Posts Tagged ‘photography’
Whatever Is
I tried some perfunctory experimenting with the new camera after work yesterday without bothering to know anything specific about the features or settings. Who has time to read and learn from manuals? I took pictures of Delilah and then the moon with underwhelming results.
I spotted a leaf melting in the snow, but the sun had already set and the lighting wasn’t optimal.
I was excited by the empty imprint below the leaf. I wonder if that leaf is responsible for both impressions or if the empty spot was a different leaf that blew away.
Another image of the interesting snow patterns that Cyndie provided a few days ago highlights how much more rewarding it can be to take pictures with the help of some sunlight.
It’s relatively quiet on the ranch of late. Somehow the chickens have continued to dodge the fate of any predator visits. I needed to engineer a fix for our busted mailbox door. I kludged something that works for now but is unlikely to last very long. I’ve seen how rough that mailbox gets treated.
If luck is on my side today, the body shop will complete the job of repairing the front end of my car that got busted up by airborne road debris last month. I miss my car. I’ve been driving a rental all week, the cost of which was covered by my insurance. To get anything more than the most basic models would involve added expense. I didn’t want to pay. ‘Nuff said.
Despite repeated annual attempts to not give a hoot about NFL games, I have yet to completely kick the habit that has been with me for my entire life, so I plan to watch playoff games all weekend. I’m operating in standard Minnesota fan mode and fully expecting the Vikings to fall flat, while quietly hoping the team surprises me and gives us something to crow about.
When I’m not watching sports, we have been taking in a few new movies at home on DVD. We just saw, “Knives Out” and were thoroughly entertained by the screenplay, the production value, and the wonderful acting. I’m always impressed when actors I’m fond of choose to take on a role playing unlikeable characters. We recommend this movie!
That’s the news for today from ranch Wintervale-be-gone, where all the animals are both smart and good looking.
Be kind to someone you don’t know today.
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Unplanned Solution
I thought it would be so simple. Just drop my camera off at the shop to be sent out for cleaning. However, my plan was dashed the very moment I removed the trusty old Nikon from my pocket. Without a hint of hesitation, the clerk informed me there was no repairing this model. In today’s economy, it is cheaper to simply replace it.
This means that my Nikon is basically a disposable camera. That’s just wrong.
Of course, I won’t throw it away. There must be some use for it, even in a world where cell phones are more often used as cameras than for calls.
Admittedly, I tend to rely on my pocket camera more than my phone out of a sense of protection for the phone. I’m more willing to risk the camera to the harsh elements and risky handholds many situations present than I am my phone.
What could I do? I bought a new pocket camera built to withstand the abuse to which I expose them. This go-round I have chosen the Olympus Tough TG-6.
I’m looking forward to the macro mode feature it offers. After I charged the battery last night, the first picture taken was of the reflection of our old Hays family lamp I saw on the surface of the granite countertop below.
I was intrigued that the “auto” mode chose to focus on the image being reflected and not on the actual counter surface.
I look forward to getting to know this camera better and using it to capture a new level of filled-frame images, among the myriad other visuals that tend to catch my attention.
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Dreaded Spot
There is a speck on an internal lens of my trusty pocket camera. It showed up on images I captured this morning. I meant to feature some disappearing tracks in the snow, but I got an unwelcome distraction instead.
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Bummer!
I consider myself to be something of a hack photographer. I love framing and capturing images and cropping results for aesthetic effect, but I don’t put energy or attention toward camera details. The three pillars of photography, settings for shutter speed, aperture, and ISO are details I leave up to the auto mode of the camera.
For convenience, I long ago settled on a pocket camera so I could take pictures on the fly while out and about on my daily activities without the burden of a sensitive piece of equipment dangling around my neck or over my shoulder. I tend to be pretty rough on my equipment.
My previous pocket cameras which took fantastic pictures were Canon PowerShots, but the motorized pop-out lenses couldn’t handle the abuse of dust and debris that I subjected them to. My camera retailer steered me to the waterproof Nikon COOLPIX.
It’s been a trusty friend and has served me well, but my abuse is taking a toll. It needs a thorough cleaning.
Not a cleaning that I will do myself. I’m hoping the cost of professional cleaning is less than the price of a new camera. I don’t like the thought of this becoming a disposable item.
Most importantly, I don’t want to have blurry spots on my pictures of the morning sky on a beautiful December day.
Such a distraction.
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Other Tracks
Now that snow covers the land again we have returned to the winter phase of visibility for wild animal travel around our property. Cyndie contributed today’s image of tracks in the snow:
It’s always interesting to see the travels of a solitary wanderer making its way across our fields or down one of our trails. Apparently, these visitors have smelly feet, based on the intensity of interest Delilah shows to each indentation that we allow her to reach. She will bury her nose in every single footprint.
I wonder if she gathers any new information from each additional whiff.
While searching my old photo files for a different project last night, I was surprised to happen upon a strikingly similar image to the one above.
Two years ago, this same scene caught my eye.
Do you think maybe it was the same animal?
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Several Impressions
A morning walk last Friday with Delilah on a trace coating of overnight snow and Cyndie’s tire tracks provided plenty of enticing opportunities to frame a variety of interesting views. Here are three of my favorite images selected from a much wider range of impressions I collected on that excursion…
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Sun Rises
Today marks the return of Standard Time for most people in the U.S. but the sun paid no attention. The earth and sun did nothing unusual to change our circadian rhythms today.
Cyndie captured this image a few minutes before the sun appeared. It didn’t matter to the universe what time our clocks were set to read.
We will reconcile the adjustment to an apparent hour-earlier darkness because we must. Society has yet to reconcile our differing opinions about changing clocks twice a year, but science appears to be leaning toward the conclusion that better health and well-being is possible by eliminating the bi-annual clock adjustment and maintaining Standard Time year-round.
(Ref: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0748730419854197)
I have a good friend who never hesitates to remind me how much he likes that we adjust the clocks twice a year to alter the daylight for our routine activities. He is not alone, which explains why the repeated debates arise twice every year in the spring and fall yet nothing seems to come of it.
It’s not the kind of thing that we can each just choose for ourselves. It’s a lot like our national leadership. Independents don’t hold much sway in our two-party system and we can’t each choose to follow our own preferred President. We need to function in a system whether we agree with it or not.
The sun and the earth don’t care either way. For some reason, I find solace in that. Knowing the universe pays no heed to our trifling clock settings helps me cope with a system to which I disagree.
It hasn’t helped as well with tolerating national leadership that shows no interest in helping shift us away from abusing the planet to everyone’s detriment. I suspect the universe will have the last laugh in that contest.
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Relative Something 