Also Coming To A Tree Near You!

"If lightening is the anger of the gods,

 then the gods are concerned mostly about the trees."

~Lao Tzu

Well, last night was fun. Thunder. Lightening. And I had an amazing viewing spot for the whole thing... the comfort of my bed! Yep. I didn't have to get dressed, at 2:40 AM, and grab my camera, and head outdoors to get some pretty good shots of the light show, all I had to do was turn off I Love Lucy, pull the curtains aside, and hang my head upside down from the headboard!

Why upside down? Well, Alan was sleeping next to me, and wasn't hearing the thunder, as it was fairly quiet, for thunder, so I didn't want to get up, turn around and stand on the bed, when all I had to do, was position the camera a bit over my slightly upside down head. It was awkward, but more than worth it, and I am a happy camper because I haven't used my cameras much this year.

I am fighting the depression since Hillary lost. I was sad after that day in November, but the real depression and fear took hold in January when Trump took office. That's when the whole thing began to really hit me hard. REALLY HIT ME HARD. Since that time I have been vocal on Twitter, but my creativity has come and gone. My will to leave the house has bordered on agoraphobia. My life changed in ways I didn't think possible, but I am adjusting.

I have a lot of pictures of different home projects and our fur babies, but I am venturing out a little more, and I am hoping to do my leaf gallery this year. I drove for the first time in almost a year the other day, and that felt good. Baby steps. Leaves. Pumpkins. Cats. Lightening, Baby Steps and repeat. Autumn is coming. That's a good thing!

Central Valley Lightening Storm

Wednesday, September 13th 2017

2:40 AM

Stockton, California

Mood: Happy

~Me :)

Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

"Casting a curious gaze down on planet Earth, extra-terrestrial beings could well be forgiven for assuming that we humans are programmed in every move we make, by a palm-sized, oblong, slab of glass. More perplexing that that, who on earth could convince them otherwise?"

~Alex Morritt

Impromptu Scribe 

Meet my knew cell phone. There was a time when the most sophisticated cell phone out there, had a little animated creature, in black and white, that bounced up and down and crisscross and was called a screensaver. And that was top of the line. I remember the phone like it was yesterday. It was 2002 and it was a cute little Nokia. It was about 4 inches thick, and came with all kinds of goodies. I could change it color just by slipping it into a new cover! It was a great phone... for 2002.

The difference between the phones then and now is how long they last. Like the TV's we all our parents owned,  and see sat glued to growing up in the 1960's and 70's, technology was made to last! You could own a TV for 15 or 20 years, my parents did. But today... forget about it. Two years tops! My last phone was a Samsung 5. It was a great phone, but I filled up those 16 gigs early, and it pretty much began to lose it's mind a year ago, so I have been limping along, waiting until my contract with AT&T was finally over. That day came last weekend, and it was off to the T-Mobile store for a new phone, and a new experience!

So far, so good. Two lines, unlimited TTD. Welcome to 2017. Two free phones came with the deal, and we liked our old Samsung Galaxy phones, so all we really did was upgrade to a newer model. I am having a good time with getting acquainted with my new pal, but I have to admit there are things about my old friend that I miss. Mostly basic superficial things. 

Mind you, I am not interested in going back to my old senile phone, but it's never easy saying goodbye to something, or someone, you love, and let's face it, I love having a cell phone, so I have built many different, meaningful relationships over the years, and because I tend to think of certain inanimate objects as people, I can't bear to part with them when it's time to move on. I have never broken up well. I miss them, or it, and I go through the stages of grief and then one day, eventually, I move on. My last cell phone and I survived a lot together. The most profound being a close encounter with a tarantula. But, at the end of the day... we both knew it was time to say goodbye.

 Most of the time it goes just fine with the new relationship.

 Let's face it, an upgrade is usually a good thing!

 Right?

We both knew it. So on to better days!

I'm happy, and I will still use my phone for photography!

It's all good!

There is one thing I find myself resenting about my nifty new cell phone, and all the cell phones in my past for that matter, is the fact that they have made wrist watches obsolete, or unnecessary. I really miss wearing a watch. I had a small collection of them and I liked wearing them as a fashion accessory very much. Wearing a watch now doesn't seem so much fashionable as... useless.

 I really miss my watches. But I because of my cell phone, I always know exactly what time it is!

 

Sigh. 

Mood: Happy

~Me :)

 

A Life Lived In Frames

"Photography is a reality so subtle

 that it becomes more real than reality."

~Alfred Stieglitz

Christmas came a little early. Alan gave me the go ahead to purchase a new camera. Getting out to do some photography had been good for my soul this past month. I had forgotten how much better I feel when I can step out of my own thoughts, and into the natural and real world. There is beauty in the world, and I love being there to document it. There is also a lot of pain in the world right now, and I know I will be there for that too. It will, perhaps, be unavoidable at times. America is about to go through a troubling, dark time. We can hope for the best, but I think we should probably brace for the worst. But we will have time to speak about that later, for now here are the first few images I captured with the new camera...

The camera and I need to get to know each other. It will come with time. So far I am happy with the results. Both photos were taken on a rainy day, which plays with the lighting at bit, and as I was losing the light pretty quickly, the focusing was getting more and more difficult. All relationships take time, and commitment.

That was my life yesterday, lived in frames.

 Leaf Of The Day

November 21st 2016

Mood: Quiet

~Me

 

Frames

"If life were a camera I would be feeling a little out of frame."

~Jaeda DeWalt

My fuji. I have a love/hate relationship with this camera. When it behaves itself it can produce some stunning photos, but when it decides to be a pain in my ass, the photographs I take look like HELL. I am determined to work with this camera until I figure out if the problem is me... or the camera or if its just that the world can be damned unattractive. There is a part of me who thinks it's me, but then again, maybe it's just a shitty camera. That's the bad part about being stuck in a creative muck. You don't know if it's you, the world, or the camera that is defeating you. 

Shrug. 

Mood: Curious

~Me :)

Autumning

Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence.

Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance.

Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence.

Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance.

~Yoko Ono

It's such a pretty leaf. I know it's more dumb luck, than sweet magic that I found my camera, but there is something so amazingly wonderful about finding it in spring. 

I have autumn leaves in spring!

I am half way to October!

Mood: Happy

~Me :)

And Spring Went BOING...

"Behold, my friends, the spring is come; 

the earth has gladly received the embraces of the sun, and we shall soon see the results of their love!"

~Sitting Bull

Nikon CoolPix S3500

Well, appropriately for the last day of winter, a little light and color was added to my world. Yesterday afternoon, Alan found my pink Nikon CoolPix S3600 that went missing last autumn! I had only owned it a couple months, when I thought I had lost it forever, a sad occurrence if ever there was one! And I pretty much hung a puss for most of November and December over it, but my loving husband Alan, got me a new one, right around Christmas. It was one of my early gifts. I chose a Nikon CoolPix S3500, this time in purple. While I haven't gotten out very much in the time I have had it, from what I have seen of it's capabilities, it can hold it's own to the original Nikon. So now, with the new old camera back in my life I am very camera prolific! It was quite kind of winter to leave me with a special bit of sun... my gorgeous, girly Nikon CoolPix S3600 in pink. 

A pink camera, and a purple camera, perfect for photographing flowers!

WELCOME BACK TO MY

 NIKON S3600

 in Pink

October 24th 2014

Nikon CoolPix S3600

 

And Welcome To Spring!

Mood: Happy/Silly

~Me :)

Love Takes Work

"Love... a wildly misunderstood, although highly desirable malfunction of the heart which weakens the brain,

 causes eyes to sparkle, cheeks to glow, blood pressure to rise

 and the lips to pucker."

~Unknown

Yep, apparently "Unknown" has been in love at least once! And yes, I do know we have a few days to go before Valentine's Day, but I am planning to do a lot of photos this week surrounding the holiday. I need more in my archives than pictures of leaves. Although, if there could be someway to incorporate the two, that would probably be the best of both worlds. I do a lot better with earth tones than I do with pastels. 

Not loving the pastels. 

But totally loving the challenge!

Mood: Happy

~Me :)

A Mosaic Of Them All

"Winter is an etching, Spring a watercolor, Summer an oil painting, Autumn is a mosaic of them all."

~Stanley Horowitz

I have been in love with autumn since I was a small child. I always loved seeing the beautiful crimson, gold and deep purples of the season. I love the ripe pears and spicy pies. Cinnamon has always been my favorite scent, and Alan and I fell in love in autumn, and we were married in October. Autumn is a special time of year for me! I know it's strange, and I can't really explain it, but I have always felt healthier and more invigorated in autumn, like I have been renewed! And there is just something about a sight like this one, that fills me up with joy and happiness! It's magical!

Life Is Good

And, if FEDEX manages to stay on course today, my new camera will be here sometime this afternoon. It's a replacement for the Nikon Cool-Pix s3600 that went missing last month! I ordered the new one in a lovely shade of purple... autumn purple of course... and I can't wait to take it for a spin around the autumn world. Leaves, trees, Christmas lights, clouds, raindrops, wild geese, maybe even snow... who knows what the last of autumn may have in store? All I know is, I want to see every last leafy bit of it!

If I could, I would photograph every single leaf of autumn!

Leaf Of The Day

Mood: Happy

~Me :)

September 1st, 2014 Happy Labor Day

"If I were a moviemaker, I'd set about hunting sunsets."

~Julio Cortazar

Un tal Lucas

Kinda strange starting the week, and a new month, with a sunset... right? Well, not if you factor in that today is also a holiday, Labor Day. So really, rather than being just another Monday, it's more like Sunday Part B! At least that's how my brain interprets it!

LOL!

Anyway, later today I plan to spend some time with the new camera as I promised in my last post. I am still not sure what my schedule will be like, but I will fit it in somewhere in the day. Who knows, maybe I will do some new night shots. From what I have seen so far, the new Nikon does really well in low lighting conditions. 

The sunset photo above was done with the new camera. The only editing I did was to resize the photo and a small amount of cropping. I am pretty sure I will be using this camera for most of my sunset photos this autumn and winter. I am looking forward to that. 

 I am enjoying my new picture taking gadget. It had some mixed reviews on Amazon.com, but that's always the way with things. Some folks want the camera to do everything for them, while others want complete control, and the camera itself is a mere formality to their extensive creativity. LOL. I am somewhere in-between. I know there are days when I appreciate being able to just grab the camera and make go. But still, times when I want to photograph something I care deeply about, like the kittens, or Woody Allen, a little more thought is good.

I took four cameras with me when I took the aerial tour of San Francisco, and was thankful because one of them stopped dead in mid-flight! LOL. I think the best photos I ever did was during that flight, and it was the Fuji camera that came through for me that day. 

The Fuji camera and I have had a true love/hate relationship, and sometimes even now, after 4 years of ownership, it still leaves me dumbfounded on how sensitive it can be. The quality of photos that I get from that camera are a bit inconsistent, but when I do get a great photo, it's usually quite nice, and I feel like I have really accomplished something.

Mood: Oh well, you know.

~Me :)

Ginger Ale...

"It's not what you have on the outside that glitters in light, it's what you have on the inside that shines in the dark."

~Anthony Liccione

Okay, so in a mad fit of photography boredom, I decided to return to a project I began in the spring of 2013... photographing food and beverage in an exaggerated and filtered light! I began that project because I somehow managed to contract a nagging cough. According to my doctor it was one of the harshest coughs the medical world had encountered, and it would just have to run it's course. And it did... eventually... 6 1/2 weeks of hacking later it was gone! But during the time I was ill, I saw very little of the outside world, so what could I do? I picked up the camera and did some experimenting with the lighting available to me indoors. I came up with a few photos that came out to my liking, then I added in some special effects that really made the photos POP. 

I had fun with that project, and while I was thinking about it the other day, I decided revisit that project, and I began to experiment with a glass of ginger ale. I liked the dark amber color, and was surprised at how lovely the tiny beads of effervescence looked in the glass! The bubbles didn't last as long as I hoped they would, so I may do this one over at some point. We'll see. I am waiting on the delivery of a new camera, so I might redo it with new one. It has a slightly higher megapixel number, so I am counting on that to bring my photos to the next level. Photography takes a lot of concentration, some planning, but mostly luck. Sometimes I think I use up every bit of my allotted luck in life, being in the right place, at the right time, with a ready camera in my hand. That's what I get for taking my cameras everywhere I go!

                                                                                     :)

Mood: Happy

~Me :)

Some Days With The Camera Are Better Than Others

"Art is what gets us beyond what is real. It makes reality more real. It also shortens the distance we gotta travel to see how connected we are."

~Laura Pritchett, Sky Bridge: A Novel

Some days I pack up all the cameras, 6 of them at last count, and I head out of the house with no expectations of what I will photograph. Other days I plan, and plan, and I map it all out carefully, from the routes to the time of day I want to be in a certain spot, and I know what I want to accomplish right down to the last detail. Two very different approaches, that usually have two different results. I swear, I do my best photos on days when I have no expectations as to what I will see or come across! I am not quite sure why that is... except that perhaps I do better when I don't assign myself the added stress.

For the most part, my photography has been a creative outlet. A way to process emotions and head noise. I know it has been instrumental in keeping myself sane! LOL. I have taken some of my best photos during times of deep grieving, and sorrow. When my friend Frank died and the weekend Pam passed away, I managed to see things with a more appreciative heart. I was still alive, and grateful for all the beauty I was seeing. It felt especially strong after Pam's passing. She and I talked more than once about the natural beauty of the world around us. She had a good heart. I miss her terribly. No one should die at 50!

Cancer is an asshole!

Anyway, it frustrates me when I leave the house with all the equipment I need to take a really excellent photo, and I just can't seem to accomplish it. The photo above is one such example. It was a perfectly clear day. I was focused on the Golden Gate Bridge, there was very little wind to mess with the focus, and yet I just couldn't seem to get the photo as sharp as I wanted and even right now looking at the photo, and remembering the day, I just don't know why. Like I said... it's frustrating. I remember giving up that day, because at one point I just knew that if I tried to force it, the whole experience would have become a chore, and not a joy. There is definitely a time to let go.

Still, in an attempt to pull something positive from the photo, I love the way Cozelman road, along the headlands, lines the hillside. It looks really sharp I think. Okay, so it wasn't a total waste of time. And at least I have the experience of knowing when to give up, and save it all for another day.



Mood: Quiet

~Me :)

Camera Obscura

"To photograph is to hold one's breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality. It's at that precise moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy."

~Henri Cartier-Bresson, The Mind's Eye: Writings on Photography And Photographers

Camera Obscura is one of those places in San Francisco, like seeing the Golden Gate Bridge, that I always recommend to out of town visitors. It sits on a small cliff, just below the Cliff House restaurant, and gives the visitor to the attraction a 360 degree view of the entire Seal Rock area. It's an awesome, and unique part of San Francisco both for the camera itself, and because of the history of the general area where it sits. The view of Ocean Beach from the street above is breathtaking, as is the view of the old Sutro Bath ruins just below the cliff. I plan on doing a lot more photography in this area as the weather warms up. It is a wonderful part of San Francisco to get lost in one's thoughts.

 

There is more to come! Stay Tuned!

Mood: Relaxed/Happy

~Me :)

A Look Back At January 2014

"The whole point of taking pictures is so that you don't have to explain things with words."

~Elliot Erwitt

It's the last day of January... my... that was fast! LOL. Only 11 months, and 3 seasons to go before the WAR ON CHRISTMAS, that takes place only in Bill O' Reilly's head, comes around. But in the mean time, how about we take a look back at what caught my eye this past month, shall we?

January Retrospective 2014












This past month was unusual as January's go. The weather was unseasonably warm, often reaching the mid 80s in the Bay Area. That allowed for some lovely summer-like photos, which I kind of felt embarrassed to post, given the extreme cold the East Coast is experiencing. But there was a special circumstance that motivated me, in that the Maverick's held their annual surf contest a week ago. I didn't get across the bay for the actual event, but the waves were glorious in the days just prior to the contest. And along with the warm, sunny days, came the colorful romantic sunsets. I enjoyed photographing them very much, it had been several months since I had been able to do low light photography, so it was nice to stretch that creative muscle.

I am not sure what February has in store for me, creatively speaking. My life in general has settled down. It seems the recurring theme of Plan B has been left in 2013! THANK GOD! It was beginning to knock me down. I understand the need for change, but really, being able to count on certain things is good to. Anyway, I am ready to see what comes next. I will have my cameras by my side to document it, and with any luck, I will see something truly amazing! Or on the other hand, perhaps I will see something common, in a new way. Either way, my eyes will be open to the possibilities.

That's a good thing I think.

Mood: Inspired

~Me :)

Never Leave Home Without Your Camera!

"Life is a blank canvas, and you need to throw all the paint on it you can."

~Danny Kaye

Is a blurry photograph an artistic misstep? Is the moment you had just been trying to capture, forever lost in some unfocused haze? 10 years ago I would have said YES! It is gone, and there is no use crying over spilled flash bulbs! Tee Hee! Remember flash bulbs? Anyway, what I have learned during that decade is that while there are most certainly rules about 3rds and making sure you put some thought into the conditions you will be shooting in, but probably the most important rule is to always... always... always have your camera with you! My goodness, I have learned a lot about that! I have missed some amazing opportunities, and I have my memories to remind me about those missed opportunities, and how much it hurts to know I let all those moments get away! I am older, and wiser now, so needless to say,  I have at least one camera on me every time I leave the house!

The camera I have with me most often is my small red Kodak, which is a 16 megapixel, with a 5x optical zoom. I just upgraded my cellphone, but I still carry my little HTC Aria with me, as it had a decent camera on it, and I can't bring myself to pack it away! As good as that cell phone camera is, my new HTC VIVID is magnificent! But those are just the little pocket cameras, I also have a Konica Minolta, and a Fuji Finepix which has 14 megapixals and an 18x optical zoom. They are all excellent cameras, but the Fuji does give me trouble from time to time with the focus. It has a great zoom, but it's not always as clear as I would like. It produces a lot of noise, but under the right lighting conditions, it can't be beat!

Last week, I had my trusty Kodak with me, because there was a storm coming through the Bay Area, and I knew that if I got the chance to capture some of the light play going on with the gorgeous colors in the clouds in the late afternoon, I could count on my Kodak! Well, the light began to fade fast, but I just had to try and get just a glimpse of the sky. As hard as I tried, I couldn't quite accomplish a photo that was crystal clear. But I liked the pictures anyway, so I decided to put my photo editing tools to work, and applied different textures to the photo, finally deciding to go with the "flower" texture option. I liked the end result. Take a look at the side by side, and tell me what you think!





So tell me, which one do you think is more pleasing to the eye? Original, or textured? Or maybe you hate both! How do you feel about less than perfect photos, do you always delete blurry images, or do you try to save the photo through editing? Tell me everything!

Mood: Content

~Me :)