Recent books

The headline is of course my most recent book, Memories of New Brunswick. I used some nicer paper because I got a big discount, and I'm really pleased at how all the photos came out. Those who live here can see it by asking and arranging a meetup.

I dithered a bit about it, because, well, you know I love me a good dither. But part of it was deciding which photos to include, and then I struggled with order. I had to balance trying to fit photos together on a page in a size sense, and in a theme sense, together with normally liking to do things in Chronological order. Plus of course, they had to be meaningful to me or Linda.

As a cover note, that's only half the image, since it wraps around to the back cover. I tried to treat the title as part of the image, and thus the reversed letters would show up in the reflection. I played with it a bit, then decided it didn't look right. 

The Soul of the Camera, The Photographers place in picture - making by David duChemin. This was really good, cutting to the heart of it. The gear is important, in the sense of knowing how to use whatever is in your hands, but the really important thing is the vision the photographer brings to the image. 

This is not a how to book. It's not about the gear, such as filters or sensors or lenses. It's not about the settings. It's about what's going through your mind as you walk around with a camera in your hands. Or even without one. I once had a delightful half hour over a coffee and treat, while looking at the food court as if I was holding a 70-200 lens. There were a number of lovely images that will never exist anywhere but in my brain.

So yeah, go get this one from the library.

Revelations by Wynn Bullock. Honestly, I'm still not sure what I think of his work. There's some lovely photos, ones that I would have taken were I there, and would hope the come out half as well. And others, well, meh. Maybe that makes me a philistine, unappreciative of the artistic sensibility that went into that image. 

I found this one during a visit to the Central Library to see an Exposure Fest exhibition. After looking at the photos on display, I wandered up to the 4th floor to browse the photography books. Lots there I hadn't seen in my many visits to Fish Creek. 

As an aside, I love that library, even though I've only been a few times. It was full, which is nice to see. I was there shortly after it's opening in 2018, and of course it was pristine. Now it looks lived in. You can see where floors are scuffed and other signs of wear. I don't mind, that's an inevitable part of people using a place or thing.

As another aside, I loved all the Exposure Fest exhibits I went to, except this one. The photos seemed very commercial, somewhat over baked, and oddly enough, kind of bland. I'd seen so many similar photos that these weren't interesting.

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Driftwood (NB)

Film

Linda

Newfoundland

New Brunswick

Why ever didn't I publish this, and maybe I did

From my very first solo astro session.

90 days, or so ago

Flower

Landscape

Maybe cityscape is a better description, but this is a good example of what my brain has been doing lately. Thoughts leading all over the place, usually not going anywhere. 

Dino related

And the dinos are done. Hope you enjoyed. And yes, for that last one, I could totally see any of our cats doing that.

February Image of the Month

I'm still noodling through ideas for the 2026 film project. The best I've come up with so far is, preferably long exposure, preferably with flowing water, preferably with reflections, and within city limits. I like the idea of giving myself an assignment, and then getting out and doing it. 

That said, to some extent I'm trusting myself to see and capture interesting photos, even if they don't fit my initial ideas. In all three of these, I stopped, recognizing these would be good, and hoped I did everything right so they would turn out.

I have to admit the last week or so hasn't been brilliant on the getting out and doing it, though I was out to lots of Exposure photography events in February, and reconnected with lots of photo buddies.

2nd Runner Up

The new Stoney Trail bridge over the Bow River. Yes, I sweated the exposure for this, harsh sunlight on white concrete, with deep shadows. Printing is going to be fun.

1st Runner Up

A stormwater pond near Sikome Lake. I've done several photos of this, and I'm quite taken with it. As a side note to photographers, water that you don't even want to touch, let alone drink, often makes for the best reflections.

Image of the Month

I was leaving the Exposing the Darkroom show in Crawlspace when I saw this. I was so glad I'd brought the camera. I set up, waited for a break in traffic, and click. Along the way I had a nice chat with a guy that recognized the camera in the dark, from 10 feet away. If I'd had another exposure I'd have tried one with some light trails, but I think this is better.

Some might think this scary

Nothing is going to leap out and scream boo. There are no gory photos. Nothing broken. Just a topic people don't like to talk about.

Our wills (the last testament kind of will, not the amount of determination we have) were written long ago. In the sense of leaving everything to the spouse, they're still valid. But then the surviving spouse has a problem, in that everyone else mentioned in it is dead. Doing a new one becomes a priority. Plus, what happens if we both die at the same time, perhaps in a regrettable incident of road carnage on the local highways. After all, even at our advanced age, driving is the most dangerous thing we do and is thus the most likely cause of death.

But then we got to thinking. So one of us dies, and let's pretend it's me. Essentially all the bills are paid through my bank account, which at this very moment Linda couldn't get into even if you put a gun to her head. Oops. There are other ways to pay those bills, just much less convenient. But does she know all of them? (Yes, we know Linda knows ALL, but it's easy to overlook something small that comes up once a year.)

I switched us from the regulated rate to a plan a while ago, and once I got into the account was shocked to discover that not a single piece of contact information they had for us was current, other than the address to which a paper bill was sent. The phone number was Linda's office number from several decades ago. Our home number had been incorrectly entered. The email address was out dated. I had to actually call them, and read off a bunch of numbers from the current bill before they updated all the info and reset the password.

So we've started making a list. Just started, and good Lord, so many things already. However did our lives get this complicated? Still, we will persevere. Ask yourself, does your spouse, or your child/children know how to take whatever actions are needed to cope with all this stuff, and probably more? That might be something important like paying the electricity bill, or something small like closing the library card in an orderly way.

The worst case scenario is that we're both found barely alive in car wreckage. Who do the police call? How do they find our medical records? Who feeds Celina? During my training rides and runs I wore a road ID bracelet with emergency contact info, but all that info is outdated. I'm pretty sure my phone has an in case of emergency number, but what if the phone is destroyed?

The idea is to gather all the info about our life into a reference manual, print it in a reasonable sized font for old and stressed eyeballs, then put it somewhere safe but handy, with a back up copy somewhere safe off site. 

All the info, like:

EMERGENCY CONTACTS

Keith Cartmell 

Linda Mulligan 

Kelly McKinnon (Linda's sister)

Executor ??? (Yes, we really should update our wills.)

HEALTH CARE

Dr  (Keith) 

Dr (Linda)

BANKS/INVESTMENTS/PENSION

TD Canada Trust account for paying bills

Royal Bank 

LAPP

IPC Michelle Kilty Financial Advisor (who is awesome!)

IPC investment account 

Tax accountant (paying a tax account started back in the 90's for me, and is probably the best value money I spend in a year in terms of reducing stress.)

CRA (Keith)

CRA (Linda)

UTILITIES/OTHER MONTHLY/YEARLY BILLS

Enmax

Direct Energy

Telus (Keith) Mobility and Home

Telus (Linda)

House and car insurance are through xxxxx

House Account xxxxxxxx policy xxxxxxx renews Jan 28

Car Account  xxxxxxx policy xxxxxxx renews Jan 28

Nucleus auto withdrawal monthly through credit card

Blue Cross

Clearview (furnace servicing) monthly withdrawal through credit card

COMPUTER STUFF/SOCIAL MEDIA/MISC

Laptop login

Airport WiFi via laptop

iMac (email computer)

Mac.com 

iPhone (Keith)

Android (Linda)

Nucleus

Adobe (Lightroom) (which leads to a big question, what to do with the very many photos? I'm not now famous, but then neither was Vivian Maier during her lifetime.)

Blurb Bookwright (app on laptop)

Facebook

Instagram

Google

ParkPlus

MGAA

Credit monitor (Keith)

Amazon

Library (Keith)

Library (Linda)

Linktree

And all that was just the first pass, off the top of my head. I'm pretty sure there's more. Then there's going through to document account login information, or instructions for whatever. I've already noticed that some things are harder to figure out on the fly, and I tell myself that it's the world becoming more complex and bad interface design. I tell myself that often. Sometimes there's swearing.

On a somewhat related topic, I learned that there's such a thing as a fire and water resistant bag, similar to a fire safe, but portable, in the sense of a go bag. The putting documents or a computer disc into a baggie and putting that in the freezer isn't really a thing. I don't really expect to have the emergency services people bang on the door in the middle of the night to tell us we have x minutes to evacuate, but then again, there's lots of people in various communities that have had that exact thing happen. I can sit here right now, and think wallet, phone, passport, medication, cat. Would I remember the phone charger in a rush?

I've already put a reminder in my Reminders app to review this yearly. The hardest part will be to update the electronic copy whenever a password changes. I've already learned that when I create a new password, I need to write it out in plain text, then copy it into the browser. There are several times where I've got back into something via a forgot your password process, and then just as I was about to log out realized I'd already forgotten the new password.

And yes, I know there are password manager apps. I am not I trust them, and haven't really looked into how they work. Perhaps I should. I know that list isn't complete, and so many passwords, and they shouldn't be repeated. I've taken to using pass phrases. As an example which I have not used is, "Thefirst!Chronicleonmydeskis*March2018". A password check site says that would take centuries to crack. Good enough for me. Then again, the most common way for thieves to get into an account is to persuade people to log into them while they watch with a keystroke logger.

I recently described the adventures around a hard drive failure. How would the non-tech person in your house deal with that if the household tech support person isn't available? There's lots of stories about the new widow coping with the world after her husband who took care of everything died. We split things up a bit better than that, but I've no real idea where all Linda has accounts set up, and for what. I mean, world domination and all, there's lots to keep track of.

Yes, I know. You read all this, and said to yourself, "Yeah, I really should do that." Then you're going to browse Facebook and get some breakfast as you finish your coffee, then get on with whatever else is planned for your busy day, and cope with whatever barges into your life. Then tomorrow is a whole new day. And it doesn't happen, buried under the many things that are happening. Just don't say nobody ever told you.

No special reason for this photo, just because.

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Driftwood (NB)

Film

Two similar photos taken from almost the same place. You can see how much better a photo is when there are reflections included.

Linda

Newfoundland

That is as far north as you can drive on Newfoundland itself.

New Brunswick

Why ever didn't I publish this, and maybe I did

90 days, or so ago

Flower

Landscape

On cold snowy days like today, it's nice to remember scenes like this.

Dino related

A short one today

So where was I? In the middle of something, I'm sure. Then there was some distractions, some of are still in progress. At least the hard drive situation has settled down, and the new drive should arrive next week.

As a reward for sending in the recent Blurb book, I have 50% off another book if I send it in before March 23. I don't have one cued up, but here's an idea. If you have some photos and a book in mind, we can collaborate on it. Or maybe you want a book of my images. Whatever. I'll walk you through the Blurb book creation process, which is lots of fun. If it's a big lay flat with nice paper you could save a couple hundred dollars. If you live here there could be coffee or wine. If you live somewhere else there are ways to make it work. Let me know and we'll make it happen.

I've been staring at the screen for a few minutes and I've got nothing more. So lets show you a nice little waterfall, you can scroll through the of the day photos, and we can all get on with whatever it was we were doing. Which I think is going to make coffee.

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Driftwood (NB)

Film

Linda

Newfoundland

New Brunswick

Why ever didn't I publish this, and maybe I did

90 days, or so ago

Flower

Landscape

Dino related

RIP Raid drive

Well, that just in case (from yesterday) just paid off. I'd copied all the files off the RAID drive onto other local discs, and made sure they were all there. So it seems.

I was up early this morning listening to the RAID drive beeping away, and the desktop icon flickering on and off. I put it out of it's misery and turned it off. Things are a lot quieter. I bought that drive in December 2017, and replaced the enclosure in 2020. Looking at hard drive failure stats I have nothing to complain about. I wonder if running for almost 2 months straight doing the backup to Backblaze contributed to the failure? I'll never know.

Is it possible to take the RAID to iCube and recover the data? Yes, and maybe, respectively. But I don't see the need. I don't have a delivery date for the SSD yet, but I think I'm ok. He said. Knock wood. Cross fingers.

You have backed up your data, right?

Oh, and now that the exported photos are on an internal SSD drive, browsing is ever so much quicker.

The fun part of yesterday was the family skate over at our community centre. All involved were amazed we still had ice. Thanks to our hard working rink crew, though they said it was too cold to do a really good job flooding the rink. None of the skaters complained. Photos here, if interested.

From a walk in Fish Creek earlier this month, looking for reflections. I got a couple odd looks from people walking by as I was working the scene, but that's nothing unusual.

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Driftwood (NB)

Film

Linda

Newfoundland

New Brunswick

Why ever didn't I publish this, and maybe I did

90 days, or so ago

Flower

Landscape

Dino related