Tuesday, October 29th, 2013

Autumn has fallen

Iris & I hiked up Mt. Philo.

From the top, there is a good view of some Charlotte farmlands,

Lake Champlain, and the Adirondack Mountains of New York.

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It was a little chilly out…

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…but it was not too cold to play in the sandbox.

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Monday, October 28th, 2013

Iris goes to the doctor

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I was brave enough to ask to take a photo. Why is it so hard? Ideally, I would have been brave enough to ask the doctor to pose as I wanted. As it is, the audioscope is distracting. I should have asked Dr. Stadtmauer to hold it in her left hand, vertically, and use it in a way that shows her profile. I knew that at the time, but I was too afraid to ask. Maybe next time. But how much of a doctor’s time am I allowed to take up asking her to pose? (Yeesh, it costs enough money to go there…) In addition, due to the orange cast of the walls, it is virtually impossible to remove the orange glow from the people in the image. Poo.

 

Sunday, October 27th, 2013

…& back to Syracuse

Mom & Dad & Dan left today. Family activity: split & stack wood. Iris got to know her uncle Dan.

Dad hardly came inside except to eat. I gave him a pair of $12 gloves for days’ hard labor.

Everyone wore hearing protection. There were no arguments.

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Mom gives Iris a slice of Syracuse apple.

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Saturday, October 26th, 2013

Dad splitting, Mom stacking

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Friday, October 25th, 2013

Dolly clothes

I asked Mom to bring up some clothes for Dolly.

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Wednesday, October 23rd, 2013

8:30am-9:30am

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A softbox is a photographic lighting device.

Its purpose is to create even, diffused light byΒ directing light through a translucent material.

The effect is that of a window.

With that in mind, I keep an eye on the lighting effects of the window

that I might learn to use such light purposefully.

Tuesday, October 22nd, 2013

Joshua

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Monday, October 21st, 2013

At New Village Farm

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Sunday, October 20th, 2013

Detail

I’ve decided I want to be a photographer. Specifically, I would like to be the sort of person who gets paid to take portrait photographs and to document important events such as weddings and pregnancies and newborns and such. Death is another important event I would like to photograph, but the chance of that is pretty slim.

 

I know I have a lot to learn. I have to learn about photography stuff, such as lighting; people stuff, such as asking strangers if I can take their picture; and business stuff, such as asking for money and networking, networking, networking. I have begun to educate myself by reading books and blogs. I was reading Zack Arias’ blog when I came across a particularly intelligent comment by self-educated photographer Deanna Whyte, so I wrote her a note. She directed me to Melissa Jill’s site, among other places. What a trove of information!

 

Most of it is stuff I cannot entirely practice yet. For example, Melissa Jill talks about focus and lighting in photographing wedding detail. Wedding detail, I learned, is sort-of like “Still-Life With Cupcakes.” Wedding details are the the things that people pay a lot for at their wedding but that guests will mess up immediately. Most people probably get the general effect of wedding detail but are unable to appreciate the amount of time and attention spent on creating it.Β This is why it is good to photograph the details.

 

Invariably, aΒ few months down the road when the newlywed couple is paying off their credit card bills, the groom will say, “Honey, I can’t believe we spent two-hundred dollars on a pile of lady-fingers!” This is the perfect opportunity for the bride to pull out the wedding album and say, “Yes, Dear, but look how beautiful it was.” Then they curl together on the couch, pouring over beautiful photographs. There they loose one-another in the romance of wedding and once again completely forget about the credit card bill.

 

I want to be that photographer.

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Unfortunately, I haven’t been invited to many weddings lately. Fortunately, that does not prohibit me from photographing the concept of detail. For example, I turned the compost yesterday. Turning the compost, like wedding, is a highly ritualistic activity. People who don’t care for compost heaps might not see it that way. They certainly won’t notice the detail.

 

For example, again, I make a lot of bone broth soups. I’m not talking just chicken and turkey here; I mean cow. Cow bones are big. The decomposition rate of cattle femur is comparable to that of your average dinosaur bone. In the past year, my compost has become overrun with bones. I decided to cull them. I’ll take them to municipal composting site and let them deal with osseous waste.

 

Lest not the bones be forgotten,

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Saturday, October 19th, 2013

Telullah decorated our logs

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