The cats have the right idea

The plan was to be swimming now. Yes, right now, swimming. Then other stuff on the way home. But.

It is colder than minus WTF out there just now. Our back yard thermometer says minus 37, and it doesn't really matter if that's F or C. For some people it's a great big F. Just saying.

I had a bit of trouble going to sleep last night so I was up reading, then to bed, and then no desire to get out of bed this morning. Such is retired life. I can swim later in the day if I still want. Or do a spin training session, if I remember how.

Like I said, the cats have the right idea how to deal with it.

Just lately I've been rereading some older books from our library downstairs. I'd finished Good Omens and had the uncomfortable feeling that either I was getting better at predicting what was coming next, or I'd read it a long time ago. It came out in 1990 so that's entirely possible. Then it was into Empire of Lies, but I bogged down. Time travel novels are complicated enough, and this one included travels across different time lines in addition to back and forth. Plus it's a one man striving against shadowy foes to do something, which doesn't really turn my crank. And plus it was set at least partially in the Ottoman Empire where they took Vienna, and then continued to expand. I got lost and gave up.

No more on tap from the library, so some older books. Some of my blog readers might find it odd, but I'm a big fan of the Georgette Heyer Regency Romances. My writer within loves her command of the language, sparkling dialogue, and wonderful place setting. Yes, of course all the main characters are white, typically extraordinarily rich (with some exceptions) in comparison to what we know of the living conditions then, and there's a lot of societal assumptions about the place of women. I regret that her estate has not permitted the novels to be made into movies and introduce them to a wider audience. Not Hollywood, of course, BBC.

There are some DVD's on the go as well. We finished Dexter seasons one to four, and that was a bit of a slog. The plot holes were getting to be too much for me. Even though one of my favourite actors is in season 5 as one of the main bad guys, I don't think I'll watch it. Lots of people I know raved about the show, but I don't really see what the attraction was.

Linda found Whispering Pines, based on a Blake Crouch novel. We watched the first episode, but I'm not sure I'll go on. Its another one man against shadowy enemies to find the truth where nothing is as it seems. There haven't been any fleets of black vehicles going too fast all in a tight convoy yet, but I have every reason to expect it. Yawn.

As a treat for you, here is the oldest unblogged photo. There's only another 499 edited photos from the last year that have not made it onto the blog for whatever reason. This is from the steampunk museum in Omaru. Such a fun place.

Deadwood of the Day

In the serendipity department, same file number gets you a bee! A reminder that it once was warm, and should be again. I hope the little bees are warm in their hive. This is from the summer of 2017.

Macro Monday 35, more icy experiments

There are days I'm sure my neighbours think I'm a lunatic. The other day it started snowing. I've been wanting to try to get nice macro shots of fresh snow flakes. I set up my camera in the garage, ready to go. Then I was outside, waving a mitten to the sky to capture snowflakes. Several people driving by gave me the eye.

Part of this is luck, getting a flake trapped on the mitten by itself, oriented nicely for the camera, which has difficulties I've gone into before. Do enough, my reasoning is, and eventually I'll get a superb one.

This is the best of the bunch. In some there is a surprising amount of detail to be seen within the flake itself as the layers of ice grew.

This one is unusual in that it's a panorama built from two shots. When the camera is mounted on macro rails, it's easy to move it sideways just a tiny bit. The difficult part is getting a snowflake oriented properly so it's all in focus.

Resolutionista city and last call for AMA

The pool has been full of them this week. I admire them for getting off the couch, and getting to the pool takes a bit more gumption than many other fitness plans, but it does make things a bit more difficult for the regulars.

After all, we have it down to a fine art. We know the lockers we want. We have our swim bag packed and ready to go. We know where the good showers are. We know which pool, and even which lanes we want, though we don't always get what we want. We nod, smile, or chat to the lifeguards we see almost every visit, and to the regulars we often see. We know how fast we swim, and can usually recognize those that swim faster, slower, or about the same speed. There are times we conspire to swim with those that swim a similar speed. Much of the time we want to get in, get it done, and get on with whatever is next.

The resolutionistas get in the way of all this. It's why they don't want the tourists using the London tube during rush hour. The regulars know exactly, and I do mean exactly, where they are going, and want to do so with the minimum number of steps. They stand on a place on the platform because they know the door will open right there. Calgary transit can only dream of such precision. Your life is over if you mess with their transit plan.

It isn't that serious at the pool. Mostly. I just ask that if you don't know the swim etiquette then ask someone. No, this isn't leading up to an adventure story. My swims have actually been really good so far this year. Swimming works ever so much better when your left arm joins the party.

Not that I do resolutions, but capturing snowflakes is one of the things I want to work on. I was out yesterday, and some of my neighbours gave me a funny look as I was holding a mitten to the sky to catch snowflakes. They will show up on a Macro Monday next week.

I've done some experiments with another photo project, but mainly it's been thinking about what I want it to look like, rather than just shuffling stuff around to see what I capture. There are some other photo projects coming to fruition, and let me tell you I'm pretty excited about them!

This is your last chance to get in on the AMA action of your own free will. I might attribute some questions to you, if I don't think that post is long enough.

Christmas is over for another year. Our tree was packed away and the living room is back to normal. No ornaments that we know of were molested by the cats.

In the serendipity department, the same file number was used back in 2017 during my Yukon trip.

Deadwood of the Day

Recent books and commentary

I used to be a huge reader, and then it got away from me for whatever reason. Then I was spending lots of time writing my own world, and didn't want to be influenced by another writer's voice. I still did some reading, but mainly it was keeping up with my favourite authors, and periodically excising their turns of phrase from my own work.

Once I started carrying around a camera I started reading photography books. Natural enough, I suppose. At first it was all good, I was learning. Then I started to figure out my own interests (still a work in progress), and my own way of doing things.

Then I started noticing things I disagreed with, which is fine. There are typically lots of equally valid ways using a camera, and capturing a scene. Then some blogs and video-blogger that seemed distinctly troll-ish. There's a lot of people on the web who blog or video-blog and put out extreme opinions to capture viewers. One small example is trashing a new camera because it doesn't do something they think is important. Mostly I just looked over that and moved on.

And then there was a first the other day. This one was recommended to me, and since I love colour I got it from the library. An initial browse was all good; there's some great photos in it, and what looks like good composition suggestions.

However, there was a problem that I tripped over, and darned near didn't get back up again. It was this phrase on page 9 as he was getting closer and closer while shooting a car emblem. "...but now my light meter indicated a slower 1/100 sec shutter speed. Why? Because the lens was now extended further, so light needed more time to travel down the lens onto the sensor." OMG, as the kids say now.

Maybe I'm being pedantic, but if he has such a fundamental misunderstanding of basic physics and optics, how can he get any of the rest of it right? Light takes about 1/1,000,000,000 of a second to travel a foot. The fastest shutter speed for most of our cameras is 1/4,000 of a second. The length of the lens system has completely nothing to do with gathering light and the resulting shutter speed.

Anyway, I kept on, and I'm mostly glad I did. His thoughts around portrait backgrounds are awesome food for thought. A great addition to a new photographer's library, one phrase notwithstanding. Maybe we should blame the editor that let that sneak through.


Have you seen those videos of people climbing tower cranes and tall buildings? Even though I don't particularly have a fear of heights, there are certain portions of anatomy that clench when I watch those. This is a book of photos from such climbs, and they're better than the novelty value. Some of the shots are genuinely artistic.

They do go on a bit, in what I think of as artsy-fartsy art language about the beauty of these abandoned sites, and how they should be preserved, and the nobility of their pursuit but I mostly started skipping the big blocks of text and enjoyed the photos. There is info about each photo of what it's of, or where it's taken from.

I have a sneaking admiration for them. If I was climbing up such places, I'd be hanging on with both hands. Taking photos would be a distant second priority.


I've seen some black and white movies that have been "colourized" and they look horrible. The people shooting movies in black and white were mostly masters of lighting, shade, texture, and colour to have the movie turn out right. They should be enjoyed for what they are.

So I was a bit dubious about this book of colourized historical photos. Well, holy doodle. These are amazing! The photos are large and well presented, with some information about them and the process. They've usually repaired some of the damage to the original photo, so we see this amazing picture of a world long gone. The colours look natural. There's some great portraits, and ideas for composition. Loved it!

Back to movies for a bit of a rant. What is it with remakes, or ret-cons, or whatever they're calling it now? Have the people making movies really run out of ideas? Or are they so debased that the only thing that matters is repeating something else that worked because they think it will make money? I get that acquiring the rights might be difficult, which is why no Georgette Heyer books have been made into movies, and I can just imagine how delightful they would be if done right.

Many movies now (looking at you, comic book superhero movies) are barely the equivalent of a child's paint by numbers artistic effort. Lots of movies are what I think of as journeyman efforts; the people involved know how to make movies, there are characters and a story, and it's properly put together. I think of it them like an art student's painting; they know how to do it, and are working on the art part of it.

Then there are some movies that are art. Everything goes well and it's a delight to watch, even rewatch. And then there are a few magical movies where everything comes together and something amazing happens, we get Art with a capital A. They become part of our shared heritage and shouldn't be tampered with or sullied by remakes.

This is my current read. I'm a few chapters in and loving it so far.  I've had the author's name on my to be read list for a while. Then I saw the trailer for The Gentlemen, and was struck by the thought I'd seen that actress somewhere before. Which is why IMBD was invented. She is known for Downton Abbey, but she's also in a TV series, and this is the book that is the basis of that. We've got the TV series on hold from the library as well. It should be fun.

Getting on to the last call for AMA!

Deadwood of the Day

And in the serendipity department, we have this same file number from 2017 to cheer up a dull day where it's just starting to snow.

Image of 2019

In a sense, I've been working on this all year, but in the actual writing sense this has started on Solstice. Getting the draft started, and going through all the images to review the star selection. While I'm doing that, you might want to review the image of 2017 and image of 2018 posts. I'll try not to repeat myself.

This was a huge year in terms of photographic output. HUGE! I'm past 50,000 photos and not done the year yet, as of this writing. Of course, 2 months in New Zealand, and 10 days in Yukon might have something to do with that. Lots of star shots in those, which don't get edited in the same sense that the photos you usually see on the blog.

On the edited front, as near as I can tell, about 3600 were done for me, and a further 2000 or so were done for the Community association, and I'm not even sure how many for other client shoots. There are additional ones edited for specific purposes that I'm not counting here, like those for a time lapse, or one particular client shoot. Let's just say I'm not entirely consistent in my Lightroom use.

Right now there are 217 with 4 stars, and 25 with 5 stars. These 242 will be the pool for choosing image of the year. After all, on further consideration, some of the star ratings change. And I could get the shot of the year over the next few days. No, I'm not going to treat the 12 images of the month as the finalists. It's like drawing for the big door prize, all the tickets that won a minor prize go back in the hat.

As in previous years, there was much temptation to choose best within categories, but no, that way madness lies. So many categories are possible, and some overlap. Winner, a couple of runner up, maybe an honourable mention, that's it. There can only be one.

Last year there was a big image showing some of the finalists, so I'll do that again. Hang tough. I'm going away for a while. Don't hold your breath. I got down to 13 and dithering. Then my famous buddy Neil suggested I not wait, and post the photos I like best on his Facebook workshop page, as several others had done. I did the 13 and got some nice comments, thank you. Even now the likes are still coming in.

But 13 is a weird number to screen shot nicely, so I dropped the weakest one, and you get 12.

And now I dither more. Longer. Harder. I think I've got two of the finalists picked out, at least based on one theory of best photograph. If you've read about the previous years image winners, you'll know I have several theories about best.

Which one took the most work? Probably 2 and 5. For 2 I was up I the middle of the night, walked 100 m to the beach, then worked to find a place where the camera was out of the light of the moon, and out of the really strong wind. It took me a long time to get the camera set up for these shots. Finding level with all the conflicting lines seemed to be really hard at the time, to say nothing of all the technical camera stuff. With 5, it took two separate trips to the log, using a bunch of different lenses trying to get the effect I wanted. It was probably the most technically demanding shot of the bunch, with everything having to be just so.

The easiest? Number 4 was one of many of the camera doing its thing, though the editing was tricky. Number 6 was one improvised shot as we were about to leave. Number 9 was one of many. 10 I hopped out of the van, took two shots of the ferry, and hopped back in the van again. If you think of number of shots taken vs used, then 8 wins. I had hundreds of shots chasing dragonflies that day, with only a few to show for it. But so much fun!

In the end, photography is all about the light, and the skill of the photographer in catching it. When I look at these photos and think of where I've captured extraordinary light, the answer becomes clear. Now, which order? Hmmm.

2nd Runner Up
This one has been growing on me ever since I took it. I keep coming back to the smoky twilight, the reflections of the trees and ferry in the calm water, and the textures in the mountain side. Dawson City ferry.

1st Runner Up
This was image of the month for November. Fish Creek Provincial Park.

And the 2019 Image of the Year!
The view from the gazebo at Larnach Castle, New Zealand. I, and other people think it looks a bit like a painting because of the particular quality of the light.
(This was not assembled until after I got home, so it wasn't in the running for January image of the month. It's 11023 x 3149 px, or about 3 feet by 10 inches for a high quality print.)

Fun with light.

Much of this was experimental for me. Part of the joy of photography is capturing the light, but another part of it is creating the light. There are lots of ways to do this, and some things that look really cool are actually quite simple. My buddy Cam is a bit of a DIY kind of guy. We headed out to Ralph Klein park where I joined Cam, Kathy, and my buddy Sean.

This is the main part of the facility. I didn't do the purple sky, it did it on it's own no matter how I manipulated Lightroom. Live with it.

A cool effect.

Another view of the facility. It really is a cool place. I've been here several times now, and never yet been in the building. Unfortunately, it's also bright. Standing here (which is right beside the pillars you'll see in the next photo), it's easily bright enough to read a book. Which makes the light effects tougher.

Cam, Kathy, and Sean contemplating the scene, thinking about what we'd do. The aircraft light trails were part of the fun. I'm going to see if I can make a time lapse out of some shot sequences.

Me watching Cam doin an orb. You can see we put some lights at the base of the pillars, but they didn't light up as much as we had hoped. Kathy did some lighting with a red flashlight, but I'm not happy with those shots.

Cam working one of his magic light gadgets.

Cam doing a light flower.

I think this was Sean channeling a slinky.

Kathy doing some interpretive light dance.

Cam working on his eye of Sauron death ray.

Me signing my name in light.

Cam and I having fun with some blue haze.

Yes, I'm still working on Image of the Year. I'm down to the final three, and trying to decide which is winner and which is runner up. Wouldn't want to rush such an important decision.

Don't forget to Ask Me Anything! I've got some questions already, looking for more. Maybe I'll attribute one to you, if you don't ask.

Deadwood of the Day

December Image of the Month

And so a new year begins. It's a dull grey day out there, so that means it can only get better, right?

All together now, gonna be the best year yet! Now go for it.

I had started looking at images for the year end back on Solstice, but I was keeping December in mind as well. It was a big month for image count, but most of them are not eligible for Image of the Month. I don't generally use community association photos, or any private client photos. Once I thought about it the right way, the choices were easy.

2nd runner up
A project in progress. My first snowflake. I'll be trying again.

1st runner up
A E Cross Conservation area. Taken on a whim, wondering of the brilliant sun on the snow, and the dark shadows, to say nothing of the cows, would work.

Winner!
The light, the three important mammals of the house together in a photogenic way, the relationship between the book and the activity, how can this not be photo of the month?