Category Archives: Photography

On Photography

25 Friday Jan 2019

Posted by in Photography

≈ 6 Comments

I was explaining my specific issues with my current camera to my dad, who responded with, “That really doesn’t make sense. Did you look it up?”

Umm… well, no, I hadn’t. I’d played with the menus on the camera, I’d pressed all the buttons, I’d explored everything I thought I could explore, but I hadn’t actually asked my specific questions of the internet. Turns out that the Nikon CoolPix software has three lists of Menu options, not just two. In my defense, the second list offers only one option, Firmware, followed by a bunch of blank space — who would assume that there was another list beyond that one?

But discovering that I could turn off the sound and the auto-focus (which I think is what causes the delay that always loses the shot) made me resolve to experiment with my current camera and learn more about photography before considering buying a new one.

I’m finding it a little bit of a frustrating process, though. The camera feels like a mysterious black box over which I have no control. I take ten shots and hope one of them will be interesting. The above flower existed on the camera as red blur, red blur, red blur, red blur, red blur, fuzzy flower, fuzzy flower, fuzzy flower and then — aha! Actual flower. Still not quite in focus, though, but at least an interesting picture. The oranges are blobs of color in six shots and then almost right.

And I want to find a web site that will teach me what I’m doing, but I don’t want to immerse myself in photography. I don’t want a blog that sends me 35 posts a week on the latest and greatest, I just want a steady drip of basic information. I’m definitely going to have to keep hunting for that, because I’m sure it’s out there somewhere.

The basic strategy of “take lots of photos,” though, is probably a good one. I don’t know how many times I’ve tried to take a picture that captures the feel of Spanish moss on trees over the past two years — hundreds, maybe? They never come out right. But the above, which was actually intended as a picture of the moon, almost gets it. If only I knew how I did it. 🙂

This week has been one of efficient stuff for me: a dentist visit, new tires for the van, installing my screen door (YAY!), lots of work on taxes, some prescription botheration. Not, unfortunately, many words written, but I’m not beating myself up about that. Not too much, anyway. One of my favorite new things done was to install a white board on the wall. It’s got three things written on it so far, notes to myself that I can see while I write:

  • If you’re having fun, so will the reader.
  • Rule 1: Sit! Rule 2: Stay!!
  • PLAY THE GAME!

This week they didn’t inspire me, but I’m hoping they will next week. Or maybe even later today, right after I find the photography blog that’s going to help me understand how to take good photos with the camera I have.

Chickens and other randomness

18 Friday Jan 2019

Posted by in Pets, Photography, Randomness, Zelda

≈ 7 Comments

the neighbor's chickens
The neighbor’s chickens

I’m very fond of the neighbor’s chickens. They are less fond of me, perhaps because I come accompanied by a dog? Not that Z bothers them at all. The one time they came almost close to a confrontation, everyone backed away hurriedly. Some of those chickens are just as big as she is and Zelda is not the kind of dog who wants to chase things that might chase her back. Squirrels, yes. Chickens, no.

But the chickens do flee every time I try to take pictures of them. It’s making me think about getting a new camera. The one that I have is a basic point-and-shoot, but it’s slow and it makes noise with every photo taken. It makes it hard to catch the chickens when they’re being cute. Or even when they’re running away.

Cameras, though… wow. It’s like learning another language. I’m not sure I’m up for the level of vocabulary necessary to understand what I’m looking at. I’m also not sure it’s worth the expense: the above picture is not any of the attempts I made with the camera, but the quick shot I grabbed with my phone as the chickens ran away.

I’m really not convinced that one in front is a chicken, either, which is part of why I’ve been trying to take pictures of them. No insult intended to it — who am I to judge the shape of a chicken? — but it’s such an odd shape that I feel like it ought to be something else, something living with the chickens. Maybe someday I will see the neighbor and ask.

Had a lovely dinner with my writing friends this week and some good writing time with one of them afterwards. We tried to write for an hour and I got nowhere, but at 9:50, I said, “All right, ten more minutes, must write some words,” and in that ten minutes, wrote the only good words I’ve written all week. Writing sprints are so useful.

Zelda had a crazy out-of-the-box treatment at the vet’s last week — one of those, “well, it won’t hurt and maybe it will help,” things involving radio waves. Since then, we have gone on three real walks, the kind we used to do before August. She has eaten her food every day. She has played with her toys. She even ate some kibble last night. Kibble! The vet’s office called today and asked how she was doing and I said, “Great.” The tech said, “Normal, then?” And I said, “No, not normal, great. She’s eating, she’s exercising, she’s playing, she’s fantastic. That’s not normal, that’s great.” The tech laughed uncertainly and I therefore knew that she was not the same tech who gave Z her crazy, New Age, non-research-supported treatment, and spent twenty minutes discussing the travails of canine dementia with me, but I’m totally sold. Z turns 14 this week — in fact, she turns 14 tomorrow! — but she is acting 10 at most. I like that.

Blue Springs State Park

14 Monday Jan 2019

Posted by in Birds, Travel, Vanlife

≈ 15 Comments

I saw the big dark fish in the top left corner first and thought, “What is that thing that it’s sitting on?” It took me a couple seconds to realize that it was actually not a big dark fish, but a very small dark fish compared to the manatee it was gliding over.

Last night, I left the windows open (until I got cold) and stared up through the trees at the night sky while I was trying to sleep. It felt so nice to be back in nature: no bright street lights shining in the window, no passing cars, no sounds of people wandering by.

I’ve been enjoying my January. Lots of people, lots of activity, lots of dinners out and social time. And actually, this visit to Blue Springs is just a continuation of the socializing — I came here to meet up with some fellow Travato owners and talk the camping lifestyle. We spent much of yesterday afternoon sitting around in our camp chairs, chatting.

But this morning, comfortably before dawn, Z and I wandered down through the campground to the boardwalk along the spring. We weren’t the only people there — I bumped into a few others, including some of the Travato friends I met yesterday. But mostly it was Z and me, alone with the manatees and the birds and the squirrels, in the slightly crisp morning air.

One of the birds, maybe an anhinga that wasn’t bothering to spread her wings?

It reminded me of why I’m living this way. Earlier this week I was browsing real estate listings in Mount Dora. Some of the older houses are authentic tiny homes — there was one that was 760 square feet, with two bedrooms, a small kitchen and a living space. Although the kitchen didn’t have a dishwasher, it had plenty of counter space and cupboards. The bathroom had a tub, the backyard was fenced, and the house was walking distance to the library, cute shops and restaurants, maybe even a yoga studio. And if not walking distance to yoga classes, certainly easy driving distance to yoga classes. What more could I want?

Answers: Manatees. Fresh air. Sunrises over water.

Adventure.

On Feb 1, I’m heading west. I will be driving along the southern route, through the southern ends of Alabama and Mississippi, then through Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and into California. Then I’m going to drive up the California coastline until I reach Arcata, in very northern CA. I will plant myself there, in my friend S’s driveway, for a while. Long enough to help her clean out her storage shed and keep her company through the grayest months of the year.

It’s not going to be a leisurely trip across the country — I won’t be spending weeks camping in interesting places — but I’m not going to make it a helter-skelter dash either. If the weather’s nice enough, I’m going to swing north to visit Kyla in New Mexico and learn how to make canvas prints of my photographs. I’m also going to stop in southern CA long enough to say hi to Tehachap and visit her railroad museum.

And if you are along that path and want to meet up, whether for coffee or a meal, to show me your favorite tourist spot in your town, or to offer your driveway for a night, let me know. 2019 is not going to be a year of buying real estate and settling down — it’s going to be a year of adventure!

Meaningless Title

03 Thursday Jan 2019

Posted by in Personal, Photography, Randomness

≈ 9 Comments

One of the blogs I follow had a long post about search engine optimization today, which reminded me that I am supposed to write my posts for computer findability, which includes using the key descriptive words in the title and then at least twice more in the body of the text.

I am sure it will come as no surprise that I’m not paying a lot of attention to SEO when I write and, in fact, when I started this post, I was completely unable to decide what words might describe my thoughts. So “Meaningless Title” it is, and I will use that phrase at least once more in this post so that if anyone ever searches for things that don’t mean anything, maybe they’ll find this post. It amuses me to think of people stumbling across… hmm, I think I’ll go google and see what currently wins for “meaningless title.” Oh, and I love it — so, yes, here’s the google hit for “meaningless title“, a job title generator for meaningless jobs. It deserves its ranking!

Ahem. But! Back to business, such as it is. When I woke up this morning, I was lazily drowsing when I realized that my overhead fan was orange. Sometimes the overhead fan glows green, which is the light that means it’s on automated-temperature control, something which would probably work a lot better if I spent more time in environments where a fan could actually control the temperature. I don’t use that feature much because a) it isn’t sufficient when it’s hot and b) the green light is ridiculously bright. At night, I wake up and think I’ve been abducted by aliens, that’s how bright it is. This, however, was an orange light, not a green light, but I was sleepy, so it took me a minute to think, “Oh, I bet it’s sunrise.” I opened the blinds on the window next to me and for about 90 seconds the sky was absolutely gorgeous. I caught it right at the moment of transition.

I moved my camera to the bin above my head recently, in my quest to remember to take more pictures, so I pulled it down and took a bunch of shots that didn’t capture the beauty. In part because the beauty was fast fading, in part because the actual aesthetics of my view were nothing special. A beautiful sky needs some perspective to actually be striking in a photo, I find. But I took the above, and liked it. It felt a little like it should be a book cover for some scary book, an eco-thriller or something like that. But I know that if I drop down into the rabbit hole of designing covers for imaginary books, I will enjoy myself thoroughly, but not get any work done and that is not my plan for today. Plan for today: write many words, not design many book covers.

And none of that is why I’m writing this post. A Facebook friend posted a beautiful set of New Year’s Resolutions yesterday and I wish to steal them. Or at least some of them. She wrote:

Resolved 2019…

Move more, eat less; experience more, use less; downsize and organize; model kindness in a world that desperately needs more; and find joy in even the smallest things.

Only 5 things, easy right??

Rosie Mcsweeney

I’m not going to downsize and organize, because I don’t need to. And I am probably not going to eat less, because I don’t need to do that, either. But “Move more; experience more; model kindness; and find joy in even the smallest things.” Yep! Also take more photographs. New Year’s Resolutions 2019.

I went back in time to see what my New Year’s Resolutions of 2018 were. As far as I can tell, I didn’t make any, but I suspect the only resolution I cared about was finishing Grace. Well, and living a good life, enjoying my time, watching R graduate, all those things, too. But finishing Grace is the big one, so I’m totally counting that as resolution accomplished.

And now it’s time to get today’s resolution underway: words, more words. Happy New Year!

Photo Review, 2018: July – December

30 Sunday Dec 2018

Posted by in Best of, Photography, Randomness, Zelda

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

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Zelda hiding in the blueberries
I’m not really picking pictures that represent the month to me, just the ones I like that I hadn’t posted before. But this image screams, “SUMMER,” to me. Zelda in the blueberries, Allentown, PA. July 2018.
Zelda close-up
More Zelda. Upstate New York, August, 2018.
Sunrise on Prince Edward Island
Sunrise, Prince Edward Island. September, 2018.
A fishing boat on Cape Cod
A fishing boat on Cape Cod, MA. October, 2018. It was surrounded by seals and seagulls, waiting for the discards.
Zelda
Not a month of many pictures! I was too busy writing Cici. But not so busy that I didn’t have time to admire my dog’s cuteness. Zelda, Sanford, FL. November, 2018.
Christmas lights
The view from my window. Sanford, FL. December 2018.

Photo Review: 2018, Jan – June

29 Saturday Dec 2018

Posted by in Photography, Travel, Vanlife

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

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sunset in Trimble Park, Mount Dora, FL
Sunset at Trimble Park, Mount Dora, FL. January 2018
A flowering tree in Sarasota
Flowering tree in Sarasota, FL. February 2018
Stairs at Cloud Canyon Park in Georgia
Stairs in Cloud Canyon Park, Georgia. March, 2018. (We did not go down these stairs. The holes in the grid are big enough that Z’s feet slipped through, which was sort of terrifying. I was sure she was going to break her leg before I could rescue her!)
Sunset in Arkansas with bare trees
Sunset in Arkansas, April 2018. It was freezing cold that day, with hints of white flakes falling from the sky. The bare trees were so beautiful, though!
Iris
An iris in Allentown, PA. May, 2018. (That is an iris, isn’t it? It’s a beautiful flower, one way or another!)
A deer in Ohio.
Clearly wilderness, right? But this was a park in Ohio, which is not exactly the first state I think of when it comes to wilderness! June, 2018.

Looking back on 2018

23 Sunday Dec 2018

Posted by in Personal, Pets, Photography, Randomness, Travel

≈ 15 Comments

Every day my computer chooses a different picture to put as my background picture. I’m pretty sure they’re from images that I drop into a folder labeled “Background Pictures” every now and then, which I think I set up somewhere in the settings back when I first got this computer, several years ago. But every morning, I get to be surprised by the picture that shows up. This morning’s picture is from diamond mining in Arkansas.

the diamond mine in Arkansas

Yesterday’s was the black bear spotted on the day of the eclipse in Washington State. There was also an interesting bird this week, which I’m pretty sure was a picture I took in Sarasota, and a tree that I didn’t remember at all. It was a pretty tree, though.

Last year, I did an end of year double-post, with a picture for each month. (First half of the year: Second half of the year.) Not necessarily the picture that represented the month in any way, just an image that I hadn’t previously posted that struck me as a good photo. I was thinking about doing the same thing for this year, except I felt like it wasn’t such an interesting year and that I didn’t take as many photos. When I think back on the year, the first thing that I think about is Bartleby and missing him. In fact, if you asked me about 2018, I would say that it was a lot of boring doctor visits for me that turned out to be nothing, and a ton of horrible vet visits for the dogs that were never nothing.

I would be so very wrong. Well, not about the doctor visits and the vet visits, but about that being the sum total of the year. The year was also driving the Natchez Trace, snow and hot springs in Arkansas, sunshine and the costumed college graduation in Sarasota, open spaces in Ohio, blueberries, Vermont, driving through Canada, the gorgeous Prince Edward Island & Nova Scotia, friends and family in Massachusetts, and then a whole bunch of peaceful Florida time.

With the exception of Canada, though, from which I have an insane number of beautiful sunset shots over the ocean, not so many good photographs. I am still going to do a post or two of the best photos of 2018 for me, but I’m not choosing from a position of crazy abundance this year. This does, however, set me up for my very first New Year’s Resolution for 2019: take more photographs!

In 2017, I was taking a photo a day, every day, as a mindfulness exercise that reminded me to look for the beauty in wherever I was. I let go of it in 2018 (along with all my other daily tasks), because I felt like I was overwhelming myself with rules, things that I had to do all the time, and turning my life into a to-do list. But I think I want to bring at least a few of those daily tasks back into my life because it’s really much too easy to get lost in the business of living and forget to savor it as it happens.

This morning, I tried to take photos of the full moon setting over the park. None of them turned out, because I was using my phone and the camera on the phone really can’t cope with moon shots. But Z and I were walking right at dawn, the full moon was huge and white, the air was so crisp (42 degrees) that I was wearing my eggplant coat and feeling grateful for it, and some of the neighbors still had their Christmas lights on and sparkling. It was so beautiful that I started singing “Joy to the World” — and then someone else walking their dog appeared and I shut up, embarrassed to be singing. But I hope at some future day I reread this post and remember that feeling. It was a very good feeling. And I wish I had a photo that could evoke it for you!

So far, so good

05 Monday Nov 2018

Posted by in NaNo, Photography

≈ 9 Comments

I’m currently staying in my friend C’s driveway: it’s a comfortable and familiar driveway, so I’m not exactly taking a lot of pictures. I decided to start this post, therefore with a throwback photo from some other November 4th. The only photo I’ve ever taken on November 4th (at least in the era from which I have photos stored on my computer) was of the tree that I had two photos of in my last post.

another autum color photo

The same old tree

I thought that was really interesting and kind of cool, and then I realized… today’s not November 4th, it’s the 5th. Oh, well, it’s still a pretty picture of a tree. And in answer to a previous question, I have no idea what kind of tree it is. I hope it manages to survive Pennsylvania’s lanternfly invasion, though. Those bugs were absolutely everywhere when I left PA.

So far, NaNoWriMo is going well for me. My story may make no sense when I’m done, but it’s quite fun and I’m enjoying the serendipity of discovery writing. I resolved when I started that I would never backtrack, no revisions along the way. No such thing as a bad direction (with the exception of my “delete the last three paragraphs” die roll.) Twice already — in the first five days! — I’ve discovered that I’m headed down a path that wasn’t where I meant to go. Instead of “fixing” it, I’ve played along. Honestly, that is so much more fun than revising. A thing to remember for the future, perhaps.

I was going to give you a snippet, because I am amusing myself, but one of my other new NaNo principles is no rereading what I’ve written and it’s hard to find a snippet without reading. Also, a lot of the parts that are most amusing to me are either spoilers or require context. So I will spare you a snippet. But now I will get back to writing, because I’m still aiming to write at least another 1000 words today — along with laundry and dishwashing and cooking prep and a shower and dinner with a friend. My clock is ticking fast!

Moving on from MA

05 Friday Oct 2018

Posted by in Photography, Randomness, Travel

≈ 9 Comments

I am exhausted.

I feel like I shouldn’t say that — people are working three jobs, moms with chronic illnesses are dragging themselves out of bed to get their kids to school every day, nurses are ten hours into their 12-hour shifts, 70-year-old Walmart greeters are standing on hard floors for minimum wage… lots and lots of people have more right to be exhausted than I do. But despite my sympathy for all those people, I’m still exhausted.

Fortunately, it won’t last long. I had an extremely busy, very sociable week in Massachusetts, visiting Rockport, Boston, Gloucester, Cape Cod, and Maynard. Lots of movement, lots of driving, lots of talking. My goodness, the talking. I basically went days without talking to anyone but the dog in Canada, so I made up for lost time over the past week.

But now I’m back in Pennsylvania, experimenting with staying in my brother’s guest room (technically my nephew’s room, but he’s not using it at the moment), and planning a reasonably quiet, business-intensive couple of weeks. Lots of writing, lots of file updating, maybe some researching. But probably not so much of all that today, actually. Today I think I’m going to be satisfied with going through my photos, writing this blog post, making a to-do list, and walking the dog. And maybe cooking dinner.

Also, though, taking advantage of real internet to be indiscriminate about the pictures that I liked from the last week.

A seagull in Rockport

Sun rising in Rockport

A fisherman already hard at work in Rockport

A fisherman already hard at work in Rockport

Crashing waves in Cape Cod

Crashing waves in Cape Cod

A lighthouse on Cape Cod

Cape Cod lighthouse

Glooscap Campground, Parrsboro, Nova Scotia

17 Monday Sep 2018

Posted by in Campground, Food, Photography, Reviews, Travel

≈ 11 Comments

I have a zillion pictures of this campground. And I would google zillion right now, to see just how hyperbolic I’m being (pretty darn hyperbolic, I have to admit) but my internet is down to super-slow speeds so I’m not going to. I think Verizon might be hinting that it’s time to stop using the Canadian cell towers, sigh. My super-slow internet also means that I’m not going to post my zillion pictures. Instead, I’m going to have to decide on one or maybe two that I will watch upload in painfully slow motion. It’s not an easy decision, made more difficult by the fact that none of them are good enough.

None of them capture the sound of the water. It changes, and I’m not sure I’ve ever actually spent enough time sitting by a beach to realize how much the sound of the waves varies over the course of the day. Or maybe it’s just this beach. The tide goes way, way out — in the middle of the day, there’s half a desert between me and the water, but in the morning, it’s more of a wide rocky strip. Sometimes the water is very quiet, gently brushing against the shore, so still that even listening hard I can barely hear it, and then sometimes it’s lapping at the shore so loudly that I’m reminded that yes, I am sitting next to the ocean. (Sort of the ocean, anyway. I’m on the shores of the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia.)

And no photo can capture the feel of the air. The weather has been lovely — sometimes sunny enough that it actually does feel hot, although I doubt the temperature has broken 75, and sometimes foggy enough that it definitely feels chilly, but mostly hovering in the mid-60s. But it’s just not the temperature — it’s the perfect level of humidity. It feels like there’s always just a light breeze, carrying a little bit of moisture.

And for some reason, none of my photos are getting the colors right. There’s an incredible number of wildflowers blooming right now. I’m looking outside the van window as I write at an expanse of yellow-gold and green, but the pictures capture the blue of the ocean behind the gold and turn the gold into a dull yellow that doesn’t come anywhere close to looking right.

ocean view with wildflowers

Not the right gold at all, but this is the view from Serenity’s door. The flowers are so much brighter than they look here.

And, of course, it’s impossible to take a photo of the moon and the stars, but I’ve watching them every night from my window as I go to sleep. Here’s a thing that made me feel stupid: over two years of living in the van, and I never realized that the tinted windows were distorting the brightness level of the stars. I’ve been sleeping with the window open and they’re so much more beautiful that way.

It would be nice to see the stars without the screens, too, but that’s never going to happen because the one thing about Nova Scotia that is really not working for me are the voracious mosquitoes. They’re not as bad as they were at the farm on Prince Edward Island, but I keep needing to tell myself that to tolerate them. Almost every walk on the beach ends when the mosquitoes find me and I wind up needing to escape from the ones that are dive-bombing my face. Still, they’re not constant — they’re worst at dusk and dawn, and in the middle of the day, I’ve been sitting outside perfectly happily. So excuse the whining!

I do really love this campground, love that is definitely helped by the fact that I have a perfect site. I started out last week at a pull-through spot, sort of in the middle of the campground, and it was still nice. I had a good view of the ocean, although a better view of my neighbors’ campers, and the beach was still a very easy walk away. The campground’s not too big, with both seasonal and tent spots, and it’s not too busy either, this time of year. They have a “stay three, get one free” deal, so I was going to stay four nights.

But after two nights, a spot opened up right next to the cliff that overlooks that water and I thought, “hmm…” so I wandered back up to the office and asked if I could have it. Yep. I paid for another three (four) nights after that, so when I leave here on Wednesday, I will have been here for eight nights! Eight! It’s close to my longest stay at any campground, and if I didn’t have reservations and plans for later in the month, I think I’d probably be aiming to stay even longer.

Sunset

Another view from the door.

Yesterday, I ate blueberry pancakes with tiny wild Canadian blueberries and Vermont maple syrup, plus Berkshire bacon from the organic farm, while sitting at a picnic table watching horseback riders on the beach. I wondered whose life was more perfect at that moment, the horseback riders splashing through the water or me, and concluded that I won because my pancakes were crazily delicious (gluten-free) and they were probably surrounded by mosquitoes. But it did feel unreal in a most lovely sort of way.