Sort of a Macro Monday

So once upon a time I was into triathlon in a big way. One of the races was an actual Ironman branded 70.3 back in 2009. Two buddies and I wanted to preview the bike course because we'd never seen it before, and one of the big rules in triathlon is to never do something for the first time in a race, unless you have no other choice.

So here's that blog, starring (L-R) me, Leaha, and Shannon. That was then, and life has many adventures for all of us. Leah's adventures included being struck by a car while out training. She nearly died, and was in a coma for a while. Recovery took a long time. She's still living with the effects of it, and will for the rest of her life. I don't think they ever found out who the driver was.

But the important part of that is the 'rest of her life' part, in that she's still here. There was considerable doubt about it at the time. Then we were in a book club that sort of withered away and I lost touch with her. I'd see things on Facebook every once in a while, but then recently I started seeing photos surfacing on Facebook. We got to chatting and found she was really interested in macro photography, and chasing bees.

She was asking me some technical questions about lenses, and I invited her down to try them for herself, since my lenses will fit on her camera. I was delighted to catch up, and we spent a happy couple hours chasing bees around the mint plant, her trying several different lenses, and getting to know her camera better.

She is a great example of making lemonade when life hands you lemons. Not that we get much choice about it. Two years after her injury she walked the Edmonton Marathon. She is in the process of creating a brain injury branch of Toastmasters. That's a general link, the specific club has an email link, since it isn't official yet. Until Covid came along she volunteered at the hospital with brain injury survivors. She is happy in her new hobby, and is looking forward to meeting other photographers.

Here's a snapshot of her, happily chasing bees.

I got some macro shots while she was doing her thing.

My experiment was putting the extension tubes onto the 70-200 mm lens, and that worked surprisingly well. Autofocus works, in that the camera will focus the lens on something, but when chasing bees it's not likely to be the bee. Manual is better.

The second moonrise attempt produced results no better than what I've achieved many times in the past, ie, ot what I wanted or hoped for. But you never know that in advance. Lots of other people showed up, Neil being a popular guy, and it was good to chat with photographer buddies, so the evening wasn't a total wipeout. Here's the only photo of the evening I actually liked, well before what was to be the main event.

Of the Day
Michelle

Curtis

Flowers

Driftwood

Ribbon Creek
Another small set of waterfalls playing peekaboo.

Me