Photography

Digital Memory Blackouts

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Last Gift From Nannie

The Google Photos Rediscover This Day feature felt I needed reminding of today five years ago.

It is true that I took some photos (1,2,3) while on a beach trip. And it is also true that I cherish these photos. But it is also true I cherish them because they make me weepy and sad.

So, if their goal is to improve my day, then that was an Epic Fail.

The photo used here is another photo I took a few months later after she died and still processing my grief. That beach trip was the last trip we took. My trips over the next few months would be preparing my heart for her death. These photos were the last good time.

I could turn off Rediscover This Day. That seems like taking a sledgehammer to drive a nail. Maybe if all I had in there were bad memories, then sure.

I guess I could delete the photos about which I do not want to be reminded. While more selective, using the service as a way of sharing and storing seems pointless if I have to selectively store things I may not want reminding about somewhere else.

Better would be a “never remind me about this again.” A blackout for certain photos or sets that I specifically do not want to see again.

Phone camera and teeshirt selfies

I love Sci-Fi teeshirt
I love Sci-Fi

So I wear lots of geeky teeshirts. Many of these shirts have text on them. Maybe it is just me, but I want the text to be oriented the correct way when I take a photo of it. (You all are smart people, so it is not that I think you would be unable to read it backwards. More likely I do not want to appear cluelessly unobservant about what I am posting.)

Originally I tried to take this photo with Instagram. And then I realized the text was backwards. So I pulled up Facebook and took the same photo. Facebook flipped the backwards photo so that the text was correct. It did a face recognition thing prior to taking the photo.

What mystifies me is that Instagram, the king of cellphone photo sharing does not already do this? And that Facebook who also owns Instagram does. I can rotate the photo to its side or upside down, but not flip it over. Probably I could find another app to do this, but now that I know Facebook takes it correctly maybe I will not bother.

Once Facebook has taken the photo and oriented it, I can then go back and use Instagram to post it. This cumbersome method will bother me until Instagram works out how to correctly take the photos. Kudgy workarounds make me hyper-aware I should seek an alternative.

Missing Photos?

Several (most) of the photos I have on this site are actually hosted on Flickr. If they are missing, today (July 25th, 2013 7pm to 1am), then the below is why.

We wanted to give you a heads up that Flickr will be undergoing planned maintenance this coming Thursday, July 25, from 4pm to 10pm PDT.

During this time, Flickr will be unavailable on web and mobile, and the API will not be reachable. There will also be a site-wide notice an hour beforehand to make sure no one is taken by surprise.

To stay on top of our updates during the outage, follow us on Twitter.

Thank you in advance for your understanding.

dSLR Resolution Week One

Week One Decided that I should post a dSLR photo a week this year. So this is entry one.

Yesterday, Iook a walk on the trail at Ben Burton park. This fern and moss caught my eye. Between the tree and cloud cover, there was not a great amount of light. So I oped up the ISO to 400, the aperture to f/22, and the shutter out to 1/10th of a second. Easy.

Further up, I tried to get some cotton-y weed and the power lines, but that did not come out. Think my mistake was misjudging the focus  on the weed so it is out of focus. Thought I heard the camera beep to say it was in focus.

Disappeared

Stats about views of my content can make me waste many, many hours. Sometimes I wonder why people viewed mine instead of anyone else’s. Well, except for Ezra Freelove as I appear to be the only one. Maybe I should create another Ezra Freelove and see which people like better? I love the stories people tell about who are the others with the same name as them.

I ran across this photo and felt so very sad. The field where these flowers grew is now a construction site for a new interchange. The actual site is at least six feet under dirt with new sod. Not nearly as pretty as it used to look when the cornflowers were in bloom. The new road will make it easier to get to nearby shopping and potentially a better movie theater. Progress! I guess. I’ll miss the cornflowers though.

Dwarf Cornflower