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.
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.
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…
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.
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…
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.
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.
Color
Black and white was easy. You could develop your own film. It was less expensive. I always felt like I was on a budget. Color slide seduced me. The image was fully contained in a small cardboard frame and they stored easily enough for me to have a collection.
The color seduced me. I eventually came to store more than 100k slides in multiple drawers most of which were custom built furniture.
Once I went over to digital cameras there was no need for Black and White. Art! It is good for art. I was about image and color and too busy to pause to make art. I was doing candids and events. I was documenting my world. And my world was in color. Ha ha. We are both wearing white… but…
Film
When I switched to digital cameras Jules complained. She liked slides better. She was uncanny in her ability to tell the difference between film and digital. Nowadays…?
I watched the Oscars the other night. And, it occurred to me? what are they shooting – film or digital. It turns out very few film makers are shooting film. Oh! They call it movies. But the term is not specific and digital or film whatever may be does not have to be specified. Ha! Digital. Digital video has taken over. It never occurred to me. James Bond looks the same either way, just different actors.
Me? I was converted to digital for the simple reason of $. Digital was so much less $ and so much less work to go from camera to computer file. The telephone had an operator who connected you to your party. Now it’s all smart phone. Dave stores 100k images in the cloud. I grew up and clouds were for rain. Gee!
Plus one… the last images
I am a nut! Agreed! At any given time I have four cameras in active use… at the moment. Forget the iPhone. Nikon Z5, Canon G7, Sony RX VI, Canon EOS M6II. And there were many other camera… along the way.
This post illustrates the last shots from each camera old and new. Some cameras are pretty much retired and not much in use. This is just the digital image side. There were plenty more film cameras. But I have not shot film since Dave’s graduation in 2004. That was the very last roll of slide film I shot. Just like that!… a freezer full of Ektachrome slide film sat for years… until I could bear to throw bricks (20 rolls) away. Bricks!
Some digital cameras got a lot of use… others? … not so much. Each purchase was a good idea… at the time. So far so good.
Since I shoot pretty much every day, there are a lot of images… upwards of one million digital images. Meanwhile, I am saved by Lightroom which catalogs and keeps the utter mess and confusion in some semblance of order. That’s my story and I’m stickin’ with it.
Interesting aside: it appears most of the “last” shots involved selfies or my cats. Boring?! It just falls out that way. No apologies! I got no complaints! The legacy I leave will be about the life/lives we lived.
Scrambled
Quick! A substitution. Colleen thinks it poor taste to “diss” Jane. Delete post. Make up a new one. Ok!
I’m not nuts. I am not a nut. I am….
I have been a surgeon. And yet I am squeamish breaking down a lobster. Imagine! Me? Really?! Yup. No fun! You start by pulling off its head!!
They happened to catch a large tuna the same day we were there. We saw it. I was a brain surgeon. Guts have no appeal for me. Yeah, and brains do? Nuts
Meanwhile, a substitution so as not to “diss” Jane. Colleen doesn’t love eating lobster but will force herself if I do the dissection. Great! If you got my deleted post, ignore the “dis.” I meant no harm. Honest.
Send money…
The bastards! They don’t tell you that you are out of memory on the website. You have to figure that out for yourself. I have exceeded upload memory and cannot post unless I pay more $ for more space. ….”we’re gonna need a bigger boat.”
Done. Paid. Yearly subscription. Ego? Vanity? Whatever!?
Send money, Support the site, support my blog… kidding. After all it’s just me, Colleen, and the cats. We got food enough. So far. Ha ha! Yesterday was April fool’s. So truth today? Yup, you post, you pay. I quit…. I’m stopping… for today.
In the presence of greatness
Would you believe… I was in the room all by myself… with greatness. I mean there are millions of people in NYC. There was no one else but me in this magical moment.
The Hunt for the Unicorn – a famous series of tapestries in the Cloisters – were mine for a few precious moments. Go figure!
Iconic! The rest of the day the room was always full of admiring tourists. I have seen these tapestries elsewhere displayed on loan but never in the original location within the Cloisters. Amazing! Breathtaking, it was a wish come true for Colleen. What a day!
Cherry blossom time
Hold the press! I’m inserting an additional post today, breaking my usual rule for one-a-day. Timing. We did the cherry blossoms yesterday. It was a gloomy, dreary, rainy day until it cleared and became sunny and 84 degrees. We took pictures. Lots. We did four museums. Ambitious itinerary. We saw the sights. A quintessential shot? Too many opportunities, too little time. Close up, wide angle, monument, selfie… oh my! The choices?! Throw in a pretender – weeping cherry. We did it all yesterday…
Old friends
…Can you imagine us years from today
Sharing a park bench quietly?
How terribly strange to be 70… Old Friends, Simon & Garfunkel
Andy is my high school buddy. Colleen? We met in the third grade and orbited together `for five years without truly knowing one another. But, I never forgot her. And, never will… Chicago, AANS national meeting. Ethiopian meal with the cousin. When did we lose our hair and get old and fat? Who’s fat!? American Gothic, Van Gogh’s bedroom? Classics! I have seen them?! I was in their presence?! Memories fade. Colleen still checks the weather constantly. Me? I forget to wear socks.
Out of the blue
Colleen is my “laundry fairy.” All my clothes disappear and return to my drawer clean about once a week…. She makes me go to her guild meetings. She has me demonstrate spinning at her fiber festivals. I get to wear the product of her weaving skills. She let me have another cat (eight). …loves to eat out.
Ginny called Colleen. Ginny, too, is reading my blog. She called – out of the blue – to thank Colleen for taking care of me. Did I mention Ginny is the “little sister” who gets kicked to the side and ignored by Don and myself? Don? Don’t ask. Big girl panties. He once got Ginny a pair – size 99 extra large – as a joke(cheap, at Walmart). We do love her dearly, but we would never ever tell her. (Shhhhh…)
So, out of the blue, Ginny called Colleen to thank her. Touching. Sweet. Touching. Have I, did I, mention that all love is appreciated. Thanks kid.
Waves
Timing, it’s everything. If you want to shoot waves, you need to be on time. Not. I simply pan the camera as the wave is breaking. Voila! The lesson I learned took. I can shoot waves. Our beach washed away last fall. The sand is down about ten feet. In a few cycles my home a mile from the beach will be waterfront. The federal government keeps spending money to replenish the beach. Millions of $, no, tens of millions $. Nuts! Since when did anything make sense? Meanwhile, I shoot waves.
Day two
After the first day, it sure looked like Mozart was on thin ice. As in, he was getting sent back to the pet store to find another family. The next morning was like nothing had happened. Mozart had forgiven me??! Really!?
I have not taken more pictures until today. As I readily admit, I am in it for the photo ops. Of course, it helps if the cat in question is adorable and cute?! So far things have not progressed smoothly. Duh! The other cats have all shunned Mozart. So far no fur has flown. The big cats, the Maine coons, have been largely ignoring him and have told him to stay away. The boys have not welcomed Mozart either. But they are tolerant of him in their house. So far so good. Ha ha, did I say that I wanted a big happy family? Was it this hard the last pair of cats we got? I guess my memory is fading with age.
Meanwhile, Mozart is cute … and photogenic. I hate black cats. They are hard to photograph. I like a challenge…. This saga has been most challenging… so far. My cuts and bites are all healing… so far.
Disjointed
It was one of those days… out and about. We went to the Ag museum, and, to lunch. We had not been back to this restaurant in a while and were greeted warmly upon our return. It’s good to be returning to the old haunts. And, the price of gas has fluctuated – one minute $3.59 and the next $3.17. There is no rhyme or reason to the madness. Collusion? Price fixing? Everyone has the same price! There oughta be a law…
Drama
We’ve been indoors and isolated for about a week. The new Covid variant…. Clouds from my window… dramatic! Antique store, yes we were bored. Who collected empty tins? And, there was even stuff in some of them! Poor, goy, he could not decide and got his money’s worth in the stained glass sign. Yeah, I gotta say, we do have fun times. One more time to the “Ag (griculture)” museum. Oh my!!
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.”
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