Curiously
More madness. The other current catalog? … was 2016 images and forward. There are 599k images. It doesn’t add up. (see yesterday’s post) Confusion. I can find everything. Nothing is lost. Pfewf!
Meanwhile there are no IMG_1376-35 star rated pics in this catalog either. Surely…! 4 stars… and not too many. Parsimonious – with praise – me!
I shall make sense of all these numbers at some point. It is just curious that this particular catalog does not have and 5 star rated images. Somewhere there are 5 stars. I was in Africa at one point and rated …. Oh well, a story for another day.
It’s coming
There is a beach cam. We are situated about a mile from the beach. Some mornings you know a great sunrise is coming. I shoot. I screen capture on my laptop. It can be pretty awesomely spectacular. The color! The clouds! As soon as this sunrise was complete, the color faded, the clouds moved in, and we prepared for the rain to come. Meanwhile, I was treated to a wonderful sunrise. I have no complaint except to say that the camera is inadequate at times to capture what I have experienced.
Plenty
By this time we have passed another holiday season. My life has been one of plenty. We have seen most of our significant family. Someone is always left out. We cannot be everywhere. It always involves a bit of driving. We are not alone. Everyone (mostly) has to travel in order for us to gather. I hope it was successful.
Thanksgiving and Christmas were always major stress. If I was on-call there were serious restrictions on travel. And being on-call meant you missed time with family while you attended some major trauma and saved a life. Laudable, but bad timing – to get injured on a big holiday. But it could have been worse. There was always some jealousy that I was bulletproof when nothing happened during the holiday. To get thru it unscathed was a minor miracle. I was with family and yet hardly called upon.
No worries. All my holidays are mine to call. No phone. No obligation. Colleen worries about the driving we did. Hmmm… let’s see – DE, MD, PA, WV, OH, NJ, NY, probably more but who’s counting. In the end we saw kids and grandkids. Worth it? You bet!
Chasing fall
Winter is upon us now. Fall? It was good? as in… the color was good this year? One never knows. I got colorful photos. Birds? … on the wire, in the field? I chased fall colors one fine day. I sought the intense red and the saturated yellows. There was ample color to be found. Mostly it was good but not quite exquisite. No time to stop. Shoot from the moving car. A few stops. There was a nice blend. But there was no telling where color and leaves would show. We were just “winging” it.
Redux
Do over?
Scattered somewhere else in this blog… I just let the image catch my eye. Ah! Masks! Covid! It seems so long ago… And Ray?! Yes, we still miss him. So that makes Mozart a future acquisition. Strange days? Past present. I have seen and shared some great images. I hope to see many more.
Interlude
The cat goes to chemo. It is a 200 mile round trip. We have to wait about 4 hours while the poison is administered. What? Where? How? We go to Panera and camp. We follow up in Barnes and Noble.
There is a different culture these days. Groups gather in stores. At Panera they have group business meetings. In Barnes and Noble people with disabilities are supervised as they wander the store mumbling. There are power outlets. Folks take advantage and plug in laptop computers and run virtual business offices or study.
I got the hang of it – finally. Laptop, preferred customer card (free pastry), sit back and relax. Color? Crayons? Colleen was sending cards and letters to the “grands.” It seems there are regulars who work in this space. We were invasive and taking someone’s space. Hence, the muttering, as a disgruntled man turned on his heel and stalked away from our table.
Ratings
I edit in Lightroom. Easy. 1, 2, 3 stars. Mostly 2 stars – technically ok. 3 stars – outstanding image. How do you get 3 stars? Subjective. Purely, it is a matter of the moment and the image hits you…
Fall. We have been chasing fall color in Maine at the end of September. The leaves are just turning. Nothing to see. Alas!
Sun. Reflected on the water. Interesting triple image.
Belted Galloway – a cow that made me stop the car. Scottish. For beef. How do the genes know to color the cow consistently this way?
Selfie. We do a lot of selfies. I hold the camera. I shoot blindly except when I use the Sony and the LCD can face us. There is some attempt at composition. But, mainly we smile and look into the lens. It works sometimes.
Ratings at least cull down to a few manageable images. When we travel, I am shooting in excess of 600 images a day. Good? Good images? Keepers? Plenty of images have significance. Documentary. Food. Memories. Among the lot, life moves too fast and more images crowd out the past. It is impossible to pick one or two outstanding images.
Colleen admires a Maine photographer with thousands of prints, posters, puzzles….costing upwards of thousands of $$. Good images. Better images than my own. I only wish I had been in the places he has been at the time he was there. Ha ha. While I lived in Maine I chased the puffin and the moose. Rare sightings! Another lighthouse? Visit again? Ho hum. They don’t move. You chase the light of day – sunrise or sunset.
Perhaps the most important thing of all – sharing. Sharing an experience with the one you love and bonding ever closer with common memories. That’s worth 5 stars!
Front of the catalog
I wish I were better organized. Do you? … wish you were organized? Ha ha!
I have multiple photo catalogs scattered across multiple hard drives… because it is so easy to make duplicates… and I am in mortal fear of losing my images to… whatever disaster is occurring in the world at the moment. So, organization be damned, confusion is the watchword. But I know where all the images are… they are simply poorly cataloged?
The current catalog is using images from back in 2016. I calculate I must have more than a million digital images. I’m not counting slide/film. The current catalog I use most has about 500k digital images. oh? ok?! Do you care? Keep in mind the 500k is since 2016, which means I have done a lot of photography toward the later years in my life. Ummm, the best is last?!
Everything is a story… fall? … was before 2012, go figure. Ditto, patriot’s day in Boston. … and the puffins in Maine. Yes, yes, the US Tennis open too. So?!
The catalog ostensibly is labeled and has images from 2016. It ain’t exactly so. But all my latest work is there including everything “PC.” PC?! Yes, post Colleen. It seems we always circle back to the life before or after, Colleen. Eh? I guess we have not been married long enough for the shine to have worn off. Hence, a parting image.
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?
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.
Mining
I’m mining the catalog. When you think about it I have quite a memory bank of experiences. I have seen much. There are many stories that will never be told. Too little time. Not enough interest. Resigned? Philosophical?
There are many wishes left behind. There were many roads not taken. There were roads I wish… And for all of that I have no, well, a few regrets. But few. I have seen and photographed much. And the road is still stretching before me.
First last
I got a catalog. It has 500k images. That is a lot? I rate images and at least 133k have a 2 star rating or higher. The first and last are represented. It has been a journey. Quite the journey. Life changing?! I daresay there is much to come. It amazes me. I have been fortunate. Life has a way of moving in strange and mysterious ways. All true.
Right now I am in a good place. Best ever. It is like a dream you do not want to awake from. The beginning of this catalog was but a mere couple decades back.
Did I mention to you… “I love my wife.”
Done
I don’t keep track well. The garden is done when? After the first frost, everything goes dormant. All the impatiens are gone overnight. The frost came late this year. How would I know that these pics a week or so before were the last from my garden till next spring. Bye! It was a good year!? I have a few pots that come inside… Meyer lemon trees, asparagus fern… I like the cycle of the seasons.
Slow day
I gotta say that post vacation there is a lull in photographic activity. Then again, we were also stricken with colds. So, not much happened. I shot clouds out my window. And I shot passing foliage in a couple of cemeteries. It was still 80 degrees here in early November. Take heart. You can shoot decent photographs even as you drive by in a speeding car. Not every sunrise is spectacular but it is pretty easy when you only need lift your camera from your desk.
Junk mail
Upon our return from a recent trip there was a pile – an impressive pile – of junk mail that awaited. You know? The kind that implores donation or urgent action to save whatever endangered species is the flavor of the moment. Buy insurance and other products for which I have no interest. Not from one but from multiple organizations and companies. No return address, sender unknown, hoping curiosity will get you to open the envelope. It is a colossal waste of paper and time.
My point? I liken junk mail to the photos we take that have extraneous distractions. Road signs, telephone wires, you know the drill. It seems there is always something in the way of my perfect shot. Of course, it helps if you are not shooting pictures in a speeding car. But, nonetheless, junk creeps into my images. I will not give up. I strive for perfection knowing that there is always a surprise waiting when I can say, “I shot that??!”
Eat out
We worked hard for this one. We could not get here until near the end of our recent travels. Colleen casually mentioned Cullen skink. It is a Scottish dish from smoked haddock. I found a place! It was not to far out of the way of our travels in Maine. Dover, NH. A soccer/football fan had a Scottish pub that served the specialty – cup or bowl! And mushy peas! Ahem, I am no fan of either offering but I made do with other things that are bad for you…. So, a good time was had by all. Once again I was able to bring joy and tranquility to our happy marriage.
Did you know?
I once lived in a six story building with a central courtyard that had ivy growing six stories high. It was gorgeous when the seasons changed. The building co-op board tore it down. The ivy was hurting the brick pointing. Tragedy! – on many levels (pun?).
This ivy wall in autumn recalls a past time and memory for me.
Meanwhile, Colleen was talking to everyone. She does. She learns lots – useful and useless information. In this case the Presidential yacht was in Belfast harbor. Not that Belfast (Ireland) but that President (of the United States). Carter sold it. Gas crisis. An American president should not own a Presidential yacht. So, here it is, privately owned and undergoing renovation. A wooden boat! Nice but nothing to see. The chairs are repurposed and made from old lobster traps.
What’s in your day?
You visit Maine. You go to Freeport. You visit LL Bean. Colleen used to look at the catalog with longing. Now we visit to get stuff to fill out the wardrobe. Fun?! Along the way we always have fun. The leaves are changing. The season is changing. Our humor remains high. Great photography? Today was about fun.
Enough?
I was thumbing through the catalog… I shoot flags when they present. I shoot bridges – from/in the car. We do selfies. Jump? Street photography? – selling carnival food to the extreme? And then, there is always fall – the quest for the best shot (Maine, beside a bank, a real bank, not one by the river.)
One thing leads to another. I had the girls jump. They really were thrilled to pose and to jump. They did it for a long time never seeming to tire of posing. Okay!! And the bee sting kiss? Jen spoke about the young girls doing this pose as the latest craze in phone pics. And then, she and Mike showed me. My handy dandy camera was right at hand! Yay!
Five star
I rate images with stars in Lightroom. Here are some five star images. They merit being posted alone but there are too many images. Julia taught me jump images – in Africa. I already knew, but, this was the practical application. I have seen great beauty. Maine! I lived there are few years… Some of my best fall colors come from those times. Fun?! I traveled to nearby Massachusetts for Patriot’s Day. For fun, I was (wink) nearly shot. Notice too that the reenactment soldiers turn their head when firing their muskets. It’s no wonder you could fire from point blank range and miss the target. The birds are Atlantic puffins. I paid dearly – seasick – to get to see them.
Storage
Your memory is full. Colleen was informed her phone memory was full. No more pictures could be taken. And so… delete a few old photos… not so simple a task. Ha ha. She has old pics on her phone from 2013. Surely, they are not needed anymore?! Delete, throw them away? Valuable memories!? Never! Ok?! Well, try it? She deleted 2013 into 2014 pictures and they came right back. ?? right back? right back onto the phone?!! Yup! The Cloud! Everything is saved to the cloud and synced. Nothing disappears. Great?!
Iconic images. To me, they are. Stories abound. If I had the time… and we don’t delete the pics….
Eliminate old Apps you are not using. Ok! Some Apps are hundreds of megabytes in size! How about all those cute movies the relatives – her (Colleen’s) kids – have been sending of the grandkids? They add up – fast! 30 to 40mb a clip. Yes, movies take a lot of memory?! But, they are so cute!!? It’s madness. Without knowing it we have created a major dilemma by just keeping everything. Elimination? Yes, poor Colleen needs her phone to go on a diet. Her computer? Ditto! External hard drive? Yes, it’s a patch – solution, but, not for the iPhone. Good luck. No room at the inn…
More or less
Lotta of water under the bridge… After posting my images from my other catalog – 1, 10, 100 …. I thought maybe I would look at… So, it starts with my Canon G3, my first digital camera and hence the first digital images. and, it goes more or less until 2016. Aha! There was madness to the method. My other catalog is titled 2016 images and beyond. My database is far more reliable and logical.
1, 10: Naturally, the first images out of the Canon G3 were of the family at hand, Dave and Lisa. Jules was in college.
100: Easter followed shortly thereafter. I must have shot film and digital together.
1000: Jules and Lila, my favorite daughter and her grandma, naturally, I will say it was Dave’s graduation, or, Thanksgiving. I could look it up…
10,000: Rugby! Jules quit track to captain the college rugby team. The Australians think nothing of pulling hair. (They wear leather helmets to cover their ears.) Lisa screamed at the TV, “But Jules has a long ponytail!!”
100,000: Damarascotta, Colleen’s favorite town in Maine! It was fall during my “Maine days.”
200,000: Saudi. Jeddah. I was making a late-night meal in Subway. (Yeah, they got one there.) Three guys saw me, posed, and I took their pic.
300,000: Wedding day. Still married. Two kids. My favorite son is still footloose.
400,000: It’s Xmas and Colleen is with her favorite daughter. Well… she’s the one she’s with. Talk about ambiguous use of pronouns…
End: And me. Ummm… the more or less end of the catalog. 2003 to 2016. 2016 to 2022 would see my next catalog easily exceed 400k images too. The exact total of all digital images is in doubt. Slides? The count is more or less 117k.
In this time I have used 17 digital cameras at least. There were several versions of iPhone. The workhorse cameras began with Nikon D70 and D200. Canon G7X and Sony RX100 were mainstay point and shoot digital cameras for me. And now, I am on to the Nikon Z5. It’s been a heck of journey… so far.
Physician heal thyself
Do you treat family? Symptom, diagnosis, treatment. Surgery? As a surgeon, I operated on family and friends and colleagues. Interesting. There’s a lot of trust. I have operated upon my nurse, PA, father in law, mother in law, aunt. And many more. It’s controversial. And the arguments go back and forth. I know that I have done the very best I could on each and every occasion. Trust was mutual.
There is the saying: a physician who treats himself is a fool… to which I say around here there are a lot of poor docs. So… when I fell, I naturally refused to go to the ER to learn what I knew as I lay on my back on the garage floor. Neurologically intact, dizzy, nauseous, ataxic. I had a concussion. I had a basilar fx, hence the black eye(s). No further clinical progression, I would heal with bed rest. Over the objections of wife and family, I have slowly healed to where I am sitting once more. Five days. Later. I know what I am doing. I knew what I was doing. Falling backwards is a dumb thing to do.
To caption the photos: The fan spun (for me) though it wasn’t on. Jules sent comfort food. Mmmmmm. It’s a running joke between us. The black eye showed up – the hallmark of a basilar fracture – and progressed. The good news is five days later I am finally sitting again. I am slowly slowly better.
Epilogue: Two weeks later, give or take, I am human again. The last few days felt like being on a swaying ship. But! Healed! Normal? Ha, that is a matter of opinion – and Colleen is always right!
Post epilogue: I have some residual mild cerebellar dysfunction – dizziness. It is less and clearing up. I have carried stuff, planted the garden, and laid/installed hardwood floor. So far so good. Treatment was successful and the patient lives.
June 4, 2022: The recovery has been longer than expected. (I’m old now.) Ha ha. Nonetheless, we smile. I have come full circle. I feel about as good as I look – now.
High tide
Bay of Fundy, it’s the high tide. I cannot, could not, photograph its grandeur and immensity. Sure, I can document, but no photograph I took conveyed this force of nature. Fall color? Sure! The scale of high tide and its sheer height difference is easy to show. I simply lacked the creative idea of how to make a remarkable picture from this opportunity. My bad.
The tide comes in a wave; and folks surf it. Cool. We were there. Saw it, photographed it, experienced it. Colleen is such a good sport. We drove madly from place to place to see the tide. Surfing the tide? Imagine that!
photobackstory 