My online journal sharing interests in photography, nature, coffee life, journaling, fountain pens, bicycling, spirituality and asking deep questions.
First Tom did it, then Earl did it. So, I did it. I had to! Thought it would be wise to follow suit with two accomplished photographers. As many of you know I’ve been toying with upgrading for quite some time. Well, the time arrived. And, the camera and lens just arrived. Battery is charging. I’ll keep you informed as I get a better grasp on this upgrade. It was inevitable!
I am fully aware I do not get out for many nature and landscape images as I have in years past. Maybe, just a season in my life? I can’t point to one specific reason but here are few excuses I’ve used; sloth, age, lack of desire, need a better camera or lens, I’m not good enough, too far to drive or a few other excuses I can conjure up in my mind. Now that I’ve written that it’s obvious I need to have a talk with myself because none of those excuses are true. Gratefully, I’m not beating on myself about this and still taking images focused more on street and documentary.
Yes, I’ve been playing around with Lightroom on some images from the past, adjusting colors and any other slider I can find. I’ve been asking myself, “Well what does this one do?” and then see what happens. When it’s an ooops, I type command Z to get back to where I was and try the next one. I feel a bit like a kid.
“Photography is not about cameras, gadgets and gizmos. Photography is about photographers. A camera didn’t make a great picture any more than a typewriter wrote a great novel.” Peter Adams
A few days ago Fujifilm announced the release of the pro Fujifilm X-T3 camera body and the new Fujifilm XF16-80mm f4.0 lens now in a kit. The lens is something I really want and will most likely buy in the future, but I really do not need the pro camera. However, in a very short time I was convincing myself I’d make better images with two new tools and my mind became totally occupied on working out a plan to justify the purchase of both. It took several hours of this mental masterbation before reality checked in and I knew that no lie could justify the purchase of both. Maybe I should post the above quote on my bathroom mirror to help me remember. Or, maybe I should sell my condo and buy the kit. Or, my car. I know, I’ll take out a second mortgage. Sell my oldest grandchild. Sigh!
“A mystic is anyone who has a gnawing suspicion that the apparent discord, brokenness, contradiction, and discontinuities that assault us every day might conceal a hidden unity.”―
With all the leaves we now have on the ground I decided to play with some of my cameras presets. I like the miniature settings and may use that more often.
Well, I’m not sure what happened with my WordPress website. I upgraded to the latest WordPress and things immediately fell apart. I could not log on or access my website. I started a chat with my hosting service who got me back to a starting place. None of my themes would work. My dashboard looked like it did over a year ago. Right now you are seeing a simple free theme from WordPress. Actually I may just stick with something like this. Anyway, as you can see I started this morning with a mocha. Please give me feedback on anything that’s not working.
Now sitting at a coffee shop looking to the mountains in the west. They are now being shrouded by clouds as a storm moves into the Colorado Front Range. There will be more snow and plenty of cold over the next few days.
Spent almost 6 hours with Adobe support yesterday trying to get Lightroom Classic installed and running. I had to let them have control of this new computer on a couple of occasions. Amazing, this technology and how far behind I am. They had to go into my keychain, which I knew nothing about, and delete some Adobe files that were dated back to 2009. Whew! It was a test of my patience and think theirs. Now have Lightroom working and used it for the above image. See, I’m already a better photographer. And, it was a raw file rather than a jpeg.
I can feel the difference in this keyboard. There will be an adjusting period. Don’t suppose this new laptop will make me a better typist? I may type faster which means I can misspell more words faster. 🙂