Where did 2024 go?

Here it is, Christmas day. A quiet day. Our house is flooded with brilliant sunshine. Celina is sound asleep after being dosed with catnip. The humans have had a treat for breakfast with the usual coffee. We are stirring about in a languid way, knowing there are a few things to be done, but not immediately. The most pressing of which is to be elsewhere for dinner with friends this evening.

We were musing about where the year has gone, and the why and how it happened. The best we could do was that time goes quick when you're having fun. Retirement is awesome. Have I said that before? Looking back, I've been a bit of a slug since getting back from Newfoundland. I might have to work on that.

The most recent finished thing is the last of the 6 rolls of colour film. I told some of that story here and there's a few more as you scroll down. As I was tucking the sleeves of negatives into the binder where they live I realized that I'm nearly out of sleeves for the big negatives. In fact, I'm nearly out of binder space. The first sleeve of negatives is dated 20220210. If I've counted right there are 720 6x9 negatives, and about 1200 35mm negatives. I suppose I should start a new binder. Maybe better organized. Hmmm. 

I suppose the next printing project will be to do a review of all the B&W negatives to see which might make good prints. What I've been working on so far have been the most obvious recent ones that I think would mostly be easy prints as I figured out how to do it. I'm pretty sure that some of the next ones are going to be creative, rather than a straight representation of what was there. I did one experiment with printing a colour negative as B&W, and that might be something I try again.

Which has sort of got me thinking about my photography goals for next year, and life goals in general. It's a big topic at my age. I'm starting to realize that I need to do things fairly nowish. There is some, put things off till later time, but nobody knows how much. 

There's been no real medical excitement, which is fabulous, but there's been a few indications that the glue factory wagon is beginning to stalk me a little more attentively. 

There will be some races, and lots of community events that I'll be at with my camera, but I'm thinking my main goal will be to carry around the film cameras, and try to capture or create photos that would make interesting prints. That might mean fewer photos overall, but with any luck they'll be better photos. 

Let's see, this is normally what people think of as a Christmas scene. 

Or, the actual outside scene as of a few minutes ago.

And inside.

Here's some more of the recent colour photos, self developed.

1. Fish Creek, Mallard Point.

2. Not far from Mallard Point, wondering how the vegetation would show up.

3. Fish Creek, Bankside.

4. These flowers were the star of the back yard patio. Even now, they still show some yellow, although they are drooped down.

5. Fish Creek near bridge 3.

6. Those same flowers, at the end of October. If they get nice light I'll try to get a current photo of them.

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Film

The very most recent colour photo I developed, mainly to finish off a roll. I liked the yellow gold leaves against the blue sky.

Linda in our tiny little cabin in Burlington.

Newfoundland

Polar bears

90 days (or so) ago

A couple of sketch artists working on the distillery towers. In the background is the scrapyard where Michelle and I did a bit of a photo session.

Why ever didn't I publish this, and maybe I did. Curtis liked to sprawl out.