6003
Days? Well, 6003 (starting circa 2003) entries in the database and counting. Which is to say there have been 7300 days in 20 years (20×365). And, there are 6003 entries for multiple cameras for digital images taken on a given day. Confusing. No worries. … a different camera during a day – 6000+ times. But not a shot on every day – (I wuz working.)
It’s just a number. But since I am curious about cumulative statistics….
Diving – in the Red Sea. Special. With your kids – priceless!!
Africa – I have dreamed of Africa. Leopard – the guides knew him as Chewy.
US Tennis Open – yes! I got to shoot with/along side SI photographers.
Puffins – I chased them and finally saw them!
Beauty – I have seen great beauty that would bring tears to your eye.
Seven senses – my pick is vision. Oh, the things I have seen!
In the curl
Sometimes I surprise myself. Ha ha! Dave missed it. He said, “Nice wave!”
No no no! The surfer! Look inside the curl of the wave. Ah!! That’s a shot! Damn! I got him in the center of the wave. The boogie boarder did not come out the other side. He wiped out right after this shot. But!! I got a great shot! Wow! I’m impressed. I am the proverbial blind squirrel that got a nut. I pressed the shutter. Ok ok, I have skill. Not just anyone can press the shutter at the right critical moment. Uh huh! But I will admit to you that this was strictly serendipity. Luck!
I could walk around telling everyone that this is just the shot I meant to take. Sure! But to be honest….
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.
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.”
Know
It’s a long time since I knew Dave. True on so many levels.
He grew up. Did I know him as a kid? He’s an adult with a life and travels and work that I can barely follow. He has taken on many hobbies and projects known only to himself. Skateboard? He did it for a short period and then dropped it. Why? Why did he start? Why did he stop? Did he get good at it? Dunno. There’s a lot I don’t know.
_DSC08368 (image)
I got it wrong. I was looking for image DSC08368. Instead, the search found for me… _DSC8368. GIGO – my bad. I typed in the wrong search term. Surprise! Look what I found?!
Solar eclipse; Argentina, glacier; airport, Jeddah; cruise ship, Carribbean; Easter bonnet; airshow San Diego; safari, Africa; woodpecker; heather, Maine; US Open, NYC; harness racing, Maine.
All the _DSC8368 images on my hard drive with all the varied files were found. There were more less worthy images as well. The memory card resets at different points with different cameras. So, number sequences repeat. I could easily enough do a time check in the metadata of each image.
Well, the point? My hard drive has a finite number of images labeled _DSC8368. They are found and span a lot of years and a lot of activity.
Well, the point? My hard drive has a finite number of images labeled _DSC8368. They are found and span a lot of years and a lot of activity.
It appears _DSC08368 was a different camera and a different era later than 2014. It was i.e of more recent vintage. Aha! I peeked. Nikon D200 vs Sony RX100 (DSC3868). Gee, I shot a lot of fond memories with both. Naturally, it all makes sense now.
Learned
Lesson learned. It’s a roundabout story today. Years ago I was gifted an opportunity to shoot at the US Open by a Sports Illustrated photographer who took me along. I had full-fledged press credentials to wander and shoot all over the stadium. Imagine that!
Celebrities were in abundance as well as the tennis stars of the day. It’s not hard to see who won the men’s final by the look of triumph in his face. The key to shooting: get the ball coming into or off the racket in the same frame. Spectacular!
Lesson: This came a bit later. I was posting photos to a shared website. The site also let you rate other photographer’s photos with stars 1 to 5. I went thru and rated a bunch of photos. They were mostly 3’s – average. No big deal, not great, not poor. Afterward I was inundated with vituperative comments and 1 star ratings and comments on my own uploaded (tennis) photos. “How dare I rate their photos so poorly!!!”
It was a lesson well learned. To this day, I stay off the internet in any capacity that might make me a target again. There is so much said about social media and influencers now. There is good and bad. Most of the billions of people are unaffected and socialize in peace, while a few ….
And, on a similar note: Lopsided? Her left breast is clearly disproportionately larger relative to its mate in that dress. Huh? Nice trick. How’d that happen? Or why? Am I just being picky?
Oh! Oops! Trick photography? Or stupid mistake? It is a fundamental lesson learned very early on. A wide angle lens distorts facial features. In this case … it was an unintentional error. Well, then, you simply delete the image from your memory card … instead of taking credit below the photo. Argh!!! Dumb!! Poor Jimmy!?
Like Pandora’s box, I fear the Internet is larger than any of us despite Elon Musk’s pending purchase of Twitter. Or, as singers and poets tell us – “you can’t go back.” Oh! Ooops! He’s backing out… does that make him the asshole he seems to be?
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.
Curious
You just don’t stop suddenly. Suddenly, I stopped – taking slides, pictures with film. I transitioned over a period of about a year after receiving a Canon G3 digital camera from Lisa. The DSLR digital cameras were thousands of $, upwards of $5 to $10K! Too expensive! I was wealthy enough, sure. But….
And then, the Nikon D70 arrived just about, right about this time of day/month/year in 2004. It came as David’s graduation commenced. And, I never shot another slide afterwards, just like that! …I eventually threw away a lot of slide film from my freezer.
These were some of the last shots from my film camera. We lived in a nice house, apartment, in Manhattan. I was with Jules at one of her last track meets; she want over to rugby soon after. I was still documenting. I was curious as to the last shots I took with slide film.
I still have my film cameras. My lenses, too, are still functionally fit for my digital cameras. Nikon finally changed the F mount to the Z, but there is an adapter. While the rest of the world shoots iPhone, I happily shoot digital (camera). The cost of a digital image pro-rated over the cost of a 256gb memory card makes digital nearly free when compared to the cost and development of film! That works just fine for me.
published
… not really. I’m not professional, strictly amateur, as far as photography is concerned. I have sold an image or two. It was a mix of surprise and curiosity that I was contacted via my blog for use of an image. The request came via an unused link from an unused blog I had many years ago. I was suspicious of a scam. But, it turned out to be a legitimate request. The image in question was cropped from the original and used strictly in an internal memo. So, what the hell, they got it for free. Dumb, maybe. I got a credit for the use. Consider it a charitable donation. The image? It was the NYC Marathon Sunday crossing the Verrazano Bridge.
Hunter
Hunter Mountain. It’s in upstate NY. We skied there the last time I skied with my kids. As in, it was the last time we skied together. Period. It’s a sad happy memory forwarded to my email courtesy of Shutterfly. K27. It’s the name of an infamous trail on the mountain for experts only. Skiing in upstate NY has challenges. It’s eastern skiing, therefore be prepared for ice. The moguls were the size of Volkswagen beetles. I am older and wiser which is to say I wanted to live to ski another run. Eric and Dave went first and fell. Eric exploded. Jules was more cautious and picked her way around the moguls to ski out the bottom. Good for her! As I say this memory was bittersweet. Who knew what the future would bring and how our lives all changed so.
Proud papa
(Shhhhh….don’t tell mom) I let Lisa do most of the child raising. Mostly because she was way more OCD about it. And partly because I was not home as much as I’d like to have thought. One thing I did do with the kids was ski. Lisa was afraid to fall so she never got good. I learned just a little bit ahead of my kids. I got good fast. They got good and never knew it. They skied black diamond trails before they could read. You know you’re nuts when other people would take pictures of your kids on the slopes because they were so little and skiing on steep blue trails out west. When Julia could finally read she queried me, “But Dad, that’s a black diamond trail.” as we skied past the sign. I told her, “Shut up. Just ski.” And they did. This would be a happy ending. Then, one day they got better than me. I suppose it’s the goal of every parent to see their kids better than them. I’m proud. Mom can’t ski (well), so what happens on the trail, stays on the ski trail.
Be seated
Choosing a bike seat is like choosing a pillow. You may wax poetic. Or not. I don’t much mind. I did have some worry about a narrow unpadded seat. But I got used to it. Really! Someone else I know has a great deal of problems choosing – seats and pillows. The closet overflows with failed experiments in foam pillows. Tender, firm, hard, or soft, no matter. We constantly switch back and forth, in and out. It’s dizzying. Seat? Bicycle seat? Princess and the Pea? We go through seats every time we see a new model. Wide enough? Or not? It doesn’t matter. It’s a quest! The holy (grail) seat! Ah! This time I found one. No complaints for at least 8 rides. I got my fingers crossed…. toes too! Yes! We have settled upon a pillow too. Oh happy day!!! We have closets overflowing with pillows and by my last count there are at least five spare seats. Oh!… I exaggerate! Not!
Biker
Dave started on a bike with training wheels out on Long Island. If I would list the places since that he has ridden – Taiwan, Canada, Mexico, Germany and so on, you might be impressed. He rode cross country – yep – more than 3000 miles – Delaware to LA. It all started here. He first rode with his (training) wheels here. To say that I am proud would be an understatement. Who knew what he would accomplish. I rode as a mean of getting around when I was a kid. I was a reluctant participant in riding as an adult. Then I rode for fitness. I should do so again. I get a good workout without too much wear and tear on the joints. I enjoy knowing that my son has surpassed me. The most I ever made in a day was 96 miles. I just couldn’t find the energy to make it to the “Century.” And yes, that’s Scales and Tails there in the background. Don’t you love the symmetry?
As always…
You might laugh? Maybe not. My cats live in fear. Spice does somersaults. Well, I make her do them. Actually, I toss her. She’s not a fan. I go way back. I had two brothers. We were pretty typical. We were rough and tumble. Maybe this is why Jules was so good in sports and stuff. I started her tumbling about at an early age. But, she did have a lot of motion sickness, especially in the car. Who knows? What I can say is that if I don’t sit still and neither did/does she.
Ski
It must have been a warm day. I have no hat. We’d ski and try to do some death defying jumps. Actually, they were just bumps. That would be me. Don’t laugh. The last time I remember skiing was with Julia in Sunday River. Or, maybe it was Hunter with the kids and uncle Eric. Either way, it’s been a few years. I guess, like tennis, and golf, my best days are behind me. I can still do it. There’s not too much incentive. And, it’s flat!!…here in Delaware.
One a day
I have lots of thoughts. I post once per day. Jules long ago complained TMI when I posted too frequently. Right. She was right. My kids advise me wisely – often. So, you will never see hundreds of thousands of images. Good! Good? Lately, I have so many, too numerous to count. But…my thought?
Well, I started in film. I have faded pictures of which I posted recently. My paranoia? Lost slides – by way of really lost, fading, mold, damage, fire, dust… Storage? Not much choice, they have to be physically stored. Environment – temp, humidity, dust, mold? It plays on your mind. I had friends in college who were totally obsessed with dust on their film and their lenses. Peter Hong comes to mind. Imagine that? Poor Peter? Well, I think his name was Peter? We had a freshman Quantitative Chem class. You weighed things out to the 4th decimal. You know? – .0001 gm – that would be very light weight. And, any error – just dust – could throw off your result. We were obsessive about washing the lab glassware! Madness. That lesson has not stuck – not one bit. I have spots and stuff on my lenses. Mostly, I refrain from using my shirttail to wipe the glass. Thank God!
The post today is more than 20 maybe, closer to 30 years old. It has stood the test of time stored relatively well and kept in the dark. No loss of color. I know. I know. This is all disjointed. But when I recently scanned this slide it jumped out for some reason. That crisp winter day is still like it was when we were there. The colors did not fade. The scanner technology got rid of most of the dust without me doing a thing. Shooting through a fence with auto focus is hard. Somehow the camera behaved perfectly. All sort of memories blend seeing my kids playing platform tennis. They probably never played again. That’s bittersweet too.
Dressage – but I call it horse riding
I missed the jumping. We wandered into a college competition late. It’s a sport with which I’m unfamiliar. Seriously, there are folks who dress the part and then participate. I’m afraid I’m not sympathetic. Certainly the competitors are serious. I’m struggling to make sense of it myself. Sorry, I suppose there is beauty in training a horse to perform on command. It’s called training and art for the sake of mastery. Oh boy. I’m just poking fun at their expense. Not fair. I was an intruder in a foreign culture. There are purists and elitists out there who will defend the sport. I’m not one. One more pound and you don’t button that last one. Watch out!
Mike and Me – He’s the Big Guy
Yup. That’s me with Mike. Who? Mike Singletary of the Chicago Bears, Super Bowl Champs of 1985. Yeah, it’s like when were there four Beatles? Who? Who were the Beatles? Old. Me. Yup. The Bears won that year with a marvelous defense. The Giants – my beloved NY team won the following year. The Bears wupped their butts (Giants) on the way to their championship. Too much history? Mike came to speak at our national meeting. Last year it was Peyton Manning. Is there a theme? At least it wasn’t Ben Carson again. Get it? I’m a neurosurgeon and he came out during our last meeting. Not Mike, Ben. Too confusing?
Well, the American Association of Neurological Surgeons meets once a year. And there are invited speakers. We are a very conservative lot. Not me. Them. Maybe there are a few progressives and even some Democrats among us. I, for one, don’t care to have my politics mixed with business. And, no, I don’t wear striped underwear or boxers. Bet you wanted to know that too.
We had Bush – you know – GW – give the Cushing oration. Cushing, he was the modern godfather of neurosurgery. In fact, Cushing trained Davidoff; Davidoff trained Ransahoff; and Ransahoff tranined me. So I am pedigreed. I digress. Mike was invited to speak and the NFL came. Everyone did a little PC dance and no one said, “Don’t do it!” And we heard a discussion about chronic traumatic encephalopathy CTE. Mama, don’t let your kids grow up to be Cowboys (Dallas) and don’t let them play football. Mike claims he only had a concussion twice. Lucky! He’s still sharp. Once was William “Refrigerator” Perry. I bet that was a boatload of fun. Meanwhile I got a picture at our opening reception. He’s a sports hero of sorts. I have many. But boy was it fun! Yes! Mike and me.
Oh! Bush? The security was so tight that they did not announce he was coming until the meeting started. There was no obvious secret service presence. However, bags were checked and it was strictly no photographs. Some secretly used their cellphones. I’m way too cool for that! W actually spoke coherently. To listen to him one could understand that his TV demeanor was hardly like his real life thinking. Nice guy?! Hey, don’t tell. I voted for him once.
The second election was scheduled just after our fall meeting. Gorbachev was the speaker. Remember him? The room was packed. A member of our national leadership rose and spoke – I thought to introduce Gorbachev. Nope. He said, “Bush will sign medical malpractice reform if it passes congress. Kerry and Edwards will not.” He sat. The room was silent. And the implication was clear. Though I knew there was not a snowball’s chance in hell medmal reform would pass I voted special interest. It was the one and only time I have ever voted for a presidential winner. Yeah, twice I voted for anarchy and Ross Perot. Don’t shoot me, ma? Please.
No One Was Hurt
I attended a karate match. Brown belts, they were among the best students. You score for landing a punch or a kick on the pads in the front or on the side. You are not allowed to strike high or low. As I said there were no injuries during this match. It just looks like something happened. Ouch!
First Time
Jen doesn’t swim. She doesn’t have a driver’s license. She had never been on a quad. And if I recall correctly, she doesn’t know how to ride a bike. So she’s getting a quick lesson on riding and operating a quad. Gee, I did not know the thing had brakes for the first 30 minutes I was riding. Just turn uphill and you stop, like snow skiing. And she wanted to ride on back of someone. No! We made here do it herself. Darned if she did it. It’s kind of funny because all the quads they gave our group were green except for the black one I rode. Odd man out again, I ended up on it. I was not the leader but I had the odd bike anyway.
Four Wheel Group
This intrepid group was on a mission. They were determined to go on quads in the desert. Some had never been on a quad. Others admitted they did not know how to ride a bike. And there were a couple who could not drive a car nor swim. Well, I guess swimming is not a fair prerequisite for using a quad. Talk about sheltered lives, but they sure had a good time. There was no hope to get this group to jump so I would settle for making them raise their hands. Even that was not easy to coordinate.
Skateboard
There was a point when David took up the sport to test his skill. He could ski pretty well. He wanted to snowboard but his mother required him to don a helmet. So he opted to skateboard. She did not know he needed a helmet for this too. I have to admit that David got the hang of it and could do some nice tricks. Basic things, but he was skilled enough for me to be impressed. And of course I was around to get some images. Look ma, no feet (on the board).
Ponquogue Bridge
I got a call one night. I was home in NY and on call. Lisa was on Long Island. It was twilight and she was breathless. She’d found a bridge and rode over it. She was still a long way from home but the view was breathtaking and she was exhilarated. It is a very long tall bridge in a spot you would never expect. Despite the long uphill ride, it’s not too strenuous. We’ve done it many times together since she discovered it. As impressive and hard as one might expect from its look, I’ve never been physically challenged as I thought. Every time we ride it I smile.
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