Stairs

At old Richmond Beach School site, now replaced by park and new library building.

Beach

Three ships

I often go out to Richmond Beach, where I go to the library, then down to sit in my car alongside the railroad tracks. I look at my books, hope a train will go by, and watch activity on Puget Sound. Sometimes I take a picture or three out the car window. Sometimes I get out of the car and get more serious about the photography.

This blog is mostly about the "more serious about photography" images, but this particular image stuck in my head, and made me pause while browsing, more than many of the "serious about photography" images.

The photo magazines and books tend to have a ranking of photographs - of qualities that one should aspire to.

This isn't one of those photographs. It lacks many of those qualities.

Even the photograph I was after, with the right-hand ship still in the gap between the derrick and the piping, would not have qualified.

Even a photograph which had somehow avoided the intrusive sailboat mast in midframe would not have qualified.

Yet somehow, for me, this is one of my more successful photographs.

Because it is, and because I am not entirely sure why, I am blogging it today.

Until I understand why this image is important to me, I won't be able to do as well with my photography.

Because ultimately, my photography needs to be for me first, and then for my family and friends. The editors and writers of the books and magazines shouldn't even be entering into the calculation - their role is only in suggesting some things I should take into consideration, and helping me with the skills and information that will help me achieve my own purposes.

Block Play 3-D

News coming out of CES about all the 3-D stuff coming along has been fun. My recent cataract surgeries have renewed my binocular vision and rejuvenated a longtime interest in stereo views and 3-dimensional imagery.

I have just started experimenting with stereo pairs, mostly for my Block Play blog, where there is no movement in the subject, though I do not intend to limit myself.

Now I want the new Fujifilm 3D digital camera even more. For now, I will keep shifting my Olympus SP-570 sideways.

Anna's

25 December 2009
Olympia-Lacey, WA

9 10 11

I really wanted to do a '9 10 11' post.

How about this morning's early sunlight on the front yard hemlocks' "squaw wood"?

There probably should be a modern replacement term for that, but I couldn't find one with a quick google.

The stuff is more important to me than the name, so I'm amenable to changing - as long as there is at least some sense of woodsiness.

I am enjoying the enhanced detail with my post-cataract-surgery eye: not just less fog & more resolution, but more shadow detail & enhanced colors.

Will I become less satisfied with the image quality of my camera? Its reported shortcomings (compared to higher end cameras) correspond somewhat to the shortcomings I have had in my eyes. I suspect I will be more aware, but may still not consider them more important.

For now, my eye enhancements are pretty impressive - 'this one goes to eleven.'

9-10-11

Woof.

Chris

At Heather Lake, on Mount Pilchuck, with Schmoo.