The image catalog landed here. The color is intense. Spring! Tulips! Ok! Of course I never take just a single image. Any of them are worthy to pause and admire. I shot that?
Composition? None. Just shoot. Focus. Sure. Color? Great. The bright sun makes the color pop! It’s a photo that makes you stop and admire it. I shot that? Yeah, and I’m proud of it.
I know the occasion. It was a birthday celebration for me cooked up by Jules and Lisa. They took me on the dinner cruise around Manhattan. It was a chill April evening. The light was fading quickly at dusk. Jules was seasick. Ha! It was a slow-moving cruise ship. Oh well.
Noise? I don’t have metadata on the images. I assume it was the Nikon D70 but I could be wrong. Low light, you get noise in the picture. Noise? It is the graininess and lack of definition in the image. Jules and I look strange as a result of the low light and noise. The skyline of Manhattan hides noise quite well. There is little detail expected and the far away subject easily hides the lack of detail. Graininess is not an issue.
Sometimes you accept imperfection in the face of the memory the image invokes. It was my birthday cruise with my favorite daughter.
A mother knows. Colleen could look at the cats and know them easily. For me it was harder. I needed telltale markings. Ray had a complete white fur collar around his neck as opposed to Nutley who otherwise was identical. So, now you know.
Composition, focus, subject, all are important. Props – a box, Christmas ornaments – give context. There is certainly cuteness built in. Even if it ain’t perfect it is worth a smile in wistful remembrance.
This sits heavily in my heart. We had a house on Long Island with big trees. And from one tree we hung a swing. The kids were little and swung and played and …. It was worth many a happy moment and photo op. One day Lisa had the tree trimmers come to … trim. They were never to cut down branches… which they did. The swing was gone. No one ever mentioned the swing again. I never spoke to the kids or to Lisa about it. We regretted the loss. Of course! But oddly, we have never spoken about that swing again. Even now, to look at the picture brings pangs of regret. But, you can’t go back. And so what was the point of ever mentioning the loss?
Image or story? Today it is the story. I miss that swing. I miss the child on that swing. She’s grown up and has kids of her own. I should be very happy about all that.
Story? Picture? Both?
Willow. My best dog. He acts/feels like a dog sometimes. He is a cat. Duh! But it feels like he reacts more like a dog ocassionally. He begs. He’s always hungry. He will come when I call. He will show up for petting. He sometimes acts more a dog than my old dog Nellie.
Mute. Willow does not speak. He squeaks. No meow. Squeak. I wonder?
The photo has sharp focus on the eyes. Good. The color cast is blue. Shade. There is a distraction in the background – black hose. Good? Sometimes it is the story? Or does the picture trigger the story?
Cat’s outta the bag. Feather is my favorite. I have seven cats in the house. She likes me best. She likes me better than any of the others. So?! I gotta like her back. No way around it. Colleen swears she has been my cat all along. No jealousy. It’s just so. So, I like Feather.
She’s my best cat. The others don’t know.
As I have said in the past, cats don’t pose. They may sometimes stare at you. Expression? Smile? Emote? Ha! The trick? Point the camera straight into their eyes. Ah! The lens is directly on line with their gaze. It makes it appear they are paying attention to you. Ha ha! It lasts but a moment. So, shoot fast and shoot often. I got it! … my best cat!
Intentionally. I shot this on the fly through the car window as we sped along some highway. Does it matter? Ha ha. Relevant? It’s not a good shot. It’s not bad. Reasoning: I wanted a pic, a representative pic of the fall foliage. I was not willing to stop every 100 feet. So, shoot, get what you can, and sort the rest later. Reason: Otherwise you would not have shot nothing.
Technique: I keep the camera on the dash board. Wide angle? Too wide. So I use something like – aha! – 60mm on my trusty zoom. I let everything else go automatic. A shutter speed too slow will give you motion blur.
It works. Shot after shot. Some good. Some bad. But there is something to show the fall foliage. Fine photography it ain’t and you may roundly criticize. But it works for me. I stay married and we get somewhere to where we were headed.
Shhh! One mustn’t be late to Thanksgiving….
Wow! A lot has happened since 2016. The very nice ladies on the plane coughed around me the entire flight. I got the worst cold of my life that lasted for weeks. The worst until now. My California grandkids gave me the second worst – cold. (Colleen too!!)
I had just escaped Saudi – they tried to blow me up – slightly exaggerated but true nonetheless. Colleen was ecstatic as I started retirement slightly ahead of schedule. Retirement? Priceless!
I have seen life and death since then. The grands have been born and grown. It’s a short period. Trump came and went. It’s been a turbulent exuberant time between colds. Covid! As I sit and cough, Colleen has joined me – coughing. Yes, the grandkids shared with her too.
The photo of the ladies on the plane was airplane version of street photography. The ladies were part of a large group many of whom freely coughed all around me. Near the end of the flight they got up from their seats to the cramped lavatories to change out of their black abayas. The transformation was like butterflies being set free from their cocoons. No one cared that I took the pictures. Of course! I always have a camera at hand!
Need I say? Timing is everything.
Eensy weensy
Eensy weensy. I grew up singing eensy weensy. The convention is that it is itsy bitsy spider. I disagree.
Mission failure. I did not get a good shot of the spider who made a web on my desktop. Really! Literally! Colleen got me a SAD light – seasonal disorder. It’s bright!
I spied the spider on the inside of my window. Different! The light was too bright. The spider was overexposed. No detail. I did not check the image and exposure. I simply ditched the spider. Bad! I should have saved him. But. I hate bugs. Gone! Outside is fine. Inside, you are toast.
Later afternoon light comes earlier as daylight savings time fades. Suddenly it gets dark soon after 5PM. I hate it. Out with the cats on the deck for an afternoon stroll… there were a few last images in the fast receding summer garden. The light is now a rosy glow as contrasted to harsh midday sun. Great!
Focus – I coulda done better. it’s soft. There are details. Sure, something is always gonna be in focus. Composition – ok, Subject – what’s my point? I am drawn to the stamens more than the petals. But the real point was the late afternoon light giving that glow only seen around sunset. I have SAD. The light at this time of day makes me wistful.
(Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a type of depression that comes and goes in a seasonal pattern. SAD is sometimes known as “winter depression” because the symptoms are usually more apparent and more severe during the winter.)
PhotoCritical 