Photos

Sunday south of the Mason-Dixon line in the United States still has it's traditions. I only live about 270 miles north of Memphis, but I was surprised by the folks who got dressed up and the ladies who sported their best hats to go to church. Many go to dinner after the service. Wouldn't you if you had a hat this nice? You'd certainly want to show it off!

This was shot at Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken in downtown Memphis. This was our second visit to this place, the fried chicken here is way too good not to have it twice if you are going to be in Memphis two days or more. There's a good reason it's World Famous, cholesterol be damned!

We were already been seated and we were splitting our "40", waiting for the waitress to take our order when I noticed this hat. The place was crowded and the wait was at least 25 minutes, I was hoping these ladies would get seated before we got done eating. There were a lot of folks standing and few seats, so I took one of ours we weren't using and offered it to the lady on the right, she had been standing at least 10 minutes. That kind of broke the ice for when they got seated, I was able to approach them and compliment the other lady on her hat, shoot the breeze a little about how I never see fine ladies dressed for church anymore in St. Louis (you can see the lady on the right thinking "She's eatin' this up, her and her uppity hat!").

The hat was spectacular, you have to admit. Big and puffy and adorned with sequins and topped off with a sequined peacock feather! The lady was immaculately dressed, too, very finely put together, both of them were.

The light was really dim in Gus's Fried Chicken, mostly because the people standing in line to get a table were blocking the light from the few windows. If I had brought a flash, I would have used it. I just cannot stand the little one on the camera, so I tried a couple with the available light. I had the camera shutter speed locked at 80 as the slowest shutter speed it would use - I should have realized and set it to 60 or even 40, heck, it is a Vibration Reduction lens! Nah, I was more excited about getting this shot than when I saw Snoop Dogg at B.B. Kings a couple nights previous.

So the shot turned out a little muddy. You can make out the hat pretty well, that's what I wanted you all to see anyway.

And I needed to make sure you go to Gus's if you ever get to Memphis. I get twenty five cents for anyone that tell's Gus that they saw his place on TE!

Shot in RAW, adjusted levels, lightened & contrast, removed some noise, cloned out a big shiny brass door handle on that door (it was right in between the ladies), made the frame, unsharp mask, then resized for TE, ran another minor unsharp mask.