Scattered Thoughts . . .

If you want to do something well, you must put in the time and effort. However, it can't just be 'putting in time'. This time and effort must also be effective time. There must be effective practice as opposed to ineffective practice which reinforces poor techniques.  If you are simply going through the motions like treading water to keep your head above the water, you are probably only participating (halfheartedly participating) in ineffective practice. Ineffective practice is a complete waste of time and energy and, oftentimes, only results in picking up poor techniques and bad habits. I don't know about you, but I do not like wasting my time and effort. Considering my lack of energy because of my poor health, this is even more important to me today than ever before. When you mindlessly go through the motions, lacking true effort, you are wasting your time and energy. This is not for me! Lately, I've been focusing on photography techniques (no pun intend

After my usual morning physical therapy and exercise session this morning, I was ready for lunch... well... I was in the mood for brunch today rather than my usual dinner-like lunch.  For those who don't know, lunch is typically my big meal of the day. Since I wasn't in the mood for my usual heavy dinner-like lunch, I looked for something else to make today... So, I chose to make some hash browns, hickory smoked bacon, french toast and coffee. That really hit the spot! Now, let me get back to my coffee...

I went back into one of my external hard drive to search for a photo I thought I had shot while in New York City a year ago. In my mind, I remembered a shot that captured both the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building in the same frame. It turns out that my memory was remembering this composition a little differently than how I actually captured this composition. When you are limited by distance and elevation, it is tough to get the shots you want... exactly the way you want or envision them... especially when you are just a speck in a large landscape which stretches in all directions including vertically.  In this case, the Chrysler Building is a little low and the angle is slightly off for my taste but it was worth trying out a composition with my location when I shot this image.  Putting these two iconic art deco buildings into the same frame with no other distractions seems like the right thing to do...

I don't really get much accomplished when my health is lousy and, for the past few weeks, my health has been pretty lousy. I don't even remember when I last immersed myself into an art project. I've been fighting off a cold for at least two weeks now. A cold isn't a big deal for most people but, for me, a cold only compounds my problems with my mast cell disease. The cold ends up knocking me for a loop and it seems to take forever to shake it. My body already has too many mast cells and too many overactive mast cells. When we add a cold to this environment, my mast cells are even more overactive wreaking havoc on all fronts. To make matters worse, I really wore myself down over the past few months. I knew this would be a recovery period for me but my mast cells are a bit angry right now as well. Angry mast cells make for prolonged cold symptoms, bone pain, joint pain, fatigue, intermittent anaphylaxis, and a bit of nausea. This makes for some very long but very bori

It doesn't matter what I attempt to fix... the house, the car, my bicycle... I always end up with complications requiring more time, more effort and more parts. Working on my small collection of model railroad trains is no different.   I acquired a broken Lionel GP-7 diesel from a friend. This engine just would not kick into gear. It turns out that there were no gears attached to either of the motors to engage those gears!   I did a little research and found that Lionel had come up with a really poor design for some of these engines which used a plastic gear affixed to a smooth metal shaft... the gear inevitably would quickly work itself free from the smooth shaft leaving no way for the motor(s) to engage the gears. The motors would just spin and spin while the locomotive remained motionless.  So, I figured, "I'll just replace those motors with new motors that have metal gears on their shafts." As is the case with most projects, I thought it would be a relati

A Mastocyctosis Angel, created by a fellow patient and gifted to me... a symbol of compassion and energy. Gift of Extra Spoon Since many of you reading this blog are actually personal friends with me already, you know that I've been extremely busy for the past two months with family events. Whenever I get busy in any aspect of my life, all other areas of my life must be put on hold. I simply do not have the energy nor health to focus on more than one thing at a time. Every now and then, I get newly diagnosed patients asking for my help, advice and guidance. Just this past month, I received a number of requests for such help but I have been silent in my responses and feel I should try to explain my situation.   If I get involved in helping newly diagnosed patients, nothing else in my life gets done. There is no additional energy for anything beyond what I must focus on at any given time. Systemic Mastocytosis literally sucks the life right out of those of us struggling with

When I saw this photo that I shot of Sheila and Kenzie, it immediately reminded me of a line which was said to me more than thirty years ago... "A little culture never hurt anyone". Although it was said to me decades ago, it is a line which has always stuck in my mind and is a line which I believe in deeply. Also, it is memorable line from a time of my life I will never forget.  I certainly agree with this sentiment. Culture is a good thing. Learning about as much culture as possible is a good thing. Understanding culture is important simply to become an understanding, educated person. Being exposed to a varied culture at a young age is a very good thing. Seeing Kenzie excitedly looking at the jacket of Les Miserables left me feeling good about exposing the kids to culture in art, music, and life.  A little over thirty years ago, my squadron commander said these very words to me... "A little culture never hurt anyone" and these words made a very deep imp

The door... finally cut, sanded and assembled! I finally had a productive day today! It has been a rough week or so of lousy health which caused the installation of the new half bathroom to stall for almost two weeks. Today I managed to get some significant work accomplished! I was having some cognitive issues first thing this morning so I decided to weigh my options... take another day off to recover or try to accomplish something. In the end, the weather forecast was the determining factor. The moment I saw that the rest of this week is supposed to be rainy, I knew I had to try to accomplish something outdoors in the decent weather. The thing to accomplish today was cutting up all the pieces for the custom door since this particular project needed to be done outdoors. I cut up all the lumber... shaped all the joints... and then sanded everything. By the time I finished this, it was definitely lunchtime. My stomach had been telling me the same for at least an hour at this poin

This week a new chapter has begun in Adam's life journey.  Now 18 years old, a Cadet/Chief Master Sergeant in the Civil Air Patrol/Air Force Auxiliary, a student pilot, and a hardware store sales associate, Adam is now in the process of enlisting in the US Air Force.   Adam has had two meetings with the recruiter this week with another meeting scheduled for tomorrow. He has already submitted his 120 page application. Next week is a visit to MEPS. For those unfamiliar with military acronyms, MEPS is the Military Entrance Processing Station. He will spend a couple of busy days there on an active base for his medical exam, more interviews, a written exam and some psych and physical testing.  At this point things are progressing very quickly for Adam. This is the "hurry-up" stage which will probably last another week or so. This "hurry-up" stage is always followed by a grueling "wait" stage. This two-stage cycle will be the everyday mantra for his new

Back a couple of years ago, we bought a fairly nice lawnmower. It was definitely more mower than we needed for our lawn but I didn't want to buy something that would be a pile of junk within a couple of years. Adam started using it to cut a neighbor's lawn in addition to cutting our lawn when I wasn't feeling up to it. This was all fine and dandy until some carelessness entered the picture... I kept harping on Adam to make sure the oil level is good since this is a four-cycle engine and, as such, oil was needed in a separate reservoir to keep the engine lubed. If the oil level gets low, the engine will seize up. Well... long story short... at some point between the two lawns Adam was cutting, the engine seized up.  I finished out that season cutting our entire lawn with a weed-whacker each week... fun times.  The following season I looked into buying a new engine... the cost of a new engine would cost more than a new lawnmower! That brought us again to the task of loo

The light had changed outside so I went back out there with my camera in hand to see if I could compose a different sort of scene with the newest blooming flowers in our wildflower gardens.  Because of the change in light... direction, quality, softness... I had something different in mind this time around...  I again grabbed the camera which chooses its own settings...  randomly... at any given time... usually screwing up any notions I have of getting a good shot. Although, in hindsight, my newest camera might have been the best choice for this particular shot I wanted to stick with the color depth of the Kodak sensor on this malfunctioning camera.  Anyway... I had the camera...  I kept checking the settings to make sure they were the way I wanted them ensuring the camera wasn't changing them on me randomly... I had the lens I wanted... and I quickly captured a few frames.  Typically, I go for a contrasty scene with a lot of deep tonal qualities... very sharp... vivid colo

Once again, I find myself digging through old photos on my hard drives hoping to find some decent photos. Lately I find myself focusing on improving my people photos and portraits so I've been studying my older shots to see how I can improve. Of course, I also study portraits of photographers I find interesting and then try to figure out how to get my work to improve in the direction toward the things I find interesting in portraits I like. This evolution comes easy for some and more difficult for others. Backgrounds are exceptionally important in portraiture. By "backgrounds", I am not necessarily talking about a cloth backdrop.  I simply mean what can be seen in the background of each of my images. Trying to shoot in a location which has few background distractions can be difficult, especially when shooting in your home. My home has a LOT of background distraction which ruin shots. Outdoors is a better place to shoot... giving yourself more distance between your subj

Every now and then, for one reason or another, I go digging into one of my hard drives looking for a photo I may have overlooked. Tonight was one of those nights where I found myself a bit frustrated with the direction the world of photography is headed so I decided to go digging into one of my hard drives with the hope of distracting myself and finding something more pleasing. What I found tonight is a photo of Lukas which I had overlooked when I first shot it. This is a photo from our backyard last May. Lukas and Mackenzie were playing on the kayaks at sunset... the sun setting behind and to Lukas' left... so the image has that warm golden glow of sunset... all-in-all, not a bad photo.   It could be better, but it is worthy of being in print and hanging on the wall, I think.   Anyway, this was my little distraction for tonight and I thought I should share the photo.  Now it is time for some much needed sleep!    

In today's digital world where almost everyone carries a camera of some sort around with them each and every moment of every day, we sort of take the art of photography for granted. We can even easily forget that photography is an art. Cameras are in virtually all mobile communication and media devices.  Compact cameras are relatively inexpensive and the amount of available models is mind-boggling.  There is a vast array of photography-enthusiast cameras.  There are professional cameras.  There are security cameras.  There are traffic cameras.  There are news cameras.  There are webcams, Skype and Face-Time.  We are immersed in photos all day long...  but, do we truly understand how to effectively use these devices we call cameras? Cameras are tools made to capture an image.  Each camera is different.  Each camera has its weaknesses.  Each camera has its strengths.  The person handling this tool must understand light, shadow, tonal contrast, color, aperature, shutter speed, sen