I follow both Scott and Laurie's blogs daily. Laurie is someone I would be thrilled to take a workshop with. The two workshops of hers I'm particularly interested in are the storm chasing workshop and the Alaskan bears workshop.
No pictures from me today. I slipped outside just as the sun was setting to shoot more of the blue vase photos. I'm giving up on the vase as a subject.
I had trouble with dust, spots, scratches showing up on the glass of this blue vase I shot. I actually like the composition and color of the photo. I don't know how people shoot closeups without seeing all the dirt, scratches, smudges etc. (If you click on the photo to enlarge it you'll see what I'm talking about.)
I used a 100mm macro which just magnified all these flaws. I also had trouble getting the vase in focus while having the back ground pillow fabric out of focus. I wanted to get in close to my subject so using the 50mm lens was out of the question as the closest I can shoot with it is 1.5 feet.
I won't be submitting this photo for the blue lesson. It will go the way of the other 50 shots I took today......into the trash. I didn't get a photo I like, however I did get to learn more about what I don't want to do, what doesn't work.
So, like posting my high golf scores, I'll be posting my photo rejects. And, the keepers of course.
Practice, practice, practice seems to be the mantra in all areas of my life these days.
Ray and I tee off tomorrow at 8:15am. Wish me a good attitude and a few good shots.
We got home tonight from the Book Study in LA at 11:10pm.
Tomorrow morning I want to hit some balls at the driving range at 7am......which means I will have to get up at 5am.......that's 5 hours and 20 minutes from right now.
Katya arrived last night around 11pm. It was balmy outside when I drove to the front gate to let Katya in. I was tired, but the pool was beckoning me. Katya brought her overnight bag in the house and we walked right back out to the pool. I brought my camera out hoping to get a blog photo for last night's entry. But we had too much fun, taking photos, playing in the water (I taught Katya how to squirt water from hands clasped underwater) and chatting. After the pool, after posting to Facebook, after taking my pills, writing out my food for the day to send to Xochitl, I was too tired to blog. It was 1am and I had someone coming at 8:30 to do step work.
Katya worked for me today. The job? To clean out my clothes in 3 closets, organize the remaining clothes into summer and winter clothes, and make notes of what I need to buy to make more outfits with the remaining clothes.
Around 2pm, after all the closets and clothes had been worked on we went out to buy shoes. 10 pairs of shoes, plus one purse, in one hour! Katya is fast and good. I never feel comfortable in shoes. I never wear high heels. Yet today I came home with heels and comfortable shoes.
Katya is one hell of a great personal shopper and wardrobe organizer. This is the second time she has helped me with my clothes and the second time she has succeeded in making me a very happy person (not always easy to do).
I'm sure LR won't mind my spending the money I did today. Right LR?
I recently splurged and bought an expensive Canon lens....the Canon 70-200mm 2.8 L series lens. It's soooooo heavy. Two days ago I took this lens outside my backdoor and shot some of the shots below, hand holding this almost 4 pound lens (fitted with a Really Right Stuff L84 tripod bracket for collared lens attached.)
All of the photos came out "soft" - not in crisp focus. Bummer. I intended to post the photos anyway, but couldn't. I was embarrassed. Here I spent all this money and couldn't even shoot a decent in-focus hand held shot in good light.
After a little thought, I decided, I am going to post these photos for the reasons listed:
First reason - so hopefully, some day I'll look back and say, "Wow, have you improved Linda."
Second reason- to help keep me accountable to practicing. I don't like looking bad in front of people, so I'll be posting practice photos to keep me on track with this out-there-for-all-to-see stated commitment.
Third reason - I need to get over expecting to get better without putting in the time and effort. I posted a great blog entry in Facebook today by a woman blogger I so identify with. Her blog was titled: "Work First, Tools later." My pattern is to buy the gear and believe by having the gear, I'll get better. Silly, I know.
Fourth reason - To be an example to my ladies that I only ask of them, what I ask of myself.
Yesterday, after a frustrating round of golf, with many good shots, but lots of triples and a quadruple or two, I mentioned to Ray that maybe I should start posting my golf scores in this blog. "Why, he asked?" And before I answered, he said, "Yeah, you should." He knows I try much harder and do better when I am accountable to people. Sooooo, I shot a 99 yesterday. Ouch!. More golf scores to follow in this blog as I play.
Ok, here is a photo I shot with the Canon 70 - 200 2.8, around 6pm. I had a lens hood on and was shooting almost in the direction of the lowered sun. What caught my eye, was the silhouette of the sunbathing bird in the reflected light on the water.
This egret flew as Ray hit his shot while playing on the Pete Dye course. Photo is shot with my small Canon Powershot A650, zoomed in some. As the bird flew off, I quickly tried to capture it by panning, following the bird with my camera. Obviously the shutter speed was too fast and didn't blur the background, just my cute little bird.
Shot outside our back door with the large Canon 70 - 200 lens. I tried moving closer but I could tell the bird's comfort level was decreasing with my approaching presence.
Canon 70 - 200 lens
Shot with my small Canon Powershot A650. Looked a lot better when I was actually seeing the reflection as we left the green.
I started this blog entry last Thursday, but forgot to finish it. (A friend emailed me asking if I was OK, as I hadn’t written a blog in the last 5 days.) My confession……………I joined FACEBOOK and have been so addicted to it; I neglected my blog (which doesn’t make me, or probably you, happy.)
Since having recently canceled my month long July backpack, I know I made the right decision. Backpacking isn't doing it for me. Not to mention that backpacking is getter harder and harder for me every year. I have also resented not having enough free time for photography (and now golf that I am playing again.). Now I have the time. I am excited again.
Fortunately I have been gifted with this freedom that I am enough….meaning, I am not defined by the oohs and aws anymore that I'd get when I mentioned that I long distance backpacked. I don't have to prove my worth to anyone anymore. All I want to do is do what "I" want to do...And, finally I'm learning what I like, what brings me joy, what is fun. Cupcake once wrote in his CDT backpacking trail journal, "Where is the fun in the day?" I really want to slow down to find and enjoy the fun in my days. Only I stop me. I’ve always been graced with a life I could live anyway I wanted. I think I’m finally ready to retire, just like my husband did 3.5 years ago. Yeah, I too deserve to retire from my own self imposed, quilt driven, work ethic (to prove to you all that even if I don’t have a job, I work). Ray used to comment on my life by saying, "Linda, it doesn't have to be hard to be fun." I have raced through my life trying to be enough.
Even my photos record visually how I race through life. Below is an email I saved from my photo teacher, written after we'd worked together over a year or more.The email reflects her initial perception of me, before she knew me, after initially having viewed my Gottago's Adventure website photos before we started our relationship as teacher/student. So here is the email my teacher wrote after she'd had me in a number of her classes.
"You know what's interesting, Linda, is that when you signed up for
your very first online class and you gave me your website address, I
could tell IMMEDIATELY from your pictures that you needed to slow
down, to take a deep breath and think before clicking the shutter.
Knowing that when I did, so early in the game, I feel I've been remiss
in not pointing it out to you often enough throughout the online
classes and in the two in-the-field workshops you've taken. Better
late than never, I guess, but yeah, I can remember the "this woman
needs to slow down" flash going through my brain from the very beginning.
This doesn't just apply to you, however. We ALL need to slow down and
think before we shoot. Why are we taking this shot? What do we like
about the scene? What's the light doing? Are there weird things in the
background? Are there ugly hot spots that will ruin the picture?
Where's the movement in this scene? Am I including too much? Not
enough? Would this be better as a vertical? What's my ISO? Is my
exposure compensation dial accidentally still set to 3 stops
underexposed from the last shot? And much, much, more . . . Sometimes
I'm amazed we ever get around to clicking the shutter!"
I need help in slowing down. It’s NOT easy for me. I just signed up for another online photography classwith Carol Leigh. Hopefully this class with keep me accountable with taking time and seeing.
My husband and I moved to the desert a year and a half ago after he retired from the Motion Picture Industry where he had been a property master over 40 years.
12 years ago I found backpacking. 10 years ago I backpacked the PCT from Mexico to Canada.
My life has involved one sport or another but usually when I find a new sport I throw myself into the new sport to the exclusion of last sport. I've loved tennis, paddle tennis, racquetball, marathon running, golf,and fishing.
I've always recorded my life by taking lots of photos. I'd like to make time to seriously learn how to "see" photos rather than just mindlessly snapping away.
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