It came to me in a dream. I should shoot more photographs with the Leica CL. And I should be more adventurous in my lens choices. Or something like that.
Speaking of dreams, I've been experimenting on myself again and with interesting results. I've decided to go to bed one hour earlier than I have been over the last few years. Trying to give myself a fighting chance at getting a good 7.5 or 8.0 hours of sleep in before swim practice. So far the results are good and I'm not finding any real unintended consequences that I can peg back to the new regimen. But I am finding that I remember dreams much more than I have in the past. And sometimes the dreams wake me up.
I woke up two mornings ago because I was having a dream about swimming the butterfly stroke and I was working, in my dream, on my dolphin kick. But as my brain was dreaming about the kick my legs were actually doing the kick in real life. I woke up because I was getting frustrated (in my dream) since I felt like I was working hard but not making any forward progress. Today I woke up from a dream about my freestyle arm recovery.
As a blogger who writes about photography it would have been a lot better for all of us if I'd been dreaming about some new and innovative way to make great photographs. Something I could share that would make you rush to your camera, hoist the strap over your shoulder and then run out the door to try out some almost unimaginably cool technique. But sadly... no. I'll see if I can "change the station" in my dreams going forward.
In the previous blog I talked about using the Sigma Contemporary 90mm lens with the Sigma fp. A few people liked the way the combination rendered color and the way the images looked, technically. Even while mentioning the mediocre content...
I wondered if all that glorious technical performance was due to the Sigma fp camera or just how much putting the correct lens on a camera shifts the results. Today I put the Sigma 45mm lens on the CL and decided to see how much different this combo might be. But I more or less give up now. All recent cameras are fine. Most recent lenses are admirable. Put any of them together and the shooter becomes the weak link. How else to explain it?
Last night it ended up raining here for hours and hours. A wonderful continuous, soaking rain but with none of the wild gyrations, impetuous downpours or random flooding. The episode did wonders to clear the air across the city and my experience walking through downtown was downright pleasant.
I am bored already with Summer. I'm tired of the hot days and the humid nights. I tried to book a trip to a far off city to visit a friend but when I went on line to book a hotel every single one of the hotels I wanted to stay in were totally sold out for the week in mid-July in which I wanted to travel. And then there is the uncertainty of air travel. I guess my next recourse to getting out of town is to head to San Antonio or back over to San Angelo. Someplace I can drive to in less than 4 hours. Someplace where there is always a vacant hotel room.
Looking back over the last four or five years (factoring out Covid lockdowns) I find that June and July have traditionally been my slowest months for business. And that's sad because even though I have a big chunk of time in which I can get away I can't imagine a worse time to go to the kinds of places I'd like to go. Filled with tourists, Record heat waves all over the globe and every measure of uncertainty one could toss at the world. I know from experience that major cities like Rome, Lisbon, Paris, Berlin, etc. are much, much more pleasant in the Fall months, after the tourist clear out and the kids are back in school.
We're aiming for that. In the meantime I'm happy to swim more. In fact swimming is becoming my major activity for the Summer. I just need to cut out the dream kicking before someone gets hurt...
If you are out traveling right now you are braver than me. Or just heedless and not very risk averse. But more power to you. Life is short and, if not now then when?
Me? I think I'll just maximize being a tourist in my own town. At least I know some of the good places to hit for dinner...
13 comments:
No boredom here. Headed to the airport in the morning and flying to Florida for 10 days then on to Costa Rica when we get back if we get back.
Frank, Good luck on the journey. You are a brave person.
After the first one, I've been skipping the Jan 6th testimonies. But, because today's was suddenly wedged into their calendar, I watched to see why. Glad I did. It was something to see.
In some places the most difficult part of the travel might be finding a rental car at your destination. I'm seeing news reports of people having to cancel their trips because of the rental car shortage. And true to form, car rental reservations don't seem to mean much. I saw a story today about two ladies vacationing in Newfoundland who ended up renting a moving van.
There is a novel by Alexander McCall Smith titled My Italian Bulldozer in which a traveller to Italy can't get a rental car but is able to rent a bulldozer. He has some peculiar adventures with it.
Well, after my very recent experience at Schipol (chaotic mayhem perhaps sums it up, resulting in a missed flight), I'm avoiding flying! Thank goodness for Eurostar! But photographing Amsterdam and Haarlem with my X100F was a joy!
You're wise to stay away from travel right now. I've got 2 photographer friends traveling in Europe right now. One (with his wife) is on a tour of England and Scotland. When the bus crossed into Scotland they were all required to get a Covid test. Of 32 on the bus, 5 were positive including my friend and his wife. They are now quarantined in Edinburgh and taking photos of people out their hotel window. The TV doesn't work so they watched the one in the apartment across the street, but now the lady has caught on and closes the drapes. The internet is down most of the time but fortunately their phones work sometimes and they are able to contact the outside world. Oh, and there is a train strike so they wouldn't be able to get to their return flight home from Glasgow anyway, if they ever get out of quarantine. But that doesn't really matter because British Airways has cancelled their flight!
The other friend is on a Med cruise and seeing the glories of Rome, Venice, Turkey, and Croatia. All is well with her except for being trampled by all the other tourists.
Dick (another stay-at-home)
Watch. Your next dream will be about a perfect billiard shot.
Why people remain unvaccinated and therefore suffer the consequences in places where public health matters is entirely their own fault, so there is no point bitching about it. As for the TV not working. If it's a hotel, then they'll fix it for you or give you a new one. The strikes are a pain, I agree.
Chris,
My friends who caught Covid on the bus trip are fully vaccinated with 2 boosters, but apparently these new strains of the virus don't care about that. They are also seasoned international travelers, not stupid, and know how to deal with hotels. I think it's just the accumulation of all the things that have happened to ruin their trip that make it very trying while cooped up like that.
Dick
Mike Mundy said: "Watch. Your next dream will be about a perfect billiard shot."
I will never be that bored.
I'll be moderating the second guessing. Everyone play nice.
Good try D.J. I think we'll stick with the facts for now, not the propaganda of a failed tyrant.
I pay attention to the hearings, but simply refuse to get emotionally invested in any of that administrations blatant and obvious criminal behavior. They always skate away (at the least their leader does) because this is how justice works here in the USA for the powerful.
Anybody seen those prosecutors from the NY investigation lately? Oh that’s right, they quit in disgust due all of their work suddenly getting shot down.
Anyway, this is one depressing era we are living through right now. Corruption has always been at play, but the past 6 years are just fragrantly put in the open. I guess it was “better” when a little bit of shame was on display?
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