Scattered Thoughts . . .

S ince it appears as though our weather will be great for the solar eclipse, I've been focused on getting all my astronomy and photography gear prepped for the big couple of minutes of total solar eclipse.   I also raked the part of the backyard where we will be setting up for the total eclipse.  Everything seemed to be going well and then we had well over a foot of heavy, wet snow dumped on us...  again.  The same thing happened less than a week earlier! So, two large amounts of snow followed immediately by temperatures in the 40s and 50s...  extra showers after getting soaked in sweat due to cleaning up the yard, driveway, paths and backyard, then extra loads of laundry to clean the sweat-soaked clothing, then Saturday came along when Sheila cleans the sheets and does all of her own laundry...  this resulted in a backed-up septic system.  Naturally, it is a weekend and we don't want to call to have the septic pumped out on the weekend so we're making-do with a very slow a

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