My ancestor James Orr emigrated to the colonies in about 1758. At least three of my great-grand uncles and multiple cousins with that surn...
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The Gettysburg Address Preserved
November 19, 2015
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On that solemn November 19th day, as he stepped down from the dedicatory platform after the delivery of his three minute address to the people at Gettysburg, Lincoln had second thoughts about the adequacy of his words. From the perspective of exactly 152 years later, we now view that address as perhaps the greatest single speech ever given in the W...
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Fall in The Woodland
October 29, 2015
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I have spent the last several weeks exploring the banks of the Bread and Cheese Branch, a small stream that meanders through an eastern woodland here in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. My trek begins as a walk from the back of my home towards a grove of trees leading toward an area that I have earmarked as The Woodland. See my previou...
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That's a Big Twinkie
October 14, 2015
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During my impressionable years, the colorful, astronomical photographs from the pages of National Geographic Magazine, fed my keen interest into the mysteries of the cosmos. Just look at the deep space picture below. It has been described as the most important photographic image ever. It was taken using multiple exposures from the Hubble Space Tele...
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Supermoon & Coastal Storm Collide!
October 07, 2015
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In a previous blog, Shooting the Stars, I learned to always expect the unexpected. This was validated once again while on recent travel to the Outer Banks of North Carolina and anticipating the forthcoming lunar eclipse. Mother nature waits for no one and gives what it wants. As a landscape photographer, one must be prepared for anything that natur...
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Canines, Weimaraners, and Me
September 19, 2015
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You cannot understand a Weimaraner unless you have cohabitated with one for at least several months, even years. They are a breed of the canine family that is very special. Let me say from the outright that they are compatible with very few people. One must have great patience and forgiveness to share their domain with a Weimaraner. But in the end,...
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You Can Go Home Again
September 06, 2015
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Usually, the only gorging I become preoccupied with is that involving food. But this late August found us trekking through some of the most beautiful naturally carved gorges to be found in the eastern USA. Thirty-two years ago, after the birth of my first two children, we left the Finger Lakes region of New York state to begin a new life in Mason-D...
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We've Come a Long Way Baby
August 19, 2015
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Digital photography really took off sometime at the turn of this century. My own personal foray into the digital arena came in 2004 with the purchase of a 8mp Canon 20D, a DSLR camera body with a cropped sensor and kit lens.
Notes:
1) DSLR - Digital Single Lens Reflex
2) mp - mega pixels; the resolution of digital cameras is measured in mega (mi...
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Shooting the Stars
August 15, 2015
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You never know what you may uncover when shooting the night sky. Case in point - On August 12th I started to prepare for an evening of photographing the annual Perseid meteor showers. I knew that the best view for observing the showers was in the northeast sky and that the best time for possibly catching a few meteor glimpses was well after midnigh...
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Land and Wildlife Conservation - OBX
August 12, 2015
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Last September, while vacationing on North Carolina's Outer Banks, my darling wife and I rode our bikes from the rental property where we were staying over to the Whalehead Club island. We then walked the self-guided tour trail along the marshland adjacent to the Club. One of the informational panels along the trail mentioned that during the early...
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The Folly of Unchecked Development
July 23, 2015
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Currently, over thirty images that you see on this website were taken on an area of terra firma that I have named the Bread & Cheese Branch Woodland. The namesake waterway branch borders the western boundary of several score acres of wild woodland, a portion of which bounds the backend of my homestead property. This woodland is and has been the hom...
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My Blog & Poetry
The Poet-Provocateur
”The Man who sees well beyond the day-to-day Bullshit”
~ D. W. Orr
“To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion, all in one”
~ John Ruskin
© D W Orr