On a roll
I’m faced with a dilemma. Post while we are on vacation. Or, wait until our return. There will be a lot of imagery I would have posted but waited patiently until our return.
Scotland – wrong side of the road. You can see I am in the driver’s seat from a different perspective. Well, I am jumping the proverbial gun. We are there – 2019. Harris Tweed was the word(s). No doubt our luggage will have souvenirs. We’d have a sheep if Colleen could figure out how to get it thru customs.
First born
My first born has a first born now… and a second. Lisa always said Jules was a funny looking kid. Humpf! I would think she was nuts.
Then again, I was a dad. This was my kid. Special!?! You bet! Pictures? Umm… hey, I could have done better. At least there are pictures. When you consider the paucity of shots in my own childhood… I simply compensated for what was lacking when I grew up. As I got better – at photography – Jules grew up. It was a race… did she win? … cameras got better too.
I wuz here… B.C.
Slides. I wuz here before digital. Before Colleen. .. but never like it before and not since. Confused?
Hey a different view. I would go find the image of Colleen and I … it would take a while. But I was here once. Little did I know how my life would change when I came back.
Cringe
Have you been to the beach? Sand gets into everything! Camera? Oh my! Fearless!? Stupid? Wealthy and don’t care? Old gear?
Who can know? But it is a photo op. A legitimate photo op.
Quite the sand castle. Eh? Or not?! But the camera? It made it home in one piece to shoot another day.
Better
The question? Which got better? The camera or the photographer? Was I bettr first? Mistakes along the way… I have to say there are and have been many times when I saw something and the camera was unable to keep up with what I visualized. And sometimes I get surprising results when I close my eyes and press the shutter. Round and round we go, was it the chicken or the egg?
Before selfie
What did we do before selfie? Who took this shot? Four of us. We were not traveling in a group of five. I would guess some passerby did the shot? But I am recicent to put my camera in someone else’s hands. But in the face of no other explanation this is the explanation. The group shot of family in front of some picturesque scene is an obligatory vacation picture. It’s interesting to find them among my early slides.
Happy day
A long time ago.. in Florida… ha ha. We were there. Do I remember this garden? Oh boy! There are a lot of things the brain forgets. No matter. It’s Eric’s birthday again. He does not read this blog….probably does not know (or forgot) about it. Nonetheless, happy birthday.
Last slides
I hadn’t given much thought to the last slides I shot. I knew I did not shoot film/slides after Dave’s high school graduation. Scanning does not have metadata. And my database… From my catalog, Dave, Eric and I were down the block on the west side near the Intrepid. Dave was mastering the skateboard. He never got good. But he could do a few tricks. I shot the last practice. It was the one and only. Last slides.
Early
It’s complicated. My parents were immigrants who migrated after WW II with barely any belongings. They made their way in America and wished for their children success thru education. I succeeded. We were never poor. We were never hungry. But the struggle of middle class was not lost on me. I regret there were few pictures of the family. I was the one to take interest in 1966 when we returned to NY from WV. A Kodak Instamatic 100 camera! A few snapshots. What did I know? Three years later I was on to BxW film and developing my own. Amateur. There were few images or negatives from that time.
An early picture, I estimate at about 4 yrs old. Obviously it looks like Christmas. We lived in a tiny apartment in Astoria. Look at all the presents! I do not know who took the picture. It is the only picture I can refer to from that time. There might be others in Eric’s possession of my mom’s things. Colleen has been anxious for me to pursue my heritage and ancestors. I don’t resist her but feel it is an overwhelming task to backtrack even within my own generation.
Bookstore
Brains everywhere you look. Humor? Serious? Do I respect it? Am I removed? Too far? Questions questions, I wonder, I ponder the answers. Fascinating?
Publishers have survived. Why not an ebook. No shelf space required. I can read the words and see the pictures easily enough on a small iPad. Why? Paper? Books? Space? It has been a long time since I bought a book… a paper book. But Colleen has so many… books, magazines, tra la la…
Hayes
A shout out to Mr Hayes. 83 years old and still working his store he started as a door to door sewing machine salesman back in the 60’s. He’s the oldest dealer for Bernina in the US; not the oldest man… oops, I asked. We fixed Colleen’s old Kenmore. The store fixes 5000 machines a year. Impressive. And, BTW, sewing machines have changed a lot since I saw my mother’s Singer. Gee, who’d guess? Bring on the computer graphics…
Bouquet
Paper! Neat! And it fooled me. Sort of. At first glance… if I look closer, ok, I get it! Wow! Unexpected. Well done. Who thinks of these things? We got some. How could you/we not?
Don’t be there
…there, when the tide comes in. I have always wanted to see the high tide where the change is the greatest. People surf into town on the high tide. How high? You can gauge by my pictures. We were there. Fun? …a dream come true.
I peeked
34k, 45k, 56k, 88k, 73k, 102k, 88k – 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022
Yearly digital image count
So my catalogs are jumbled or the files are in places… I dare not think about. There is logic to the madness. Right!?
On average I got snapshots just like anyone else has. Some travel shots. Group shots. Cats! But 100k images in one year? 273 shots per day? Whew! Nuts! I guess I am a nut job. I gotta ask.. how many folks are smiling, how many are looking when I ask them to smile…?
So few?
500k images from 2016 and only 12k in we are in Scotland. What happened the past few years? I shoot a lot. To answer would take more effort than I am willing to invest. I got ways to track this down.
Funny, I don’t wear wool much. I don’t eat lamb much either. And, I never gave a thought to how thread/yarn was made on a machine. Nowadays I pay a lot of attention. It amazes me at what can be done by machine and how much more efficient it be from doing it by hand. It’s a hobby right? Productive? Worth doing it some more? I would not know. I photograph. Colleen spins and weaves. We collaborate. I take her to Scotland. There have been a lot of pictures since these were taken.
AHA! I knew it would come to me… eventually. The two star pics were open and in around 12k were the Scotland picks. It makes sense. I was not too worried about culling my two star images. Mystery solved. No more work for me to do.
Hates to fly
By the time this posts I hope that we are enjoying our first week in Scotland. The last was canceled for Covid. We are just now getting back into the world and traveling it once more.
Nothing helps like a whiskey sample. Unfortunately the samples were available at the other end after we landed. They patrol BWI on bicycles. No nonstop to Scotland, we landed in London and got our bearings. It was an eventful month filled with memories that lasted. I hope this trip is equally adventuresome.
Have we?
My writing comes in waves… of inspiration. Really? Am I inspired? Or do I just have lots of thoughts and stories to tell?
Scotland. Did we eat here? Nice play on words. I don’t think we ate there. But? We did eat in a Thai place in Inverness… was this it? Sheep, especially black faced ones are notoriously hard to image. Any backlighting kills detail in the face. Forget focusing on the eyes. The moon? You cannot shoot the moon on “auto” settings. The auto ISO will overexpose the bright moon every time. All manual, I don’t do it often. Clouds?! Made it more interesting? The Scots say takeaway not takeout.
The other catalog
It’s muddled. The first 2400 or so files are a mix of new old digital and slides. The “hits” were culled for easy reference?
In 500k of images who cares?
There is an interesting mix that includes Saudi. Psychological? Break? -down?
No complaint. I think I am complete and can reference all my images/slides. Whatever. The latest? … the show. So we are set. … except confusion reigns once more. Once, there was reason to my madness…
mistakes wer made
Lightroom puts things into a catalog as you choose. I chose to put digital and slides in different catalogs. I always wondered if the numbr of images would overwhelm the catalog amd make it too slow.
Digital was divided. I have about a million digital images. I’m not bragging. Everytime I think I am over done someone is right there to top me.
One digital has about everything from 2003 to 2016. Except the catalog is corrupted. There are 2022 images in it. How? What? When? I do not know how things got mixed up. My current 2016 to present looks fine.
Confusion reigns. But it is all cataloged. I can find thngs. So far so good. Argh!! We have been together too long! No selfie! Sorry my love.
More back
I like to say this is my favorite daughter. She caught on long ago… but, dad, I’m your only daughter. So what, you’re still my favorite. Wow. Jules does not look any bit older. I got grey hair now. … and a gray mustache. I think I might still have that shirt? Ha ha. I don’t like to part with things.
Great
We haven’t seen the “boy” in a while. So, I got a pic out of the catalog… looking again. He’s older now. Boy? Well, he was the only boy on Lisa’s side of the family. The others were all girls. The family was surprised when Dave arrived. It was easy. They would call and ask how the boy was doing and Dave was the only one. On my side, my brothers all had sons. Jules considered herself lucky to be female. It is his birthday today. So – Happy Birthday. When you type that into the iPhone you get balloons with the message. I love that!
499, 999
No, I did not game the system. This is the 499, 999 image in the catalog. It is just how it got uploaded. We were out for afternoon high tea at a local hotel/restaurant. The next image was an underexposed out of focus parrot that resides in the lobby… hardly worth the look.
Ok. Interesting? Canon EOS M6 II. Call me a gearhead. At this moment this is my workhorse camera for most situations. Not all. Mostly, you don’t care what camera, you notice the picture. Good. But the right equipment? Ah! iPhone!? It is the overwhelming majority of all images out there. Me? Give me a camera.
One more…camera
If you follow me, then you will know I am camera crazy. Colleen has looms and spinning wheels… I just have lots of cameras. They sort of accumulate. I am poor at discarding things.
Nikon Z5, mirrorless. It follows the Canon M6 II. A real DSLR, sort of. And the first images. No selfie!? Oh no! But the usual suspects… flowers and cats.
Who knew? It was a pretty inauspicious start. It was pretty much an average day – 4/23/21. But anytime you break in a new camera… let the fun begin. Are there other cameras? Sure. There is always camera lust. But I am content. No need for me to get the high-end Leica or to enter the Canon system. A lens is a lens… well, not quite. But it is the image not the camera. I simply want my equipment to work and to get the image I seek. Right tool for the right job? If you aren’t good then no amount of equipment will make up for your lack of skill.
How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice.
I do believe in real cameras. 148k images and counting….
Bored
Me? Bored? … more like in a rut. Same old same old… Canon EOS M6 II
I wasn’t shopping cameras? But this popped up. How’d I miss it. Mirrorless. Different. Well, different technology. Change?!
Cats? We still had Patch and Willow. We are still together. Thank goodness. The first shots? Interesting. I shoot what’s around. Us. … you can see the bookcase is finished.
Bored? Nope! Just different. Another tool for another purpose. 79k images and counting.
photobackstory 