I had to do it, though. I had to get away. People ask me, "Why? You're retired, you live on a lake in God's Country, you have a nice house, a bunch of toys (ATV, boat...). What are you getting away FROM?".
I know a lot of people who are of retirement age or getting there. You have to understand, I need a purpose in my life. People envy me, that I can choose to go up to Algonquin Park on the spur of the moment, because I heard that there might be aurora borealis tonight, or friends have spotted bears gorging on blueberries at Mew Lake airfield. That I can stay up until 4 am or sleep in until noon (no I can't, but that's another story!).
I remember my dad used to say the same thing before he died. He and mom lived in a senior's home and he used to spend his time working on his financial "bible" because he had nothing else to do. I used to think that would never happen to me, I have too many hobbies and interests, but you know what? It did.
I took up painting. That's frustrating when you don't have built-in talent. I gave up trying to play music, except sporadically when the mood hits, because although I appreciate hearing great music, I really suck at playing. I took a week-long creative writing course at Fleming College in order to re-awaken the desire to write fiction: I've always wanted to and have started dozens of books and stories over the years, and never finished one! More on that later. I have my cameras and computers, they take a lot of my time and are vehicles for expressing myself.
Family and friends? I'm really bad at keeping up relationships. It's easy to say that's something to work on and get better at, a lot harder to do. The bulk of my guilty conscience is related to this but it's hard for me.
As I write this, I'm on the eve of my 71st birthday. I've been living with cancer for 14 years. Who knows how much longer? I have an overwhelming desire to make a mark but I haven't figured out how. Writing this down and especially sharing it, is cathartic, and maybe, just maybe it will spur me into action.
I was doing a DSLR course this week and we were at the Minden Wild Water Preserve yesterday. This guy landed 10' behind us and wouldn't leave, even though I had only arranged for him to be there for a short visit (when I do a camera workshop, you get more than you expected! LOL ). We got tired of shooting him after close to an hour! We left before he did.
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This is straight out of camera with a minor crop for composition. Spot metering and exposure compensation, class! Great Blue Heron, if you didn't know. |
Did you know that TopazLab's "Studio" is free?
Do you know what it is?
Topaz Studio is a Photographer's editing toolbox. It works independently of other platforms — you don't need to have Photoshop or Lightroom or... (although it does operate as a plugin within those programs if you want it to).
Studio contains a whole lot of adjustment tools that you can use for free. But Topaz also offers extra full-detailed control of some of those adjustment tools if you want, at nominal cost. You can get some or all of them but you don't need to.
Studio also supports the Topaz plug-ins and they're gradually being ported over to the Studio platform. Topaz Clarity was offered on sale last week and this week, it's my FAVOURITE plugin, Topaz Impression. So you can call up Impression from inside Studio and it will knock your socks off. The Puffin sketch was done in Impression.
If you already own Topaz plug-ins, they'll appear in Studio. Or you can purchase them individually and as I said, Impression is on sale at 40% off through September 29th.
Do you know what it is?
Topaz Studio is a Photographer's editing toolbox. It works independently of other platforms — you don't need to have Photoshop or Lightroom or... (although it does operate as a plugin within those programs if you want it to).
Studio contains a whole lot of adjustment tools that you can use for free. But Topaz also offers extra full-detailed control of some of those adjustment tools if you want, at nominal cost. You can get some or all of them but you don't need to.
Studio also supports the Topaz plug-ins and they're gradually being ported over to the Studio platform. Topaz Clarity was offered on sale last week and this week, it's my FAVOURITE plugin, Topaz Impression. So you can call up Impression from inside Studio and it will knock your socks off. The Puffin sketch was done in Impression.
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Click the image to go to full-screen. Look at the eye. I painted the keylights on the eye using techniques that Hilarie McNeil-Smith taught me many years ago. They were also sketched over but I decided I wanted to see the eye in all its glory so I masked the sketch out (also a little of the blue and yellow areas). All in Impression, called from within Topaz Studio. |
If you already own Topaz plug-ins, they'll appear in Studio. Or you can purchase them individually and as I said, Impression is on sale at 40% off through September 29th.
Here are some links for you.
For all the details, answers to pretty well any questions you have, and to download the FREE Topaz Studio platform, go here: https://web.topazlabs.com/ref/32/
For the Topaz Impression plugin (which will also work with your existing platform) at 40% discount, go here: http://web.topazlabs.com/impression/ref/32/
From the "Sporadic Musings" file. A Rant...
This was prompted by the backlash from a story about how an order issued by a McDonald's manager in Yellowknife forbidding the employees to speak their native language while on the job was rescinded by the franchise owner.
Imagine you lived in a place where you were not allowed to speak English.{/rant}
I grew up in Montreal. I left there in 1983 (would have been earlier if I could have) because the Quebec government legislated that it was illegal for me to speak my native language — English — in the workplace and indeed that it was only because they were doing a special favour for those who were educated as Anglophones in Quebec, that they allowed my children to be educated in English.
So you can see that I have a strong aversion to any government (or other group) interfering in how I live my private life. I should be able to speak whatever language I wish, I should be able to practice whatever religion I prefer and I should be able to express my sexual orientation any way I want to. It's nobody's business as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else..
A similar policy was put in place at the Senior's home where my mother lived before she died: workers had to speak only English on the job. There was no practical possibility of moving her elsewhere but I would have had one presented itself.
We live in a country that runs under free enterprise. Sure, we lean a lot more left than we did when I was growing up, and we have a lot more socialist services than we had in the past (Medicare and Education come to mind first) but I'll tell you this: consumers in our system are free to choose where they do business. If you don't like the fact that people speak other languages or have other cultural, religious or gender orientations in the restaurant or shop or home where you live, then you are totally free to eat or shop or live elsewhere. Or start your own enterprise. If you own a business and customers start staying away in droves, you may want to rethink your policies, but it's your business, it's your call.
And by the way, you should think about that next time you go out for dinner and eat "har gow" or "maki" or "calamari" or "pad Thai" or "souvlaki" or "schnitzel" or "hummus" or "boeuf Bourgignon"... these are all non-English dishes with non-English names. Think about it.
I'm proud of the fact that I live in a country that celebrates diversity and makes it work in a non-confrontational environment. What's happening on the other side of the border, where the racist right is persecuting everyone who is not a white, straight, Anglo-Saxon male, echoing Germany in the 1930's is downright scary. We should build a wall...
RECOMMENDATION:
600A Peak 15000mAh Portable Car Jump Starter
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I put a business card in the picture to give you a sense of scale. The unit is 6" x 3" x 1", and weighs about a pound. The battery inside is Li-Ion. |
I bought one of these things for $65CDN on Amazon. I have both a boat and an ATV with potential battery issues and although I didn't really believe that something this small (and inexpensive) would do the job, I figured I could always return it if it didn't live up to expectations.
I went down to the boat yesterday after several days absence and some on-and-off rain through the week. My bilge pump runs automatically if water gets in the bilge (my boat doesn't have a cover) and it can drain the battery. That's what I discovered. Trying to start the engine resulted in a resounding "click" and silence.
Long story short, I hooked this thing up to the battery and the engine started right away, as if I had a full charge in the 50lb marine battery. And the old 85hp 2-stroke Evinrude doesn't fire on the first crank, it takes several seconds of cranking with full choke, then close the choke and crank again to start it.
I was shocked it worked so well. The charge on the unit dropped to about 3/4, so it still had lots more juice. I plugged it into the USB in the car and it was charged up full in half an hour.
It looks like this particular one is out of stock at Amazon but there are lots more like it listed. I looked for high cranking amps and reasonably large storage, so 600 amps/15000mAh was what I chose.
Worked for me. It goes wherever I go (car, boat, ATV) from now on. PS, it can also power my iPhone forever, when I use it to drive my timelapse photos for hours.
Picture Time!
I put this picture up online as kind of an experiment:
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I shot this in Trinity one foggy morning. Then in post-processing, I enhanced all the colourful buildings — colour saturation, clarity, sharpness... to my eye, there's something wrong here. The buildings don't blend properly with their surroundings. I put it up anyway. Here's my premise: most people don't care about the technical details. They like a picture or they don't. It's only other photographers (or retouchers) who care. And I was right. I got tons of "Likes" and "Hearts" and positive comments both in the Newfoundland FB group and on my own general timeline and nobody commented on the processing. |
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I took my boat out and went Loon hunting on 12-Mile Lake. Found one! |
I went up to Algonquin Park, didn't see any moose and only one bear (no photo). But I did take the macro lens out, and I discovered that I could mount it on my teleconverter for a net 210mm. Less bending down!
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Dewdrops on a spider web, Mew Lake Airfield, Algonquin Park |
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Hoverfly on a wildflower |
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Wild blueberries at the Airfield |
I went back up to the Park a few nights later because I was hoping for Aurora. Nope, but I did take these...
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At the Lake of Two Rivers beach. A little light painting with a flashlight, a little Topaz Simplify... |
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...and this is at Opeongo. There's a hint of Northern Lights on the horizon, but nothing to speak of. This is a 162-image StarStax composite. |
As I mentioned at the top of the blog, I did a DSLR course last week and I invited a Great Blue Heron to join us at the white water. I'll close with a few more shots from the workshop.
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Illustrating lighting, focusing, point-of-view and composition (centre is OK when you've got symmetry). |
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North-facing window lighting, focus, spot metering |
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And this is our group, at the white water, with our invited guest! The lighting was challenging, Lightroom to the rescue! |
Parting Shot:
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Topaz Clarity, called under Topaz Studio. Minor crop in Lightroom. |
OK. I'm caught up. Back soon!
PS: Gales of November is full! Yahoo!
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