Flowery Friday 22, last of the season

And here we are, the end of another season of Linda's garden. We had flowers up to Oct 10, which is pretty amazing.

I got asked which were my favourite flowers to shoot, and I was stumped. All of them, at the time, because if they weren't, I'd be shooting something else. But the white peony and the dahlias are so photogenic it's hard not to love them. The hens and chicks are always fun. And the tulips! Get them in the right light, with a bit of water on them, they look like molten glass. And then there are the lilies, always stunning. Do you get why I was stumped?

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Of the Day

Driftwood

Artsy

Paperweight. Macro. Abstract. Artsy?

A whimsical bridge, plus a real one x4

Fish Creek is beautiful all the time, and just after snow is nearly the best. I got there a little late so there were bike tire tracks everywhere. Then again, I've been there when it's actually snowing, and the bike tracks are fresh. You never know what you'll find there, with the ever changing light and weather conditions.

So far the creek is not safe to walk on. It's barely begun to freeze over. No, I didn't try, and I didn't see any evidence of anyone else trying. However, it's possible to get into some of the swampy bits. Carefully. I did come across this little bridge early on.

Most of you will recognize this bridge. 

The light wasn't quite right for this photo to be about the bridge, I was actually more interested in the reflections below it. Here's the cropped version of one of the photos with the reflections more prominent.

A bridge is a way of getting across something along the way from one place to another. Across a river, like these ones, across a chasm, over a street, whatever. There's all different styles of bridges, too many to name here, and considerations like cost, span distance, anchor stability, winds, and probably lots of other factors play a role in what gets chosen.

I often end up thinking about the transition between as-is and to-be. It's not as simple as walking over a bridge, unless that bridge is an example of pre-Columbian Peruvian infrastructure. Which is a good metaphor for some of the projects I've been on. 

Remember that old joke about the traveling salesman? He stops to ask a farmer how to get to a certain place, with the farmer slowly replying, 'Well, if I was to be going there, I wouldn't start from here.' I've been involved in those sorts of projects as well. 

We are all on the way somewhere, transitioning from what we were yesterday, to what we are today, and what we'll be tomorrow. Those people that want nothing to change, or want it to change back to the way it was (like when they or their buddies were in charge) are deluding themselves. Change happens. Deal with it.

Of the Day

Driftwood

Is the shape of that driftwood a metaphor for what the COVID cases are doing? You decide. But you whiners complaining about wearing a mask and restricting your social activities, today is a good day to think about the men and women who marched off to wars and didn't come home, or came home maimed in body or mind, and all those who stayed home to take care of the kids, work in factories, and grow the food that everyone needed. They had a brutally tough row to hoe, and they just did it. Wear the mask. Stay home, unless you're an essential worker. 

Artsy. Abstract. Paperweight. All in one.

Macro Monday 41 in a dark box

There's a joke there. Photographers will probably get it, once they see the images, especially if they've taken one of Neil's classes. I'm finally getting around to getting better photos of my paperweights. I have many from several episodes of glassblowing several years ago now. I quite enjoy it, and the results are often beautiful even if not what was intended. 

The problem with trying to photograph spherical glass objects is they will reflect any light into the camera. You end up with a bright spot, or several brights spots, or even reflections of entire scenes like through a window. Even really even light will reflect, and if you make it uniformly even, the white light will drown out the interior colour, and coloured glass is so beautiful that it's a shame to do that.

The solution? A dark box, shot in a dark basement at night. You wouldn't think, looking at these photos, that there's lots of darkness involved, but there you are.

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2. This is what I mean by reflections. Dark basement, but still some ambient light creating reflections. can you see the unintended selfie? Michelle might recognize the shirt if she looks really carefully.

3. Once I controlled for the reflections (using several old towels) I got this. Much better.

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7. Lots of people are repulsed by this one when they see it in person, and it looks totally different here.

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9. Some actual macro abstracts. Those first ones are technically macro since I cropped slightly, but these are all at 4 to 5x mag.

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Every now and then I like to reward my readers for commenting. As I've said many time, I love to get comments! It works from mobile devices now, or it did a little while ago. Don't be a stranger.

Janice. One household object a day, to add to the of the day feature. 

An interesting idea. I often look around the house and yard for interesting ways to present common objects, or find or create interesting light to place them in. Perhaps the best example is the kettle that was image of the year for 2017. So far I haven't been big on created shots; sometimes they seem so contrived it makes the photo look fake. Normally I like to take the scene as I find it. I'll have to think about this. Maybe paperweight of the day? Hmmm.

Janice, water drops on the peony. (same image as first comment.)

I'm not sure. Sometimes I get out early enough there is still dew on the flowers. Sometimes it's just rained. And sometimes I'll bring out a spray bottle. It's true. Water drops on flowers in the right light can take a photo from nice to awesome.

Janice, liking 7 and 8 from flowery Friday.

I've been trying to get a nice photo of that yellow begonia, and some nearby orange ones off and on all summer, and have never really liked any of them. The purple dahlia is one of my favourites, and I hope it comes back next year.

Janice, votes for Trump.

I don't get it either. Why some people vote the way they do just baffles me. 

Sean, Harry Callahan, not the dirty one.

I went looking at some of his images, and I can see why my photo reminded you of them. I'll take it as a compliment.

Sean, writing.

I've been stuck for a while. I had a branch piece that shows two of the important characters developing their friendship, and that was good, some of those changes rippled out into the rest of it. Which also made one chunk where I was trying to do too much, totally obsolete, except one little bit I quite liked, but doesn't work on it's own, and the time is now wrong. I find that if I'm doing lots of writing at work, it drains me for writing at home. No surprise there, I guess.

Sean, November image of the month, Nighthawk. (Same as the Callahan link.)

I finally got one of your references without looking it up! Yay me! That image is certainly in the running for image of the year.

Janice, a collection that gave her ideas.

I'm really happy to hear that some of my odd images give other photographers ideas. I often look at other work and think about how they did the image and how I would have done it. For landscapes or skylines where I'm familiar, I try to figure out where it was taken. Love to watch what other photographers shoot, and there's been a bunch of times where I got interested in something that I didn't think would be interesting. Then again, when I see a bunch of people shooting one thing, I won't, I'll turn around and look elsewhere for something interesting.

Sean, several comments re: visual space, or other more advanced visual art concepts.

I love reading these, and go back to the published image to think about it. Where I've cropped to get that image, I'll go back to the original image, and think about why I cropped that way. Often I didn't get a lot of choice. There's something else in that image that I didn't want in the finished image. Other than panoramas, I'm not fond of odd image ratios. 

Going on about ratios. My original camera ratio is 3x2, though I can set others. I often crop people shots to 10x8, and landscapes to 16x9. I'll sometimes look at 1.618x1 and alternates to the thirds lines if the image works that way, and sometimes I'll see that ratio and shoot it that way. Going to 1x1 is an unusual choice. Flower shots often have something in the background I don't want, another flower, a water barrel, a supporting rod, and cropping helps get rid of that. I'll put the edge of a petal at the edge of the frame, and while some visual artists (many?, most? all but me?) see that as creating a tension, I don't feel that tension. 

Which leads to another of the photography rules "fill the frame." Which I tend to, overflowing in many cases. I once tried to create a megapixel image of a dahlia, and Lightroom refused to assemble it. Now that I've added computer memory I should try to find those and see if it was a memory issue, or I goofed getting the shots.

Of the Day

Sunrise, sunset

There's been some nice sunrise and sunsets the last few days. You never know what you're going to get. I'll hustle out with my camera when it looks good and hope. Sometimes it's there, and sometimes not. Look for the airplane in one of the images. 

But in a cruder segue than I usually manage, sunsets inevitably bring to mind endings. Curtis was a big ending for me, one that I'm still coming to grips with. I think Celina has recently clued in that he isn't actually coming back, and she's been a lot more demanding of attention. However, we're reluctant to repeat our Bernard experience. If you need to catch up on our cat history, the first part of this AMA will help.

My recent surprising work contract has the original end date coming up fast, but there's lots of work left, and there's already been discussion of renewal. Not to jinx it or anything. It means tweaking retirement planning, but life is change. Maybe I should think of it as a false sunset, where the sun goes behind a bank of clouds, but hasn't set yet. 

Regular readers will know I've periodically blogged about my retirement (my re-re-re-retirment) and that I was persuaded (Hi Andrea!) to take another work contract. It's been fun working with a great bunch of people. What's been really surprising is having several recruiters getting in touch with me, wondering if I was open to other offers. NOT!! Still, it's nice to be contacted, but that sunset thing. Work isn't as much fun as it was before excel jumped the shark. Seriously. I'm done with xl, and the whole MS family of applications. Don't get me started. 

The big ending that many people have looked forward to is the end of the Trump presidency. I've been trying to dial back on the news lately, and he's a big part of the reason. What boggles my mind is that after 4 years of insanity, MORE people voted for him than 4 years ago. That they like what they saw, tells me there is a deep sickness in America. An anti-reality sickness. I don't know what the cure is.

What really troubles me is that we have our min-Trump in power in Edmonton, hacking and slashing at our province. We knew all along that the so called war room was nothing but a front to spend public funds on private buddies, but the extent of the corruption went further I had imagined. And yet, I personally know people that think Kenney is not only doing a good job, but is too soft on dismantling the rot (as they see it) of the Notley government, and much too soft on union workers. As for tax cuts to billion dollar corporations, they say bring it on, it means more jobs. Except it doesn't. Alberta has done nothing but shed jobs since Kenney took office.

It's easy to think that these tough times are the end. But study history, and you'll see things go on. The sun rises the next day. It might rise on a mess. Maybe not everybody who wanted to see that sunrise actually will. Some of the people who deserve to see it, won't, and some that don't, will. You get the idea. If you're here today, you get some influence on how much of a mess there is tomorrow. Stand up. Push back on the lies. Make a difference.

Eventually, COVID will end. We're all waiting. Waiting hard. Too many will not see that sunrise. Wear your mask. Keep your distance. Hang in there.

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Of the Day

Celina is a hard snoozer. All she did was curl up tighter as I clicked. 

Flower

The rose, again.

Driftwood

Flowery Friday 21, mostly dahlias

It snowed a lot. Then melted. It was nice for a few day. Then it rained. Today? Who knows?

These are from Sept 22 to Oct 7. One more Flowery Friday feature to go, then I'm out of our garden flowers. Well, unless the rose blooms hang in there, being decorative in the frost and snow. Stay tuned.

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Flower

These fading rose blooms are beginning to fascinate me. Still hanging in there.

Driftwood

Macro Monday 40, a new approach

I've had some ideas, and some really bright work lights showed up, that with some light modifiers might work quite well for some photo projects. So these two are the first steps in a what might be a winter project producing a series of new images. I couldn't have produced these images without the new lights.

This is at about 4x.

This is with the 100 mm lens, and is a macro only by virtue of cropping.

Of the Day

Flower 

From October 29

This rose might end up being a study in a series of images. As of yesterday it's still hanging in there.

White Peony

Say goodbye to a stellar participant in the Of the Day feature. This is the last unblogged photo from this year. It joined the usual suspects sometime in June. The peony may show up in the running for image of the year, but I have to tell you the competition is pretty stiff this year. Just about anything in New Zealand is photogenic, and some of the beach images are campaigning hard for the podium.

Driftwood

So, my small but faithful and enthusiastic blog readers, what of the Image of the Day feature? There's a few more flower shots in the pipeline, mainly for Flowery Friday.  The peony shots are done for the year, although I can't wait to see it next year; I have ideas about lighting. Celina is not enthused about a starring role the way Curtis was. 

That leaves driftwood, and never fear, the pipeline is very long for that one indeed. Just 20200227 alone has more than a two month supply. I'd forgotten about the artsy shot, that might return if I get any suitable images. In addition to the macro project, I do have another in the visualization stages, but I'm not sure it's suitable for a series of daily shots. Something to think about.

So over the winter it's probably going to be back to just Driftwood of the Day. Or maybe something will come to me and I'll surprise you all with a new regular suspect. Or, if you have any ideas of what you'd like to see, let me know.

November Image of the Month

Not a huge month for me, photographically speaking. The work contract cuts into some of my photo time, and the erratic weather lately hasn't been much fun. Still, the purple dahlia at the start of the month was amazing. Linda is trying to overwinter some of the dahlias to get a head start on next year. The bees will like that. 

I've already started thinking about image of the year, and it's going to be just as tough as in previous years. Fully half the 5 star photos are from New Zealand.

Second Runner Up

A 9 photo panorama  for 17911 x 6240 px, or about 5 x just under 2 feet. It's looking north and west toward Fish Creek at just about the best colour. At first I was really disappointed that Lightroom didn't want to stitch it together, though it showed a preview, then I remembered that I'd been meaning to put more memory in the computer. 

First Runner Up

No, it isn't the perfect dahlia petals that I have photos of, but somehow this is more interesting with the colour variations, and the bloom just beginning to fade so it isn't that symmetrical shape.

Image of the month

I keep coming back to this one, loving the reflection and the warm homey colour contrasting with a cold winter landscape.