Smile And Say "Fromage"

I’ve been taking photo just about as long as I can remember.

My very first camera was this Kodak Brownie Hawkeye. I think my great-grandmother gave it to me. I can’t really remember as I was about 5 at the time. It was using this little beastie that I learned to have a steady hand… as it was SO easy to ‘chop off someone’s head’ if you pushed down on the shutter release too hard.


Next I was given my Kodak Instamatic 414 by my grandmother when I was about 9 or 10 (judging by the photos that were taken with it). Oh I was in the Big Time now! It had a drop in film cartridge (126 mm), two focal settings and a wind-up motor film rewind. And it used ‘magicube’ flash bulbs – four flashes before you had to change bulbs!


I used that little 414 for about 14 years until 1986 when I bought my first 35mm SLR camera. It was a Pentex K1000. Probably the most basic SLR you could get. Automatic NOTHING except the flash. Every shot had to be thought through and planned out. Unforgiving wench. But when you did it right… oh yeah…

Best darn photography teacher I ever had.


It took me 20 years to move up – and over – to my next camera. Before we traveled to Kenya for a month, I bought a Canon Rebel. I think my absolute favorite thing about digital cameras is the ability to “delete”. Oh the freedom of being about to shoot photo after photo and not waste film (and pay for the film and developing). And to have a card that holds literally thousands of photos instead of 24 or 36. Wow
And I have had a series of Canon “Sure Shot” cameras that I keep in my purse so I never miss a good photo opportunity.

I went into the digital world screaming and kicking. You see, I believe there is an art to film photography. A Zen like quality of patience and practice. Combined with pure chance of getting THE shot.

You lose a lot of that with digital photography. Even on ‘manual’ the camera wants to think for you. To ‘correct’ the vision in front of its lens to a perfect cookie cutter world.

And then there is “Photo Shop” and the many other such computer programs. I loathe them. It is my opinion these have murdered the art in photography. Photos are not real anymore. They are layered and doctored and played with until they are a more a painting than a photo. A representation of the imagined rather than the real.


While I have such a program, I use it only to do the same sort of editing I was able to do in a darkroom…contrast, brightness and cropping. When you look at a Clan Hanna photo… you see truth.


But I have used it to make wild fun photos that obviously weren’t really that way… you know they’re fake!


And I use it to “fix” old family heirloom photos that I have scanned it.

I have several different lenses I use (and there are a few I still need to get).

I have some filters but don’t really use them except for the polarizer. Great for cutting glare.

I have several tripods and a beanbag stand. Don’t use them much with the Canon. Use them a lot with my Pentex for long exposure night photos. That old Brownie gave me a steady hand.


I haul all my equipment around with a Tenba photo bag backpack. http://www.tenba.com/ This spendy little investment was worth every single penny I paid for it!!

I have several shelves in my hobby cabinet that are just for my photography “stuff”. So now I have to get all this organized and stored away correctly.

Before and After: I Promised You A Rose Garden

My first “catch up” project is done. I was out at the crack of dawn yesterday to get this done! By 2pm it was 96* with a heat index of 114*!! (According to www.wunderground.com which has been pretty accurate for our area.)

Dad and Mom weeded it for me. The grass piles in the driveway looked like a hay bale had broken there!

Remember what it looked like before?

First I put down some Miracle Grow fertilizer pellets then I laid down a layer of good quality weed cloth over the whole bed. Getting it tucked in around the stickery roses was not fun!


That was followed with a thick layer (12 bags) of red mulch. I think the red mulch looks really nice against the dark leaves of the roses.

New rule in this household: NO mulch goes down without having weed cloth under it!!!

As I mentioned earlier, the cannas will be staying there until it gets cool enough to move them safely. I’ve got an area I want to put them, plus my Mom wants a few for one of her planting beds. Once I get them out I’ll put about 4 more roses in where they were.

Oh… those rocks sitting on the ties will go bye-bye when I get my wheelbarrow tire aired up.

Stop the Presses - er...Sewing Machine!

I'm putting my chair recovering on hold for a bit. I was doing a bit of research to see if I could find the chair I was going to work on (it's an old one).

Well I found out it MIGHT have some value to it. It could be a KEM Weber Deco chair from the 30s!

Here's a pic I found on the 'net:

I am SOOOOO curious now! Mine is in pretty rough shape but I may want to have it done professionally.

Sew What?

Out of the blue I have decided that I am going to learn to sew. Last time I sewed something I was a freshman in high school and I was in home ec class. We won’t go into how long ago that was… OK?

But I went into JoAnn’s Fabrics to pick up a needle threader (I can sew on buttons!) and all at once decided I would recover the cushions on a chair I am redoing.


Then I walked over to the pattern books and picked out four clothes patterns that were listed as “easy” or “make in an hour”.

And today… I am making those cushions! Other than what I have seen on the excellent blogs I visit I have no idea what I am doing.

It should be interesting…

I’ll post photos of the chair when I get it done – no matter how it looks!

A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E!!!

One of the things about living in the country is you have “critters” who live on your property. We have deer, turkeys, raccoons, possums, bazillions of song birds, squirrels, rabbits, lizards, … and snakes.

So far we have only seen non-poisonous snakes. There is a big ol’ king snake (Elvis) who lives up near the front door. He’s so relaxed and lazy. Last year we found a good size rat snake on the front porch. He was NOT relaxed. In fact, he was pretty ornery. So he was relocated farther out in the woods.

My parents were down last week for a visit and to help me get some things done. One evening Dad moved a flower pot up close to my garage door and found this:

A grey rat snake hatchling.

Neither one of them was happy about the experience!!

I grabbed a jar and flipped him in it. I don’t want snakes near my doors. Well this little guy had attitude by the truck load! He was just a little snot. He would strike at my hand every time I moved




Good thing he’s little, isn’t it?!

Little MT (Mike Tyson) was moved FAR away to a creek where he will hopefully live out a long and cranky life.

Dad has informed me that is the LAST outside work he’s going to be doing at dusk…

August Renovation and August Landscaping Project

Because of family commitments, weather (too wet then too hot), and other circumstances out of my control I have gotten behind in my renovation and landscaping projects. So I’m going to use this month to play catch-up and get some things finished around here!

I HOPE to finish the garage and my office (which will check off the house decluttering and paperwork goals), finish out the patio (the staining the concrete is going to have to wait until it’s not so miserable out), finish the rose garden (except for moving the cannas – too hot), finish out the “curb appeal” projects and finish the outside of the shed (too hot to do the inside).

I’ll have to do another “catch up” later in the fall when it has cooled off. Probably early October. At this point the heat is actually dangerous. A couple days ago the heat index was 108. I can work outside from first light (5:30am-ish) until around 9am. That’s it. Nothing in the evenings. Even at 7:30 pm it is still in the low 90s.

August Goal – “Picture This”

Another dreaded goal to achieve... sorting/culling my photos and getting them properly organized. I know there is no way I can actually get it completely done in a month but I'll be happy with a good solid start on the project!

I have three or four 12x12 boxes to go thru PLUS about 15 small "photo boxes" I've already been sorting into. That is not counting the thousands of photos on my computer since I have switched to digital photography

I want to get the photos into albums/scrapbooks or published photobooks. That in itself will probably take me a couple years.

As part of my photo work, I want to put together a portfolio of my best stuff that I can pull at a moment’s notice for a show or display opportunity.

And I also want to do a photo inventory of the whole house and shed. Uf-da!

Since I’m doing photos, I will also use this month to go thru the old camera equipment I have, books, albums and anything else that has to do with photography.