Spinning My Photographic Wheels

My aspirations toward being a good--or even adequate--wildlife photographer have been dragged down a peg or two over the past year.  For one thing, I made the mistake of joining a Facebook page called "Oregon Wildlife Photographers," where people with tons more time, talent and expensive equipment than I will ever have, post beautiful, crisp, in-focus shots--unlike my somewhat fuzzy, heavily cropped and sometimes photo-shopped endeavors.  Since I became a member of that page, I have only been able to somewhat sheepishly post two barely adequate pictures.  I've been too utterly intimidated to share more than that.

Which led me to believe that perhaps my problem is with my equipment.  With my 70-300mm telephoto zoom, I still have to get pretty darned close to my subject to get an image that will crop into something resembling a decent capture.  I literally have to be standing under a tree in which a hawk or owl is perched, or in the middle of a flock of geese or cranes if I want anything breathtaking.  And I've found that those opportunities do not present themselves often enough to suit me. 

So about a year ago, I started kicking around the idea of getting a heftier telephoto. There are some Far Eastern manufacturers who now put out powerful lenses that I can afford.  I set my cap on a 350-600mm zoom put out by an outfit called Tamron.  Because the really good lenses can run into five figures, and I DO NOT have that kind of money to invest into what amounts to an enjoyable hobby.  As it is, the Tamron lens I want runs around $1k. 

But first, I realized, I had to upgrade my camera body.  My old Nikon D40 was pretty much a dinosaur when it came to DSLR's.  It has no digital view screen, a very limited range of settings compared to newer models, and it doesn't even take video (which I couldn't care less about, really.)  It wouldn't do to get a really beefy lens that my old faithful camera wouldn't be able to handle.  So the first order of business had to be a new camera body.  Mission accomplished:  a couple of weeks ago, I picked up a Nikon D7200 kitted out with two (cheap) lenses, a case, an SD card, an extra battery and an array of other little stuff, at Costco for $1400.  Nowhere near the top of the line, but certainly near the top of my budget, and perfectly adequate for the type of photography I do.  

 

Here's one of the first pictures I took--out my back door--when I got the camera home, charged up and assembled:

 

So I get this great new camera...and find I'm completely befuddled by all the shit that it can do.  The pictures I manage to get are not even as good as what I could do with my old camera.  Out of focus, over- or under-exposed, problems with the aperture and ISO settings.  I was not prepared to shell out $1400 and not be impressed and amazed.  In fact, I almost yearn for the good old days of film and real SLR's.  Yes...one had to wait weeks to see the results of one's efforts in the field.  But I feel like I had a lot more control over how a picture appeared, and options were limited enough that I could absorb and utilize them all.  My D40 had dozens of features I never used.  This new camera has hundreds.  And while I'm sure they're all wonderful and useful and should enhance my photographic experience, I feel like they just...get in the way.

The gigantic lens has been put on the back burner for a time...because I have to learn how to drive this confounded new camera before I can have a prayer of making productive use of a lens with which I am also totally unfamiliar.   To that end, I'm going to be combing the internet looking for a good online digital photography course.  Should keep me off the streets for awhile.     

Challenge

Upon checking my stats today, I notice that I have 1212 posts here on CTT.  And I thought, I wonder if I could rack that number up to 1300 by the end of this year?

Kind of a ridiculous challenge, maybe.  There are 92 days left in the year.  I would have to post just about every day.  Or twice every other day.  For someone who didn't have 88 total posts combined in 2014 and 2015, that would be asking a bit much, wouldn't it?  Kind of like trying to run a marathon after sitting on your ass for five years.

But, unlike the marathon metaphor, this exercise is unlikely to actually kill me.  It will just be very, very difficult.

So, why not?  I'm up for challenge.  Let's see how far I can get.

One down, 87 to go.

Coming to Terms Turns Thirteen

...And speaking of still being able to write things that make sense...

I've been doing this for thirteen years, now.  

Not exactly going strong anymore, but still going.

In fact, puttering along so weakly that I almost missed the occasion.  But not altogether.  

Happy Blogoversary to me.  To me and "Coming to Terms." To us.

 

No Debate

Posted this to Facebook yesterday, and it deserves a place here, as well...if only to confirm that, yes, I DO still write things that make sense.  And, I think, it needs to be part of my personal record of this moment in American history:

Just for the record: I have no intention of watching the debate tonight. That has been my policy for decades, ever since I realized that these televised opportunities for the candidates to look "presidential" and spew canned campaign talking points bear no resemblance to actual "debates." I don't know about anyone else, but I really can't stand to watch potential leaders of the free world NOT answer even the inane, non sequitur questions the moderators are allowed to ask; instead seizing upon any opportunity to recite a prepared text on a talking point that more than likely barely brushes up against the topic of the question asked. Add Donald Trump to that mix, and you have the potential for a train wreck of epic proportions. Which, I realize, is the bread and butter of our intrepid 21st century American media, but nothing I have the slightest desire to witness. I will be outside weeding my gardens and cleaning my greenhouse tonight, thank you very much.

Negotiating the Cease-Fire

I keep forgetting that our marriage is not a union.  It's a truce. 

It passed into that realm in 2010, when I understood there was no doubt that if I continued trying to pilot that restaurant, one of the primary casualties—along with my sanity and my health—was going to be my marriage.  Clearly, in order to preserve any crumb of what remained of my bond with my husband, I had to sever my attachment to the thing that had so starkly highlighted the decay of our regard for one another.

When we closed the doors on that disaster in 2011, I remember being desperate for peace.  And while the mere act of walking away from the endless mountain of aggravation, stress and frustration that was the Old Town Café dissolved the lion’s share of threats to the peace I craved, it didn’t take long for me to see that I had run away from a forest fire and into a briar patch. 

The husband and I were left glaring at each other over a thorny field of anger, hurt and resentment.  Eventually, we hammered out a treaty.  Not so much through negotiation as through a series of tactical retreats.  As long as we had calm, we had peace.  But the slightest stress—from an unexpected car repair to having to entertain out-of-town guests—would find one of us (usually him) losing it and the other (usually me) falling back and throwing up a wall. 

Yes…it’s been five and a half years.  And from the Peanut Gallery, I can hear jeers of “Get over it, already!”  I don’t think anyone in the world would like to see that more than I would.  But this isn’t something one “gets over.”  Any more than the death of a loved one or the loss of a home or the end of a satisfying career.  Like everything in life, it’s not a matter of “getting over it” at all. All one can do is accept the new normal and keep walking.  And above all, try not to dwell on when “normal” was so much more than it is now.

We mostly have peace now.  We are companionable, possibly even fond of each other, much of the time.  Sometimes I forget that our relationship is not healed, not what it once was, certainly not what I ever hoped it would be.  Then something happens, some nameless, invisible thing knocks up against and upsets our peace.  At those times, I understand that the best thing I can do is take myself physically away for awhile.  Luckily, I have a building and a business 100 miles away from here that can always use a day or two of my attention. 

So I sigh.  And I go.  And when I come back, there is peace again.  Until the next time.     

Doo-doo-doo-doo

Don't you just want to put on a pith helmet and dark glasses every time you go on the internet?  Of maybe a hazmat suit... 

Everything is so slimy and ugly these days, to the point of dark surrealism.  The primaries were a disaster.  The Republicans presented their usual clown car, and the Democrats were determined to eat themselves alive.  Now that the smoke has cleared, Hillary may have been irreparably damaged, and I can hardly fathom the idea of Donald Trump even running for president, much less winning. 

I keep seeing these reports that Trump's number are in the shitter...that he's only polling at 40%.  40%?  While one should be encouraged by those numbers, this one is actually flabbergasted that 40% of anybody would even entertain the notion of Donald Trump as leader of the free world.  Oh. My God. 

I keep thinking I will wake up to find this has all been some kind of nightmare.  But the nightmare would have to have started in November of 2000, when George W. Bush purloined the presidency and the GOP grabbed the country by the throat and threw it to the mat.

Too many years to be just a nightmare.  Maybe I've been in a coma.   Or the Twilight Zone...

Who do we get to write us out of this mess?  Where is Rod Serling when you need him? 

Chooie Has Walked On

I belatedly realized that though I had posted about this on Facebook, I had not posted news of Miss Chooie's death onto this space, which is supposed to function at least loosely as a historical record of notable events in my life.  So I'm adding this post somewhat after the fact, and dating it to be reflective of the actual date she left us. 

Said goodbye to Miss Choo today. Seventeen years ago, she joined our family. Today, she went to snuggle beside her favorite being in the whole world--Spritie, who left us in 2007. As each of them walks on, they take with them an irretrievable piece of our past, and our hearts. We will miss you, Miss Ma'am. Give the Hairy Butt a good face wash for us.

The Last Words?

Thirteen years ago, I discovered a place where I could indulge my compulsion to splatter words on blank pages—the internet.   Specifically, I stumbled upon the Petri dish containing the tiny zygote which would eventually become the blogoverse—AOL Journals. 

It was September of 2003.  I was completely stoked that I had found a place I could record  my challenges associated with “coming to terms with middle age” (I was 48 years old!); and—wonder  of wonders—other people could read, react, provide input…make me feel as if I wasn’t the freak I had always felt myself to be.  I was hooked.  

And, yes…it WAS September of 2003.  So the deadly nature of what was going on in our country was loud enough to penetrate the voices inside my head…and become one of them.  A stolen election.  A horrendous national tragedy.  The politics of fear, division and lies that eventually led to an illegal war and a degeneration of our national principals to the point that We The People gave the nod to any means available—including torture, illegal imprisonment, and utter disregard for “collateral” death and destruction—to keep us “safe.”

I discovered I had a previously untapped talent for political commentary.  Which quickly became a compulsion.  I was physically unable to allow what was going on in the USA to transpire without comment.  And without raising a regiment of red flags. 

I made my  first post of a political nature on October 5, 2003.  It was a short (they all had to be short, back then—with the 2000-character limit imposed upon us by AOL) commentary about the political goings-on in California, starring Republican Arnold Shwarzeneggar in the recall of Democrat Gray Davis.  I got no comments on that one…as I frequently did not on my political posts.  But it didn’t seem to matter.  The compulsion to comment and warn took root and grew.

Over the next twelve years, my internet musings upon the challenges facing an aging Baby Boomer were interspersed with peppery political commentary.  I wrote volumes before the 2004 presidential election; and continued, even through the insanity of my sortie into the minefield of entrepreneurship, to comment on things political through the 2008 and 2012 election cycles.  Things were happening that demanded notice.  It was important to comment.  I could no more keep my thoughts to myself than I could stop breathing.

Anybody who reads this blog must notice, then, the marked absence of political posts here at “Coming to Terms” this election cycle.  Surely the hideous mess with which we are now presented should be inspiring volumes of commentary from folks like me.  Surely there is enough insanity out there to wring at least one scathing commentary a day—even one an hour—from  my prophet’s heart.  And yet, I have been largely silent. 

Why?  Because it’s just NOISE.   Noise coming from everywhere, all directions, louder and louder, shriller and shriller.  The ugly, crushing roar of an angry mob. Two sides holding their hands over their ears and screaming curses at each other.   A soul-shriveling racket…that produces no results. 

No advice is heeded.  No warnings are acknowledged.  No pleas for sanity are recognized.  It all becomes swallowed up in the noise; becoming itself part of the discordant symphony…only adding to the hideous, deadly cacophony. 

I can’t do it anymore.  I can’t be part of that time bomb that will surely destroy us all if it doesn’t somehow fizzle out of its own accord.  Because I can’t stop it.  I don’t think anyone—any person—can. 

And don’t think it isn’t painful for me to stay silent.  The danger is so much more grave, the stakes are so much higher, this time around.  But the ceaseless noise has effectively silenced my voice.  As I go through my day, I think of a hundred talking points, come up with dozens of arguments, envision a kaleidoscope of debate scenarios through which I might get through to those who will not think but will only follow.  And then I sit down with my laptop at the end of the day, stare at the blinking cursor at the top of the page and write…nothing.  Because I know it would be pointless.  I know that all it would do is add to the miasma of negativity and contentiousness that has already swallowed us.  And that, I refuse to do.

So, for what it’s worth, here is my last bit of advice, the last word out of the prophet’s mouth, concerning the coming election:

Vote.  If you have already chosen your candidate—and I’m pretty sure that most people who intend to vote this cycle have already chosen their poison—keep your peace and mark an “x” in the proper box on November  8^th (if you haven’t yet been stripped of that right…)  Make your choice and SHUT THE FUCK UP.  All the words, pictures, videos, brain-droppings that you can possibly put out there are not going to change anyone’s mind, are not going to win people over to your side.  People have made their choices, and they are as adamant and unshakeable about them as you are about yours. 

And if you feel that you have to dig up, make up, blow up, or otherwise broadcast filth about the “other side” in order to justify your own choice, maybe you need to rethink your personal selection process. 

I’m done. 

Little Lies or Big Truths?

The other day, I overheard the husband making some "getting to know you" conversation with a young couple who run a food booth next to ours at the Sunday Market.  When asked if we had any children, husband responded, "No..."  And then went on to declare that the reason for this was that "we've always been so busy working...!"

Say what?  

I honestly don't know if he came up with that response because he believed my fertility issues were nobody's business... Or if that's what he actually believes.  I've never known him to have the ability to come up with quick, plausible fabrications to substitute for divulging sensitive truths in social situations.  Granted, we are not often together in social situations among people we don't know well.  But if this is a skill he possesses, I've never seen him use it.

Which is why I'm more prone to think that this is what he actually believes:  that we were too busy to have a family.

And I find that more than a little disturbing.

Lessons

I have a thorny problem with the “resident” sister.  It doesn’t bear explanation here…suffice it to say the problem reared its head in a most obvious and frustrating way over this past weekend.  She just…irritates the crap out of me, and I get to the point that I really REALLY want not to continue to enable her quirks for One.  More.  Minute.

But in this morning’s short meditation with the Spirits, I was told in no uncertain terms to “Let It Go.”

Hmph!  I thought.  Why?  How can her behavior possibly be excused?

No.  You don’t get it.

No excuses.  No explanations.  No rationalizations.  No forgiveness, because forgiveness implies transgression, and this is not that.  It’s just a fact.  Like the sky is blue and water is wet...it is what it is. 

Just Let It Go.

Ok.  I’ll give it a shot.

But why is this so hard?