I hope everyone has a great holiday and is looking forward to a new adventure in 2020!
Merry Christmas!
All posts by Tom Dills
Been A While
Kathy & I recently returned from our most recent adventure, 14 days on the Celebrity Summit cruise ship out of San Juan, Puerto Rico. One of the downsides of cruising close to or during the holidays is that it compresses the holiday “to-do” list just a little. I added another 3500 photos to my inventory and am working my way through them. But I see the light at the end of the tunnel! 😉
Blurry Aspen 2.0
Long-time readers of this blog may recall a series of Aspen motion-blur photos that I shot during our first visit to Colorado in June 2015. Because it was springtime, the vertical trunks of the Aspen trees made for great subject matter when combined with the fresh spring green.
Since our most recent visit to Colorado was in the fall, I hoped to add to my Aspen Blur collection with some photos of trees with the golden yellow of fall. A lot of the trees we saw in the first few days of our visit were on the mountainsides, too far away to effectively get the results I wanted. On our final day, a drive through the Poudre Canyon with my pal Monte, we came across several excellent stands of trees.
It sometimes takes a lot of “misses” to come up with a handful of keepers. In this case I shot a relatively light 200 photos, and came up with a few that I’m really happy with. A couple have some really funky looks to them as a result of a happy accident or two.
I suppose the next step will be to get out there in the winter and make some photos of Aspen with snow. I’m not sure I’m up for that yet, but it may make it on to the to-do list, you never know! 🙂
We Got Planes!
Years ago I hung out with a bunch of guys who were pilots. Some of them owned their own planes – small homebuilt planes or private planes like a Piper Colt or Ercoupe. I actually got my own private pilot license, although I haven’t actually driven a plane in about 30 years. Photography is a very economical hobby compared to flying! But I still like planes, especially big noisy ones. 😉
One day a bunch of us were talking about going to the annual EAA Fly-In in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. For a week at the end of July, the EAA “AirVenture” as it is now called, is the World’s Greatest Aviation Celebration®. Kathy was understandably skeptical about the idea of spending a week at an airport with a bunch of airplane geeks, so she asked, “is there anything to see there besides airplanes?” One of the guys looked up and said to her in all seriousness, “well yeah, there’s parts!” 🙂
We didn’t see many airplane parts on our western road trip, but we did see lots of planes. We visited the static displays at Scott Field in Illinois and Ellsworth AFB in South Dakota. There are a few photos here, but for those who need to see more, I’ve posted a gallery of airplane photos on my Adobe Portfolio site.
A Tough Par 3
For golfers, this would make a great Par 3 hole, although it might be a little tough to get your ball back. 😉
Maybe The Camera Just Doesn’t Matter That Much
I was reading a recent post on Monte’s Blog in the context of a commercial print job I’m currently working on. Monte was discussing how much he wanted a new Fuji lens (me too!) but indicated that his current cameras – 4 and 6 years old – still suited him fine, and he reminded us that all cameras still require a photographer to work.
I was recently contacted by a local restaurant owner about providing prints for their bar and dining rooms for an upcoming remodel. I’m flattered that they asked me, and even more excited that it is one of our favorite restaurants. And that they want 17 photos! One of the things that interested me in the context of Monte’s post and the discussion about needing a “pro” camera for doing quality work is the breakdown of the cameras that were used for the photos we chose for this project:
- Canon 5D – 1
- Canon 5D Mark III – 3
- Canon Powershot G12 – 4
- Fuji X-10 – 2
- Fuji X-E2 – 1
- Fuji X-T1 – 1
- Medium Format Film Scan – 1
I wasn’t too surprised about the number of 5D shots, and I wasn’t at all surprised at the number of shots from the Fuji X-E2 and X-T1, my current cameras. But I was quite surprised at 6 of the photos coming from two point & shoot cameras! Maybe there is something to be said for ditching all of the interchangeable lens cameras and just buying a single, good, point & shoot camera!
I’ll share the photos later. Or even better, photos of the photos once they are hung! 😉
What’s This Stuff?
I hardly ever see film anywhere any more. So I was a bit surprised to see this at a gift shop at Wall Drug. I didn’t check the expiration date. I wonder if they also sell Kodak mailers for processing? 😉
Missing Something?
Is this another case of alien abduction, or is there a hiker somewhere in the NC mountains missing a boot? 😉
Going Nowhere
Kathy & I paid a visit today to the so-called “Road to Nowhere” in Great Smoky Mountains National Park near Bryson City, NC. I wrote about this place in a previous post from last October (just a year ago? Wow!). We caught just a little bit of the end of fall color, before the bottom falls out of the thermometer in a few days. We’ll be back home to our toasty house and our gas fireplace by then! 😉
Raw Materials
Raw coffee beans awaiting a turn in the roaster. Panacea Coffee House, Waynesville NC