Final Farewell

It is with sad news that we must report that John has passed on.  The link to the obituary is below.

http://smithfhmantua.com/book-of-memories/2094139/McDevitt-John/obituary.php

 

 

 

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2014 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 12,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

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Generations

Here’s the first post from the photos I took over the Christmas Holiday.

Click to enlarge

From left to right: Carmel Jones – my mother-in-law, Daughters Sue and Erin, Twin Granddaughters Maddy in front, Livvy behind.

I took five shots and this one turned out best. I do like it. I used my new FujiFilm X10. I like that camera. It takes good quality photos and it’s not a point and shoot with no control. Can’t wait to get out in the woods (when I’m feeling better and the weather is warmer).

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Green Lion Underpants

How about a wimpy guy who likes to pretend that he’s a lion in front of his bathroom mirror? He never does this outside the bathroom, door closed and locked, private space. He doesn’t want to share his elation and he won’t submit to the ridicule of pretend lions wearing bright green underpants.

Then there was the kid who always wore plain white underpants decorated with wimpy green lions. He cried about it but tears couldn’t change his mother’s mind. So he was forced to pretend that his lions were green so they could hide in the tall green grass. He liked his new lion friends — they seemed like normal lions but when the little boy finally understood the lion language well enough, he discovered that the lions hated green.

They didn’t want to remain a prisoner of the underpants either. The boy wished and promised and begged and cried until one day he heard a voice and looked up to see an old bedraggled wizard standing in the middle of his bedroom.

“What do you want kid? I can’t stand the nagging.”

The kid showed the wizard his green lion underpants and before he got a word out, the wizard began laughing.

The wizard mumbled something, pointed his wand at the green lions and there was a brief flash of light.

The wizard looked at the kid with a serious expression on his face (the wizard’s face) and told the kid: “Be careful. The next person who touches your underpants after you take them off will exchange places with the green lions.”

The wizard laughed and disappeared with a loud pop. The poor kid stood there in the middle of his bedroom wondering if he was imagining things when the door opened and his mother burst into the room.

“I’m doing the wash this morning so get that dirty underwear off and put into the hamper.”

It was hard to hear over the noise of the washer but the little boy thought he heard a lion roar. How was he to explain his new underpants?

THE END

Couldn’t help myself. I wrote this little story one morning while writing my morning pages. It just spilled out.

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2013 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 18,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 7 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

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An Early Snow and my new FujiFilm X10

Click to enlarge for the best viewing

 

I finally bought a digital camera that I can like, a FujiFilm X10. My price point for a good enough digital camera was around $500. Part of me wanted a dslr, another part wanted a Leica (yeah right!) and another part of me wanted to keep things simple by using my new smart phone (yeah I finally got one of those too).

When Fuji released the X20 the street price of the older X10 dropped. I couldn’t resist the $299 sale price on B&H a few weeks ago so I bought one. Here’s one of my first shots taken during an early snow we had last week. I opened the front door and stepped out for this shot.

This camera is so retro it has a threaded cable release socket in the shutter release just like the film cameras I so love. I’m not giving up on film, I just want the convenience of an excellent digital camera that fits into my coat pocket. The X10 is a good start.

Fuji knows film and their film simulation modes are excellent. I took about 100 photos over the Christmas holidays and 25 are worth keeping. I’ll probably post a few over the next week or so.

I’m still learning how to get the most out of my new camera. I’ll figure it out while having some fun.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.

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Gladiolas from my Archives

I was rummaging through my archives on my old external hard drive when I found some nice pics of flowers.

The original of this photo was scanned from a color transparency. I remember taking a series of pictures using a black cloth for a background. I don’t remember the steps I took to get this black and white version, but I like it so here it is again. Looking at the image refreshed my memory. I converted the color image to black and white then reversed the image. What you are looking at is actually a negative. Works for me.

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Back to the Soccer Field in Color

As the founder and president of AAOF (American Association of Old Farts) I take advantage of certain privileges such as sitting in a folding chair on the sidelines when we go to watch any of our granddaughters play soccer.

Click anywhere on the image to enlarge.

We have six granddaughters and all of them are soccer players now.  Livvy (on the left) and Maddy (on the right) just started their soccer career a few weeks ago and they love it.

I had a roll of Kodak Ektar color print film in my Nikon F3HP and my 75-150mm zoom lens mounted so I could get close without getting out of my seat. A bonus that comes with the seat — I don’t have to get down on my creaky knees to take photos of the kids (you need to get down to their level for decent photos).

I’m not giving up on B&W but I do have to inject some color every now and then. Hope you like it.

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Lovely Bleeding Hearts

I bought two rolls of Kodak Ektar color film in early spring with the idea that I would dust off my tripod and capture lots of macro images of flowers and other lovely things. Other stuff has a way of intruding on life so I didn’t get lots of images this year but I did get one.

Click anywhere on the image to enlarge.

Nice to know that I can still do color and if I can only manage one image all spring and summer, that one image had better be good and this one makes me happy.

Back in the olden times when film was king and I was still working, I worked with color almost exclusively. I used Fuji color transparency exclusively because I had access to a great lab where I worked. I don’t use color much these days because I prefer B&W for a number of reasons. Decent color labs are all but gone now so, when I do use color I use Ektar color print film.

Today’s Ektar is a modern implementation that’s optimized for scanning. Color negative film can be a bitch to get the colors right but I used a neat trick when I scanned using VueScan.

You know that piece of unexposed film on the end of the roll of negatives? Yes that one. Load it into your scanner and preview the frame. Click on input then scroll down and check off lock film exposure. Run preview again, scroll down again, this time to lock film base color.

Now VueScan knows how to expose the rest of the roll but more importantly renders colors correctly.

Ektar is cheaper than color transparency film and I get the film processed by Mpix for $6.65. And I send the film in the mail using free mailers provided by Mpix. Ektar is great color film and I have another roll. The first roll took half a year. I wonder how long it might take me to shoot the second roll?

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Taking a Break on the Soccer Field

Hooray, I finally have some new images to share with you. Livvy and Maddy, our nearly five year old twin granddaughters are playing soccer now. Have a look.

Here’s Livvy and Maddy taking a break on the soccer field. Livvy is number seven. Maddy is standing to Livvy’s right. They have a practice and a ‘game’ on Saturday morning at 9:00 AM. This photo was taken a few weeks ago.

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