Tom's e-mail, tom dot louton at theloutons dot com

Tom Louton‘s Home Page

Overview

Tom's e-mail, tom dot louton at theloutons dot com

Yates Mill near Raleigh, NC
Photo taken about 1970

I found this and could not remember taking it, but for some strange reason, I could remember that is was Yates Mill Pond. I had to look it up to figure our even where it was!

My Neighborhood

Our Water Tower

Don't be envious, such blue skys are not so frequent here!

For infromation on our water tower, see, sorry only in German.

A street in Altglienicke by Day and by Night

The 21st of October was a fantastic day, almost no clouds, moderate temperate, just great. I have often looked down this street at night on my way home, and somehow enjoyed the view of the yellow sodium vapor lamps, typical here, and the depth, sort of vanishing in the past. So I waited till the streetlights went on. Note that we are so far north, that the sun takes along time to vanish.

Taken at 3:30 PM, the sun set around 2 hours later. Note the really long shadows. The sun had set about three quarers of an hour before, but the sky was still bright, and I had waited for the streetlights ot go on. Yellow on yellow. Sometimes I have the feeling hat one cannot see so well with this yellow light, but I cannot see well by any light.

Here are more photos of this street taken at irregular intervals. An on going obsession.

For more photos

Gone but not forgotten: Tom with drill, on his way to visit Sam,
by Asuka Nakayama 中山明日香

Our garden

Our O Jizou san
 おじぞうさん(お地蔵さん)

I have over the past two or three years taken a lot of photos in the garden. This mostly of details for flowers, and sometimes of spiders, sometimes just a overview of the garden itself. Our garden is rather sprawling and a bit difficult to keep under control. I have given some thought as to how to organize this. For want of a better structure, I will set it up organized by flower types. That is a group for peonies, iris, day lilies etc.

Some aspects of our garden and Altglienicke

Peonies were along with mums, my mother's favorite flowers. The flower in the anchor is a Botan, the first one which flowered in my garden, 2001. However the next year it showed signs of being weak, had one flower, but from the roots, Peonie lactoflora leaves sprouted and now we have a a normal unfilled white peony.

Iris are also a favorite of mine.

Thistles and other interesting things.

At some point I thought it would be a good idea to collect some different day lilies. These are not fast growing, but otherwise easy to deal with. My problem now is that I see that I must sort one big bundle of these thing into component parts.

Other things in the garden

The sunflowers!

The fish, mostly kois

Wandering in our neighborhood

Unsere Solaranlage

Garden in 2008, just a bit to see

Activities in 2006

I retired and we had serious renovation of the house facade as well as adding a new garage. You may see this here..

Family Matters

I was ill for most of September, 2005 and this gave me a bit of time (but not unfortunately energy) to start to write this up. It has taken much longer than I had expected. I have edited the photos to the extent that when information was written on the back side, I have merged them together so one can see the photo and at the same time read the message. This is time consuming, but thank you to GIMP that I have a tool to do it!

Ken Louton not only made paint, he liked to paint!

Family trees

Family trees for the name Louton. Note that not all are the same.

Here are two versions of the Louton family tree. Note that there are differences. I have now way of knowing exactly what is what. Also the reference to Ms. Henderson's web is no longer valid.

I found this at the Mahon web site, www.loutontree.com. Some points are not accurate. I have marked them in it. But there is a lot of information at the end, much of which I had not known, but on the other hand, how does one know that it is true? I would love to see photo copies of documents.

The Emory family, that is the family of my paternal grandfather's mother.

Here family tree for the Emorys, but here I am using a bit of inference. I cannot for example be sure these folks really lived in Arkansas. I think that this is (fairly) correct however.See also the note from Ms. Ochs with respect to the Emory heritiage.

The Achuff / Cregar family trees, that is from my paternal Grandmother

Here the family tree for the Achuffs and Cregars.
as well as some hand drawn family trees and some photos from about 1895 to 1920 or so.

The family tree for the Harden, data found by "accident"

I came across this just by chance then end of 2012. Harden Family tree, sort of pruned. I have been unable to contact Judy Harden

Family Photos etc.

Photos from before 1920 or so, mostly from the Louton (Achuff) side.

Photos from my mother's side of the family, sadly very few.

Miscelanous Photos to 1940 or so The country club, My father riding, a few from Deland, Stetson University, etc. Plus Willy Wilson.

Letters and other interesting documents

Letters

Letters relating to family history, from my father and grandfather.
letters

Dad relates his trip to Arkansas in 1934. This was published in the Des Plaines Paper

I can recall well, in Boyton as Dad related this trip. It was quite vivid and since he loved to tell stories and I think was very good at it, it was really fun to listen. There was even more detail in the tails than in this piece. Have a look at it.

History of the Tuff Kote Company

Dad wrote a history of Tuff Kote I guess about 1989.

Documents from Perry County, AL and Wabash County, IL

I have found several documents which give some information on where and when Annanias Luton lived, and his kids, ext. See Perry County

Wabash County,IL and note that my father wrote that Dr. James Emory was born in Mt. Carmel (IL?) Compare this to note by Ms. Edith Ochs above. The two bothers seemed to have existed, but I can find no trace of a James Manley.

The note from Ms. Edith Ochs with the wild information that my grand father's grandfather killed someone in self defense and fled to a new life and new name, Dr. James Emory.

Please see the information on Dr. James Manley Emory or James Emory Manly?

Here are few of my favorite photos.

Above all I love reflections and this offers me a chance to photograph myself.

Reflections

Black and White

While I was in Tübingen in 1968/69 I somehow got the idea that it was a good thing to learn a bit about photography. So I bought a camera. Actually, a friend, Bruce by name, told me I could get a good deal from a company in Berlin, Photo Klinke, which was still here a few years ago. So Bruce organized this, I gave him the money and bought a Rollei Twin Lens. Bruce promptly used it and shot several roles of film before telling me it had arrived. I began to learn how to use it and to take pictures in Raleigh. There I bought a cheap enlarger, and discovered that one drug store handled inexpensive paper and chemicals. I set up a dark room in my basement. Three years long I took pictures and developed and printed. Then about spring of 1973 I began to really work on my dissertation and neglected my dark room. I needed to renew my passport in spring of 1974 and I discovered that I was not really able to judge exposures and such. When we moved to Lübeck Mary set up a dark room, but I did not do any dark room work. Only later in Kreuzberg 1987 or so, did I start again. This had the unfortunate light switch on the outside. Fabian and Helen found it immensely funny to turn on the light while I was working in the cramped dark room. More than once, I stepped into a tray with developer or fixer. This room was six meters long and one and a half meters wide!

Black and white photos somehow do not have the same "look" on a screen which they have on the proper grade paper developed with an appropriate developer. Nevertheless, they do look interesting and one pays attention to things one does not see in a color photo. I miss the dark room, and soon will have it up and running again. Note this was written in 2005 or so I guess, and I had set it up, then made a picture or so, then forgot it, etc. I doubt that I will ever use it again, but maybe .... tkl 2012

Some black and white photos.

Here is a sample of photos taken over the last few years.

Fort Macon near Morehead City, NC -- Photo ca. 1989. I used a 35 mm lens -- for my camera this is indeed a wide angle lens.

Gas AG Haus, Berlin -- Photo ca. 1989

Akashi fish market, about 1998. They look almost like flags waving in the wind.

During the hanami in Shukugawa where I lived in Japan, the two kids were obviously divided over who is to be first in the battle to get the ice.

Märzenbecher Hainich, Frühjahr 2003.

Seerose / Waterlily 2002. As lovely as this plant was, in the end, I ripped it out of the pond, as it was about to completly fill the pond.

Dragon in Suma 2000. Suma is a town west of Kobe, and the location of Sumadera, the temple famous for being mentioned in the Genjimonogatari.

Mädchen Kreuzberg, 1. Mai, 1990

Gorlitzer Bahnhof, Kreuzberg SO 36, Sept.1989. These were put up by some "independent" artists. After a period of patient waiting the Stadträtin für Bauwesen" had Käferman and Silbervolgel torn down. Also see this article. I have no idea how stable they were and such questions of safety were not topmost in my interest. These things were inherently funny.

The last independent gas station in Berlin SO 36, Sept. 1989. This was a splendid day, Sunday and I took several lovely photos on this day. The mild weather continued until mid November -- I might add thank God, as the conditions after the wall came down as we say, were coupled with long waits in line for the poor folks from the East.
The Freie Tankstelle is now a coffee house.

Blue on blue in blue A very strange building in South France. I could not see that it was really used. It was in the middle of a big field.

Kreuzspinne, Kattinger Watt, 1990. This is our most common, or at lest present spider. I somehow seem to like them and photograph them a lot. But what to do with hundreds of pictures of a spider?

Lübecker Hauptbahnhof, ca. 1990

Münster Bad Doberan
Ich habe dieses Foto in 2002, in August glaube ich. Ich finde die Farben so herrlich. Ein Mal in 70ern habe ich diese Kirche zum ersten Mal besucht. Damals war mein Eindruck von Grau und Staub. Nicht mehr!