Scattered Thoughts . . .

Although I've been feeling quite lousy since being home from Manhattan...  so for the past month...  due to having COVID and some secondary infections and now awaiting results of some more serious tests, I've been a little bit bored at times too.  Most of the time, I've been feeling too lousy too be bored but, sometimes, I feel just well enough to want to accomplish something. I don't have much energy and my health problems seem to continually get worse in waves, but I still hope to accomplish something small each day with a very short burst of energy.  "Burst of energy"...  that is a bad joke so let me rephrase that.  I push myself for a few minutes at a time when I'm feeling a little better than I have previously and then need to rest.  Sometimes I sit at the piano briefly, sometimes I read, sometimes I watch a movie (or listen to a movie with my eyes closed), sometimes I pick up a camera and shoot some still objects in the living room. I had a few very

Y esterday, while I was writing about my infrared converted camera, I realized that perhaps I should shoot some images for a comparison between visible light in color, visible light in monochrome and infrared in monochrome.     This morning I shot a photo of our backyard in color in visible light followed by a monochrome image in visible light with one camera body and then moved the lens over to my camera body that now only shoots in infrared and shot a monochrome infrared photo.  To keep things as controlled as possible, I used the same lens with the aperture set at f5.6 for both cameras.   The wavelengths of light that the infrared camera captures are in a relatively narrow band of light so I needed to slow the shutter speed down a bit for the infrared image so I could capture a bit more light.  Conversely, since visible light is a much broader band of light for our human eyes, I needed to use a faster shutter speed to cut back on the available light.  Although the infrared camera ne

W e are in the midst of a bit of a snowstorm here at the moment so, while I wait for the storm to subside a bit before heading out to remove snow from our roof, I dug out some additional Panasonic G3 color photos that I shot while at the lake house back in 2015.   I enjoy getting out on a kayak and shooting wildlife photos.  While at the lake, these photos were mostly of loons.  I also have some nice duck photos and some Bald Eagle photos.  The Bald Eagle photos were shot with my Sony cameras though so they are not included here.  The past few blog entries have been solely about my little old Panasonic G3 so I've only included photos that I shot using that camera. The first two photos here were shot at dusk.  This old camera struggled a bit once the light dropped off to lower levels.  What I like about this first photo is you can actually make out the iridescent blue band on the loon's neck.  This loon was looking for fish to eat and I captured this photo just as he took his he

T oday I went digging into old hard drives searching for some old photos from the camera that I just sent in to be converted to Monochrome Infrared.  The camera I am having converted to monochrome is my old Panasonic Lumix G3.  I won't be able to shoot color photos with this camera anymore so I figured I should dig out some old color photos that I shot using this camera as a reminder of its colorful days.  Truth be told, I never really shot a whole lot of photos using this camera.  For a relatively short one or two summers, however, it was my main camera for wildlife photography while at the lake house due to its slightly larger crop factor (2x) which provided me with a longer zoom.  I have captured quite a few really nice images of loons, ducks, and nature but each of those images always needed a lot of post-processing work.  This camera was replaced as my primary wildlife photography camera when I purchased my first Sony camera.  Those Sony cameras produce so much nicer results a

I'm having difficulty finding words and thinking clearly this morning so I'll keep this blog entry relatively short.   Back a few weeks ago, Sheila and I headed down to Northfield to meet with some good friends who now live in another state.  They were in town for a family event and, fortunately, had a couple of hours to squeeze in a lunch with us.  Naturally, we wished we had far more time with them but we understand how hectic a family visit can be.  We don't see them nearly often enough so it was great to connect with them for lunch. No matter where we go, I always take at least one camera with me.  The weather was beautiful on this autumn day so I shot a few photos from the passenger side of our car while Sheila drove.  I haven't had the energy to wander around solely for the purpose of landscape photography so this is my mode of operation for this type of thing lately...  no tripod, handheld camera, in a fast moving car (or train).   The telltale sign of being in a

M ost of our 50 tulips have bloomed in our playhouse gardens.  We have two new gardens flanking each side of the steps leading up to the playhouse.  Kenzie and Gee did a good job at planting last fall.  Thanks to Will and Sue's gift of tulip bulbs and Gee and Kenzie's work, we now have two very colorful tulip gardens in front of the playhouse! A few days ago, we started to worry about whether this tulip garden idea would work in this location.  The few tulips that had bloomed weren't looking all that healthy.  They were wilting a bit and the long leaves were sort of curling over.  Actually, even those that hadn't bloomed yet weren't looking too healthy either.  So, we were a bit worried. We weren't sure if maybe there is too little sun (which is true since these gardens are under a big tree) or if these young tulips were already somehow diseased in some way.  I determined that the soil may have been a bit too wet especially for two gardens that are mostly in sha

This past weekend, Sheila and I headed down to Rutland for a small train show. We've been attending this show since the first show seven years ago. Each September, we find it is a nice excuse for a relatively short day trip.  It was nice to get out of town for a short while after weeks of significant health problems for me. Sheila and I seem to take turns with poor health. This past month was my turn, apparently, so it was nice to get out of town if even for a short day trip.   The weather was quite nice although we did encounter a few sprinkles on the way down to Rutland. The autumn colors are barely visible in our neck of the woods and not yet all that crisp anywhere nearby but we did encounter some color once we approached Killington right outside of Rutland.  Driving through the northeast is always nice this time of year... the air is cooler and the landscape is in a stage of transition with colors beginning to uniquely enhance the appearance of each type of tree.  W

Sheila is recovering from her hospital visit a few days ago and we're ready to jump into more medical appointments for her. On the positive side, she is slowly recovering and feeling better. We're still waiting to see her Oncologist and her Primary Care doctor early this week to discuss these newest problems but, for now, she is feeling more stable.  My health, however, is taking a serious hit. I went out to mow the lawn after breakfast yesterday morning since it was a first day in a week that we finally had dry grass. It was beginning to get warm so I opted to forego pulling out the weed-whacker and just do a relatively quick mow. I figured I needed to minimize my time out in the sun, heat and humidity so I skipped the weed-whacking. My health does not do well in the heat and Saturday was a bit warm and quite humid. I knew the wisest thing to do would be to just run the mower over the lawn as quickly as possible without overdoing it and then get out of the heat.  About

The other day, I shared some photos here of the grandkids having a leaf fight with Gee out in the backyard. I really like those photos because they show a lot of candid emotion. I actually had a little bit of difficulty shooting photos because I was laughing. It really was a nice few minutes. This morning, I decided to compile those photos into a time lapse animation...

Another one of our annual excursions crept up on us again this past weekend and we found ourselves in southern Vermont for a train show. Throughout the year, we attend various events around the northeast. Every fall, we attend a train show in southern Vermont. This particular train show is so small that it isn't even the main purpose of this annual weekend getaway. It is a good reason to get out of town but it takes up so little of our time that it is hard to call it a train show weekend! What I can say about this annual excursion is that we enjoy traveling through the fall foliage, visiting other restaurants, visiting stores we don't get to normally visit and it's nice to simply get out of the house for a bit.  My health keeps me close to home almost every day so it is nice to get out from under this roof every now and then... really nice. We actually try to get out of the house for a few hours every weekend but it rarely works out... between things needing to get