Sunny Girl

The Sun shone this afternoon, so I opened the curtains in the workroom. She found a sunny spot and snoozed. Captured with the Fujifilm X-E4 and the Voigtländer 27mm f/2 at f/4 using the in-camera Reggie’s Portra 400 film simulation.

We are having a few sunny days after the wintry weekend. I do not mind the cold when the Sun is shining and it was shining yesterday afternoon.

One of the things I love about my apartment is the afternoon winter Sun on the side of my place. It warms my workroom and bedroom nicely and makes for a warm and sleepy afternoon. One of my favorite things is a winter afternoon nap with The Girl. So, I had one yesterday.

She also gave me a lovely portrait, looking over her shoulder at me with the Sun on her. I made the capture with the Fujifilm X-E4 and a Voigtländer 27mm f/2 at f/4. I used the in-camera Reggie’s Portra 400 film simulation and made a slight adjustment to exposure with Snapseed in my iPhone.

It was a good day. Life is good.

The Girl

I caught this capture of Sera snoozing under my worktable. Capture made with Fujifilm X-E4 and Voigtländer 27mm f/2 at f/2.8 using Reggie’s Portra 400 film simulation.

The Girl is recovering from knee surgery. She ruptured her CCL (ACL in humans) on Thanksgiving Day in an encounter with a coyote. Although I did not see the animal, that is the only likely possibility given the nature of her wounds and that I saw no humans or heard no ruckus that would have accompanied a domestic canine encounter.

The vet at the emergency clinic in Reno indicated that she either had a broken leg or a ruptured CCL. Based on my observation from a couple of days earlier, I believed her to have soft tissue damage.

A subsequent visit and workup with her regular vet confirmed the diagnosis. The treatment is a surgical repair. The complication came from which procedure to use.

The traditional approach is to tie the joint together with grafted tissue and suture material and then allow scar tissue to reinforce the repair. The alternative is to cut the bone and reset the tibia plateau angle. That seems awful to me, so I elected for the simpler, less invasive approach.

So now we wait. She is moving around the house and starting to put her toe down and sometimes a little weight on the affected foot. She is recovering.

Now I am taking care of her and praying for a full recovery. I will have to manage her differently, I think. She has now had two rattlesnake and one coyote encounter. None went well. She is just one of those individuals who finds trouble. So, she will not be permitted to range out like she has. I also will not want her stressing that knee for months. I want it it have plenty of time for recovery.

She will need exercise and plenty of it. But her days or running out more far from me and getting into trouble are over, so I hope.

I am grateful for her. Life is good.

Aloha

A few evenings ago (it looks late, but it was not) I stopped at Aloha to reprovision my bar. I liked the look, so I made the capture. Fujifilm X100V and fixed 23mm f/2 at f/8 using Reggie’s Portra film simulation, straight from camera.

A few evenings ago I stopped at Aloha to reprovision my bar. I had a camera with me and made a capture. However, I have been busy and too focused to post much here. That is contrary to my intention of posting something here at least once each week.

I am mostly caught up with work and need to devote some attention to my other activities, including photographic work. So here we are, a post on the last day of 2024.

I suppose the title is also appropriate, a well wish at an ending and a beginning.

I am grateful for another year. Life is good.

Daily Image — 07 November 2023

Captured on walkies using the Fujifilm X100V with its lovely 23mm f/2 lens at f/8. I used Reggie’s Portra 400 film simulation. Minor post processing in Iridient Developer (contrast, saturation, curves).

I am working on the hydrology for one of my projects. The weather is cooler and more windy, so I do not want to get out as early.

Once I made some progress on project work and the markets, The Girl and I headed out to walk Silver Saddle Ranch. The weather today was cooler than yesterday, but also less rainy. Still, I could see rain to the north in Washoe Valley and behind Mt. Scott. A curl of rain clouds pulled south to the east of Mt. Scott, but did not seem threatening.

The Girl continues to worsen the condition of her toe with the missing nail. If I am distracted for just a moment, I will catch her licking. So, she slept in the cone-of-shame last night, wore it all morning, walked without it (but limping), and is now wearing the cone. She will get to sleep in it again tonight, although I might remove it when we sit on the sofa to relax and snuggle.

I carried the Fuji X100V with me again today. Last night I read a bit on Ritchie Roesch’s website, Fuji X Weekly about those film simulations he recommends. He has a list of seven because most of the recent Fujifilm cameras have seven custom slots. I am already using several of his recommendations, but I have some empty slots to fill and will add his recommendations. Then I will use them.

Today I used Reggie’s Portra 400 simulation, which is intended to produce results similar to the Kodak Portra 400 film stock. One of the things Reggie did was to set Auto White Balance instead of using the Daylight balance of the regular Portra simulation. This adds a little to the flexibility of the simulation. There are other details as well, but I consider them relatively minor.

I came home with a couple of decent images. That is, images that I like. I make images for me — that is, I am the only one who needs to like them. If others like them, that is good. I appreciate the acknowledgement.

Alex (The Photographic Eye) recently did a video on the subtle impact of social media on the photographs we produce. This resonated because I left Instagram a couple of months ago (again) because I was tired of doomscrolling through things I did not want to see to find those that I do. On my IG account, I sometimes posted photographs I knew would gather more “likes” partly as an experiment. It is a nice dopamine hit to see that my work is appreciated.

What Alex made me think about is the who and why of my photography. It is good for me to do something creative and that is why I do it. The photographs are for me, because there was something about the subject that attracted my eye (and my mind).

So, what I share here and also on FB are images that somehow spoke to me and caused me to pause, find a composition, and make the capture (usually several). I do not always like the end result, but I usually learn something in the process.

OK, so I do indulge a little and share a lot of Doggo images. Those are for fun (and I do love the subject) and for my dog-loving friends.

So, I like this capture of Mt. Scott and the weather over Carson City. The fall colors are mostly gone, with just a few hangers-on. We’ll soon start to see snow and some gray days and certainly cooler temperatures. But I still love the high desert and I am good so long as the sun is shining.