Friends

Not! But tolerant, sort of. For a while Mozart the cat was a pariah shunned by all. He’s still not welcome with open arms. Group (cat) shots are tricky. No one is willing to pose for me. I just point and shoot and hope for the best. The picture is soft – as in soft focus. But, I got the eyes! Hey! Small victories are always appreciated. Eyes are the one enduring lesson of my early photographic failures. If you don’t get the eyes in focus….

So, my cats get along after a fashion. Pfewf! One less thing for me to worry about. Me worry? Colleen worries…

Selfie

It ain’t easy. You can take one. Easy. But a good one? I took a bunch. Not quite dead on focus. But the importance was showing we were together. And close. There were lots of close but “no cigar” shots. ??? …we were standing too far apart or not smiling, yeah, you know how it goes. Selfies? Take a bunch, smile, and hope for the best. Winterthur just before the Xmas decorations (see tree) were about to come down. Gloomy day, 60 degrees, just about to rain – priceless if you are with the one you love and cherish!

It’s Valentine’s Day. Ha! I did not forget! What to say? A million dollar smile! True love. Colleen likes to grab me and exclaim, “Mine!” Yup! Priceless! Focus? Who cares? The sentiment is carried amply without being perfect. Is love ever? … I misplaced the darned card… but I know where the candy is.

Remote control

Hardly. Front back? Confused?

Sunset. Driving east. It’s in my rear view mirror. No, I did not shoot this while driving at 70mph. Folly. Instead, I handed the camera to Colleen. She did a great job! Not quite perfect, but then again, there is an image to talk about.

You need to focus. Ha! Low light near dark, it’s pretty impossible to do. I would have manually focused. Colleen does not know what to turn for manual focus. She did a very passable job.

Going forward, yes, somehow we followed the road around a curve and were traveling west…. I got a couple shots through the front window. Ok! But the point?! Colleen shot through the passenger side mirror – objects in this mirror may be closer….

Black cat

Midnight, the cat, is an only cat who prowls his house silently. I am always surprised by his presence as he appears out of nowhere to stare at me. In this case he was staring thru his cat door down the stairs at me. I was able to pull out my camera in time to capture the contrast. And I was lucky enough to get an image.

Black cat, try to get an image. There is very little contrast. Focus?…on the eyes. Yeah, good trick. Detail?…hardly. Hey! It’s not my cat!

Test

Test. Limits. I test mine all the time. I test the camera all the time. Sunsets, the moon, they test the algorithm of the camera manufacturer in low light conditions. You pick you choose you shoot. Sometimes you win and sometimes not.

Detail, color, focus, all are factored in to make the image of my imagination. Then we see whether or not the camera was up to the test. In doing so there are compromises and choices to be made. Post processing can only get you so far. The idea, “I’ll fix it later in Photoshop.” is so wrong on so many levels.

Three shots

… not one good. Disney. The location is clear from background. This is another memento, a family record documenting a fun time. The kids were cooperative. My camera failed me. The light was muted. I needed a slower shutter speed. Film! My f-stop was probably as large as the lens allowed. I was doomed to failure. Digital probably would have saved me. Film came in a single ISO. It was inflexible. I suppose I was lucky to get what I got. It is sadly dissatisfying now. But you can tell it is film and it denotes an era long past. iPhone would do so much better now. Film is dead. Long live film.

Once more

I remember this fondly enough to do it again. Fascinating. It is how film, photography, light, lens, and the eye works. Light hits the retina focused by the lens of the eye aided with or without the eyeglasses we wear. It hits as an upside down image. The brain translates and the world is right side up. After all gravity must have its due.

Camera obscura. Yes, full sized. You walk inside. The image appears on the back wall. It is indeed upside down. I righted it. And out of focus – it is because the lens is small relative to the wall behind me. Hey! I got a photograph of the whole thing. I love it when science works. Shamelessly, I am posting this again. It was so much fun the first time around.

Stop

Creeping. I am slowly creeping in more than one photo…. Stop. I was stopped by these pics of Peas. Eyes! Focus on the eyes is good, it’s a good pic. It does not happen with ease. My cats rarely pose. They do not look at me. My camera has trouble finding their eyes. Sometimes I think it is simple luck to get the eyes in focus on the run. Yes, there are focus buttons and so forth on my big camera. Sports guys have been using this for years. Hey! It’s amateur here. And the cats have unpredictable motion. Yeah, try this one at home. Nonetheless once in a while I get lucky at home.

Helping out

Dawn. Great light. Maybe!? The right moment? Can my camera capture the moment as I see it? All good observations and questions.

Ok! The camera has trouble focusing upon clouds. No contrasting lines help to define a focus point. Set the focus point on the trees or something at the horizon. Exposure. The scene is dark and the meter tends toward overexposure. Metter the sky to increase the saturation of the morning color. Finally, cheat. Use Lightroom to increase vibrance and saturation. It might just look like what you saw at the critical moment.

Reflection

They are all around us. Hard to get. But easy is you see it. Ya gotta look! And sometimes it’s work. Special? Yes, when they work.

The last morning of the balloon festival they launched in the morning fog. I chased the balloons along the river. There was no set course they were following, mostly letting the gentle breeze carry them along. I stopped and popped thru the trees along the river to capture the reflection. Symmetrical. Symmetry. About near perfect. Probably too perfect. But this is something you cannot stage. You are just there as the opportunity unfolds. Take care and focus.