Thoughts

Well, this certainly has been a big disappointment as i began this blog to write about my photographic and non-photographic thoughts and haven't done so. I don't know what is holding me back, what my resistance is to something i want to do - or do i?

Last weekend we attended the SF Aerial Arts Festival ... it was amazing:

Yes, that's right, she had her head in the water ... an amazing dance with the bay as her partner. 

There was some kinda regatta going on as there were many of these sail boats with crews of half a dozen to a full dozen and they came quite close to the wall before making the turn back towards the bay. It was a cold, windy and somewhat dreary weather day - typical SF August weather. I love it but the tourist that are unprepared for our winterish summer, tend to spend the days fairly cold.

Somewhere . . .

I know that, somewhere, i have a photo blog but am not able to locate it now - so much like pieces of my mind: i know i know this or that but just can't seem to locate where that is.

I have, again, been encouraged by the macro work of Danae Wolfe, http://www.wolfemacrophotography.com/, and her working with a pancake lens plus an extension tube ... i've tried the same via renting the lens and using extension tubes and it worked but no better then the 60mm macro i already have. However, the flash diffuser, a Graslon Spark diffuser, is an outstanding inexpensive piece of camera equipment that i am integrating into the macro system i use. I understand why she used the pancake lens as it doesn't cast a shadow when shooting closeups and with a longer lens, the top of the lens often gets in the way of the flash. Still, there is a way to learn to work with that and i'm planning on learning how.

A few samples:

All shot with 60mm macro and Graslon Spark flash diffuser. I like the results.

And now . . .

6-13-16

O.K., i'm gonna try this again. I have an earlier blog but it would no longer let me post so i've created 'nother.

The other's link is:   http://taiyosan7.blogspot.com/ ... funny it won't work or, maybe more to the point, it is me that is not working so well.

Two days ago i returned from two weeks in NC and 10 of those days in Asheville where S and i are contemplating moving in a couple of years.

I very much like the area and saw pretty quickly that i can not live on the ocean front for three decades and not notice that is isn't so easy to adjust to mountains, humidity and relatively high temperatures. Whew ... i was surprised! Not that there were any extremes to be surprised by, but it doesn't take much to be more weather then in the SF bay area. For us 80º is hot -i think its only been that warm three days this year so far and no more of that in site until Oct, maybe.

Unless i purposely drive into the hills or onto Mt Tam, everything is, more or less, flat and i can see great sweeps of land and ocean. Not so in Asheville as there is a hill in front of you or beside you almost always ... and most of that is called The Blue Ridge Parkway (BRP).

And that is one of the attractions:BRP. It is wonderful with trails around every corner with a valley or two to look down into.

Sadly, while i did do some photograph in Asheville, i didn't do any of the town ... just gotta learn how to do that kinda shooting.