I’ve resumed my daily walks with a new vigor. I’d been sputtering for a bit, but seem to have gotten back in stride and am fully enjoying them. I’ll share with you, a thought that I had this morning, near the end of my walk:

This morning, as I was finishing my walk, I was making a decision as to turn left and head home, or to continue straight for a couple of more blocks. A simple decision, then it hit me, a deep sense of gratitude.

Back mid/late February of 2003, I was having some acute leg pain in my left leg, starting in my lower back. This only happened when I walked a few blocks or more, but it was troublesome. Later, it progressed into a general numbness, particularly in the back of my legs and lower back. I was having trouble feeling heat, cold, and even touch.

One particular day, I had taken Tony to soccer practice. There are many errant balls flying to and fro. One of them landed in front of me, I attempted to kick it and fell straight to the ground. I thought that my knee had given out, but actually, my legs just collapsed. Scary. That was the impetus to cause my trip to the doctor.

I thought that perhaps I had a pinched nerve and went to a chiropractor. After a few treatments there was no improvement. He did an x-ray and it was inconclusive. He was concerned and decided to refer me to a neurologist, just in case. A few days later, I went to see the neurologist. He asked about the problems, then set about doing his work, hooking me up to an oscilloscope and poking needles in various parts of my body.

When he finished, he had a concerned look on his face and explained something to this effect:

Paul. I’m very concerned. Actually, I don’t know how it is that you are walking. You’re not getting any signals to your brain from your legs. You shouldn’t be walking. My only guess is that your eyes are working in coordination with your legs to keep you balanced and walking. I’m not surprised that you fell when you tried to kick the soccer ball. I want to schedule you for a myleogram*.

(*Worst test ever! They take a bit of spinal fluid out, inject that same amount of dye into your spine, place you a table, face down, strap you in, tilt you down so that the dye runs towards your brain. Your whole body feels like it is on fire and you break out into a sweat. After the test, you have to remain in bed for 24 hours).

The results of the test were pretty stark, telling. Several vertebrae were pushing on my spinal cord, especially around C3 & C4. The neurologist said that this was very serious and that he was going to get me an appointment with a surgeon. He called and I got an appointment the SAME day, with the best neurosurgeon in Dallas, Dr. Michael Desaloms – funny, all of the nurses were in love with this guy. He was quite the heartthrob. LOL http://directory.dmagazine.com/doctors/J-Michael-Desaloms-MD/6652

We went in to talk to him. He evaluated the x-ray, said that if I didn’t do the surgery, that probably the discs would continue to encroach into my spinal cord, damaging it beyond repair and I’d be paralyzed from the waist, or perhaps neck; however, if he did the surgery, there were risks, too. He told me to take a couple of days to think about it. I think, if I remember it correctly, it was a Friday. I asked him, right way: Can you do the surgery tomorrow? There’s nothing to think about. He laughed and said that he could do it early next week.

Wednesday, I went into surgery, came out with flying colors, feeling restored in my legs, feeling good!

I was told that I couldn’t play football or any other contact sport because I still have some discs in my back that are close to touching, but they weren’t bad enough to warrant such a difficult surgery. Much easier to do the neck than the thoracic spine! So skydiving, either.

Anyway, that’s what popped up when I thought about doing that extra half mile. I was happy to do it. Happy that I could do it. Grateful, full of gratitude!

Last Thursday, I was about to head out of the door, on the way to the airport for my trip to Columbus, OH, when I realized that I didn’t have a camera with me. I stopped short of the door, grabbed a camera, then put it back down. My thought, at that moment was: No. Not this time. I just want to enjoy and participate, not be on the job. Sure, the family loves when I take photos, as do I, but this time, I wanted to simply be a spectator and participant. Now, of course, it wouldn’t even feel right if I didn’t take a photo or two, or perhaps 50, but it was strictly iPhone and Hipstamatic.

Hey, Paul! What are you shooting with today? What??? You didn’t bring a camera with you? I don’t know who you are? I feel like you’re naked without your camera!!!
~Ana Kay’s uncle Seth.

In order to get the correct effect, the above quote must be spoken at a speed equivalent to pressing fast forward on an MP3 player while still listening to the song. I was going to say playing a “45″ on 78 speed, but then, most of the young guys wouldn’t have a clue as to what I was talking about. Seth is very cool, a fan of photography, and, to say the least, a bundle of energy and quite fun to be around. He and I talked about cameras, photography, and all manner of things during dinner on Saturday night. It was most certainly a lot of fun to be able to indulge in the conversation without worrying about missing any shots.

My favorite shot of the trip was the lead shot, of Ana Kay and Pedro. It was taken outside of the restaurant where we ate Friday night. It kind of looks like an album cover, to me, but I can’t think of an appropriate name. LOL

On Saturday night, at around 8:45 PM, we watched Ana Kay Guimaraes enter one side of the stage, and exit as Dr. Ana Kay Guimaraes, DVM! It was a long, grueling 8 years, but she made it! Congratulation, Doc!

As I had not taken out the flashes, etc, for a while, I had to go buy some fresh batteries so as not to have the flashes die in the middle of the session. In the end, I used only one flash with an umbrella. That’s it.

My friend, James, pictured here, asked me to take some photos of him for his Linked In and various purposes. I agreed. I set up a white background, clam shell lighting (one umbrella at about 45 degree angle on each side), and a stool. The pictures were a bit stilted and stiff. I think that is a factor of just sitting on a stool and having your photo taken. You tend to ‘pose’ and have on a stiff smile. The stool wasn’t working.

I happened to notice the light shining in the dining room, moved some stuff off of the table, and had James lean on the table. It was an immediate difference. He relaxed, started smiling, and the shoot went very well. Most of the photos that he really liked were taken like that. We also went outside and took some in natural light with just a hint of fill flash from the umbrella. It’s all a matter of what’s comfortable, and obviously, he prefers to stand and chit chat.

It’s cool to see what you can do with a single flash, blending light, trying to come up with a decent portrait. It was a successful evening, I’d say.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been wielding the iPhone, but it felt good to get back behind the D700!

Of late, I’ve been using my iPhone, exclusively, for photography. As a matter of fact, I’ve not used my Olympus OM-D since I returned from Mexico. Not because I don’t like it, because I do, but because I’ve been having fun with the Hipstamatic application and, one lens/film combination, in particular – Salvador 84/Salvador. What’s so interesting about this ‘lens’ is that you never really know what you’re going to get from it – seriously, no idea.

The other day, I was perched on one of the rocks in my backyard, looking at the planes fly over, checking out the sunset. I pulled my phone out, opened up the Hipstamatic application, and took a few shots. The top shot was my favorite. In ‘reality’, there was only one plane. I was rather surprised to see two in my photo!

Of course, many of the photos that I take with this particular combo are strange, indeed, but some turn out quite nice and are interesting things to load to Instagram, or to use here. I delete a lot of them. Another that I liked was this photo of the motor cycle.

It’s all in fun and good to switch it up every once in a while.

I have an Instagram account. I rarely use it. I’ve tried to use it, but for some reason, I can’t seem to get into the whole social media thing, whether it be Twitter (which I like), Facebook(Ho-hum), or Instagram. Some people take to it like the proverbial duck taking to water, and one of them is Ove, whose blog I used to follow; however, he’s not posted anything to the blog since January. I hope that he won’t mind me quoting him here:

So, what am I doing, then? It’s not that I lost my creativity. No. I’m at Instagram. Yes, you read it right. I make all images with my mobile phone. No Photoshop whatsoever. I even do colour. What makes this a great platform to me is that I can focus on the words that I often end up with in my head. I write a haiku for every image I make (in Swedish, though).
~Ove

As a matter of fact, I hope that he’s still following and will leave a word or two about his experience with Instagram. I follow Ove on Instagram, and he follows me. The above photo, taken the other day, is the last one that I’ve posted on my account. I’m finding that if I take a photo or two, while I’m out on my walk, it’s easy enough to post it to Instagram and keep walking. I posted a few of my ‘feet’ photos there as well. Unlike Ove, I don’t have a haiku to post with them, or sometimes nothing much to say. It might have just been an interesting, to me, photo.

I listened to a video broadcast on iTunes University and the speaker was saying that Instagram is the wave of the future, as far as photography is concerned. He said that with billions of photos produced each year, it’s no longer about the individual photo that you have time to look at and admire, but now about the instantaneous photo stream. Even news outlets are getting into it, bypassing the editor, letting trusted photographers post directly to the company’s Instagram stream in order to be out front with the news, completely disposable photography, worth only a single glance, then off to the next one. I’m not sure that I’m there, just yet. It seems a bit overwhelming. Perhaps it’s just because of my personality type.

Anyway, how many of you use Instagram? If so, please include a link to your account so that I can follow. I’d like to see what’s going on out there.

Body language

This week, I stumbled into a mini photo project. Pardon the bad pun, given the title, but I had to use it. Normally, I work from home, but this week, due to special circumstances, I had to go into town to work. We had the parts of our team, who live in other states (California, Texas, Rhode Island, Florida, and New York) visiting with us. It was nice to meet them in person. We had meetings, every day, that lasted from 8 AM until 5 PM and there were activities afterwards. The first day, Tuesday, I gave it my all. I attended the meeting, all day, did the team building exercise from 5 – 6 (Scavenger hunt around downtown), and went to dinner from 6 – 8:30 PM. I rode the train back and reached home at around 9:30 PM, or so, totally exhausted and in full “social overload”. I’d been out of the house for nearly 15 hours and with people for about 14 of those. Exhausted. My power levels were pretty much zero.

The next morning, I got up to do it again; however, when I got onto the train, I was not interested in having any conversation, nor making eye contact. I’d not recovered, just yet. I sat in my seat, kept my head down but my eyes open. All that I could see were the bottoms of the seats, the floor, and people’s feet. I started noticing shoes, positions, interactions, etc. I took out my iPhone, fired up the Hipstamatic app, and began taking photos, surreptitiously. It was quite interesting. I was granted with different pairs of feet as people moved in and out of the train.

My favorite interaction is shown at the top. Both of these were teenagers, about 16 or so. At first, the girl was by herself, leaning against the pole, legs straight, legs together, feet together. A few moments later, someone she knew, a boy, entered the train, approached her, and stood in front. Notice how much more relaxed and inviting her pose is. I love body language.

Some of the other photos were taken in downtown Charlotte, during one of the very few breaks that we had during our meetings. I took every opportunity to go outside, sit in the sunshine for a little bit, and take photos of people’s feet as they walked by.

It was a fun little project and it all came about from social overload. I’m sure my fellow introverts understand the premise.

I was in downtown Charlotte today, attending some meetings. During one of my breaks, I noticed the sunshine and the dust being kicked up by the construction worker as he worked to sand the new concrete slab that they had just poured the other day. I watched as people crossed the street. Some dodged it by crossing a block away, others simply walked through. This lady was having none of it and covered her nose and mouth.

Score one for the iPhone!

He told me that many people have rooftop patios and they keep a watchdog on the roof to discourage burglars. Ah, now I get it: Roof Dogs! Of course! Further, in some neighborhoods it can be quite noisy because when one dog starts barking, it sets of a chorus of “me too” barking. Fortunately, I had not heard this roof dog choir and was quite satisfied that I had not.

One morning, while out walking the streets, just after sunrise, I happened to look up, directly in front of me, and see the shadow of a dog on a wall. I took a few photos, thinking at first that it was a statue, then it moved. I looked up towards the wall on my left and noticed a dog peering over the edge, looking down at me. He wasn’t barking. By the time I raised my camera to get his photo, he was on to something more interesting, perhaps breakfast.

That was my only encounter with any roof dog, but it was pretty cool and I didn’t have to lose any sleep to do it!

Sometimes, there’s a philosophical split between being a homeowner and a photographer, in particular, where lawn care is concerned. It’s spring and all manner of plants are starting their growth cycle. Trees are blossoming, grass is turning green, and of course, the weeds are a growin’. My back yard is filling with henbit, a springtime weed that dies back as the weather gets warmer.

Today, I was in the backyard enjoying the warm temperatures, noticing the bees buzz back and forth, and thinking about what I need to do take care of those weeds. As I watched the bees do their thing, my thoughts turned from weed to control photography. Funny how that happens! I went inside, grabbed the D700 and the macro lens and came back outside, all thoughts of weed control put on hold. I spent a pleasant 1/2 hour or so chasing bees, though not very aggressively, and photographing them as well as photographing more of a long view.

I had thoughts of my childhood, chasing bees with mason jar, in the hopes of capturing a few, observing them for a while, then letting them go. Thoughts of weed control can wait for a few more weeks. I’ll continue to let the bees do their thing!

Emma

A case of right place, right time, looking in the right direction. This is Emma, a barn owl. Emma wasn’t quite satisfied with the perch that they had placed her on, so she opted for a bit of higher ground. She took flight and landed on the roof. Of course, she was tethered, but that didn’t matter. She got to spend a few seconds on the roof, certainly less than a minute, before they coaxed her down again. I just happened to be looking in that direction and was able to get off two shots before she left her throne. Thankfully, the Nikon P510 decided that there was enough contrast to focus. Of the two shots that I took, only this one was usable.