Scattered Thoughts . . .

I slept away much of the day since I didn't sleep at all last night. Fortunately, my spinal pain has subsided a bit... down into the 4-5 range, at rest.  I'm about to head to bed but wanted to post a photo here first. I worked on processing this image this evening... selective dodging and burning... luminosity masking... selective sharpening... etc.  I shot this photo during a trip to New York City in 2013. The RAW image remained on one of my hard drives untouched. I hadn't even sorted it into one of my "best" folders as I do with the best images in most of my daily folders! When I was searching through the folder looking to pull out this image this evening, I saw a few others which might make some decent photos as well. For now, however, it will be only this one image to add to my collection of finished photographs. I love the contrast of this image... the sun rays... the clouds... the sun reflecting off the buildings in the center of the frame... and I esp

Panasonic G3 camera, Olympus Zuiko 70-300mm lens As I was writing my previous blog post this morning, I could hear all sorts of birds and squirrels outside  for the first time in quite a long time . It was as though they all moved into the area at the same moment! It has been unusually quiet here for months... no small wildlife at all... no birds, no squirrels... just an odd silence outdoors. All of a sudden, this morning, this all changed. I grabbed my newest camera purchase... my Panasonic G3 with my old Olympus 70-300mm lens mounted on it. This combo gives me a very long telephoto reach equivalent to a 600mm field of view on a full frame camera. This is a loonnnggg telephoto reach in a rather small package! When I stepped outdoors, I headed toward the deeper part of the backyard with old, tall trees where I figured most wildlife would be located. As I walked back that way, I listened to hear where the birds were located... "hmmm..." all the noise seemed to be c

The first of seven shots... deer in headlights look... I'm really not much of a 'cat' person but, for the past few years, I've had one of our neighbor's cats follow me around like my shadow.  This cat is definitely not one of the more friendly cats in the neighborhood but whenever my health fails, this feline is right there peering in the window at me... for hours... It doesn't matter which room I am in, this cat will be there right outside that particular room at the nearest window peering in at me.  Whenever I do some work outdoors, this cat follows me around and, at times, has been known to leave me little gifts at my car door (mice).   Adam tried many times to get a photo of our resident shadow but never really had much luck. Today, as I was playing around with my oldest remaining digital camera (Edit:  I checked camera release dates and it turns out that I do have a digital camera much older than this one which happens to be one of my all-time fav

Flash photography has always been a thorn in my side.  I'm not alone though.  Most people have no clue how to properly shoot photos using a flash and that includes most photographers! Whenever we think of "flash photography" we picture a photo, any of millions of photos, that look like there is a big spotlight shining on the subject.  The background is so dark and underexposed that you can't see further than about ten feet in front of the camera.  These kinds of photos are terrible and have always bothered me. There is nothing 'warm' about them... there is nothing exciting about them... you can't even tell where the photo was shot... and they almost always cause the subject to frightfully resemble that "deer in the headlights" look. To imagine the types of photos I am referring to, think of the last time you tried to shoot your friends at night... you are in a beautiful location with warm lighting throughout the room... there is beauti