POTD: Snacks. And the farm. And stuff.

I took the photo at Lardo, in Portland, on Saturday. Fat and fries. Mmmm.

I took it with a rented Fuji X100T, rented for three days because I wanted to know if I like that camera substantially more than my current camera. Not that I'd buy it soon even if I did. I'm figuring I should do this photo thing for at least a year, maybe eighteen months, and put some savings into a Camera Piggy Bank (either real or virtual in the form of an extra bank account) before I buy something like that.

I like the Fuji, but there is no lemming for it yet.  It looks really cool and retro; good. It gets great reviews; good. The sensor is bigger; good. It's pretty expensive; bad. There is no zoom; bad. Well, the lack of zoom is arguably good, but only in the sense that grated carrots are good--it would enforce discipline that I should learn. I should get used to getting close to my subject and get an instinctive feel for just how close I need to be, but the fact is that I'm not there yet. I may never be there.

The Fuji seems pretty bad for macro (look at me pretending I'm comfortable with the term "macro", when only a few weeks ago I would have said, "little things close up") photography. I read that in some reviews, and we went to the art museum and, among other photographic experiments, tried taking close photos of the netsuke on display, and the Sony did a much better job.  Macro isn't my thing, but until I've been playing with this for a while I don't actually know that it's never going to be my thing. I might be cranky if I buy an expensive camera that's no good at it. (Reminder to self: If I ever get around to that plant breeding thing, I might want good close up photos of flowers and leaves and seeds.) The Sony's capabilities are beyond my skills for a while, so there's no rush to choose a next camera.

This year I'm going to try to photograph the farm--both pure record-keeping photos and some photos that might look good as photos. Maybe.

The below is what much of the farm looks like right now, though the photo was taken around this time last year. In case I haven't clarified, lately, the farm isn't literally a farm--it's a garden of twelve wide rows, each row containing ten beds, each bed four feet by six feet, with two-foot paths between beds. So the beds are six feet wide center to center, but we're only planting four feet of that width--though the plants might reach their roots into the paths.

That means (math, math...) 120 X 24, or 2,880, square feet of growing space. We have yet to actually use all of that growing space. Last year we covered much of the farm with high-quality landscape fabric, merrily violating the fabric's warranty by failing to mulch over it. The same landscape fabric used in smaller quantities in the past seemed to hold up quite well across some years without sun protection, so we took the risk. Because weeding more than four thousand square feet of ground--the number goes up from the 2,880 when you include paths and the ten-foot DMZ reserved for eventual shrubs at the back--was never going to happen. Ever.

Ever. Did I mention ever? It took me some failed years of "farm"ing to accept that, but it's accepted now. Even the two lettuce beds in front tend to get out of control.  The fabric makes a huge difference; a few weekends ago I went out to the farm and was able to make a non-trivial dent in the required prep work for the summer garden in one little four-hour afternoon.

I suspect that the next reality-acceptance exercise will be accepting that I won't plant, tend, and harvest anywhere near 2,880 square feet of annual plants every year, even at dryfarm spacing. So we'll be slowly adding more perennials.  Very slowly. We're planning on roses, blueberries, raspberries, possibly asparagus, possibly artichokes, and so on.

I even had brief thoughts of hazelnuts, but after reading about pollinizer trees, it looks like I'd use up more than the entire farm before I planted enough trees to be reasonably confident of a crop. There might be pollinizers in the neighborhood, for all I know, but I'm not going to count on it.

Anyway. The main plan right now is still beans, beans, and beans.

And that is all.

Images: Mine.

Photography: Stopping Time

Tum te tum. Te tum. Tum.

Maybe this blogging-daily thing isn't good for getting any actual blog writing done. Maybe it trickles out all the thoughts and doesn't leave enough to build up any writing pressure.

Tum.

Trickle trickle.

Earlier today, I was thinking about why we like photographs of people. None of the obvious reasons seem to work. For example, I think it's not loneliness for people that we miss, because we're delighted by pictures of people that are right in the room looking at them with us. And not about a memory jogger, because we're delighted by pictures that we just took moments ago.

One thought: With a photograph, we freeze time. We can have a good long look at people's expressions and manner and gestures in a way that we can't in real life, because in real life those expression move, constantly. That's the main thing that pulls me into photographs. Expressions. Gestures. People. Characters.

Many people apparently don't like street photography, because they don't understand the point of taking pictures of strangers. I don't understand not understanding that. Strangers are fascinating. People you know are fascinating, too, of course. But that's no reason to ignore the whole rest of the world, right?

I spent most of my pre-adult years being an isolated introvert. Maybe that also explains a pent-up fascination with people? Of course, I also spent it reading hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of novels. So maybe all of those people are fictional characters.

It's a theory.

Hey,  I wrote paragraphs!

I'm going to quit while I'm ahead.

That is all.

Image: Mine.

Rambling: Rambling

OK, this time I'm going to write something. Really. Absolutely. Stuff, there's going to be written stuff. Sentences, paragraphs, all that. Yep.

So, that photo is another one from Disney. People get tired at Disney.

Um.

So, that photography thing. I notice that a fair percentage of the street photographs that I see on the the Internet are pretty or graphical or otherwise heavily about the visual. Lots of street, not always a lot of person. I seem to be almost entirely into facial expressions and gestures.

I've taken plenty of non-people pictures, but my reaction to most of them is...meh. Except for reflections. I like reflections. Usually in windows.

OK, maybe there will be not so much sentences and paragraphs, as pictures, in this post.

In fact, it appears that that is all.

Images: Mine.

POTD: Aliens!

Aliens! In San Francisco! Aiee!

Well. No. Not really. But it's a cool sculpture, isn't it?

Did you detect the pause there? Another daily post for which I don't seem to have things to say. But, still, daily posting is good, right? Right?

Um.

OK, apparently that is already all.

Image: Mine.

POTD: Bovine Sunglasses

I mostly like photographs of people, but I also like the weird. Like this, of a local shop window.

Um.

See, I was hoping that just opening a blog post would inspire me to write things. But I find my mind a blank. I did just eat dinner, so it could be a simple food coma blank.

Um.

Well, I posted, right?

Right.

That is apparently all.

Photo: Mine.

Rambling: Photography and Like That

"If you're traveling with small children...good luck with that." (Droid, Star Tours preshow.)

I've been away from the blog, playing with the camera and taking countless photos of strangers; the street photography thing. So far, I only like a few. The above, taken at the Kingdom of the Mouse, is one of them. (Click to make it bigger!) I may start doing a Photo of the Day. We'll see.

I'm slowly learning the camera and all that stuff about shutter and aperture and ISO (oh, my!). My knowledge is still around the level of "Fast shutter means I can photograph things that are moving, yay!" (And "Low light. No fast shutter. Dang.") I'm debating whether a brief photography class would speed up the process, or if this is one of those things that I learn best by teaching myself.

And I'm already eyeing fancier and terrifyingly expensive cameras. I've been listening to Valerie Jardin's Street Focus podcast.  She talks a lot about the Fuji X100 series, so in a fangirl-like manner I keep eyeing the X100T longingly. I guess you could call it a camera lemming. It's not a logical camera for me to seriously consider right now--I need to find out whether I'm going to reliably work up the nerve to get close to my subjects, first. If not, I should get something with zoom. (The X100 series has a single no-zoom, no-remove lens.)

The photography thing is weird, because one of my firm facts about myself has always been that I have no talent, not even basic competence, in the visual arts. I hesitate to question that, for fear that I'll find out that, yep, it was always true. But as long as I'm enjoying myself, why not? It is a good thing that I'm not interested in pretty; I'm interested in character. Thoughts. Faces and gestures. So I'll give it a try, and not worry about making a fool of myself.

That is all.

Image: Mine.

Rambling: The Walking Hungry

"Excuse me. We'd like some more croutons."

Ashland has deer. Like dogs have fleas. Yes, they're pretty, but they eat things. Like gardens. And trees. A few years ago, a deer running from a dog crashed through the local fudge shop's plate glass window. These days, the deer are chasing the dogs. In the Halloween parade, some people wear deer costumes. Because you dress as scarey rampaging hungry monsters, right? Right.

I'm not sure if I have a point here, or if I just wanted an excuse to post a deer photo. Probably the deer photo.

That is all.

Image: Mine.

Rambling: Photography again

So, I went out with the camera, while still debating those pesky ethical issues. The issues about photographing people without their permission. Those issues. So I decided to photograph non-people things, like...portraits of little tiny cars.

And reflections of the mountains, in windows:

And reflections of buildings in the windows of other buildings.

And ducks. You've got to have ducks. Quack.

I want to photograph people. I really do. I'll have to figure this out.

That is all. Maybe. But I already said that once today.

Images: Mine.

Rambling: Photography and street photography and ethics

The intermittently collapsing hobby balloon:

So, for several days I've been obsessed with the photography idea--reading websites and books, figuring out the controls on the camera, and so on and so on, and suddenly today I've hit a "Meh...why was I interested again?" wall. This happens to me periodically. I don't know why. Tomorrow I'll make a point of figuring out the latest few puzzlements with the camera, and taking pictures of something, in the hope of re-sparking. Maybe I'll walk downtown and take some random photos.

Street photography:

The area of photography that interests me most is street photography, which is a difficulty, because a fair bit of street photography is taking pictures of strangers. Usually without asking their permission. There really aren't any legal issues--at least, there's a broad range of spaces where I can take pictures without there being legal issues--but I'm still debating my comfort level with the ethics.

What ethics?

The ethics of photographing, and publishing the photographs of, strangers, without their permission.

There are some clear edges. I'm  completely comfortable with photographs of people actually performing in public--street performers, people marching in parades,  people giving speeches, and so on.  The two costumed women in the photo in the previous post are, IMO, pretty close to this category--though they may or may not have been actually marching in the parade, the whole parade is pretty much an exercise in performance art for costumed observers as well as marchers.

I'm absolutely not comfortable with photographing sleeping or otherwise nesting--is nesting a word that works?--homeless folks. While they may not have a legal expectation of privacy, it's a fundamental injustice that they don't have that privacy. It might be different if I were photographing with a coherent purpose or message, but I'm at the very beginning of amateurness, so there are no ends with which to justify the means.

What about people who have no expectation of privacy, but clearly would really like to be private? I watched a woman with a head covered in metallic bits of paper, obviously in the middle of some sort of hair treatment, rush from the salon to put money in the meter for her car, and then rush back. I decided that people who clearly want privacy in the moment would also be off limits.

OK, but...

That still leaves most of the world--the people who are out and about and clearly content to be seen. But who may or may not be content to be photographed.

Do I go with the law, which pretty much says that anything happening in plain view in a public place is fair game? If you Google "street photography" and click "images", it looks pretty clear that most photographers aren't asking for permission.

And for that matter, most people taking pictures don't ask permission of the people in the photo before they share those photos--if you take a picture at Disneyland, you're not going to run around to the sixty people visible in the frame and get their permission.

But those sixty people aren't the subject of the photo. In street photography, a stranger is quite likely to be the subject of a photo.

On the other hand, countless folks brandishing smartphones photograph whatever they please and upload it to wherever they please. On the other other hand, is that OK?

It's a thicket.

Meanwhile, another shop-window photograph. Which runs me into another ethical quandary, which is whether it's fine and dandy to photograph a window dresser's work and share that photo?

Too many thickets.

(And another you'll-never-pick-me-out-in-a-lineup selfie!)

Image: Mine.

Random Ashland Photo: Collision

The Photo:
I'm playing with old photos. This is, from the image information, from the Ashland Halloween parade of 2009.

The Rambling:
Um.

Also, um.

See, I want to write something, since I've been doing so more regularly than usual, but nothing is immediately coming to mind. Chicken thoughts, chocolate thoughts...

Nope, the brain is empty. Maybe later.

Image: Mine. Copyright me, all rights reserved, and that sort of thing.

Random Portland Photo: Living Threads Vintage

The photographic experimentation continues.

I fell in love with this window at Living Threads Vintage (I link to them because they're a dandy store, in addition to creating a dandy window), photographed it, and filtered and tweaked the photo to within an inch of its life, or at least of iPhoto's capabilities.

I'm still not sure why I'm doing the photography thing. I think it's the craving to do something visual. We'll see where it leads.

Image: Mine. 

Random Portland Photo: St. Cupcake

CUPCAKES!!!

That's all, really. I just wanted to post a thing.

Image: Mine.

Rambling: Journaling and Photography and My Almost-First Selfie and Stuff

The Journaling:

So, I keep thinking about "journaling". Now, this blog is thoroughly journal-like; what else could you call a forum where I babble about dieting, the shoes I wear, and my issues with my mother? (When I first typed that, I mistyped it as "issue." Suggesting that there was only one issue. Funny, huh? OK, moving on...)

But the blog doesn't quite entirely fill the journal gap, because (1) there's a limit to just how foolish I'm willing to sound in public and (2) I someday want to publish a book or books, and if I write every thought that I think, and publish every word that I write, why would anyone ever publish any of that between covers?

What's Your Point?:

I mention this because I'm taking up photography, as the latest addition to my already overstuffed mental storeroom of hobbies. I've occasionally wished that I had written more during the starting-up process of other hobbies and interests, because I quickly forget what I was thinking during the times when I didn't know what I knew later. (Yes, there's an incoherent breathlessness about that sentence. I'm going to leave it right there anyway.) When I go back to re-read what my blog has to say about, for example, my recent forays into kinda-fashion, there's a lot of "Oh, yeah..." about my own past thoughts, and I know that the blog posts represent just a tiny fraction of the thoughts and experiences.

I don't really think that I'll be all that interested in my thoughts and experiences as I start with this photography thing, and I think that it would be even less interesting in a book. But I've thought that about other things. So I'm going to write about photography, here, and also probably in a journal somewhere. I'm not sure what "somewhere" is. I prefer to do all my writing in bbEdit, of all things, but I'm a lousy organizer of files. So maybe Scrivener, because it has built-in organization.

Yes, Scrivener. I just ran off and created a "Fiction, with sub-heads" project and called it Journal. So there.

But, anyway, moving on to photography.

So You're Using Those Section Titles Again, Huh?:

Yep.

Why?:

No idea.

Photography?:

So. I have no eye for visual arts. None. Not a scrap. I never have. At least, I've always assumed that I never have, though now and then I have a faint hope that I'll find that I was wrong. So I'm not interested in photography for the purpose of creating Beautiful Things. But I am under the belief that I have something of an eye for character and the absurd and the weird. Maybe. Possibly. Perhaps. It could happen. So that's the focus.

But right now, the focus is, well, things like focus. And light. And aperture versus shutter priority and all those things that I only barely understand. I'm using a point-and-shoot camera, the Sony RX100 III, but point-and-shoot or not, it has features that I don't understand yet. Well, and sometimes I'm just using my phone, as in the image above. I'm not sure why I'm finally offering an image where you can kinda sorta almost see my face, or at least you could if it weren't for the hat and the phone. You might be able to pick my nose out of a lineup, anyway.

Um. Where was I? Yes, why the selfie? I think it's partly because if I'm going to occasionally blog photographs, they will probably contain people, and if I'm going to post photos of people who aren't me, it seems wrong to be too cowardly to post photos of me. See? And it's partly about the ongoing fashion and learning-not-to-hate-my-appearance process.

That Almost Rates A Digression Heading, Doesn't It?:

No. Shush.

Photography, Still:

So I've been reading about photography, but I want more of what I call munchy books. I discuss munchy books here. I want a book that talks about photography in a story-telling, philosophizing, anecdote-studded kind of way. I want the photography book equivalent of Henry Mitchell's On Gardening and The Essential Earthman.

But while I'm searching for that, I'm downloading Kindle previews for various photography books (which I will probably order through my Local Book Store when I narrow them down) and looking for photography blogs and forums and stuff. And I keep looking at Vivian Maier's photographs. Looking through them, it occurs to me that I've put Vivian Maier (photographer) and Rumer Godden (author) in the same category in my mental filing cabinet. I'm not sure what the label on that folder is, but they're sorted together.

I just converted the selfie of me from a regular color picture to the "Tonal" filter in iPhoto, because...I think out of sheer pretentiousness, because doesn't black and white photography seem more...more of all those things you want to be when you're being pretentious? I see that the resolution was also drastically reduced. I don't know what caused that and if I have any control over it.

I have things to learn.

I'm noticing that the above few paragraphs are an extra rambling dull catalog of thoughts, and that I'm tempted to cut most of them out. That's another reason for journaling--I want to record some thoughts that I don't edit, not even a little bit, for their readability or entertainment value.

Um.

Time For Another Subject Heading?:

No. Shush.

Hmph.:

OK, I think that is all.

Image: Mine.

Events: The Ashland Halloween Parade

STAN: ...Halloween isn't about costumes, or candy. It's about being good to one another, and giving and loving.
KYLE: No, dude. That's Christmas.
STAN: Oh. Then what's Halloween about?
KYLE: Costumes and candy.
(South Park, Episode 107, "Pink Eye")

In Ashland, it's also about Samba. And the parade. And, well, given that this is Ashland, they do tend to get into that being good to one another stuff.

We went to the parade. We danced along to Samba. We had a fine time. That is all.

Oh, and (update!) there are more photos after the break.

Garden: Final Fireworks - Updated

It's fall. The garden knows it's time to sleep. So like any sensible toddler, it's going to make some noise first. I can't resist the temptation to offer a couple of photos of its best tricks. But I know what baby pictures can be like, so feel free to just scroll on without clicking.