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 now 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.
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.
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….
While surfing YouTube yesterday evening, the AI ‘bots served up this bit of tastiness. I was particularly impressed because the song is used as the closing for Kubo and the Two Strings, which is one of my all-time favorite movies.
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.
