Happy 4th of July and Win a Hat

I hope everyone had a safe 4th of July. For those of you out side the USA, the 4th of July is a national holiday celebrating our declaration of Independence from England over 200 years ago.

I celebrated as usual. I was working. I opened the shop for some special customers at 10 am and then went home and found friends sitting on my dock having their own 4th of July celebration. I guess they were going to invite me to the party if I showed up. ( At my own house) Anyway, I hung around a little while and then went back to the shop to open up for our annual "Ice Cream Social" on the town square at 7pm.

There were a lot of people there and several of them found their way into the shop. I met a nice couple that are opening up a photography studio a few miles away and we had a nice chat.

I went back to my house and the party had disappeared, so I sat on my deck and waited for the locals to shoot fireworks off the dam at the lake where I live.

Each year if I am home, when the locals start shooting fireworks, I bring out the Marshal Stack, plug in my Stratocaster and play the Star Spangled Banner in the Jimi Hendrix style. At a very high volume.

As I was warming up, two guys on a pontoon boat that had heard me playing tied up to my dock and walked up to the back deck . They had had a few. Anyway, one of them took the photo in this post of me playing. So, here is the "Win a Hat" part. The first person that e mails me and can tell me why their little point and shoot camera underexposed the photo of me playing my guitar will win an Image Doctor hat like the one I am wearing in the photo. (I have 3 left) You must include a mailing address in your e mail so I can send it to you. Send e mails to imagedoc0@gmail.com I lightened the second version of the photo by just doing a "Levels" adjustment.

While the fireworks were going on, the police showed up and ran everyone off. So I turned the volume up and played it again. Now my house is across the lake from the dam and it takes the police a few minuets to get to me. I am sure someone complained as they always do , so I turned off the lights and waited a few minuets. I know that my buddy Wes who is with the Henry county police was not one of the officers on duty as he would have known exactly which house to go to. Wes is a great photographer who I met when he attended one of my classes.