I treated myself to an early morning and was rewarded with a pretty nice pre-sunrise sky. I credit Monte and his early morning excursions for the motivation to drag myself out of bed at 5:45. It was worth it! I also was able to get a nice cup of coffee in the lobby on my way back to our room. Double nice!
The Cartier-Bresson quote and photo from Monte’s recent post made me remember this photo, from way back in 2009. It is a rare photo for me, one that captures a fleeting glance, possibly a look of concern, that immediately disappeared as she averted her eyes and entered the front door of the restaurant. A microsecond later and I would have had nothing but a girl with an umbrella.
I mentioned in an earlier post how we had recently had our bathrooms and bedrooms repainted, and that I had been given the “assignment” of providing prints for the walls. I’ve been thinking for a few months about the proper theme and color palette for each room. I’m still cogitating on the bedroom and master bath, – actually waiting for a new chair and draperies to arrive – but I finally settled on a scheme for the hall bathroom.
I’ve always tried to stay away from using other photographer’s work in my bathrooms, not being sure how that would come across. 😉 I’ll admit to previously having a John Shaw print and a Les Saucier print in our master bath, but neither of those two gentlemen are ever likely to set foot in our house, let alone the bathroom.
In general, Kathy & I are going for images that capture our sense of travel, showing a sense of the places we have visited without being “literal.” When we decorated our sunroom with prints from a St. Martin artist, we wanted it to “feel” tropical without sea shells and palm trees. The colors and fabrics express that well. For our bathroom we wanted a splash of color – ideally Caribbean-inspired. I think we got there with these three selections. We’ll then get to hunt for accessories to go with what we have and these prints. Another reason to get back on the road again soon!
For now these are just files – my print lab starts their “sample sales” soon and I’m hoping to save a little $$$ by waiting a few weeks! 🙂
The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence – it is to act with yesterday’s logic. – Peter Drucker
The last few days I’ve been working on compiling some of my blog posts from early in the pandemic into book form. As I read over some of the things I wrote in March and April last year, I’m struck by how little we knew at that time and what our (my) attitudes were. I’m not sure we’ve really learned a lot in the last year, but what we know now seems a lot different from what we knew then.
These are a few more of the photos from our visit to Murray’s Mill. I’ve been experimenting with some in-camera JPEG ‘recipes’ and these are photos made with one called “Dramatic Monochrome” from Fuji X Weekly.
I recently posted a few reflection photos to Instagram, and it got me thinking about how much time I spend looking for reflections. My conclusion? Not nearly enough!
Photos of boats in a marina with still water are pretty low-hanging fruit. I need to remind myself that while I am looking for lines, pattern and shadows, to keep my eyes peeled for good candidates for reflections.
Kirk Tuck recently posted about how (paraphrasing) walking around town with a camera taking random pictures of interesting things is “almost like playing scales on the piano.” As a reformed musician that’s a reference I understand. Practicing technique is what allows us to nail the performance.
One of my recurring dreams involves being invited – and accepting – to perform some kind of solo concert. I haven’t touched my trombones – although I still have them – in nearly 30 years but when the day comes for me to play the dream ends. There’s probably some important symbolism there but I won’t try to analyze.
“Winter” or what we know as winter took this past weekend off, so Kathy & I took advantage of the 70 degree temperatures to enjoy the day at Latta Nature Preserve. I took my camera, of course, and took a few photos. To make it a little harder I took only my widest prime lens – the 14mm f2.8 (21mm full-frame equivalent). I don’t shoot a lot with wide angle lenses and it tends to show. While I didn’t come back with anything truly exceptional the idea of practice was my intention. Kathy helps me by seeing things she sees and giving me an “assignment” like the photos of purple leaves and the fallen branches with pine cones below. Now I have a name for the concept – practicing my scales.
It was almost like I had heard Jeff Curto’s words in my head, although I didn’t actually hear them until we got home. Jeff’s most recent podcast talks about it isn’t necessary to travel long distances or to exotic locations to make interesting photographs. Give it a listen if you don’t already subscribe. And you know you should. 😉
Kathy and I decided to spend a nice late-fall Sunday afternoon at Latta Plantation Nature Preserve, a county park near Huntersville, North Carolina and about 8 miles from our house. We packed a picnic lunch, laced up our hiking shoes and spent a couple of hours wandering the trails along Mountain Island Lake, the lake that we live close to, but not at. It’s not Lake Superior, but it’s what we’ve got. 🙂
We’ve been to Latta a number of times over the years, and I’ve made lots of photographs there. But it had been a while. There are things to see and photograph at all times of the year, but I have often sold it short since it is – as Jeff alluded to – in our “back yard.”
Kathy & I had already decided that we’re going to stick close to home for the next few months, and are planning to get out and explore our own area. I’ve said for years that I like to be a “tourist in my own town” but have never sat still long enough to give it a chance. Sounds like now is as good a time as any!
I’ve always had a thing for boat bows, especially reflections of bows in the water. Shelter Cove Marina is of course full of boat bows. Other boat parts, too! Here are a few from our evening there that I found notable.
Kathy & I woke this morning to a temperature of 68 degrees and a noticeable drop in humidity. We had our morning coffee & tea on the screened porch and almost needed our sleeves! 🙂
Kathy & I met our friend Paul for lunch today, and on the way home Kathy said that the shadows and colors on the houses looked like fall. The air is crispy clear and it does have that fall look. But we’re not fooled! This will only last a few days before the heat and humidity return. In the meantime we’ll enjoy it!
Kirk Tuck recently used this phrase in regards to making choices between camera options, specifically about different lenses. The full quote follows:
The “science” of optical design can not have changed a tremendous amount in four or five years so you have to understand that the “new versus old” shift is largely a recalibration of compromises. Buy the new one and watch your left biceps atrophy. Buy the old one and suffer the dreaded effects of manual portage. Suffer the ruinous added weight of the original for the extra 1% of quality in the corners or choose the lightweight version and forever wonder how much optical magic they had to remove to get the lens corpulence under control.
It occurred to me, however, that the concept applies in a much broader context, especially in recent months.
Every decision we make requires some effort to balance the options, to compromise. Do I want the camera with the big sensor that is huge, heavy and requires a large suitcase to cart around, or am I better off with the compact camera with a smaller sensor, small but excellent lenses and “good enough” image quality? We want to travel – we love to fly but not not any time soon. We have spent a lot of time on cruise ships but won’t for a while. Our trip to the beach worked out really well – just like living at home but with better scenery. 😉
We love to eat our but have limited our restaurant outings. We’ve gotten even better at preparing simple but delicious meals at home – much to the delight of the bathroom scale!
Kathy and I are currently in the process of planning a road trip to the Pacific Northwest. The places we’re planning to visit are the places where we’re less likely to encounter big crowds. As crazy as it sounds, we’ll probably drive within a few miles of Yellowstone or Glacier National Parks, but have no intention of stopping. First, crowds are not our thing. We probably would be doing pretty much the same thing even without all the Coronacrisis hoopla. But second is that we don’t want to have to deal with the logistics of large crowds. Third is that when we do go to those parks we want to be able to spend several days or even a couple of weeks there. That isn’t the plan for this time.
Our recent drive to Ohio and Wisconsin taught us that we can eat, sleep, pee and get gas just about anywhere. Sometimes it requires a little compromise on location or timing, but it can get done. Ultimately, once we solve that basic equation we can go just about anywhere!
People ask us why we don’t buy an RV. For some people it’s the perfect solution. For us, we like knowing that when we get to the motel, tired after or driving or exploring all day, we don’t need to spend another hour setting up camp. I can have cocktails made within minutes after arrival! And the next morning, we grab a cup of coffee, drop the keys at the front desk and get on our way again. Neither option is right or wrong, just different ways to calibrate the compromises.
None of our choices are either/or or yes/no. We need to consider what we can do instead We have to look at the options and recalibrate our compromises. Our priorities, if you will. It can be hard, particularly for those of us who don’t care for change. But the effort is worth it, because there are still plenty of things to do once we have worked out the details.
