Scattered Thoughts . . .

My health has been quite lousy the past few days... I clearly overdid it this past weekend... and even my spine is painfully inflamed so I've been doing very little. I have, however, managed to spend a little time each day with a camera in my hand and that has been nice. This morning, I had intended to work on a different project but some trains from the long weekend with Lukey and Kenzie were in my way. As I was thinking about whether or not to use up the precious energy needed to put away these trains, I decided to shoot some photos of this particular set of trains instead (mostly, the locomotive interested me). It seemed like this option would use less energy than my original plan and, besides, this is another project I have been wanting to accomplish for quite some time anyway. So, here we have an O scale Hudson steam locomotive... with real smoke coming out of the boiler... and, I must say, this was a difficult shot to capture and it was a time consuming little project!

I'm not quite sure why but I've been consumed with thoughts of the lake house lately... when I'm awake and even when I'm asleep and dreaming... all the time. Perhaps it is because my health has been mostly on the poor side since being at the lake earlier in the summer. Lately, my health has been exceptionally poor especially when it is warm or hot outside. I'm overwhelmingly exhausted on most days and can barely keep my eyes open nevermind find some energy to accomplish something small. I'm so exhausted that I find it impossible to stay focused on any task or to even think clearly. I don't know... maybe I simply want to go back to the lake house and do things. Don't get me wrong. I occasionally have a pretty good day. On these rare days, I find that I am using up this rare fairly good health on everyday chores like cutting the lawn, laundry, straightening the house or even showering. It doesn't take much to wear me down to the point of uselessnes

Early morning is definitely my favorite time of day at the lake house.  First off... I like waking up to a quiet, peaceful and an organized house. I enjoy getting out on the lake in my kayak as the morning fog is lifting and being burned off by the warm sun as it rises over the mountains behind the house... the lake slowly comes alive and brightens as the sun burns through the fog... it is quiet... it is serene...  Photography and videography seem to be much easier during these times perhaps because I am refreshed and there are no distractions... It is nice coming back to the house after an early morning kayak outing to find the house quiet... I awaken everyone by starting the coffee and putting some bacon in a frying pan...

I like to try my hand at nature or wildlife photography whenever the opportunity arises. Of course, my health needs to be cooperating... the weather needs to cooperate... and my photography gear needs to be ready to go for when these situations arise.  (Note:  When I say "the weather needs to cooperate", I don't necessarily mean clear, sunny skies. I mean the weather needs to match what I intend to capture. For instance, I often get up early in the morning while we are at the lake house so I can get out on the lake while it is still foggy... the environment is thick with a lot of depth which makes for nice photos. I rarely will want sunny, clear skies... some clouds are much more interesting! So, cooperative weather means different things depending upon my photographic vision.) Sometimes I'll choose an area of the yard... say, just a small area of only about 50 square feet... and I'll try to find a few things to photograph in that limited area. This forces

This morning was another morning darkened by a medical appointment for ongoing cancer. Sheila and I seem to share everything and, unfortunately, this is one of those things we have in common. Today was my turn.  To be honest, even after all these years of never-ending medical appointments, I still have difficulty seeing anything on my calendar beyond these important medical appointments... I just see darkness. When I pictured my calendar in my head, the months and days only went to January 11th... Monday... 2016... then complete darkness.  No matter how hard I try, I just cannot shed any light on this calendar in my head until I get beyond these dark appointments.  On the positive side, these appointments allow us to spend more time together rather than apart while Sheila is at work. We always eat out on these days as well. And, that is always nice.  Before Sheila was in my life, I seemed to know more medical professionals than others. I would walk into a hospital and the peopl

All these delays in our home renovations has really snowballed at this point. My health and the weather were nowhere near in sync and, as a result, so many projects were delayed. Whenever the weather was good, my health was miserable so I could not accomplish anything. Whenever my health was well enough to accomplish a few things, the weather was so lousy that we couldn't get anything accomplished.  Now, the temperatures are below freezing every night and not much higher than freezing during the days. These cold temperatures makes finish work such as staining and polyurethaning impossible to do outdoors.  Unfortunately, I have a lot of wood to stain and polyurethane. Since I can't move all this wood outdoors, I am stuck trying to get it all stained and polyurethaned indoors without ruining our floors, walls, furniture, etc. This means I am stuck inside the small room I am currently renovating. I started staining wood today... I managed to stain half of the wide planks f

For a change, the weather in my neck of the woods cooperated with an astronomical event! That alone is a rarity. Even more surprising is that my health cooperated as well! The chances of all of this coming together were slim. I had set up a couple of my cameras earlier in the day. I charged and tested batteries. I chose two lenses... one for each camera. I chose the appropriate tripod head and mounted it on my tripod. Then, I waited. Sheila's parents stopped by for a few drinks before dinner which was nice and occupied my time as we waited for nightfall. We ate dinner, cleaned up and then I noticed the full moon was brightly lighting up the sky outside our living room window. At this point, I was running low on energy so, rather than hauling all this gear outdoors to a good viewing spot, I just set up the tripod at the living room window and shot out the open window.  The problem with shooting from this particular window is that I knew that the moon would eventually skirt b

We had a very nice day the other day... sunny and in the low 80's... but I still wasn't feeling well enough to get anything accomplished on the house. It was a perfect day for mowing the lawn and getting some landscaping chores accomplished but I was not well enough for that either. Sheila and I briefly discussed my overall health just this morning. I was telling her how I am feeling a bit like a prisoner in my own home after having such a long bout with consistently poor health. Since returning from the lake three months ago, the only times I have wandered away from our tiny home have been to pick up dinner at the grocery store in town, our trek to Shelburne Farms with the kids last weekend, and a couple of visits to Arvad's for a meal when I was feeling too miserable to even prepare a meal. This has left me feeling a bit anxious, bored and in need of a change in scenery.  We both agreed that we are due for a change in scenery. The weather is finally cooling down so my

On the rare occasions when I am asked by friends to shoot some studio photographs, Sheila becomes my default assistant. We often will need to reschedule these few shoots due to my health and then try to find a 'good' day in between bouts of poor health so scheduling a shoot is always a bit of a nightmare. I enjoy studio work though and wish I had better health to do this more often. (Actually, if I were healthy, I would probably own a photography studio... among a few other things... I've even sketched my own studio designs!)   Just a quick photo shoot requires a lot of prep work such as testing all gear, recharging batteries, creating a shooting plan, moving gear, setting up gear, etc.  The easiest part of a photo shoot is the actual shooting time with the model/client  but don't confuse this with being "easy" because a lot of things can go wrong, a lot of things can be done incorrectly and shooting photos requires technical, creative and artistic sk

When it comes to art and creativity, I've been in a deep rut lately. I just can't seem to produce anything which pleases me. I'm one of those people who must be feeling fairly well and be in the right frame of mind to create or even attempt anything artistic, including creating music. As you can tell from some of my latest blog entries, my health has been rather lousy lately and this has spilled over into everything I attempt to accomplish. My health was no different this morning than it has been lately... I awoke feeling worn out, exhausted, my ability to think clearly was a muddled mess. I know I'm in pain (I think my bones are hurting deep inside) so that doesn't help matters any. My mood has been quite poor lately as well (car problems I don't want to deal with, prescription medication problems which are frustrating and causing me to run out of a few important medications compounding my health problems, not having the energy to do the things I want to d

A Panasonic G3 in the micro four thirds format... As most of you know, one of my many hobbies is photography. As most of you probably do not know, there is no one camera that can do everything. Each camera has its strengths and each camera has its weaknesses. As a result, I have quite a little collection of gear, each piece sporting its own advantage. I have a very limited budget so I often pick up used gear at very tempting prices rather than buy new at unattainable prices.  A number of months ago I decided to drop my Olympus gear and upgrade significantly by getting some full-frame Sony gear.  "Full-frame" refers to the size of the sensor and this full-frame size is huge compared to most cameras. The sensor on this Sony camera is the same size as a single 35mm negative frame... hence the name "full-frame". By comparison, compact cameras have sensors the size of a pencil eraser... and higher quality cameras have sensors somewhere in between the two in