I’ve been procrastinating a bit, but this morning I finally put the finishing touches on my first new website gallery titled “Nautica.” I discussed it in an earlier post but had been fiddling around with the pictures and updating the processing on the photos that I thought would benefit.
We’re off to the NC coast for a few days of R&R and visiting our Ohio relatives who insist on coming south during the hottest part of the summer. We love them anyway and look forward to a few days of sand and saltwater. I may take a few photos….
Boatbuilders shop along the waterfront, Lunenburg, Nova ScotiaSt KittsBoat Reflections on Far Creek, Englehard, North CarolinaCatamaran cruise in Nevis
A little photo-geekery here. Apologies to the non-photographers. 😉
I took this photo back in the fall of 2011 along the Blue Ridge Parkway in southern Virginia. The tree was aglow in fall color and the light made it explode out of the surrounding hillside. I purposely under-exposed by 2 stops so I wouldn’t lose the sky or saturation in the golden leaves. But try as I might I just couldn’t get a final image that captured what I saw. Image #1 is the original file without processing, and Image #2 is my best attempt at that time.
Original RAW File – No Processing
When I was looking for photos to accompany my “trees” post I came across this image and decided to give it another try. I updated the Process Version to the latest one and took advantage of the latest masking and toning tools in Lightroom. I finally got the image I was looking for originally! Or at least very close to it. I may mess with it some more, but I’m happy to have broken the code on this one.
2011 Processed Version – Reject!
I just hope it doesn’t “force” me to start looking for old files to process…I have a hard enough time keeping up with the current stuff! 🙂
Church Street Craft Festival in Waynesville, North Carolina
How many times have we seen it – a group of people taking pictures of some interesting scene or event with their phones, then showing their screens to each other as if to show off what they saw. But did they actually see the scene itself, or are they experiencing it only through their pictures? Will they only remember an event by looking at it on their phones? I wonder.
Mount Rushmore National Memorial, South DakotaHudson’s Seafood, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina
When our kids were growing up, back in the dark ages of film, camcorders were becoming “the thing” among cool parents. Dads walked around school events with their “mini-cams” on their shoulder, documenting the events like a White House cameraman during a press conference. Kathy & I resisted, preferring instead to experience the events through our eyes and remembering them in our memories. We have still pictures, sure, but don’t have boxes and boxes of videotape that will never be watched. But the memories are precious and remain in our minds.
Pienza, Italy
I just read an article in the New York Times titled “Is the Immediate Playback of Events Changing Children’s Memories?” In it, the writer recalls a piano recital given by her daughter. The writer’s mother recorded the performance on her phone, and as the mother went to replay it 30 minutes later, “When I saw my mother’s finger hovering over “play” on her phone, my daughter leaning over her shoulder, I stopped her: “You know what … let’s just let her enjoy the moment.”
Pienza, Italy
I think that sentiment applies to everyone, not just children. Having a camera with us all the time, whether a “real” camera or a phone, causes our initial reaction to something to be an urge to photograph it instead of just looking at it and enjoying the moment. It disconnects us instead of connecting us.
It’s an interesting article so I won’t repeat it here, other than the final paragraph:
“It’s been a week since my daughter’s performance. “I can’t believe it’s over!” she says twirling around the kitchen. She knows I have a video of the performance, but, interestingly enough, she hasn’t asked to see it, and I haven’t volunteered it. I think I’ll let us both remember it just as it was that night for now: raw and unfiltered, and from our own perspectives, perfect.”
St. Mark’s Square in Venice, ItalySt. Mark’s Square in Venice, Italy
Think about that when we spend our time composing photographs through that little viewfinder or on that little screen. Remember to experience the world with our eyes, too. I’ve often told people that the quality of the photograph is less important than the quality of the memory. And that memory lives on long after the pixels are filed away on some hard drive.
I was recently scrolling through Instagram when I came across a post by Tony Sweet where he talked about how one of his most-photographed subjects is a single tree. I happen to know of one tree in particular in Cades Cove that I refer to as “Tony Sweet’s Tree” even though lots of other photographers know about it too.
Sunset at The Saddle Overlook, Blue Ridge Parkway near Meadows of Dan VirginiaTree in silhouette at twilight, The Saddle Overlook, Blue Ridge Parkway, Virginia
In his post states that he has “amassed a pretty large collection of single tree images in various formats, weather conditions, and times of year.” It got me thinking about my own collection of trees, so I went out and found a few of them to post here.
Fall along the Blue Ridge Parkway near Licklog Ridge Overlook MP 349Tree and rocks, Pilot Mountain State Park, North Carolina
I’ve been thinking in terms of themes lately anyway, and his post made me think of another possibility for a website gallery. The choices never end…. 😉
Sunrise on the Blue Ridge Parkway at Laurel Knob Overlook (aka Licklog Ridge Overlook) MP 349
(As a side note, I noticed lately that a number of people who have subscribed for email notification of new posts were not getting emails. I think I have found and fixed the problem, but we’ll see.)
Morning along the Blue Ridge Parkway near the intersection with Virginia Route 97 near Galax, VirginiaPastoral view along the Blue Ridge Parkway near Meadows of Dan, Virginia
Charlotte Antique and Classic Boat Show at Queens Landing in Mooresville, North Carolina
I’ve been working recently (with both “working” and “recently” having quite a broad definition 😉 ) on a long-overdue update to the galleries on my website, and it has been an interesting project. Years ago when I was doing assignment work, teaching classes and giving talks to photo groups, I thought of my website as more of a way to show off my work and validate my skills, and never really looked at it as a marketing tool. I would occasionally sell a print, or have an art consultant contact me about buying prints or licensing some images. All of that worked pretty well despite the fact that I really hadn’t set it up as a sales site. I suppose I could have worked harder at it and turned it into something, but I was working at the time and just didn’t feel inclined.
Abandoned boat on Stumpy Point, North Carolina
At this point in my photographic journey, I’ve gotten away from anything that looks, feels or smells like running a business. I’m retired and want to keep it that way. I photograph for fun, share my work with a few people who appreciate it, and don’t expect people to pay me money (but not complaining when they insist!). My website is still the public face of my photography, and I think a lot about what I want that to be for me. In the past I have tried to limit the work on my website to my “serious” work, preferring to put my “vacation snaps” on my blog or on another website such as Google Photos, or now, Adobe Portfolio. Do I change that and put all of my photos on my website? Do I ditch the website altogether and use one of the free (or less-costly) services? Part of me says that since I’m paying for my website I should use it for everything, part of me thinks I’m paying a lot of money unnecessarily but yet another part of me thinks I should keep things as-is, with my website devoted to my more serious stuff and using Adobe Portfolio for my “snapshots.”
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
The main advantage to using Adobe Portfolio is how well it integrates with Lightroom on my computer. I can create a Synced Collection of photos that automatically uploads Smart Previews to the online version of Lightroom. From there I can quickly create a gallery in Adobe Portfolio to share with others. There aren’t a lot of options, but it’s OK for my use. Uploading to my website requires a few extra steps and is a little clunky. It works OK but isn’t ideal for frequent updates or high volume galleries.
Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia
I don’t have web skills and don’t know my WWW from my HTTP or my SQL (assuming I even have those!). So I rely on a template-based site that gives me a few good layout options and generally just makes some nice looking galleries. Years ago I started with Neon Sky, a Charlotte-based web company that several of my friends were using. It’s not as fancy as some of the more heavily advertised services, they aren’t as quick with updates as I would like, and it probably costs more than I need to spend for what I do. But it works for me and I don’t really want to invest more time and effort into making a switch.
Hall’s Harbour, Nova Scotia
But as the title of this post suggests, what I really want to do is to come up with a better way to organize my photos. My current galleries consist of simple subject names: Color, Glory, Flow, Form and Peace plus a bunch of galleries under the heading of Projects. It feels to me like one of those graffiti rocks that have had so many layers of paint added to it over the years to the point where you can’t tell what the original shape was. Most of what I post fits into those broad categories, but I feel like there should or could be so much more. What about the Rust and Peeling Paint? How about the abstracts, or the close-ups, or candid people shots? I’ve got critters and signs and urban landscapes and more, but without ending up with 20 or 30 galleries that would confuse the heck out of people and make them give up and go back to YouTube, how can I classify my photos more specifically in order to make my galleries into cohesive “bodies of work?” I’ve been working on that, and it has been a challenge in a number of ways.
Neil’s Harbour, Nova Scotia
Starting from scratch with a collection of 80,000 images is overwhelming, so my first challenge was how to start with a much smaller sample. Fortunately I’ve been pretty diligent over the years with using Collections in Lightroom, and I have a well-developed method for rating my photos. I’ve also been diligent about using captions and keywords to help me locate and organize my photos. Using star ratings I narrowed the first pass down to about 6,500 photos – still a daunting task but somewhat more manageable than 80,000.
Neil’s Harbour, Nova Scotia
I’ve made lists and lists of possible theme titles and have given a lot of thought to what the definitions should be for each theme. Then comes the hard part – going through my photos to figure out which ones fall into which categories and making sure I have enough decent photos to properly fill out a gallery for each one. For someone prone to overthinking and second guessing (me!) that can be especially challenging. For example, one of my potential themes is “Nautica,” which I have defined as “Boats, parts of boats and boat stuff.” In my mind I’m thinking more of the details – ropes, sails, ornamentation, etc. and less about pictures of boats themselves. But what do I do with the boat pictures? Do lighthouses go there or somewhere else? How about cruise ships? Landscape photos that have boats in them? Crab pots or buoys? Of course the answers to all those questions are “it depends” and “they’re my rules, it’s up to me.” Sheesh. A few of my favorites accompany this post.
Yacht “Phoenix” in St Martin
It’s interesting how many ways there can be to slice and dice photos. A number of them will fall into multiple categories. Do I put some of them in several galleries or decide which one is “best?” Decisions, decisions. This has been an interesting exercise so far. I’m nowhere near the end and it still seems awfully overwhelming, but I hope the results are worth the effort when I’m done. I make no promises for when that might be! 😉
Abandoned buildings along a dirt road stretch of Historic Route 66 near the New Mexico-Texas border
One of the bloggers/photographers I follow is Om Malik. He recently posted an article titled Future Of Media – A Quick Reality Check that I found interesting.
Hackberry General Store along Historic Route 66 in Hackberry, Arizona
I started my blog back when blogs were ‘cool’ as a way to share my written thoughts as well as my photographs. More often than not, my posts were a way for me to clarify my own thoughts on a subject, rather than just writing for writing’s sake. It sort of morphed into – for me at least – an alternative to social media. Yeah, I’m on Facebook (sort of) and Instagram (sort of) and I have a Twitter account that I never look at. But mostly I have this blog. And while I appreciate every person who comes and looks, especially those who take the time to leave thoughtful comments, I would probably do it even if no one visited or commented. I suppose it is my version of a journal, although one that anybody can read.
Twin Arrows, an abandoned roadside trading post located along I-40 in Arizona between Flagstaff and WinslowTwin Arrows, an abandoned roadside trading post located along I-40 in Arizona between Flagstaff and WinslowTwin Guns, an abandoned settlement along I-40 between Flagstaff and Winslow, Arizona
The passage in Malik’s post that I found especially valuable is the one where he talks – referencing still another article on the subject – about the distinction between blogging and social media:
Marc Weidenbaum, a music enthusiast and founder of Disquiet.com, expertly captures the distinction between blogs and social. “Social media expects feedback (not just comments, but likes and follows),” he writes. “Blogs are you getting your ideas down; feedback is a byproduct, not a goal.” In other words, one is a performance for an audience, while the other is highly personal, though others may end up finding it interesting. Weidenbaum also admirably points out the difference between blogs and all the suddenly ubiquitous newsletters. “And newsletters = broadcasting,” he says. “Blogging is different.”
Feedback is a byproduct, not a goal. I don’t write for Likes or Hearts or Thumbs-up, just for me. I post on Instagram, and while I don’t obsess over whether anyone “Likes” my photos or not, it’s nice when they do. And a few of the people who follow my Instagram will never read my blog. And that’s OK.
Hackberry General Store along Historic Route 66 in Hackberry, ArizonaExhibit at the place where the original route of Route 66 crosses the Petrified Forest Road in The Painted Desert, part of Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona
Just last night I had someone tell me, “I see your photos (on Instagram) from all these far-off places but never know where you are.” I explained that I always add the location, you just need to look at the text. And he replied “well, I just look at the pictures, I don’t bother reading anything.” Well, OK then. That’s how people use social media, and that guy will never read my blog. But I love him anyway. 🙂
“Leaning Tower of Texas” near Groom, Texas on Historic Route 66
Years ago I was at a photo seminar, and the presenter – either John Shaw, Tony Sweet or Bob Krist (I think it was Bob but it was a long time ago) mentioned that he thought we were looking at our digital files too closely. He referred to the fact that in the film days, looking at our negatives or slides under a loupe only gave us about a 10-25% zoom factor, and that if it looked sharp under a loupe it was probably sharp enough.
Testing my old Fujinon 18-55 LensTesting my old Fujinon 18-55 LensTesting my old Fujinon 18-55 Lens
I’ve always heard (and practiced) that sharpness with digital files is best evaluated at 100%. That was especially true back in the days of Unsharp Mask in Photoshop. But now that we have newer, higher-resolution sensors, I’m not sure that needs to be the case any more. Once in a while I look at my photos think that they don’t look as crispy sharp as they should. Is it the lens? Is it my technique? Is my new whiz-bang camera a piece of junk? Is it my eyes? Am I looking too close? But the finished digital files and prints come out consistently good, so it hasn’t been too big of a worry.
Testing my old Fujinon 18-55 Lens
A couple of weeks ago I was aimlessly wandering through my Lightroom catalog and looked at some of my recent photos taken with the Fujinon 16-80 f4. Although I’ve been consistently pleased with the lens since I got it, I convinced myself that some of them looked a little soft, especially at the edges and the corners, and I wondered about the lens. So I went back and sorted my photos by camera and lens, looking at photos I’ve taken with some of my older lenses including my primes, and found that they all look really good but all about the same. The primes are more consistently sharp, but that is to be expected. That is a good reminder to use my primes more!
Testing my old Fujinon 18-55 Lens
I often reminisce about the Fujinon 18-55 f2.8-4 that I sold to my son along with my old camera bodies, referring to it as “the lens that made me decide to go with Fuji” when I moved away from Canon gear. He graciously agreed to lend it to me for a week or two, so I have been using it to take some walking-around-the neighborhood photos. But you know, as good as it is, it isn’t significantly “better” than the other lenses I own. I do love the more compact size, as it is closer to a prime weight-wise. But it isn’t significantly better image-wise. But then I remembered that old saying and decided to back the zoom off to 50%. Lo and behold, they all look pretty darned good! So I’m wondering – am I looking too close?
In case anyone wonders, I wrote off the 16-55 2.8 years ago as being too heavy and too expensive, regardless of how highly rated it is. It would be defeating the purpose of downsizing from the heavy Canon gear.
Testing my old Fujinon 18-55 Lens
Another thought I had was about monitor resolution. I’m using a good but old ASUS Pro Art monitor that I’ve had for about 8 years. It’s nothing fancy, especially compared with the newer 4K and 5K monitors out these days. Is it possible that my monitor is not able to sufficiently resolve the files, or that a newer better monitor would show that detail better? Or would I be just as perplexed as I am now but several hundred dollars (or more) poorer? It’s new territory for me, but if anyone has insight I’d love to hear it.
Testing my old Fujinon 18-55 LensTesting my old Fujinon 18-55 Lens
In the mean time, I’ll keep my zoom at 50% and be glad that the finished output still looks excellent!
These photos, by the way, were all taken with the 18-55 and in-camera JPEGs with the stock Fuji Velvia profile. No adjustments in Lightroom other than output sharpening. For whatever that’s worth!
Testing my old Fujinon 18-55 LensTesting my old Fujinon 18-55 LensTesting my old Fujinon 18-55 Lens
Castillo de San Marcos Fort in St. Augustine, Florida
We turned the air conditioning on last night for the first time this year, after hitting a high of 83 yesterday afternoon. The pollen onslaught has begun and everything is taking on a yellow cast. It’s going to cool off a bit this week but I’ve started pulling out my short-sleeve shirts. 🙂
I’ve gotten a few questions about our experience with scheduling and actually getting the vaccine, and thought it might be helpful to share a few thoughts.
The Process: I’ve mentioned previously how frustrating the registration process is for many of the county and health agency websites. Kathy & I are fortunate to be registered with the two major health providers in our area, so we were able to use our login credentials to access those sites, which likely led to a slightly better experience. We ended up with the Moderna Vaccine through Novant Health.
We were fortunate to find any locations at all on the very first morning of our eligibility. The fact that the one we found was 200 miles away was no big deal for us. We have the flexibility to go wherever we need to, and it was easy for us to make the trip.
The vaccination site was in the parking area of a community college near Wilmington, NC. The approach was well marked, there were National Guard personnel directing traffic into several lines, checking to confirm appointments and providing forms for completion. The one glitch was that we had pre-filled everything online, but they still had us manually complete paperwork with the same information. Taking the paperwork pre-filled and printed would not have helped.
We arrived at about 10:40 for an 11:00 appointment, and although the lines looked long, we queued up and were directed to the actual vaccination line promptly at 11:00 (not due to any process on their part, it just happened to work out). We sat in our car until someone came around, asked us a few more questions, explained the process and handed us each a card with confirmation of our follow up appointments for the same time and day of the week in four weeks. Shortly thereafter two nurses came up with the vaccine, plunked each of us in the arm, wrote the time on a paper stuck to the windshield, and told us that after the prescribed waiting time we would be released. We rolled out of the parking lot at 11:30.
Train station in Rowland, North Carolina
The Vaccine: Did we have any concerns about getting the vaccine? None. We feel strongly that the vaccines have been adequately tested, we trust in the scientific validity of the data and believe that getting the vaccine has a much lower level of risk than not getting it. Everyone makes their own choice, but we feel that in order to do the kind of travel we want to do, more states, countries and companies will require a vaccination than not and we don’t want to be left out when the time comes.
Train station in Rowland, North Carolina
Side Effects: None really, but it surprises me how hyper-aware we become when we’re looking for something. I call it “new shoe syndrome” because of how when we buy a new pair of shoes we spend days paying attention to every little twinge or pinch. We recently bought new tires for the car, and for the first few drives I paid close attention to the sound, feel and ride. After a while you forget about it. We stopped at a restaurant for lunch, and while there a guy came in wearing a really strong cologne. Strong odors like cologne and smelly air fresheners always bother me, so when my throat got a little scratchy I wrote it off. No big deal. Our arms hurt for a few days, especially while we slept. But my left hip is often sore anyway, and since I got my shot in my left arm, I just spent more time on my right side!
Dilapidated building near the train station in Rowland, North Carolina
Eligibility: We’ve read about people gaming the system by falsely answering the questions, crossing state lines to states with more favorable rules or otherwise getting the shot before they should have. Kathy & I waited for our group to be called, answered all the questions truthfully and lucked into an early appointment. Could we have waited? Sure, but why? Everyone who wants a shot will eventually be able to get one, so it really doesn’t matter when we go. Could we have gotten an appointment closer to home? Perhaps, but once we got our appointments I stopped looking. I read somewhere about local appointments now booking out into May or June, but it doesn’t matter any more. The owner of the restaurant we had lunch at told us that someone called him the other afternoon to say that they had 15 Johnson & Johnson shots that were going to expire at the end of the day and to send along anyone who needed them. That happens too, you never know.
I don’t really have a lot to add. If anyone has questions I’ll be happy to answer them as comments or emails. Ultimately everyone is going to make their own decision and have their own experience, but I’ll help where I can.
The Photos: These photos are from the town of Rowland, NC which is on the NC side of the NC/SC line near South of the Border. They are in-camera JPEGs taken using the Kodachrome 64 recipe from Fuji X Weekly. The conditions were less than ideal for Kodachrome and look a little warm/brown for my taste, but I’m not sure I got the white balance right. I’ll try them again under sunny skies and see how they look. I also shot in RAW and will process those my usual way for comparison. It’s an interesting look and I’ve been enjoying playing with them.
Kathy and I received our first dose of Covid 19 vaccine yesterday. Getting it involved a trip to Bolivia. Bolivia, North Carolina, that is! 🙂
When North Carolina announced a few weeks ago that they would be opening up vaccinations to Group 4 (our group), I knew that because it included anyone from 18-64 it was going to be a huge group unless they somehow broke it down. Well, they did, sort of. They determined that the first wave would be people 18-64 with pre-existing health conditions, which in my opinion (and the CDC’s guidelines) is just about everyone. That essentially created a huge group vying for the next batch of vaccine, especially when I’m not sure how good of a dent they’ve made on the 65 and up crowd. I know all or most of our neighbors have gotten it, but we have a pretty aware and active bunch.
Anticipating a wait of days or weeks, I went online Wednesday morning with my pre-saved folder of websites for the local hospitals and county health organizations. These websites are extremely aggravating, as most of them require you to enter and re-enter information, only to take you to a page that says there are no appointments available. I don’t know if it is result of poor (or no) user testing or if it is intentionally designed to keep people from continually refreshing multiple pages. There has to be a better way, but I’m not smart enough to figure it out!
When I went to the website for Novant Health, one of our two large local hospital networks and one for which I already had an online profile, a few clicks took me to a page to show what appointments were available. There were no appointments available locally, but they were showing numerous appointments available at Brunswick Community College in Bolivia, North Carolina. Where the @#$%^ is Bolivia, I asked? Well, Bolivia is a little crossroads just outside of Southport and near Wilmington, in the southeast corner of the state and a little over 200 miles away. Kathy & I immediately snagged appointments for the same time on the same day. ROAD TRIP!
Of course it doesn’t take much of an excuse for us to load up the car and head somewhere. But the promise of a vaccination appointment just two days away was not a hard decision to make. So we found a motel, an Italian restaurant and a place for breakfast, just like we would do anywhere. It’s good to have lots of practice. 😉
I’ll talk more about the trip and the vaccination process in another post, but suffice it to say it was smooth as silk. They automatically provided us with appointments for our second dose in the same place at the same time in 4 weeks, so we’ll go back and do it all over again!
Oh, and we made some photo stops along the way there and back, so that will also be the subject of future posts! 🙂
