Friday, April 1, 2016

Stopping To Smell The Flowers


I'm off the grid for a few days -- off to Anza Borrego State Park to see the desert wildflower bloom and hopefully to get some stunning photos of my own.

Many, many thanks again to all of those who wished me a happy birthday last Wednesday!

16 comments:

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Had no idea Dev. Happy belated birthday!

Wishing you many many more.

edutcher said...

Beuriful.

Congrats.

deborah said...

Have a great time, chick! Lovely photo, look forward to seeing some of yours...

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Oh, i thought this was a deborah post.

Stumped again.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Happy trails Chickl.

MamaM said...

Bon Voyage!

Don't worry, Bee Happy among the blooms!

Up in MI, we're hoping to tiptoe through the tulips--any day now.

Chip Ahoy said...

I was looking for information on a photographer published in Arizona Highways that led to a page that mentions him. Because he wrote part of a book being reviewed. The review was interesting, and photographers in general being basically assholes, the comments to the article are assholishly interesting too.

The photographer tucked into frost-harmed cactus and shot out from them, using the bent arms as frame for another cactus in the distance. Sometimes with stars in the far distance. After awhile I began to have an issue with all of his photos overly saturated with color, life is colorful but not that consistently deeply saturated. He takes some 18 photos and compiles them. In Google images, the photographer's work, although stunningly composed, and beautiful, catching, and decorative, are not really art, the HDR is completely overdone throughout. Jack Dyking. He offers so much. What he says in the article in Arizona Highways, what he says in other articles, what he says in the book are all helpful and sensible to aspiring photographers, advice on staking out locations and such, how much time is devoted to that, also equipment like lightning strike detectors that set off the camera by radio waves or infrared waves that precede a strike. Then his photos collectively in google images appear collectively a bit twee due to their saturation and extended range. It's like Autotune.

found it, the review

The book is basic digital photography written by photographers for Arizona Highway. Apparently the book is small and compact. Rather thick with smallish pages.

book

$22.44

Oh look, there's one for $4.85 + shipping, close to $9.00

Abebooks will have copies too.

I keep learning stuff about my camera. It's a another never ending learning thing. It's just another language.

Even with the dummkopf phone, I mean to say smartphone just now. There are apps that enhance its camera's abilities. Not just sepia tones enhancements to photos and the like, they can alter white balance, shutter. They can do time-lapses videos.

You can buy a small stand or tripod or grip or clamp for your smartphone and download a free app for time lapse. Also, there are photo adjustment tools available similar to photoshop. With practice you can become quite handy.

I noticed the focusing on the phone is like the wildest of my wide-angle lenses. It really does take practice in framing -- to place things in the corners. With the wide-angle you have to constantly be thinking, "What pops up in the corners?" They distort wildly all over the place. I was trying to photograph tetras and it was nearly impossible to compose the tank with light and fish.

Chip Ahoy said...

Did you read the Google +mail April fool fail fail?

They wrote a false story about something they didn't do, add a feature to emails that add a gif of "drop mic", a button near "send" button that caused people to add the drop mic gif inappropriately to mortuary letter of condolences and job applications that were going on for months. The stories a bit too immediate and too damaging to be real. They weren't real stories of drop mic gif fail. The story itself is the April Fool punk. And everybody who bothered said, thanks for wasting our time reading, jerks.

ricpic said...

I wonder if the purple flowers are wild lavender? Huge fields of that exact purple - commercial lavender - in the south of France. Probably in California too.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Yes. This is good opportunity to mention our Amazon portal. It helps keep the blog going. Thanks those of you who use it. And those of you not yet. Please get on board.

We also accept outright donations.

bagoh20 said...

We were planning to do the same thing and go to the Salton Sea, but the gays are having a huge shindig in Palm Springs taking up all the hotel rooms.

Wait a minute, Chickie...

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Very, very nice.

Amartel said...

Yeah I've been off doing the same thing this past week. Went out to the high mountains to find a little grace. The area's infested with enviro snobs with artsy pretensions. They're all covered in pricey swag and driving swank cars and you'd think they'd be happy but they've all got this really mean look in their eyes like they're looking for something/one to disapprove of and chastise. We're self-atomizing into smaller and smaller little tribes. It's just sad. There are good people out there. I met a bunch of them. (I can be gregarious sometimes.). At every level, in every economic class and other government-promoted box they've told us to get into and sit, stay in. Hard working, honest, creative people. So much potential. We just have to get thinking outside these fucking boxes, stop voting for your race or your sex or your sexual preference or your "class." Your big phony pretentious class, whether you're a fat enviro snob coated in turquoise or a fat beardy nerd snob or a fat motel clerk. Be a fat American first because when push comes to shove, and it will soon, we're going to need to hang together or die.
There's a lot of fat people out there btw.
(No, I did not get stoned. There's still the weekend though. Ha.)

chickelit said...

Back from the wilds!

This was a 3-day, 2-night primitive camping trip.

The flowers were there, but most gone. I will try to post some photos as soon as I catch up on the much more important political back and forth that happened while I was gone.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Look foward to those. Thanks

deborah said...

You were missed, looking forward to your pics.