Child’s Play

Watching children playing in the waves brings back memories of my own childhood and experiencing the ocean for the first time. My mother had told me stories of her childhood in Southern California- swimming in the ocean and running races on the sand with her family. I think she was trying to show me how to body surf that day, although she never called it that. She didn’t demonstrate (and knowing my mother, she was probably fully dressed at the beach), but she instructed me to put my back to the waves and let them carry me to shore. I followed her instructions, but ended up being knocked over, causing me to somersault through the waves and come up out of the water with a mouthful of sand. That was the end of that lesson! Despite that fiasco, I eventually did learn to body surf when I spent a summer in Hawaii between my sophomore and junior years of college. And I’ve had a lifelong fascination with the ocean, though nowadays it’s as an observer and photographer.

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Intentional Fuji Movement

Although it is almost winter, it still looks like fall here in Prescott. Leaves are falling, but it’s just sweater weather during the day. The above photo is of our willow tree, which is still yellow and losing it’s leaves.

I am FINALLY, after a slow start, getting used to my new Fujifilm X100VI. It has taken awhile to learn which function buttons to set to which functions and then to REMEMBER where they are, to understand the film simulations and “recipes”, and to adjust to “zooming with my feet”. At this point I have customized buttons set to back button focus, turning face detection off and on (there is also bird detection, but I can’t see photographing birds with this camera), toggling the ND filter on and off (yes! it works great), and lastly choosing a film simulation.

I had given up on film simulations, because I shoot RAW and didn’t like jpegs cluttering things up in Lightroom- I ALWAYS edit my photos. But, I recently discovered that I can still use film simulations when I shoot shoot RAW, and I can have the film simulation that I set in camera come in as a Lightroom profile (by adjusting a Lightroom preference). The photo then looks exactly like it does in camera, but I can turn the film look profile off in Lightroom or keep it and edit it- still making all my own choices. I see doing this mostly with my creative photography like today’s ICM. I used Velvia, a very vivid look and only tweaked it by adjusting texture, clarity, and dehaze. Time will tell how often I use this feature.

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Sailing

We had such a wonderful time seeing friends in California- and it was especially nice to be staying in Benicia- our home for over 25 years. I made sure to go walk down to the water each morning to enjoy the fog and sunshine. Today’s photo was taken with a slow shutter and a tiny bit of motion to create this impressionistice view.

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Shoreline

An early morning ICM view of houses and reflections along the shore in Benicia created an interesting abstract. I played with colors and created the version below- and I have not decided which version I prefer. What do you think?

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Carquinez

We have just returned from Benicia- our home for so many years (26!). We love where we live now, but miss our little town on the Carquinez Strait and all the friends we left behind in the Bay Area! We were there for a dear friend’s son’s wedding and managed to see many of our friends during the few days spent in Benicia. The water was less than a block from the Air BnB, so we took many walks along the shoreline and downtown. I’ve photographed the Carquinez Bridge many times over the years- here’s a muted impressionistic view- created just by moving my camera.

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Lakeside

Ahhh the lazy days of summer, just hanging out by a lake- in this case, at our daughter’s cabin at Crooked Lake in Alaska. The sunlight shimmering on the water behind the fireweed caught my eye, and I tried to capture the dreamy feeling using multiple exposures and a slow shutter.

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In the Forest

We’ve just returned from a visit with our daughter’s family in Alaska. My camera got a workout taking dozens of senior photos of our oldest grandson, and lots of ICM photos of places we’ve visited many times, trying to capture them in a different way. The photos here taken on a short hike to a spot we had never visited before- Barbara Falls in Eagle River. I took the photo above as we walked along and the more traditional photo below of the falls themselves. Quite a contrast to Arizona!

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Colors of Kansas

We visited the tiny family cemetery when we were in Kansas a few weeks ago. After taking time to look at the graves of so many members of Lonnie’s family- ones I knew and those whose names I knew only from genealogy research- I stood and looked down at the fields and trees of Manchester, the tiny community where Lonnie’s grandparents lived, trying to sear it all into my brain, as this was probably our last visit. I love the varying hues and tones of the fields and composed a quick ICM image to remember these last moments.

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