Don — Page 66

Saturday Morning

July 21, 2018 at 9:37 am by Claudia

We sat out in the Secret Garden this morning, drinking our second cup of coffee. It’s the perfect place to talk; intimate, relatively quiet, birds singing, chipmunks running by. I’m treasuring these sunny mornings – it’s going to rain tomorrow and Monday and off and on throughout next week.

That means I’ll be doing some mowing and other garden chores today. I’m fine with that, in fact, I’m in the mood for that.

Thanks for all your support as Don and I play with our cameras and Don learns an entirely new skill. It’s good to have something to get excited about. That doesn’t mean, however, that we’re not mourning the loss of Margaritaville. We are. We just try to keep the sadness at bay. Yesterday, we took a little nap together on the sofa and when I woke up, I felt such sadness that I wouldn’t be getting a call from Don as he made his way to the theater for the evening. That he wouldn’t be hanging around with his Margaritaville family. That audience members who planned to see it in the fall are being deprived of seeing it with the original cast – a more joyous group of people you will never meet. That particular cast will never perform together again. And that makes me unbelievably sad. Imagine how it makes Don feel. Sigh.

So we mourn, then we distract ourselves. It’s all part of the process.

This bee is exploring the mullein that grows in the back forty. This is the mullein that is over 6 feet tall. It is no longer standing up straight, but is curving downward because of the torrential rain we got last week. I’ve tried to help all of the mullein stalks stand upright, but it isn’t working.

It’s a pretty time in the gardens. But I still have to weed. And I’m approaching that time – it happens every summer – when I no longer want to expend the energy to weed. I’m not there yet, but it’s coming. Prediction: August.

We’re off to have a little breakfast in town and then Don is going off to do his thing and I’m coming back here to do mine.

Happy Saturday.

On Location

July 20, 2018 at 9:10 am by Claudia

I’ll respond to yesterday’s comments when I’m done writing this post. I had a busy day yesterday and I was too tired at the end of it to do anything other than plop on the sofa.

Don wanted to go ‘on location’ to shoot some photos, which means to the town just north of us. I had plans to mow, so we split the difference. The morning for photography, the afternoon for mowing. We found a neat place to set up, right in front of a favorite local bookshop, Inquiring Minds.

As amazing as this sounds, right after we got there, a young guy walked by and stopped to talk to Don. He has the same vintage camera. He even offered some tips. Such a small world! The camera definitely attracts people and Don loves nothing more than to meet people and chat with them. A woman and her daughter walked by and the daughter was raving about the camera. Turns out her grandfather had one and he was a well-known photographer who concentrated on jazz singers – among them, Billie Holiday. All of this happened in the first 15 minutes we were there, as Don was assembling the camera. In a small town.

I thought you’d like to see this little sidewalk garden in front of the shop.

Isn’t it adorable?

Don has been working with this camera for a mere four days. He studies hard. There’s a steep learning curve because it’s vintage, entirely manual, and it’s heavy. But each day he has improved. Lighting, framing the shot, aperture settings – all of it is new to him. The whole idea of this kind of street photography is that the photographer has one shot. Period. It’s a polaroid, the film is expensive and so, one chance to get it right, to capture that one moment in time.

But, of course, when you’re first starting out you have to experiment a whole lot before you can offer your services.

I’ve been his model all week long because I live with him. It’s been fun. (And I’ve been playing with my new camera as well.)

Here are yesterday’s winning shots:

That red brick wall is the perfect backdrop!

Then I took my turn:

I don’t mind saying I have a crush on this incredibly cool guy.

This has become a real passion for him and the perfect thing to help him through the transition from doing Escape to Margaritaville in New York City to suddenly being back home. I’m so proud of him.

Afterwards, we walked across the street to our favorite vegan restaurant and had a bite to eat.

Such a pretty bouquet on our table!

Then back home to mow the corral and the entire front lawn. Yikes. I was bushed!

I love my new camera and I have much to learn about it. But so far, it’s a winner.

Happy Friday.

Experiments and Surprises

July 17, 2018 at 8:54 am by Claudia

Playing with digital cameras and film cameras. It was so frigging hot and humid yesterday that I’m amazed we managed to take any pictures at all!

First, let me show you a close-up of Don’s new baby:

It’s gorgeous. He practiced putting it together and taking it apart yesterday morning. Fortunately, he had taken a video of Louis showing him how to do it.

In the meantime, after writing a blog post, I started to unbox my new Canon 77D. I’d show you a picture, but it doesn’t look all that different from my Rebel T3i. But it’s definitely an upgrade and I can tell by the quality of my photos. It came with an 18-35mm lens, which can take wide angle shots like this one of the kitchen:

I’ve never been able to get this much of the kitchen in one shot. (For better or worse!)

I took a lot of pictures of this pink and cream moth I found on the lavender. I’ve never seen this kind of moth before. So pretty!

I took a lot of experimental photos, just to get an idea of what the camera can do. There’s a lot to learn and I’ve just started.

Don bit the bullet and started experimenting with his Crown Graphic. I was the model. Since the shots are polaroids, there’s much to learn about not only manually focusing the camera, but finding the right light and figuring out how long to wait until the photograph is revealed.

He’s texting Louis about his photos.

I took this with the new camera.

Considering this camera weighs a ton and that this kind of photography is new to him, he took some pretty good shots. The challenge is that the film is expensive, yet he needs to play around with it for a while, so we’ve just accepted the fact that this first week will be about using a lot of film.

So far, I’m loving my new camera. I’ll use both of my cameras, of course, but for now, I’ll concentrate on the 77D.

And speaking of cameras, if you follow Don on Instagram, you’ve probably seen some of his Holga photos. Holgas are made in Japan. They’re plastic and were manufactured for children as a way of teaching them photography. In the years since they first appeared, they’ve become popular with photographers and now they have a huge following. The fun thing about these film cameras is that each camera is different; they have their individual quirks. There’s often vignetting around the image. Sometimes, light does funny things to the film. My camera’s pictures look different than Don’s.

We take the film to be developed at B & H and then we have the negatives digitally scanned and emailed to us. I got my first batch back yesterday and I’ll be sharing them with you off and on for the next few days.

Taken on Ninth Avenue in NYC. This guy was taking a break, sitting next to his bike. I love black and white photography, though I also shot a roll in color.

Gosh, I love film! And the funkiness of the Holga makes me happy! You never know how the shot is going to come out.

Before I close – in the garden:

I didn’t plant white coneflowers here. They’re volunteers from the big garden bed.

Photography, Holgas and the garden are full of surprises.

Happy Tuesday.

Saturday Morning

On Location

Experiments and Surprises

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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