Sio and me and the ballgame

visiting with Morgan’s crew and Kevin’s crew

pix from both, power outage, etc.

power box falling off house

Hailey and Sio at the muny
focal length tests (link to another page)

It’s been a while since I’ve written, or shot pictures, or done much of anything that didn’t have work or rest associated with it.

Hopefully, the photomaking will take a bigger turn, though. I’ve just acquired a new (to me) Sigma 70-200/2.8 lens from a gentleman in Texas. Along with it, he sold me a Sigma 1.4 Tele-Extender. Verra nice!

I’ve shot a little comparison to show both ends of the 17-35/2.8-4.0, 28-70/2.8 and 70-200/2.8 (with and without the tele-extender). The link will appear here shortly.

I’ve been collecting ideas for interesting photos, and will have the favorites page done soon. I’ve collected 82 of my favorites, and have them ready. I’ll probably rebuild the photos tonight, and get that page some top billing!

More news…. it looks like we’re headed back to Jamaica in September. With all the new gear, and a desire to try some real underwater photography, I suspect my photo collection will grow greatly soon! 🙂

Beck and I spent the weekend up at a “cabin” at Lake Thunderbird (near Peoria). Great fun, great friends, and some fun photos (see Phydeaux’ Photos).

The biggest impression left on me? The sky. I haven’t seen a sky that dark in decades. A gentle fog lay on the lake, and but one light lit the lake. Low in the southern horizon was Scorpio, and high above was the Summer Triangle. I wish I’d brought Dad’s scope!

However, my wide lens and cable release are on loan in Hawaii right now, so I wasn’t able to see how they perform in dark sky, long exposure conditions. There’ll be another chance, I’m sure, for that equipment to shine. I sure was impressed with what I saw with my 28-70/2.8 though!

Today is Father’s Day, and is the first Father’s Day with which I haven’t had my father here to celebrate.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad. You inspired me to run down the path of photography, and you continue to inspire me. I hope you like the pictures.

After the long drive yesterday (Golden, CO to Maryland Heights, MO — about 850 miles), I’ve had some time to think about our excursion to Colorado.

The thing that sticks the most with me is the sheer beauty of the landscape. It is a painting, made by the hands of God. And, it screams to me.

I’ve only felt this way three other times. A visit to my aunt and uncle in San Diego around 1978 brought me my first encounter with this strange phenomenon. The others were in 1993 visiting Phoenix and in 1998 visiting London. This time is a little different, though, and I’m not sure why. Perhaps it just seems more accessible somehow. Perhaps it’s because there are other voices screaming inside me (and, no, I’m not hearing voices in my head!).

I’ve been thinking a lot since Dad’s death in August, and while I haven’t made the profound changes I thought I might after that event, I do notice some momentum building for some changes. Health, location and career are the changes that seem to be getting the most fuel right now.

Health I have total control over. It’s not easy, but it’s achievable, and it requires only me to do it.

Location I don’t have as much control over as I would like. With my current career, I am somewhat tied to decent sized cities, and I have a tremendous amount of loyalty to my current employer. This is the first time in my employment career that I’ve stayed at one company for this long (eight years), and the first time I’ve lived in one home/apartment for this long (three years).

Career I have plenty of control over. However, I have a pretty narrow list of careers for which I have training or aptitude, and they’re all in the same neck of the woods, career-wise. Photography is still very attractive to me, but I don’t have the training or eye (yet!) to make a living at it. I know I have the power to train with classes and practice, so that one’s up to me, too.

At the end of the day, though, I’m still the same ol’ me — plenty of dreams, and not enough steam! 🙂

We’re back from the Heartland Bernese Mountain Dog Club (HBMDC) draft event in Grinnell, Iowa. For those of you looking for the photos, they should be up here later tonight — I have the batch job running to create them now. Click on “Phydeaux’ Photos” on the left menubar, and then navigate through the folders to the correct date. Everything’s hierarchical by date, so finding them should be easy. I haven’t done rotations and cleanup yet, so it’s all raw — please bear with that!

It was a great event, although I was expecting many, many more dogs. I guess draft is really much more a specialty event than I thought. In any case, nine entries participated, and two earned their draft certifications — congrats Judy (novice) and Eli (open)!

The biggest things I noticed about my images from this event are that I need faster, better lenses and that I tend to shoot quite dark with the polarizer. I’ll figure this out eventually!