Ducking da Covid in my Basement Photo “Studio.”
Covid-19 could kill me so I’d prefer not…
I haven’t written in days. I have been a little under the weather, not Covid, just malaise probably from dread of Covid. I’m old with “underlying health conditions” that could be the literal death of me despite being fully vaccinated. Yet, remaining hunkered, I was yearning for something — anything — to shoot while staying snug in my lurk. I mentioned this to my DIL, a marble collector, so she brought out some of her favorite marbles, including a massive orange shooter.
There are a bunch more of these, a work in progress, but my spirits lifted somewhat with the opportunity to express what little imagination I have and play on my computer. They reminded me of planets sooooooo…
This was an accident. I can’t even recall what it was. The metadata says I had a 70mm macro on and presumably was playing with its fly-by-wire autofocus. The recorded exposure was 2 full seconds at f/22 (yeah, don’t ask me, I have no idea either). Whatever it is/was, the camera was in motion. I forgot it was even on the card until I uploaded some other stuff and was intrigued enough to see if there was anything there at all. I liked the Topaz whoopee filter on the right. Great aht it ain’t, but it was fun to play with.
I discovered on the card another goofy camera-in-motion out-of-focus thing of something or other (could have been the pants I was wearing), so I played around with it as well. NIK Collection, I think? Abstracts? Mmmm-kay. Moving on…
I created this quadriptych* for my Medium Profile Page. See, lacking both imagination and a competent art director, I flounder around a lot trying to be ahtsy. Also, lacking anyone/anything willing to sit still for long, my cameras get their pitchers taken a lot. They are patient and kind.
* (More than a triptych, fewer than a pentaptych. Now you know.)
Back in the late paleophotographic, I did a lot of small product — “tabletop” — work. I still enjoy it, plus I used to be pretty good at it. And, it keeps me off the streets and out of the bars (where the Covid slinks).
I like working events* with two matched bodies with overlapping zooms. My preference has been for cross-body carry (as opposed to a harness), but regular straps are designed not to slip when what I want them to do is to slip freely. I was so pleased with these soft buttered-on-both-sides straps that I excitedly took pictures of them à la print advertising, but the model was fat and old, so I “fixed” him.
* (Will there ever be events to cover again?)
And in conclusion (oh thank goodness), I did venture out with my family for a street fair yesterday where I spotted this “Air Dancer.” My DIL had an unpleasant experience as a child and hates them to this day, but I love them. I went back across the street because I had a mad idea: Make several frames and composite them into a single quadriptych (there’s that $20 word again). I managed to make the originals handheld and really had great fun masking and compositing them into one image. Keeping the shadows in the frame was trickier than I’d expected.
As always, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the pitchers. (●'◡'●)
