Currently, sort of

I've been desperate for some colour in my photography lately. Some white on white is nice, and frost on stuff can be a good look, and icicles can dress up all sorts of stuff, and there is all sorts of things that can be done with reflections from melting snow, and evergreen trees are a classy and dignified green, and some people like action shots in snow, but (say it with me, with feeling) I'M READY FOR SPRING! I'm ready to see the green of growing things, and whatever blooms come up first.

In the meantime, there's still a ton of snow here. More landed last night. More is forecast. Sigh. Enough of that.

The Amaryllis is blooming, so I've been accumulating photos of that. One day soon you'll get the life cycle of bud to decaying, for the 5 blossom explosion underway here. Stay tuned. Curtis is often supervising while I do this, but his attention was caught by a bird or something in the back yard. He likes snoozing on this cushion and blanket. His fur has picked up a touch of green from the plants.

My inner shark has showed up with me rocking the swim mojo lately. I've been having fun in the water, and getting some nice times again after struggling for much of the last year. I'm still working up to my former times and distances, but I'm trying to be cautious. One of my buddies recently completed the Nevis to St Kitts swim. It's about a 4 K open water swim, and that might be fun to do next year, if the training continues. The inner shark highly approves of this.

Don't ask about the run or the bike.

I've sold another photo! It's fun to go to Resolve and pick out paper. I just saw the print today, and it's better than the version I see on screen. Wow! The print has a real sense of depth for the central part of the flower, and the colours are rich and creamy. It's been signed and I saw a photo of it framed and on the wall. Which photo, you ask? This one, which you've seen before several times.

One of my photos has been published in Impact Magazine! It's an autumn scene in Fish Creek and westward. You can find it on page 55 in the print version. You can see the digital version of the magazine here.

I've been trying to get out for a combination photo ramble and wine kit run, but the driving weather has sucked lately. My thinking is to leave early to find a sunrise mountain shot (pink is the money shot but I'm not going to complain about red or orange), get into Red Deer for breakfast, pick up the kits, and head home. There are 3 kits doing their thing in the basement, with one of them ready for bottling soon.

There's been some interesting bits of writing happening, once I had the wit to start plugging things into an actual timeline. I fixed a few minor timing whoopsies and had a nice idea about a scene. It's still just an idea though. I rewrote one scene to make a whole lot more sense. There's a lovely scene that was so much fun to write (Ronnie beating up Charlie) but I'm not sure where it fits into the rest of the work. This is part of writing some of the behind the scenes stuff that happened, but from the point of view of the antagonist and his world, where they see themselves as the good guys. There's maybe too much going on, but it's a complicated world with lots of players.

Some reading has been on the agenda lately. The latest is Tom Holt, The Management Style of the Supreme Beings is the latest. (God sells earth to some uber-capitalist twins, and decides to retire.) If you like his style of humour, you'll love this. I happily giggled to myself during the entire read. There's another photo book that has an interesting diagram relating ISO, shutter speed, and f stop in a different way than I've seen  before. It took me a while to understand how a lens could be fast or slow, and this explains it differently. I hope the rest is as interesting.

Yes, there's been some slackerpants attitude. I admit it. What do you expect? I have buddies sending me photos of beaches, and blooming flowers, and talking of gardening while wearing a tank top. I assume pants too, but that was left unclear.

There might even be news on the work contract front soon, but I can't talk about that yet.

Another of Curtis, just because.

The perfect photo?

A few things have gone into this blog post. In no particular order: The pushback against photoshopping the bodies and faces of models into an image that doesn't even begin to reflect reality. A question in The Online Photographer about still life photography, found or constructed. The process of learning to use a real camera on manual to take photos, then going out to the field and actually doing so. Learning to edit images in Lightroom. The blurring of the lines between professional and amateur. Expectations around content submitted for publication.

Not sure where there is going to go, get the tipple of your choice for the time of day it is. It got long, complete with example photos for your delight.

How good is good? One clearly would not seriously compare the scribbles of a kindergarten child to the work of a graduate of ACAD. How about a high school student to the ACAD grad? Hmmm, maybe a talented high schooler might produce better work than an untalented ACAD grad. We expect professionals to produce better work than amateurs, but it's not necessarily so. The pro is much more likely to produce the desired results faster, and more reliably. There's a story about a young photographer applying for a job and showing his work to the grizzled old pro. "This is nice, how long did it take you," he asks. "Days! I tweaked every little thing till it's perfect." "Hmmmm," says the pro, "I can't afford for you to take days on an image, but I'm dying to see what you can do in 10 minutes."

Who is to judge? By what criteria? At one extreme is the 'likes' on Facebook, Instagram, and other such sites. As near as I can tell, the most popular photos are colourful sunrises/sunsets, then cats, then  baby animals, then an amorphous category of really excellent photos. At the other extreme are the professional critics who say Voice of Fire is an artwork worth paying $1.8 million for, and is now worth $40 million, and I say Bah.

One interesting thing I've learned along the way is that my record for predicting what people will like isn't that good. I'd taken a bunch of photos of some friends at a triathlon. They were over, drinking some wine and we looked at them. I had one photo that I thought was really unflattering. I wondered if I should show it to her, and considered deleting it. In the end I decided to show them all the photos, and delete any that they asked me to. That 'unflattering' shot was the one she liked the most. She wanted a print of it. A lesson for me.

I've been looking at a lot of photography books over the last year and a bit, trying to learn more about what makes a good photo. This has diverged into a bit of the history of art. To be honest, I'm as baffled as ever. Note that I'm clearly distinguishing between my personal taste in art, and what makes a good or even great piece of art. I might like a photo even though it is technically poor, because I know the people in it, or something about it catches my soul, but I wouldn't say it's good photo. There's lots of art hanging in various galleries that I don't care for but that's just me. Someone says they're good photos or paintings, and put their money where their eyes are. Good for them, and I hope they sell.

Much of my reading, and looking, and thinking, was about works I didn't care for on first glance, and try to determine what made them good. There are many 'rules' about making good photographs, but I was trying to go deeper than that. Many really good photos break at least some of those rules, and some photos follow all the rules and yet are boring. One of the best books for this showed a fairly large image of the work, followed by commentary by the author and the artist. You can find further comments on the book here.

When I click the shutter button, I'm generally looking one of the following situations:
- I've got a good to great scene, and I'm working on capturing it. I might tweak the camera settings, try different lenses, move around to different points of view. Sometimes waiting a few minutes creates an entirely new scene as the light changes. I usually get at least one photo out of this that will make me happy. Sometimes I'll know it on the spot, other times I'm not sure. For this one I was standing beside the road, and did not want to wade into the deep snow on private property. It would have been nice if there were some dramatic clouds. I might have to come back, dawn could be interesting.

- I'm trying a specific thing, trying to create a specific image, regardless of the artistic merit of the resulting photography. There was one yesterday, walking along the top of the bluff in Cranston, looking at the mountain skyline. There was a plant with little seed pods beside the path. Nothing special to look at, but I wanted to capture that plant in sharp focus, with the distant mountains out of focus. You might call it practice, maintaining the visual and technical camera skills.

- I've got an indifferent scene, but there might be something about the light, or the setting, or the composition that attracts my eye. At the very worst they will become documentary shots; an image of what you'd see standing in this spot, a record I was there on a particular day. At best I get a nice surprise, that I found some settings or Lightroom/image manipulation software tweaks that produce a better image than I expected. I think of these as learnings, in that I can see something in the scene, and I try to build the skills to capture that. There's a subtle optical illusion in this one that amuses me. Can you see it?

-Blog fodder. I like to have photos in my blog that are relevant to what I written about. It can go either way. Sometimes a photo will spark the words, other times what I've written will drive me to capture a particular photo. It's a form of practice to keep what skills I have sharp. Sometimes I get really good photos, but mostly they are just a photo of something.

- I've been asked to take photos. This has happened at several races now. It's mostly fun, but it's much more fun to play paparazzi for buddies involved in activities.

-Much rarer is serendipity. I'm out, I'm holding the camera, and I get THAT shot. The one that makes everyone go "oh!" The one that sends chills down your spine as you edit it. You make several copies and put them in different places so you can't lose it. The one you make a big print of. The one you want to show the world. The one that everyone thinks you are so lucky to have captured, when you and other photographers know it's work, and planning, and being out there, being ready. This hasn't happened to me much, but you can see when it has here.

There's a saying in writing, "there's no place for bad writing anymore." Also, "the first million words are shit and the sooner you write them out of your system the sooner you'll be a good writer." This lament was by a writer who came of age when there were comics and pulp magazines. The editors paid a nickel a word and wanted it by deadline. Now the competition to be published is so fierce that there is no space for bad writing, or even slightly imperfect writing. Writers obsess about getting everything perfect, and there is a cottage industry revolving around the rules defining such perfection. I think it often makes for cookie cutter writing, but then, I'm not a published writer.

Much the same is true about images. We are surrounded by images. Social media. The news. Advertising in every media. There are images to look at everywhere, demanding our attention. There are people who have spent their lives figuring out how to attract our attention for the purposes of inserting an advertising message. Scantily dressed women is one way, but there are many others. In all of these there are no imperfections at all, nothing to impede that image from being mainlined into your brain. Yes, I'm a published photographer, with credit and everything.

On social media some people like to share their photos. I'm in several such groups, and some of the photos are stunning! Looking at what people have done is a learning experience. It's probably intimidating to newer photographers, looking at your best shot so far, and realizing it's not in the same league as some of the others.

There's one I'm thinking of on Instagram (which is a pretty crappy place to view nice photos, IMHO), a superb posed photo of a woman wearing jeans, a white T shirt, and a red jacket. My comment was that the photographer nailed it. The photographer, makeup, hair, and agency are all given credit and justly so. I've no idea how many other photos that didn't make the cut exist of this session, and I wouldn't be surprised if there are hundreds.

That is not a posed shot. I'm not entirely pleased by it for various reasons, but I wasn't about to tell her to hold still while I got the tripod and tried to fix the lighting.

Then there are photo competitions. I spent some time at the Exposure festival in February. The idea was similar to reading the books; I wanted to look at prints up on the wall, selected by a jury, and try to get a grip on what made them good. Some were obviously good in my eyes. Subjects, setting, lighting, props, everything was perfect but in a natural way. I stood looking at a couple (a ranching family in one, and a film projectionist in the other) in particular for a long while. I'd like to think I have the technical skill to capture a photograph of those people in their setting, but I couldn't even have begun to compose and light those shots.

Then there are others I mostly got. Not my taste or I'd have done it differently, but I could see what made it a compelling photo. I looked at some of them for a while too. Then there were some that baffled me. I didn't get it, not at all, and listening to a small group in raptures about them didn't help.

I haven't entered any photo competitions yet. I'm not sure I ever will. Why? I don't have the ego drive to have my work declared the winner, or to 'be good' out in front of god and everybody. While I'd like to become a better photographer, to see and capture a scene in a compelling way, I don't want to go to school to learn 'the 6 rules to become a professional landscape photographer.' I've no financial need, or ego desire to sell my work. If someone loves an image and wants to buy a print (which has happened several times now) I'm flattered and pleased and can make that happen. But I'm not going to go producing images I don't care for because someone will pay me for them. That's no fun.

Which leads me to another point, having fun. I've been out on some photo rambles with buddies, and that's fun. I've been out alone, and that's fun too. Yesterday I was sitting on a bench (the one on the right, if you were wondering) in Cranston, looking at the mountains and the clouds, wondering if there was an image there, thinking my thoughts, enjoying the warm day. A bald eagle flapped by, too quick for me to point the camera, so I just enjoyed watching it for a few seconds.

Getting back to the still life photography question I mentioned above, I've thought about that a lot. One of the sets of images at the Exposure was of plant material, flowers, blooms, vines, seeds, and it was composed. The photographer probably spent a lot of time laying out the various materials and getting them lit just right. The gallery staff told me the prints had not been digitally assembled. I spent some time wondering why this way, and not differently.

I've done lots of shots where I get back to the computer and only then realize there's a tree branch or something else in the way, or some cat fur on the macro object, or there's a fence post in the shot and I can't remove it because I'd then take something else out and I really should have recomposed the shot, or that something cluttered the shot that my eye overlooked but the camera saw. In some of these cases it's a matter of moving the view point, or using a different lens, or a different zoom, and fair enough. In others it's a matter of actually removing vegetation, or digitally manipulating the image, or putting something in the shot that wasn't there when you found it (I'll put this rock over here to create a triangle of leading lines blah blah blah).

Power lines are the bane of landscape photographers existence. Many go way out to the boonies to escape them, or will digitally manipulate them out of the scene. I've done that a couple times, but mostly my take is that the power lines are there, they are part of the scene. Take the photo in such a way that the power lines are part of it, in an artistic way. Yeah, still working on that.

Mostly I shoot what I see as best as possible. Physically manipulating the scene before taking the shot to make it better, implies you know exactly what you're doing and trying to get. In some cases the end result is contrived, and thus seems less real to me.

When photography became a thing, painters and other artists were outraged. Photography wasn't an art. There was no skill involved. Even now, some people don't think of photos as art. Lots distinguish between paintings and photographic art, but I think that line is blurrier than most realize. For example, when I was at Resolve the other day, there was a big print of an embroidery project. Big print. More than a project, it was several lifetimes of work. They had carefully set it up to be photographed with the best equipment available, worked on it digitally for realism, and the resulting print is stunning. People looking at that print when framed and on the wall are going to be hard pressed to tell if it's a print or it's the real thing. I could see the texture of the threads and wanted to touch.

Of course I look at the work other photographers produce. I like to look at shots of Calgary, and try to figure out where it was taken and what they did to get the shot. I like to see the play of light on the scene. In some cases I want to replicate that shot, mainly to prove to myself I have the skill to do it. I see how they've used ordinary elements to produce an extraordinary shot, and I try to remember in order to apply it other places. Other times I'll like the shot, but recognize it's not my style.

In a few cases I think my work is comparable, but in most I realize they've gone that extra step, to take a good photo and make it great. There's a little something to take it from 'nice' to 'WOW!' I see them, but I'm not discouraged. I'm inspired. It shows me what a photo could be. I want to recognize when the subject has the potential, and learn to take full advantage to create that wow shot.

Part of this is finding my own photographic 'voice.' So far I haven't found that I'm an X photographer, to the near exclusion of all else. I'm fascinated by light and colour and interesting shapes, and look for them in ordinary scenes. I like it when people say they've never seen something quite that way before.

So that's enough about me, let's talk about you… what do YOU think about me and my photos? I love to get comments on the blog, even if you disagree.

Reading and movies stuff

So last you heard I was giving Facebook and Instagram a vacation till the end of Feb. You might imagine me locked away for my own good, typing fingers twitching feebly in social media withdrawal. Bah, I say!

This has been good. About the closest I came to looking at Facebook was during a slow grocery store line up. Instead, I looked at the other people and what was going on, as if I had to put it in my book as a scene. That passed the time really quickly. That one clerk really has the most amazing beard.

For a while Co-op had some ok self checkout machines. I got walked through the process and it was pretty good. Then they updated the machines a while ago, and the new ones are brutal. Won't be using them again. It was more fun hanging out in line and watching the clerk go through the items.

Not missing social media at all, aside from being mildly curious about what great stuff Jayne has shared, and what a few people are up to. Down at the bottom of this blog I'd given a list of stuff I'd be doing instead of social media. Loving it!

So. The Expanse.

We had borrowed season one from the library, and I reviewed it here. Since then I've bought the first three books, and we borrowed the second season. We were disappointed to find the first disc missing from the second season. Who does that? None the less, we carried on.

If you're a reader and a watcher, AND you like to avoid spoilers, you're going to have a tough time here. The seasons don't line up with the books. It's actually a pretty good example of why novels are not screen plays. There are some differences between the two, but it's the difference between presenting a scene visually, and writing description, and making things more dramatic for TV.

The first two books are essentially one big story, but you could stop there if you wanted. The end of the second season doesn't line up exactly with the end of the second book, but it's pretty close. Then third book opens it up dramatically. There was one sub-plot in there that I didn't care for, but that's just me. We haven't seen season 3 yet, I think it's just coming out this year.

I was delighted to find Chrisjen Avasarala even more potty mouthed in the books than in the show. I think the casting people for the show absolutely nailed it in casting Shohreh Aghdashloo. They did well in casting other roles, even if they couldn't find a 2 m tall 140 kilo woman for one of the roles. Still they did really well there, in finding someone 6 feet tall.

There are places where in the books you see what someone is thinking, and that adds interesting  complexity. (The beginning of chapter 42 in book 2!) Then again, in the show you see the spaceships and can hit pause to admire them all you like, but you might not particularly realize how big they are, or how big in relation to each other.

This is very much a used universe place. The ships and places are usually scruffy and beat up, except for the places the rich live. At some point someone is going to have to start cleaning up all the bodies and spaceship debris floating around the solar system. It would totally ruin your day to run into a chunk of anything at the speeds they are going.

It's a complicated show, and there's lots to keep track of. The Belter lingo is really hard to track, and sometimes you have to watch what their hands are doing, rather than their heads. Usually in most shows there's the good guys and the bad guys, and it's easy to tell which is which. There is a lot of grey in this, with people having good motivations to do bad things. Loving it!

We started season 3 of The Librarians last night.
This is the TV show, not the movie series called The Librarian. What had me confused for a while is that a few of the characters overlap. What you need to remember is that the TV series is infinitely better. In fact, I'd say bypass the movies entirely, unless you're in the mood for a cheese-fest. Though the Librarian-girl in the second movie (used in exactly the same way as 'Bond-girl') was actually the best part of the whole movie.

The Librarians is goofy fun to watch if you're in the right mood. It's all about preventing evil magic or bad guys/girls from taking over the world. There's a good bunch of "script-babble" to explain things, but who really cares. For sure a wine and snacks kind of show.

I'm working on some non-fiction as well. Home Deus by Yuval Noah Harari. It's really interesting, but really wordy. A good editor could have chopped about a quarter of it out, I think, maybe more. It's interesting and thought provoking. He asks what are we going to do? We, as in humanity. Going to do, as in, many of us no longer have to worry about war, famine, or plague. Yes, some of us do, but it's a small fraction of humanity, and it would be a smaller fraction yet if it weren't for those anti-vax idiots, and right wing bullies pushing military solutions into unsuitable places.

I'm about half way through it now, really enjoying it. Some of the bits may show up in blogs where I comment in more detail.

I just got Other Minds, the octopus, the sea, and the deep origins of consciousness, by Peter Godfrey-Smith. I have often though that octopus were a lot more intelligent that we give them credit for, and am happy to read more about these fascinating creatures. I've often though that one day we are going to prove that some of the other species we share this planet with are sapient, and that humanity's leaders are going to get dragged into a cross-species court and charged with speciecide.

But the photos, you ask? Where are the photos? Patience. Yes, I'm working on photos. There's a backlog, and I'm considering the next subject for Macro Monday. It's snowing out, so it's a good day to be downstairs working with bright lights.

You might think this one is from my photo ramble with Sean out in the scenic boonies between here and Red Deer, but you'd be wrong. I know for a fact at least several of my readers will have seen this in person on their commute to work, and all my readers of this particular blog have seen it. Look closer.

These three are from the snowy night shoot a couple weeks ago now. I hope people don't think there's too much tree in these. I've seen them all many times, of course, but with the snow and the light, they really seemed to stand out.

Yes, that home really has a green lightbulb happening. No idea why. I suppose it's much better than a red one.

Book, movie, movie, new, old, old

Once upon a time, I read a lot. Recently, not so much, for lots of reasons that seemed good at the time. Maybe things are picking up again on that front, for I've just finished a new book the old school way. Hardcover, actually bought in a book store.

A History of Canada in Ten Maps by Adam Shoalts. The maps part caught my attention. Maps are fascinating. It doesn't matter if a book is fiction or non-fiction, if it has a map that's the first thing I'll look at. Often I'l refer back to the map as the book goes along. That's what pissed me off with a particularly bad fantasy novel. The idiot-hero had to go from A to B along one side of a triangle, and for no good reason went via C which happened to be the bad guy's castle of ultimate darkness or something like. Bah.

Many people, but not all, know the first Europeans in what is now North America were the Norse. The book starts there. Along the way we visit Cabot, Champlain, Bellin, Pond, Hearne, Mackenzie, Thompson, and Franklin.

If you remember your grade school Canadian geography these will be familiar names. There's a bit more background, and the maps, of course. I gobbled it all up quickly, and only then realized in a lot of ways it was pretty superficial, an easy read. Big on the various privations suffered by almost all involved, some of what drove them off the map, but light on the maps. Seeing the historical map is interesting, but it would have been better with the various journey's placed on an actual modern map as best as possible. The maps are on different paper in the middle of the book, leading to a lot of flipping back and forth. Plus some of the maps are spread across two pages, making it hard to look at the middle of the map. A fold out page would have been better.

Was it worth the price? I had a few enjoyable evenings reading it, but I'm not likely to pick it up again. Anyone want the gift of a book?

We like getting movies from the library. The price is right, as in free, though some days I wonder what other people are doing with the discs to get them looking like that. One appeared to have been smeared with peanut butter, and given to a small dog to chew.

I picked up American Graffiti on a wave of nostalgia. I saw when it first came out, and maybe again when it was re-released a few years later, and not since. Now it's been remastered to blue ray, and looks fabulous. It's fun looking at the old cars, and the young version of what are now old stars. There are a bunch of extras about the making of. All in all a delightful evening.

The flip side is a 1971 version of MacBeth. I'd seen a version in high school, and it nearly put me to sleep. This one got a bit tedious and bloody in places, which wasn't a surprise. It's been remastered as well, and looks pretty good. Still, it's culture, with a capital K, so I suppose it's good for me or something.

Somehow I missed putting this photo on the blog, though some of you may have seen it on Instagram. I love the soft orange and green blur in the background, with the remains of the mint blossom in focus. Exactly what I had intended.

Swim still sucks, but after 1.5 hrs of my massage therapist working on my shoulder it feels better. Run and bike are feeling pretty good, for those that want to know.

The fascinating current read

Change is interesting. It doesn't matter if you are driving a change, are being driven to change, are affected by change or not, it doesn't matter. It's just interesting watching things change.

Most people don't understand how slowly the world changed up till about the Italian Renaissance, with the changes gathering speed till roughly the Victorian age, when it just exploded, and it's still going on.

Imagine trying to explain our world (an iPhone, for example) to your grandfather's grandfather. My father's father was born 1903, his father's father would be born about 1830 or so. Railroads and steam ships were new things rapidly expanding. Electricity was known of, but it wasn't a useful thing yet. Think about that for a while.

The collective impact is still right up in our faces every day. How often do you hear someone say, "stop the world, I want to get off for a while," and how often have you thought that? When was the last time you used a pay phone, or even saw one? Bought a paper newspaper? Opened a paper encyclopedia, or even a paper book? Driven a car with bias ply tires? Listened to a wax record played by a record player? (Though I understand these are coming back.) Looked at a paper map? I could go on.

Here's my current read.

I'm only a few chapters in, and I'm fascinated. He has clearly explained how much of what we are seeing in today's world is the thrashing of dying industries. The world we've built for ourselves is no longer working for most of us. Even the super-wealthy can't eat their money if the economy collapses because we've made our world unfit for habitation by anything except rats and cockroaches. (No, that's not a metaphor for lawyers and investment bankers.)

He is saying we need to make a fundamental leap to a new way of thinking about our economy, and points out what's involved. He uses the Erie Canal as an example. It was widely regarded as a folly before construction, but was making money before it was even complete. It made Chicago and New York the cities they are by reducing transportation costs by an enormous amount.

Now look at what people are saying about building infrastructure to capture energy from the wind and from solar power. Then look at who employs them, and what industries they come from. Remember what I said about the thrashing of dying industries?

Photovoltaic panels and batteries are getting cheaper practically by the day. One of my buddies has a solar panel on their roof. I haven't discussed the economics of it with them, but some days they sell power back to the utility. Think about how much less fossil fuel we'd have to burn to generate electricity if every home had a solar panel on the roof, and a modern battery to store excess power, and a smart meter to decide when to sell power to the utility, and when to shift household electrical load for maximum efficiency.

It's happening now, and we're only getting started on the growth curve.

I'm not sure what else the book is saying, but can't wait to read more. In fact, here's a quick photo to hold you over. I want to read more, then up early over the weekend to be the event photographer for the Chaparral events, a kids of steel, a swim race, a stand up paddle board race, and 3 different triathlon distances. If you're there, and I know at least one of my readers will be, take a moment and say hi.

March image of the month

And here we go! Last month it was tough to decide on the runner up photos and the winner was easy. This month the competition for winner was brutal. I was even contemplating declaring a tie, but no. I decided my rule for image of the month is there can be only one. Plus a couple of runner up photos if it seems appropriate.

Even that is giving me a tough time. Now I've sorted out the winner, but that leaves the other choice as first runner up, and 3 others to choose between.

Here we go!

The LRT was shot on equinox day. It should be no surprise the light was amazing, even though for some shots I couldn't see any of the info the camera normally shows me. This was one of several shots almost completely blinded by the sun. I just kept shooting as the LRT rumbled past, and it took several LRT's to get it right. I'm printing this one for myself, though I haven't decided where exactly to put it yet. I thought the high resolution JPEG showed more details but the TIFF blew me away.

Yes, the morning sun did brighten up the trees somewhat, but I've taken a bit of creative license in tweaking the scene to match my visualization of what it *should* look like. I sent it to a trusted buddy to ask if it was too much, and the response was "I want a print." It looks even nicer as a ginormous TIFF file.

And, the envelope please!

This is the first abstract I really like. No, I'm not going to tell you what you would have seen if you were standing there with me. I'm getting this one printed as well. It will be 10 x 16 on paper, though I was torn about going to canvas. Then again, another buddy wants to see it in print, and might pony up. Then I'll get one done on canvas, maybe 30 x 48.

And there, the excitement is over for another month. What's that you say? You're curious about the other two contenders? You'll have to look here and here, and decide yourself which is IOTM quality.

I'm currently reading Macro Photography for Gardeners and Nature Lovers, by Alan L. Detrick. I am so excited and can't wait till the flowers start coming out of the ground. The book has given me several ideas for things to try, a bunch of technique tips, and some insight on what is possible. I want to go shoot RIGHT NOW, but wait, it's snowing and raining. I guess I'll have to wait a few minutes.

An abstract frame of mind

One of the sure signs of spring here is that we start getting nice fluffy clouds, instead of the flat grey overcast of snow bearing clouds. None of that rain fell on us.

There's an old saying, "What you see is what you get." I'm struggling to learn that this is almost true in photography. It's what you see in your mind's eye, provided you know the technical aspects of operating your camera to capture the potential for that result, that you've done your homework so you are in the right place at the right time for the right light, and a bit of luck in tweaking the light so it's extra special is always nice, plus knowing the software to realize your vision, is what you're going to get.

Sometimes I've been disappointed. Lots of that, actually. But a few times I've gone wow! What appeared on screen was better than what I'd hoped for.

Take these two, shot yesterday after the sunrise and landscape. I was looking around and suddenly realized these could be good. They aren't quite what I'd visualized, since the wind kept complicating things. But if it were easy then everyone would do it and it wouldn't be fun anymore.

I'm not going to tell you what you're looking at. Whatever you think you're looking at is fine by me. But I'm curious if these evoke a response within you.

That first image took more processing time than a dozen "normal" images would have. It's the first time I've deliberately done something so abstract, and I was trying to get a particular result. It still isn't quite right, I'd hoped for it being a little more sparklier.

Today I was out deliberately looking for more photos that could be the basis of an abstract piece of art, and I think I've succeeded with one beyond my dreams. I'm going to sleep on it, but I think it's one of my 10 best images, ever.

I talked a little about Bruce Barnbaum's book yesterday, and finished it today. I loved it! Some books you read and you are all meh. Others don't tell you anything you don't already know. Some tell you stuff you know, but do so in a way that compels your attention or relates it to other stuff in ways you hadn't realized. Some talk to your soul, hitting that sweet spot of saying what you need to hear, in a way that makes sense. I'll be going back over it again before it goes back to the library. What he says about composition knocks my socks off.

One of his points is that when he's shooting his medium format camera he takes quite a bit of time thinking about what he's about to shoot, composing it in his mind, before ever he clicks the shutter. (With rare exceptions when racing to capture the light before it goes.) He notes in the digital world it's all too easy to click first and then look what you've captured, and then do it again and again. Only when you get the images onto a computer do you critically assess them.

He doesn't say it quite like this, but it becomes easy to accept what you've got, as what there is to get. You might have to read that again. I've been really bad about this, clicking away madly, thinking I'll find out what's good on screen. What I'm trying to learn is to actually look at the scene and think about what would make it a compelling image, if there's a better way to compose the shot.

Or in another way of thinking about it, what *I* want to do with that shot. There's a bunch of things to think about, and I'm trying to take the time to do that. Since I'm still learning I'll also try other ways, just in case I don't have it right.

I know I can usually get a technically good picture of the scene. It's in focus, and people can see that it's a car, or a mountain landscape, or a bridge, or whatever. Then they yawn. The world doesn't need any more of those, and I don't need to take the time to do it anymore.

Sometimes I get people perking up and saying that they really like a shot, which is nice. And sometimes they are actually enthusiastic about it, which is even nicer. But if you don't know what you're doing to get the shot, then the next nice one will come along only by accident. I'd rather figure out what it takes to get a good, or even dare I say, a great shot, and do that.

A director's cut, so to speak

You know how on some movies, after the theatrical release, and after the DVD or BluRay, and after it makes a ton of money or the director becomes famous, they release the director's cut? Blade Runner is probably the most famous of these. There are seven versions of it.

Some of my photos have two versions, but lets begin at the beginning. There are an infinity of things to photograph around me, and I choose only one of them at a time, captured a particular way. There might be another very like it captured slightly later. I gradually accumulate electronic data on my camera and eventually decant it to a computer so I can see a decent sized image. Some of those get rejected out of hand for a variety of reasons. Many get nothing further done to them.

Some get edited in Lightroom, and there's a subset of those that get further processing in other software. I end up with photos suitable for sharing on social media or showing to whoever might be interested in them. A very few I tweak for print settings, mainly to see what they look like, and in preparation for the long discussed trip to Resolve.

There are some edited photos that I'm still not entirely happy with, for whatever reason. Some maybe I shouldn't have edited it in the first place. Some might need a different crop to work. Others might need more software skill than I had at the time. I've been going back and revisiting some of those, applying more software skill, and more of a willingness to edit to match my visualization.

I can't remember if I blogged this one or posted it on Facebook. It was taken during a photo walk last August and was dark. I've learned a bit more about software and composition, and had another go at it. I changed the crop to include the people at the bottom and cut out a bit of the sky, plus other software tweaks to bring up the colour a bit.

I've been reading about Ansel Adams.

I'd known nothing about him, other than being one of the most well-known landscape photographers in North America. I recognized a few of the images in the book, (duh!) but many were new to me. Part of the enjoyment was looking at the photos and thinking about why the composition works. Why take the photo from that particular there, as opposed to some other place not far away. In some cases there is no other choice unless you want to walk off a cliff.

Plus, I hadn't realized that he made the prints himself, and Stillman goes into the process a bit. Each print is subtly different, and over his career they gradually got darker. In his case, each print is in fact a unique piece of artwork.

That got me thinking. I don't have a printer, but I could get one, then go buy the right paper. Or I could take the file to a printer and have them help me pick the right paper. From there they could produce prints till the cows came home, or they ran out of supplies. But each is essentially identical. I could put a digital signature on each and they would continue to be identical. Or could sign in ink and then there would be a slight difference.

But putting a number x of y prints is meaningless. Sure I could print 100 for example, and if they sold, what's to stop me from printing more? Some people buy art because they hope it will appreciate in value, mainly because it's a nearly unique piece. That isn't true with my prints, or in fact any photographic produced on a digital camera. I suppose they could buy a print simply because I've somehow captured an image they are fascinated with, and want to continue looking at it. That's nice. Very nice in fact, and if any of you have that feeling, call me day or night. I'll get you that print as soon as humanly possible, tweaked and sized for exactly how you like it.

I've been thinking of one of his quotes, "There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept." Let that roll around in your head. There's a bit of a trick to learning how to get sharp images out of your camera. I'm getting the hang of it. But that part about the concept of the photograph, I've been struggling with that. I expect to continue struggling with it for the rest of my life.

Latest books

All of these are photography related books, so if you're looking for my experience with the latest thriller, sorry.

In reading order.

Photographic Visions 1x.com

The front cover caught my eye and I had to get it. This is one of the books with lots of photos to illustrate various topics, such as action, architecture, landscape, macro, and others. They are taken from 1x.com, and have comments by the author about the photo. This was a bit annoying, actually. It's full of I did this, that, the other, and simply manipulated things in photoshop and there I was.

There doesn't seem to be much in the way of general information about producing better photos, it's about how they got this particular one. There are some good ideas, though. The one that struck me was visualizing the result you want, and figuring out how to get it. They might be by scouting the situation, looking at software tools to see where sunrise is, tweaking the lighting yourself, or knowing what can be done in post processing.


Zen and the Magic of Photography by Wayne Rowe

I was disappointed. It's more about the zen than the photography. I stopped reading when I tripped over this, "With practice, your eye will be intuitively and subconsciously drawn to the light, and the light will be drawn to your eye."

Rick Sammon's Creative Visualization for Photographers

This was worth the read. Lots of stuff I knew already but it never hurts to be reminded again. Lots that was either new to me, or a different way of thinking about it. Lots of ideas. I'll browse through it again before it goes back to the library.

Last and best, Fundamentals of Photo Composition by Paul R Comon

This one is the pick of the litter! The best part for me was about using the Fibonacci number sequence as a composition tool. That sounds hard, doesn't it? A number sequence. Math. Artistic photographer brain. Oops.

But it's easy! In Lightroom everybody sees the rule of thirds grid when they crop an image. But there's much more. You can get the triangles, the modified grid, the Fibonacci spiral, and a finer grained grid like what you see when you are correcting the tilt of the horizon. Who knew?

This photo is my best photo-painting so far, and it uses the Fibonacci series in two ways.

Firstly, the crop is 1.618 : 1.

Second, I've darkened the image too you can see the spiral. I only wish I could convince my camera to display that in the viewfinder window. One trick that was mentioned is putting the spiral on a transparent overlay on your viewfinder. Given there's 8 different orientations, I'm not sure how useful that would be.

I confess I hadn't thought of the spiral when I took the photo. At best I was thinking it was an illustration of depth of field, where I wanted the broken end of the tree to be tack sharp, and the background increasingly blurred.

Comon goes through the usual composition tools, but for whatever reason, the way he said it made more sense to me. Or maybe he had better examples. I'll be going through this and making notes before it goes back to the library.

Books and brighter

I've been reading through a bunch of photography books lately, and had a bit of an epiphany. The photo doesn't have to be about representing what the eye actually saw during the photo shoot. The photo can be a work of art that expresses the photographer's visualization of the scene.

So this photo, for example. It was a shot in light that was dull and flat. Great for shooting a portrait, but not so good for a landscape.

But I have photo editing tools. Here's the drab original, the way I developed it at first. In hindsight, it's actually a little brighter than this.

None the less, in my mind I know the colours are much brighter than that. One of the books encouraged me to push the photos more to express my own visualization. I did a few others in a more 'painterly' just to see what would happen.

Do you have an opinion about the two shots?

One of the books is this one. Amazing! I've just finished it, and will be going back through taking notes. Actually, I want to buy it. There is a ton of good stuff in here for photographers and painters. I think it's going to change how I take photos; it's already changed how I think of them, especially the Lightroom composition thing I hadn't known about.

Assorted

I've spent the last couple of days working my way through this book.

I've even taken notes, that's how good it is. There are 52 photographs. I'd look carefully and think about it. The author explains why they are good photographs and the photographer adds their 2 cents. Sometimes it gets a bit artsy-fartsy but I'm pretty pleased at the level of detail.

Digression 1. My problem with how-to books is finding the right level of detail between topic x for dummies, and topic x by experts showing off to other experts and expert wannabes. Don't get me started on how-to videos, I usually only want to watch the relevant small number of seconds, and I'm forced to sit through blither.

This book hits the sweet spot, explaining what it is that makes it a good image. Some of them break "the rules" and that makes it even more brilliant. The book is out of the library so I've got it a few more weeks, and I'll be leafing through it some more. Making more notes, thinking about how to apply the ideas to my own photography.

For once it isn't about equipment. Most of the time they mention the technical side, and it's often a medium format camera and film, but they don't go on about it. One of the photographers makes a point of not saying what equipment, pointing out that the person is the important element. The photographer needs to develop an eye for light and learn how to use their camera to capture the image they see in their head.

Just in case you were curious, The cheapest medium format digital camera I could find is $5K. The most expensive? Take a deep breath. $45K, American. Yes, 45 thousand dollars for a camera, then you have to go buy lenses. You would have to be a very serious, very experienced, very committed photographer to make it worth buying one of these.

On to fitness. Still working on that, coming off a big training week. Yay me! I tried the first CSS swim set today, swimming essentially the same speed but with only 10 seconds recovery instead of 15 to 20. So far so good. The running is going well, cranky hamstrings aside in the most recent run. I've even been on the bike for a spin session.

Did you notice I signed up for a half marathon in June? There's 4.5 months to build consistency and try to pry some speed out of my legs.

Digression 2. There are a bazillion training plans out there, and that's before the customized ones from a coach show up. Lots of people are deeply into training plans, figuring the right one will optimize their training time in their busy life. They obsess about running the right number of minutes at the right effort level the right number of times a week. I have quite enough to keep track of, and I'm going to work at consistency first, and a more gradual build than last year.

It may all get a little trickier what with a short term contract I've accepted, but it's part time. It's going to be interesting going back to work. I've already starting tweaking my clothes. The black pants I wore last at work were a little loose, but the next size down was too tight.

Well, in 5 months loose has become baggy. I went shopping for new pants. My female readers, please don't hate me. From the time I left the car, bought 4 pairs of pants (2 dress, 2 jeans) and a belt, and got back to the car was 20 minutes.

I didn't feel up to shirts, but I know that one of the regular shirts is feeling a little snugger than it used to. I'd like to believe that's from bigger shoulders from swimming. Maybe I'm just not used to buttoned shirts any more, mostly I wear t shirts or a sweat shirt. I'll probably have to do some shopping there too.

Here's a splash of sunset colour to play you out.

Overlooked

Here's some skyline from a new place, while I was waiting for a moon shot.

Let's see. Here's the most recent batch of books.

The car one started kind of interesting, then got pedantic. I stopped reading about half way through. It's like a techno-geek history of electric cars. I was hoping it was more about the sociology of electric cars gradually replacing gasoline cars.

It's sort of a chicken and egg thing, what comes first, the charging stations or the electric cars? Because some people can't decide they say it shouldn't be done. Hint, we went through that with gasoline.

Related is self-driving cars. They're coming too, in spite of lawyers wanting to try all the possible error cases before the cars are in general use. I say, lets see what errors happen, and figure it out then. It's clear that under almost all circumstances the self-driving car is a much better driver than a human.

The photo books were interesting and gave me some ideas, but none of them were really what I was looking for. Like so many things, it's hard for me to define, but I'll know it when I see it. This is why I love libraries. I did like browsing through the many photos, thinking about what worked and why.

I've been thinking about winter photography. The skyline works any season, so I'll probably chase some of those. But our flowers are pretty well done now till spring. Not many races now, and even those aren't likely to have a buddy of mine that wants good photos. Landscapes should be interesting, especially if I use my snowshoes to get off the beaten track a bit. I do have one indoor winter project in mind, but first I'll have to make a light box. Stay tuned.

Two swims, one clunky, one good. Water ran with one of them, did some really mindful stroke drill with the other. Hot tub was awesome.

Nice run this morning, just before the snow started. 5K, 34 minutes. It was never smooth, but not as clunky as some runs. I haven't been on the bike much, hoping for tomorrow.

Recent reading and a flowery smile

Or I suppose, recent read. Only one book. This one.

I'm a bit of a sucker for productivity books, often prey to the though that I could/should be doing more with my time. It's probably true, what with hearing about people with demanding careers, children, and all sorts of activities on the side that alone would knacker most people.

This isn't the usual name-dropping bit with "advice" that is either really stupid or really obvious, together with "examples" that are fatuous at best.

There are 8 separate ideas, but they are more states of minds than activities. The one that got me was chapter 8, Absorbing data. I've spent my life absorbing data in one way or another, and recently reorganizing it to illustrate a point, or support a work plan. All too often the recipients are rolling their eyes, baffled at what seems to me to be a completely straightforward xl, complete with an explanation.

Not that long ago my boss asked to be walked through one example. I turned one monitor around so he could see the xl, but left the other so he couldn't see it, then I proceeded to read the email I'd sent to him, pointing at the various tabs, highlightings, pivot charts, and summaries as I did so. He said that was really good and exactly what he wanted, in both senses of the word. But he hadn't liked the email. Sigh.

The main point in chapter 8 is that, paradoxically, if you make it harder for people to understand the information, they will have to work harder and thus will understand it better. Two examples. One was people taking notes by handwriting or by typing into a laptop. As anyone who has seen it can attest, my handwriting is a scrawl at best, and quickly descends into a cryptic code I can't even decipher. It's slow and messy, and I often worry I'm getting behind because I'm not listening to what's being said now, as I'm trying to capture a comment that was said then.

I shared an office with a young woman who had the most amazingly neat handwriting, and it was fast. She could take notes in a meeting almost as fast as I could type. If I have to take notes for some reason, I want to type.

The problem is that repeated tests have proven that people that write notes remember the material better than the ones who typed them. I would like to disbelieve that, but I can see how it's true. I did lots of data entry. The data flows in your eyes and out your fingers, and typically does not pass through your brain in any real sense. When you are writing, you have time to think about it. You say the words to yourself as you write, you think about different ways to express the thought that might be quicker to write, you might use your own contractions, and there is something about the motion of your hand that links the words to memories.

The other example involves teachers not getting any real meaning out of expensive and carefully thought out dashboards of information about each student. So they forced the teachers to go through the data manually, to develop the dashboard results for themselves. Their comprehension and understanding of the data increased dramatically, and they better understood how it related to each child. Yes, it took longer, and was harder to do, but it worked.

At the end, the author offers a chapter on how it applied to him, and includes extensive notes. A fun and interesting read. I'm trying to apply these concepts in my own life.

It's a cool rainy day here today. It's snowing not that far away. But here's a nice reminder of summer from just a few days ago.

The long run glow

Todays long run brought to you by the Nose Creek path, from 32nd ave beside the Rockyview building, all the way up to the Huntington Hills golf course. We had turned around there during an 18 K run with Patricia, so this filled in my map further north.

It was cool overnight so we started a little after 9. The start was good. Maybe too good, as we discussed on the way back. There was a reason for the discussion. My legs were still feeling a little tired from the Wednesday run that I haven't told you about yet, and the massage.

So lets rewind a bit. I hadn't been sure how my last day at work would go. Perhaps I'd be told to not come in at all. I had hopes...

I ended up having to go in, so I planned for the 15 K hard run for the morning. I dropped Linda off at the LRT and came back to get changed. I got started at dawn, and it was lovely. Every time I looked the sunrise was a little different. The plan was to warm up, and then do 5 x(1K at 5K pace and 1 K easy). Except I goofed and that's not what the phone told me. I ended up doing it by keeping track myself. You can bet I didn't go over.

There was some thought of doing it around the reservoir, but decided that if I needed to bail out for some reason, that would make life difficult. I chugged a loop the loop pattern around the neighbourhood and it all went well. 15 K, 1:40:33, average 6:42 pace. The fast K were all just over 6 minutes, so I'm pretty pleased. All the easy ones were about 7 minute K pace. Overall felt pretty good, glad it wasn't any longer.

Then the last day at work. Then the massage. She worked me over pretty good, but she could have done ever so much more. The right ham needed it so bad.

Thursday, my first day of official "retirement" started busy. Swim. Donate some nearly perfect blood.  I was disappointed to see that the main donation clinic has the same crappy cookies as the mobile clinics. The chairs are more comfortable. My nurse had a beautiful singing voice going along with the oldies station, in between their memorized patter. 72 donations. Run some errands on the way home. Nap. BBQ.

Slept in, drank coffee, ran some more errands. Scoped out a starting place along the canal for the 32 K run in a few weeks. I want that one to be FLAT. As in, no hills. Started getting a nose sniffle after eating a spicy lunch. Watched Love and Friendship and loved it. I just love movies with witty dialogue.

Saturday the schedule says 26 K run. We started about a 7 min/K pace, and I felt great! I was happy running along looking at new scenery. The sun was up, and surprisingly warm already. I was sweating, Michelle was glowing. We followed the path, though it got a bit confusing, and we turned around where we would have ended up going into some northern neighbourhood. I was nervous. The customs might be different there.

Back and then up beside the golf course where there was a scenic lookout. I got some iphone photographs.

Up to about 12 K it went really well, then it got a bit hilly and we slowed down a little. I did, at least, I think Michelle was still ready to bound along. Walking up the hills felt pretty good. The wheels started coming off my wagon about 19 K. My legs, especially right ham were sending stiff notes of protest upstairs. 20 K was 7:35 pace slowest yet, 21 slower yet at 8:02 and several walk breaks, half marathon time of 2:32:34, and at 22 hearing 8:14 pace I was done. I figured no point in running myself into an injury, and I did not want to suffer through 4 more K taking nearly a half hour. Yuck. If it had been a 23 K run, maybe, but who does 23? Nice walk back to the car to cool down, and stretch. (As of later my legs are feeling better.)

Overall I'm pretty pleased. We discussed if we'd gone out too fast, but my legs were happy with the pace, and we were chatchatchat. (why are none of you surprised?) Sometimes I find running slower to be harder. It was all good till my legs got tired of the game. I'd had good nutrition all along, drinking about a litre of energy drink, plus eating maybe half a cliffs bar.  The hydration pack is working out really well.

The recent reads are

I am not an advanced marathoner, but it's Katie's bible. I think my training course is based on it. My difficulty with many non-fiction books is finding the sweet spot between "subject x for dummies" that doesn't tell me anything I don't already know just from being a breathing adult at least somewhat aware of the world. Some of those authors should be ashamed of themselves. The other end of the spectrum is "everything under the sun about subject x.1.2.3 (and not x.1.2.2 which is outdated as you should know) by and for experts." The info I might want is in there, but I'm not likely to find it, buried as it is under mountains of related material.

This is on the subject expert side of things, especially the training plans. I don't have it in front of me as I write, but I think the base plan was build around someone who routinely does about twice the weekly milage I do. I had slowly worked myself up to 100 K per month, and felt pretty good about that, although I fully realize there are some who do that nearly weekly. I figure I'm just barely at the point of being fit enough to get through a marathon, and with any luck I won't get sick or injured. Being able to sleep extra this month should be a big help.

The problem with the retirement book is that it's old. Not sure it's outdated, but it's from  almost 10 years ago. Our financial advisors are telling us this stuff and more beside. I zoomed through it, not finding anything I didn't already know. If you are new to the subject it's pretty good. I've covered some of the basic basics earlier in this blog. Spend much less than you earn. Debt is an emergency. Some of it is long term manageable debt, but work on getting rid of it. Credit card debt is an all hands on deck adrenaline fueled emergency. Until you've taken care of most of your debt, you don't need this book.

I'm not sure what's next on the reading list.