A Pair of Bald Eagles

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On walkies near the Carson River, the Girl and I found a pair of bald eagles sitting in a cottonwood tree. It made our day, or at least mine.
I posted this image a few days ago on my Instagram account. I mentioned before that I am disenfranchised with IG of late because of FB’s decision to change to timeline from a chronological order to some algorithmically-driven monstrosity that does not permit me to track my follows. Urgh… OK, I need to end that rant…

The last couple of months were viciously busy with deadline-driven project work. It started before Christmas and has not let up yet. I have a couple more projects in front of me and then I may get a respite. This is not a complaint; I am deeply appreciative of the work. It is an explanation for why this part of my life is quiet — there is simply not enough energy to do the work and to keep up with my personal projects (that are important to me and that provide satisfaction). So my writing and my photography are operating at a low level for now until I finish the paying work.

That does not mean that my daily outings with the Girl stopped or that my carry of a camera has not gone on. In fact, the Girl and I walk at least once each day and on many days we take a second, shorter walk at a nearby doggie-park. I usually carry a camera along with me, either the tiny Olympus OMD E-M10 or now a Sony A7R if I am in a full-frame mood.

I remain a photographic experimentalist, preferring to use vintage or odd lenses on my cameras. I have some solid, modern glass for my Fuji and my Nikons, but those systems are generally reserved for when I need that type of image or am on some kind of project. But, I digress… it is not the equipment that I really care about. The equipment is just a set of tools I use to capture what I see.

On Friday I delayed walkies, partly because Young Son and I went to breakfast and partly because I was working on project work. But we finally drove over to Riverview Park about 1100 hours. I know I can get about a 3.5-mile walk there and it is near the Carson River. Although the river area is much prettier during the warm months, winter still offers the sound of flowing water and an opportunity to see wildlife.

It is this area where I saw my first Kestrel, my first Harrier, and my first Rough-Legged Hawk. I often see flickers, jays, and woodpeckers as well. So I love watching for birds, bunnies, and the occasionally coyote. There are reasons why I prefer walking the Carson River Corridor and not in-town.

As the Girl and I made our way along the path, we were greeted by many other walkers, both two- and four-legged. The Girl loves human interaction and tolerates most canines. She is a different dog than when she came to live with me.

We broke off from the main circuit around Riverview Park and headed north towards Empire Golf Course. As we turned the corner, I noticed a large raptor in a cottonwood tree. It was a bald eagle! Then I saw the second a few feet from the first. It was a pair!

I saw another pair in the area a year or two ago, about this time of year. They were perched in a small tree in the ephemeral wetland in Riverview Park. So I knew that bald eagles are seen in the area. But I was still surprised and delighted to find two of them on my morning walk. It made my day.

Fortunately, I had the Sony A7R with me and an old Vivitar 70-210mm manual-focus zoom lens. I spent a few minutes making captures of the eagles and talking to them while the Girl did doggie things. The eagles just watched us, more interested in the Girl than in me.

We walked on, me marveling at the encounter and the Girl continuing her doggie-things.

I expected them to be gone when we returned. But the pair was still there, still watching. So I made a few more captures, interacted with another walker (who did not see the birds), and we made our way home.

It was a good day. It was a good walk. I am blessed and the visitation of the bald eagles reinforced that for me once again.

Bestech Warwolf

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This is my Bestech Warwolf fresh from the hone and strop. It’s a good blade at the price point.

I recently purchased a Bestech Warwolf from an offering on Massdrop. Yes, Massdrop feeds my accumulation disposition. But I generally buy only items that I’m really interested in and are at a favorable price. Unfortunately (or fortunately), I was tempted by a couple of the Bestech knives over the last six months.

My first Bestech is the Swordfish. I’ll have to make a couple of photographs of it and post them, along with some comments, later. It’s on my list of things to do…

The Swordfish is about a half-inch longer than the Warwolf. I’d call the Warwolf a 3-1/2-inch blade. This is a very comfortable length for me to pocket carry and the Warwolf carries a bit better than the Swordfish. So the Warwolf is often carried.

The blade is D2 tool steel. This is a good steel for knives, not the best, but far from the worst. It’s strong and tough and holds an edge reasonable well. It’s also a carbon steel and requires some care (a little oil regularly).

The Bestech Warwolf has an interesting blade shape. The cutting edge is fairly standard, but the spine of the blade has an interesting shape that I really like.
The scales are G10. I love G10 for scales. It is warm, reasonably grippy, tough, and looks good. The frame is also steel and is chamfered so there are no sharp edges. The scales are fit well to the frame. The lockup is solid and relatively easy to release one-handed. The blade deploys via a flipper. The blade is fitted on a bearing that is very smooth and the blade is smooth in the frame but there is not detectable play. A really nice feature is a detent when the blade is closed that prevents it from falling open when handled.

These knives are part of Bestech’s value line. The MSRP is in the $65 range, but they can be bought for about $40. That is an excellent value. As much as I love my Kershaw Blurs, I think this blade is a step up from them. It has much of the character of a more expensive blade but at an excellent price point.

They are Chinese made. When I learned this, I was surprised. It made me recall the stigma of Japanese-produced goods when I was a child. The reputation is that Chinese-made goods are of inferior quality. That is not my experience with Bestech knives.

My only issue with my instance was a small error in the factory grind. I found a small area just toward the tip of the blade that was not as sharp as the remainder of the edge. The fix was relatively easy — I put the blade in my KME sharpener and rebeveled the forward portion of the edge. (I also sharpened the remaining edge to be consistent with my fix.) I’m not completely satisfied with my result and will probably adjust the bevel on my next honing session for this blade. But I now have a very sharp Warwolf with nearly a mirror edge.

I would recommend a Bestech knife without reservation. They are a very good blade at the price point. I expect there will be another Bestech knife in my collection before too many months pass.

Roses, Panasonic G3 and Fujian 50mm f/1.4

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Roses with the Panasonic G3 and a Fujian 50mm f/1.4 video camera lens.

The Girl and I love morning walkies. It is partly a ritual, partly exercise, and mostly fun. We have a few favorite routes — some are here in town and others require a short drive. All of them present opportunities to be outdoors, places to walk off-lead, and stimulation from a variety of sources.

Once off-lead, the Girl loves to roam out a bit, sniffing and hunting ground squirrels. She never ranges far from me, although she is not the brightest bulb in the box. She can become focused and lose track of me. Instead of using her “doggie-sense,” she looks for me. That’s not smart…

But, it doesn’t happen all that often and rarely on our in-town routes. When walking in more rural areas, I’m careful to keep track of her even if I’m looking for something to shoot (with the camera).

One of our in-town routes takes us past the old Carson City lumberyard flume. It’s not a linear park, where doggies are welcome, and a wetland. Cattails grow in the drainage ditch (disguised as a wetland) and there is water there most of the year. Blackbirds often frequent the place and I love their calls.

A hedge of rosebushes delineates the boundary between the park and the adjacent open lot. The green is pretty and the small, red and white flowers are visually interesting. There are few squirrel burrows in the hedge, which provides distraction for the Girl.

One morning last fall, I carried the Panasonic G3 with a cheap Fujian 50mm f/1.4 video lens attached. The lens is not very sharp wide open, but has a nice bokeh and is sharp enough when stopped down to f/2.8 or f/4. The color and background attracted my eye this morning, so I made a few captures while the Girl sniffed about.

We then continued walkies, where I found a few bees on the volunteer sunflowers downstream from this site.

It was a good day. Life is good.

A Pause by the River

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On my trip to Washington state last year, I paused at Greenwaters Park along the Williamette River for a pit stop for both The Girl and myself. I got her out and we walked around the park, pausing at the river bank (or at least me) to watch the play of light on the water’s surface and to listen to the sound of moving water.

I never tire of the sound of moving water. I suppose I’ll never tire of the sight of moving water, either. Aside from the physics of flowing water, I just like it. I thought I should share.

Social Media

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We pulled into the Red Hut parking lot Saturday morning to get some breakfast. In the pickup next to us this puppy watched use carefully through its tongue-licked window. It was worth a pause for the shot.
The dopamine hit we get from interacting with social media is addictive. FB knows this (hence Facebook and Instagram). Google knows this (YouTube anyone?). I suspect many other companies know it and use it.

A favorite IG’er, @NateArizona, posted a chat on IG recently and talked about this. It made me think (or rethink) my use of social media, particularly FB, IG, Twitter, and SnapChat.

I’m not a big user of any of them, with the exception of IG. But I limit my exposure to IG in that I follow only a few posters and they are either family, friends, or a few photographers whose work I admire. I mostly post to IG, but am unsure that results in any additional traffic here, to my weblog.

I do not receive any meaningful feedback from my posts on IG. I am pretty serious about photography and work every year to improve my sight and my skills. I post a few captures on IG because it’s quick and I enjoy it. But I have only a couple hundred followers.

Therefore, I question whether it is worth the effort to continue the IG exercise or to refocus that energy to working here on my personal webspace. Perhaps I should think about my goals for IG and how those goals fit into my goals for this website. If my photographs are print-worthy, then I could generate some income to offset the cost of equipment and travel to make more captures of interesting places, people, and things.

But, I digress in my stream-of-consciousness fashion. I was really thinking about the social media addiction (a dopamine hit addiction) that so many of us suffer. I followed FB pretty closely for awhile, before a writer I admire referred to it as “an exercise in abnormal psychology.” That captured my attention, along with reading about Fear-Of-Missing-Out (AKA FOMO) and I realized that I was really missing very little, with few exceptions. Avoiding FB resulted in an immediate drop in frustration level (and probably blood pressure) from all that mess.

When FB bought IG I was deeply concerned. I loved the way my follows showed up in the feed when I checked in. I could quickly and easily determine what was new and have a look at the work of creatives I enjoy. When FB abandoned the chronological feed for something far more obscure I was deeply disappointed. Now they are becoming more adamant about showing me feeds that I might like and sponsored posts that want me to buy something. It is becoming unbearable.

The last couple of major elections reinforced my thoughts when I saw how nasty people were on FB. It was a moment when I eschewed the platform, for the most part, only visiting now and again after posting something here to see if I had comments that needed response.

(For the record, I also keep track of a few family members and very close friends there.)

So where does this leave my thoughts? Well, I will continue to use the social media platforms on my current list. I might move much of my photographic work here and post less on IG. I will certainly maintain my distance from FB as that problem of psychology I mentioned. Twitter and SnapChat are not big consumers of my time and energy, so there really isn’t much to do there.

And then there is Ello. I have an account there I do not use much. There are many creatives on Ello. But I do not really grok the platform. Perhaps Ello deserves a little more attention as far as posting my images and some supporting text. If one of my goals is to reach a wider audience with my photographs and my words, then that might be an approach. It is clear that neither IG nor FB is a viable solution. They are both crowded spaces and the algorithms are not intended to provide creators with outreach; the algorithms are intended to keep users hooked and increase revenues. That sounds cynical, but it is what I believe.

It seems I have some additional work to do. But perhaps I better get The Girl out and make a capture for today. I am certain I can find something to catch my eye….

A Breath

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On evening walkies, Older Son, The Girl, and I paused for a moment as the sun illuminated the clouds.

There are many ways to interpret the title of this entry. There are many stories to tell as well. The image is a capture from this evening’s walkies, up at the old state school where orphans used to live.

A couple of consulting projects buried me for the last couple of months. One of them is finished. The second has its report in review and will be finished next week. A third is ramping up and there will be a push to get it done over the next couple of weeks. It will get done.

I am not complaining; I appreciate the work and there should be enough money to pay my bills for the remainder of the year. I expect the workload will abate and I will have time to go back to my training regimen and be able to spend time reading and making photographs.

So, this week I had a chance to take a breath. I took some time off and took that breath. The break was a respite I desperately needed as the push to get the work done was taking a toll on my inner and outer health. The breath was good.

Five years ago today Wife died. That left a hole in my life that has not been filled. The pain of grief is mostly abated — it still arises now and again and there is a ghost of it in me that I think will never go away. But I am OK with that. That small pain is a reminder of a life together, with all of the good times and all of the warts. It is part of what shaped me.

I recall her last breath vividly. The vigil that preceded her passing was a ramp up of intensity that culminated the moment she left. The gulf that followed was a second intensely emotional period that abated slowly over the next couple of years.

Therefore, today I recall a breath… the few days I took to recover and regroup and the last breath of Wife. Life is breath and each one is precious.

Music Box

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This is a new track from a favorite musician. Enjoy.

Street

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He was looking at something…

It was a year ago… actually a bit more than a year ago. I drove out to Denver from Carson City, leaving Carson on Nevada Day and heading east on U.S. 50.

The purpose was to visit the U.S. Geological Survey Water Science Center in Denver for an interview. I made the cut for a senior position in the center and so was scheduled for a face-to-face interview.

While there I spent a few days with my kids. One afternoon Older Son and I walked around a bit. I carried a camera for some street photography (or whatever). I managed this capture that afternoon.

I don’t know why I am just now processing this image. Well, actually I know… 2017 was a pretty busy year. After the USGS job didn’t happen, I moved into a small place in Carson City. The move and setup took a bit of time. Then 2017 brought plenty of work that kept me busy.

As 2017 comes to a close and 2018 looms, I know that I will work through the bulk of this work and have time to devote to the photography and other things that are important to me.

So, I’ll leave a wish for a safe New Year’s Eve and a Happy 2018 to those who wander by.

Coopers Hawk

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I think this is a Coopers Hawk, although it might be a Sharp-Shinned Hawk. I am not good at distinguishing them.

A couple mornings ago we had a bit of sun. That made the daily walkies much more pleasant. Even if it was a little cool, the sun warmed me and made the walk very pleasant.

I often see raptors while on my daily walks. I carry a pair of binoculars with me on all walks now so I can see them (plus other birds). I would not call myself a birder, but I enjoy them and love to make photographs of them when I can.

I think this is a Coopers Hawk. They are very similar to the Sharp-Shinned Hawk and I am not yet adept at distinguishing them. In any event, with the good light I was able to get a sharp capture. I like this image quite a lot.