Kidston Island Lighthouse, Bras d’Or Lake, Baddeck, Nova Scotia
With so many photos of Nova Scotia, I had to post something from that trip for the August wallpaper. This is one of my favorites so far.
After a short overnight in Truro following our flight to Halifax, we officially began our trip with a drive to Baddeck, a nice little inland town on Bras d’Or Lake. Baddeck is best known for being the home of Alexander Graham Bell during the time when he did most of his work. His home there is still owned by the family and is not open to the public. But Parks Canada has built a wonderful museum that houses exhibits and artifacts from that era. It’s a great place to visit.
The Kidston Island Lighthouse is a landmark in Baddeck and can be easily seen from the downtown area, in particular the marina near the Baddeck Yacht Club. This was an especially clear night, and I loved how the blue color really came out after sunset, with just enough light from the western sky to illuminate the lighthouse. The biggest challenge that evening was battling the mosquitos long enough to get my shot! Tom: 1, Mosquitos: 0. 🙂
Balancing Rock, on Long Island near Tiverton, Nova Scotia
My barber always talks about shape and balance when it comes to a good haircut. Three of my photos hang on the wall of his shop, and he always refers to those photos when he is talking to a customer about balance. I’m also aware that he says this partly for my benefit when I’m there, but it also illustrates his point. He also happens to be one of the biggest fans of my photography. 🙂
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about balance, mostly in terms of managing competing priorities, but also how it relates to my photography. Visual balance is relatively easy, I think, partly because it is subjective, but also because there is a pretty wide range for success. Time balance is somewhat more difficult, and is really what I have been spending my time thinking about.
Balmoral Grist Mill Museum in Balmoral Mills, Nova Scotia
Whether at work, spending a weekend at home or on vacation, I struggle at balance. It’s mostly because of the classic “only 24 hours in a day,” but is also because there are so many interesting things competing for my time! I have to spend a certain amount of my day at work, because they pay me to be there. And I have to spend most of my time there doing the things they want me to do, because that’s what they pay me to do. Other than that, my time is mine, but within certain constraints, and subject to multiple distractions. Those of us who work for a living and have interests outside of work – which I think includes just about everyone I know – constantly face the dilemma of competing priorities.
When we sold our house and moved to our apartment in May, I was looking forward to all kinds of time to work on some projects I had been trying to get to for a long time. I promised myself time to write more on my blog, process more photos, update my website, make some prints and build a new computer. I haven’t done any of those things – yet. But the reason for that is that I have been doing other things that have had a higher priority. A lot of it has been Kathy & me taking a collective sigh of relief from the drama of selling our house and moving. And our new place is still mud and dirt, so there’s going to be a lot more time, I think. Now that we’ve had a nice vacation and I have several thousand more photos to process, I had better stay glued to my chair for a while!
The ‘Atlantic Guardian’ scallop trawler, Lunenburg, Nova Scotia
On our recent vacation, I faced a dilemma regarding the balance of time for photography and time to enjoy the other aspects of being in Nova Scotia. With sunrise before 6:00am and sunset after 9:00pm, trying to photograph sunrise and sunset, especially sunrise, was going to be problematic. I love sunrise, but it comes way too early for me most of the year, so I was satisfied to rise with the rest of the world at 7:00, have a nice breakfast and be on my way at a reasonable hour. And I managed to sneak in a little sunset activity after dinner in a few locations. It was enough to satisfy my photographic needs while enjoying the tourist side of things by having a nice dinner every night. Did I miss some photographic “opportunities?” Perhaps, but this wasn’t a photography trip, and there is way more to do in Nova Scotia than take pictures. They have food and wine there! This was a vacation with Kathy and friends. So I accepted that, adjusted my mindset accordingly and we all came away happy and satisfied. Good balance.
Either, Or
I chose to not take a computer with me on this vacation. Besides the obvious weight and bulk, my opinion is that having a computer along provides a huge potential for distraction. If it was just a matter of backing up my photos every night and putting it way that would be fine, but then comes the temptation to process a few “just to see what I got,” then there is some kind of software update, while you wait you open Facebook and before you know it you have wasted 2 hours while everyone else is waiting to go to dinner. No thanks. The people I care most about are with me, and those who aren’t can wait until I get home.
Boar’s Head Lighthouse, near Tiverton, Nova Scotia
We deal with visual balance in photography, and I think that dealing with visual balance helps to deal with time balance, because it forces us to evaluate all of the possibilities and come up with the one (or the few) ways to achieve the balance we are looking for. Just like I feel that visual balance is essential to good composition, I’m convinced that time balance is essential to a happy life. How a photograph is balanced visually is a huge influence on how successful a composition is. And that doesn’t necessarily mean that every photograph has to be IN balance, just that HOW it is balanced influences the success of the composition. And the same principal applies to how we manage our time. I’m working at finding that balance in my daily life, so I can find that right mix of time for work, time for me, and time for those who love me and who I love. I hope to continue to work on that balance for a long time!
Kidston Island Lighthouse, Bras d’Or Lake, Baddeck, Nova Scotia
Kathy & I just returned home from a fantastic 2-week vacation to Nova Scotia with our good friends Bill & Cathy from Ohio. Two weeks – and we’re still friends!
Point Prim Lighthouse, Digby, Nova Scotia
We had a wonderful time, good weather and excellent food. And I have a few thousand photos to process! One broken camera was the only bummer of the vacation. More to come on that, but (a) I didn’t drop it, and (b) it was my backup 5D that somehow lost it’s mirror. We’ll have to see if it is worth repairing or not, assuming that repair is possible.
Port Medway Lighthouse, Port Medway, Nova Scotia
Today was catch up day, mostly spent getting ourselves physically ready for our inevitable return to “reality.” I don’t think there is any way to fully prepare mentally. So that’s going to hurt, but it is the price we pay. Well worth it, I think, for a couple of weeks away.
Peggy’s Cove Lighthouse, Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia
Here are a few quick highlights to show that we were there. I’ll have a bunch of things to talk about over the coming days and weeks as I get all my “film” developed. Stay tuned!
Bearded Beggarticks (Bidens aristosa) along the Torrence Creek Greenway in Huntersville, North Carolina
I recently sold a couple of prints to a repeat customer, and before I made the prints I went back over the files, as I often do, and made a few tweaks to take advantage of a more recent version of Lightroom than I used when I originally processed the photos a few years ago. As I was going through my library, specifically the folder where one of those prints resides, I went back and looked at some of the other photos in that folder. As often happens, a number of my “picks” for that day hadn’t been processed, and I was playing around to see what some of them might look like processed. I came across this version that I think I like even better than the first. It is a different flower, but the composition and the lighting make it a bit more dramatic than my original favorite. I made a small print of this one, but think I may have to go a little larger and make one to hang on the wall.
My “former favorite” is below. I’ll be interested in thoughts on how the two compare.
Bearded Beggarticks (Bidens aristosa) along the Torrence Creek Greenway in Huntersville, North Carolina
Sunset from Morton Overlook, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, TN
I guess it’s human nature that we find comfort in returning to things and places we have been before and know well. Even when we have moved on to so-called “bigger and better things” we never completely get away from our past. Whether that is good or bad is to be determined, and is up to each of us to decide.
While it’s where I started my “serious” photographic endeavors, I find myself doing very little classic “Nature Photography” these days. Not that there is anything wrong with it, as there are few things I enjoy more than standing at an overlook in the pre-dawn cold or the late evening dusk waiting for that Magic Moment. But there’s just so much more to do than that. As much as I love it, in many ways, as a photographer I’ve moved on.
I need to be a little cautious here, because I have a lot of good friends for whom nature photography is exactly what they want to do, and they spend all of their spare time, effort and money doing it. So I’m not trying to make myself out as better than anyone, or suggest that I am more of an artiste than someone else, just because I like taking photographs of peeling paint and shadows. It’s just that after a few hundred sunrises and sunsets, eventually they all sort of started looking the same to me. While I still do my share of sunrises and sunsets, flowers and bugs, there’s only so much time, and I want to see what else there is!
So with all that said, this month’s calendar is one of those cliché photographs from an iconic location. Morton Overlook in Great Smoky Mountains National Park is one of just a handful of places you can shoot sunset standing next to your car. Plus, it often has just the right combination of good light and interesting sky that it often produces interesting results. The downside, however, is that there is really only one view. You seldom need anything but a 24-70 lens, which is what I used for this photo. You can go wide or long within those limits, but for the most part that’s about what you have to work with. The rest is up to the fate of the weather conditions. Makes it a little hard to be contemplative or creative, it’s mostly a matter of luck.
This was taken with my long-obsolete Canon 20D and the now-ancient 24-70 lens. Re-processed in Lightroom 4 to take advantage of some new technology. Still not a bad photograph, I’d say. And I’ll have that lens with me for a while!
In the wine cave at Morgan Ridge Vineyard, Gold Hill, North Carolina
Kathy & I enjoy visiting wineries – they have wine there! 🙂
This past weekend we met up with Earl & Bonnie and visited Morgan Ridge Vineyards, located about an hour east of Charlotte, and just south of Salisbury. I had come across a Groupon for a tour and tasting there, but had never heard of it before, so we decided to check it out. It’s out in the middle of nowhere (for us) but was worth the drive and we had a nice visit.
In the wine cave at Morgan Ridge Vineyard, Gold Hill, North Carolina
After a nice buffet lunch prepared by their resident chef, we received a tour from owner Amie Baudoin. One of the things we like best about visiting wineries is hearing the stories of the owners, and Amie told us some good stories and gave us the history of the place, from a farm run by her father to the present day winery, to their plans for the future.
Morgan Ridge Vineyard, Gold Hill, North Carolina
One of the things I find interesting, and the thing that sometimes makes me a lousy photographic documenter of things like winery visits, is that for all of the photos I took (only about 50, since we had better things to do – like taste wine!) I didn’t take any pictures of Amie during our tour, and I didn’t take a single photo of the vineyards, the buildings or the grounds. I kick myself after the fact, because you would never know I was there from the pictures I did take. I just forget, I guess. But I get so far out of “snapshot mode” sometimes that I do sometimes just forget. I spend so much time looking for little details that I miss the big picture. I will admit though, that when I am doing something like a tour I also spend time listening to the speaker, which I hope shows interest in what they have to say, and doesn’t just make me look like some distracted tourist with a big camera.
Morgan Ridge Vineyard, Gold Hill, North Carolina
We’re getting ready to jet off to Nova Scotia in a few weeks. I do need to put my tourist hat back on for that trip!
Flower Vendors at the Charlotte Regional Farmer’s Market in Charlotte, NC
Kathy & I visited the Farmer’s Market yesterday morning – specifically the Charlotte Regional Farmer’s Market – with friends John & Marcia. Amazingly, for all our interest in fresh, local food, we had never visited before. John & Marcia are veterans and showed us around, then we explored for a little while on our own.
Flower Vendors at the Charlotte Regional Farmer’s Market in Charlotte, NC
I had conversations with a number of vendors about their products. One guy was selling honey, and had samples taken at different times of the year. It was amazing to taste the differences between them.
The produce was amazing. There were vegetables I had never seen or even heard of before. But all I had to do was ask, and I found out not only what it was, but how to cook it and when to buy it.
There is a group of Korean folks who sell flowers all over town. They operate a number of stands and frequent many of the festivals and markets, selling beautiful bunches of flowers for $10 each. They had several stands at the farmer’s market. It was fun to watch them as they assembled the bouquets from the pails full of flowers they had on hand. They talked and joked and generally seemed to be having a good time.
Flower Vendors at the Charlotte Regional Farmer’s Market in Charlotte, NC
Kathy & I stuck to the basics and brought home a few veggies and some peaches. It was the first batch of peaches of the year, and they aren’t quite at their prime. But it is still great to get fresh peaches, and we’ll be back for more.
Flower Vendors at the Charlotte Regional Farmer’s Market in Charlotte, NC
The kitchen in our apartment is a little small to do a lot of prep work in, but we’re getting by. We bought some things to get us through the week. One of the things we are looking forward to in our new place is a kitchen big enough to have plenty of room to work. Then we can become farmer’s market aficionados, too.
I was originally going to title this post “Take the Money and Run,” but when I thought about what I really wanted to say, I realized I was wanting to talk more about the present and the future than revisiting the past. I mentioned in an earlier post about the fact that we had sold our house, were sweating out the due diligence process and had been waiting – somewhat impatiently – to get the green light to move, and eventually to actually close the sale. Well, that’s all done now. We sent about half of our stuff to storage on May 22, moved the important stuff – cameras, computers, the bed and a little bit of furniture 🙂 – into an apartment on May 23, spent the 23rd and 24th unpacking most of what we brought, then immediately headed off to Belhaven, our favorite little town on the coast, for Memorial Day weekend. We then spent evenings this past week and this just-past weekend getting the rest of the odds and ends squared away. I got my printer hooked up and working this morning – it fortunately seems to have survived the move with no ill effects. I have some pictures to hang, but that will be about it.
We closed the sale on the 30th, so now we are houseless, but not homeless. We had lived in our house for 17 years. That’s an eternity for some people, and is the longest we have ever lived in one place. And we haven’t lived in an apartment since 1984. I think one of the lessons learned from the selling and moving process is that that is way too long to stay in one place. Not that there is anything wrong with it, but you tend to accumulate a lot of stuff, and the older a house gets the more money it takes to keep it up. And that’s money that I would rather spend on things other than house maintenance.
Plasterwork on a building in Washington, North Carolina
Our current plan is to move into a new condo early this fall. It is currently in the very early construction stages – as in there isn’t even a road to it yet. But we visited the site this morning, and there are curbs now where there was just a hint of road only a week ago. The lot is graded and staked out, so we’re thinking that as soon as the road is paved we’ll start seeing forms go up for the footers. That’s pretty exciting – building our own place from the ground up. We’re not physically building it of course, but we picked the floor plan, chose the options and got to put our “signature” on it. All very exciting.
In the mean time, what to do? We think we’re going to like this little break quite a bit. A few months where the only things we need to think about are the necessities. Sure, we need to get up and go to work every day. We need to plan meals and get our exercise. But other than that? No boxes, no inspections and no appraisals. Almost worry free! Most everyone we know tells us that we’ll get tired of apartment living very quickly, and that we won’t be able to wait to get into our condo. But I don’t know. Part of us thinks we could get used to the “footloose and fancy free” lifestyle for a few years, maybe longer. Who says we need to own a house? Only the people who have a vested interest in selling us one! Throwing my money away on rent? How about throwing it away on interest instead? Take your pick and pay The Man. Conventional wisdom isn’t necessarily conventional or wise, I say.
Peeling paint on a building in Washington, North Carolina
We have every intention of going through with the condo purchase as planned. But we’re going to use this little bit of free time to consider all of our options. And that includes deciding whether or not we want to be tied to owning a house that we have to sell again, or if we just like the idea of giving 60 days notice, loading up the truck and moving somewhere else. There’s a certain appeal to that idea that tells me that I shouldn’t dismiss it out of hand. So we’ll see.
Brick wall, Washington, North Carolina
So what does all of this have to do with photography? Probably not a whole lot, except that for the next few months I expect to have a lot more time to spend wandering around with my camera. And I plan to have plenty of time to start writing for my blog again. And we’ll probably travel a little bit, maybe a lot. And that sounds like something that I can really look forward to.
Wandering around downtown Waynesville, NC on a weekend perfect for a wanton disregard of critical obligations.
I thought I had better post a few words and some pictures just to prove that I am still alive and kicking. Things have been a little hectic lately around The House of Dills.
After about 5 years of preparations, Kathy & I decided in February that this seemed like the right time to put our house on the market. We began working with a Realtor to get things finalized so we would be ready for the spring sales market, which we expected would be a good one. It’s amazing how much there is to do to a house to get it ready to sell – things you haven’t thought about or had just put off because you just hadn’t gotten around to it. Despite having been “getting ready” for the last couple of years, there was still a last-minute rush to get things done.
Wandering around downtown Waynesville, NC on a weekend perfect for a wanton disregard of critical obligations.
In true Tom & Kathy fashion, we did the sensible thing and immediately headed out of town for a quick rest-up before we got started. That was the weekend in February when we headed to Charleston, SC. When we returned, we dove head-first into a 6-week period of repairs, staging and primping. I also took photos for the listing, which I’ll probably share in another post. By the end of March, we were ready.
Wandering around downtown Waynesville, NC on a weekend perfect for a wanton disregard of critical obligations.
Kathy & I had decided that we didn’t care to be hanging around the house for the first weekend that the house was on the market, figuring that most of our traffic would come that first weekend and we likely wouldn’t spend much time in the house anyway. Another excuse to travel! The listing hit the MLS on a Wednesday, and we immediately started getting calls for showings. We went to work on Friday packed and ready for a weekend in Waynesville, NC, one of our favorite weekend getaway destinations. By the time we were ready to come home on Sunday, our Realtor called to tell us that we had “multiple offers.” Amazing.
So we came home, settled on the offer that looked the best and seemed like it would have the best chance of closing, and signed. Now we’re waiting. In NC the buyers have a period of time – the Due Diligence period – when they can pretty much just change their minds and walk with minimal consequence, and that period expires next week. We have every indication that the buyers really want the house and that we will get through with no issues, but you just can’t be 100% certain. You really can’t start heavy-duty packing just in case the house has to go back on the market. In the mean time we have been organizing and getting ready to pack and move, so we’re ready to go once we get the green light that the deal is going to go through. It’s a frustrating process, but one that I suppose will benefit us when we decide it is time to buy.
Wandering around downtown Waynesville, NC on a weekend perfect for a wanton disregard of critical obligations.
Here are a few photos from our weekend to Waynesville. Just so you’ll know I’m still around and doing a little photography. We’re planning to move to an apartment on May 23, and we’ve already got plans to head out of town on May 25 for another getaway weekend, so all is good here!
Wandering around downtown Waynesville, NC on a weekend perfect for a wanton disregard of critical obligations.
Luke, a Bald Eagle at PhotoWild! at Carolina Raptor Center in Charlotte, North Carolina
This past Saturday, I met up with Paul and Earl at the Carolina Raptor Center for a session of their twice-yearly PhotoWild! Event, where, usually in four sessions over a weekend, the Raptor Center staff show some of their birds in several photography-oriented sessions, limited to a relatively small number of photographers. This was the first time I had attended such an event. And despite the fact that the Raptor Center is only about two miles from my house, it was only the second time I had ever been there. I travel to Latta Planation Park, where the Raptor Center is located, on a regular basis, but don’t generally think of stopping there.
Dudley, a Great Horned Owl at PhotoWild! at Carolina Raptor Center in Charlotte, North Carolina
PhotoWild! is one of the Raptor Center’s major fundraising events for the year, and they do good work there, so I didn’t mind paying to attend.
I generally shy away from outings to places like zoos and gardens, as I don’t find such places conducive to the more contemplative type of photography I prefer. There are certainly many things to photograph at the Raptor Center, and this outing certainly provided plenty of material. I see shooting at a place like the Raptor Center more of an “objective” type of photography, where I’m presented with a subject not of my choosing and I generally shoot what I see, taking a bunch of pictures and hoping to end up with something I like at the end.
Skoshi, a Red-Tailed Hawk at PhotoWild! at Carolina Raptor Center in Charlotte, North Carolina
In an environment where a subject is a wild animal, can be easily spooked and is being shared by as many as 20-30 other photographers, there aren’t a lot of choices in how to photograph. As a result it can be a little tough to be creative, and can prove difficult to get a shot that reflects something other than a simple documentary photograph. Sometimes I just sat and watched, admiring a creature that only a few people can see at such a close range. They are truly beautiful creatures and worthy of our respect.
Zlaty, a Golden Eagle at PhotoWild! at Carolina Raptor Center in Charlotte, North Carolina
All that said, however, it was a lot of fun. I was astonished to realize that, over the course of about 4 hours, I created over 1200 files. I’d like to say that I took over 1200 photographs, but that would be overly generous. Between the blurry shots with moving wings or heads, or the many out-of-focus motion shots, I ended up with far fewer “photographs.” My initial pass through the frames – while admittedly very cursory and perhaps overly critical, resulted in only 38 “keepers.” I’ll probably end up with more once I go back through them, but that’s a pretty low success rate. I’m glad it wasn’t film!
Estrella, a Spectacled Owl, at PhotoWild! at Carolina Raptor Center in Charlotte, North Carolina
Even though it wasn’t necessarily a “successful” outing photographically, there is always a lot to learn every time I pick up a camera. I found that I have a lot to learn about photographing birds in flight, and just having a camera with a purportedly excellent focusing ability doesn’t guarantee good shots! Exposing dark or light birds against a dark or light background is an opportunity to practice good exposure. And after identifying the birds in 1200+ frames, I know a lot more than I did before about owls, hawks and falcons!
Aletta, a Rough-Legged Hawk at PhotoWild! at Carolina Raptor Center in Charlotte, North Carolina
All in all, I’d have to say that I enjoyed it and would do it again. I’ll have to think about my “opportunities” from this first session and try to figure out how to do it differently, and perhaps better, the next time.
Paul Lester at PhotoWild! at Carolina Raptor Center in Charlotte, North Carolina
