Roses from The Humboldt Rose Society garden yesterday. The sky was overcast. There was plenty of light but it was too cool. I used my LED on camera constant light set at 4,500 ° K to warm up the light. It is very handy for the overcast days this time of year.
All with MZ 12-100
This one from The Sequoia Park dahlia and day lily garden. Shot with my mollusc lens which I also use on octopussseses.
That's all. Rich
Lovely roses, as usual, Rich.
I've heard about plants growing suckers, but that last "rose" is ridiculous.
Beautiful images of beautiful flowers Rich. I don't think I have ever seen a slug/snail on a lily before!
Trying to raise the phoenix from the ashes here? It is summer and things often slow down at this time of year but glaciers are moving more quickly and with more visitors than we have been getting the past few weeks. Time will tell I guess but I may go to sleep in the meantime!
I have been trying to get to the rose gardens at the RBG now for a few weeks, without success. Yesterday we could have gone in the late afternoon, not ideal time but .... , the air was filled with haze from the fires in northern Ontario and Quebec. My wife has asthma so we decided against it. That has been the case a few times in this time period. Have to wonder when the fires will ease and the smoke dissipate.
Not sure how many MRIs I have had now but quite a few. This was the first on my spine, top to bottom. I have to wait a month to see my GP to find out he is going to refer me to a specialist. I bet the referral won't happen for a couple of weeks after that and only god know when the apt with the specialist will be.
We walked around at two antique stores and a large indoor mall for about three hours total before retiring to a hotel for a few hours sleep before the 1:40 a.m. apt for the MRI. I paid the price for the walking for the next two days. Still not sleeping much.
I have images of the irises and peonies from my previous trip to the RGB Laking gardens that I have not yet viewed so I think I will have a look through those and put a post together today.
Stay well Rich and try and avoid the doctor unless you get better service there than we get here. Ours may not cost all that much (usually free) but the service pretty much sucks! Not like it was when I was growing up or even fifteen years ago. It has gone down the dumpster in the past ten years for sure.
Andrew
Thanks, Jim. You never know what you'll find. Rich
Thanks, Andrew. I feel sorry for gastropods in a garden. They are fascinating creatures. They are happy to eat decaying leaf litter from the substrate. But people put sweet flowers into their environment, then kill them, often in a gruesome way, for eating the flowers. But, I sure don't have any empathy for aphids. 💀
Not necessarily, I just have a lot of pictures backed up which will likely never be posted anywhere.
I don't like the sound of that, Andrew. What do you mean by going to sleep in the meantime? Don't scare me.
Or, are you thinking about going back to the old forum? It seems like this forum mess has caused a rift among old friends. I don't like feeling ambivalent, but that's where I am.
No big fires in N. Cal. at this time and the air here is clean, moist, and salty from our current foggy Pacific onshore flow. It's ironic, we've finally got to the point of doing something about air pollution and fires from the effect of the pollution we've already caused are polluting worse than we had before. I remember when climate change was becoming known, quite a few scientists said it was already too late. Even scientists would rather believe the best of things, so the doomsayers were shouted down and since kept their thoughts to themselves, but have not changed their minds. Most said that when The Gulf Stream stops, that will be the beginning of the end. If you want to read about something hair raising, reference that. I hope you have some clear days coming soon so you can get to the RBG before the flowers are gone.
I hope the MRI pictures show the problem and that it is something which can be corrected without a knife. Hopefully, the pain will continue to relent while you wait. MRI at 1:40 A.M. surprises me. It must be in a big city. Imaging here only done 5 days / week during business hours. I can't have a MRI because of the wire in my cervical fusion. I had a neural surgeon describe it without a bedside manner. The magnetism would pull out the wire and that would make a grisly mess, and be fatal. I have thought of getting a 'No MRI' tattoo on my back but just never got around to it.
Medical is no better here, but it's about money, here. People die from lack of care while investors in medical corporations and many doctors live in the lap of luxury....and also have the best medical care. I am doing OK, medically. I am still hoping to get things settled here and maybe salvage the second half of the summer. I sure need a road trip.
This picture makes me wonder if you have changed to new software with a better selection tool, as you previously mentioned.
Don't get stressed. The pipe is not vertical. 😵 Rich
No new software yet Rich. I have lost a lot of interest and can not sit at the computer that long any more so once a day usually, perhaps more on a good day. Today is not too bad. Still no good night's sleep. Usually up for 3 to 5 h during the night. As to going to sleep, there is so little activity here now that I think I could nod off for a few days and only Jim would notice! As to the fracturing of the community, so much for staying together it would seem.
Do you wish to return to DPR, inquiring minds want to know? I have zero confidence that the new owners of DPReview will continue the forums in the same way they were before. The site is still slow and unresponsive for me. Hit and miss. I go there and look around but rarely post. Not sure that is going to change any time in the near future.
Did you repair your light arm or get a new one? I am thinking you must have if you are using it.
I have been playing with a tool in Nik Color Efex that I had not previously used. I am still using an older version. The tool is Darken/Lighten Center. By messing with the adjustments you can easily darked the edges and adjust the centre, not necessarily brighter as there is a choice. It works especially well on images with a single flower.
Andrew
I need the photography for distraction from here and now, Andrew. I enjoy showing it in the forum and seeing others' work, but I would continue if there were no forum. I must be able to sit at the computer. A long time ago I figured out that if I get up and walk around every 40 minutes, I don't get pain from sitting, and now the sitting hurts the right hip and knee worse than the back. I kept doing something to turn off a computer timer, so I got an old fashioned, wind up, one hour kitchen timer. It ticks too loud, but I got used to it and usually have the cans on, anyway. Just 30 seconds of walking around the apartment does it.
I would stay here, or return to the old forum, or both, if it could be as it was. I had been thinking that the old forum has more traffic than here. Then I read your comment to somebody saying that is not true. So I watched for a few days and you are right. DPReview is as deserted as it is here.
I am surprised at how much I miss what we've lost. I keep away from any kind of in person relationships in this part of my life, so I appreciated the community we had. But I guess that's how it is. " All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again."
I just stripped the 1/4 20 threads on the shoe mount foot at the end of the arm which attaches to the camera. I just over tightened the lock washer which tightens against the shoe. I had another one at home. That light is a pain to mount and tighten, and keep tight, but the light it casts is so nice that I put up with the arm.
Not too long ago you mentioned using tonal contrast and contrast color range in Nik Color Efex Pro, I have version 4. I tried them and now they are part of my work flow. I used to use Darken/Lighten Center for flowers and got away from it for some forgotten reason. I will try it again on a single flower.
I wish you a good night's sleep tonight. Rich
2 am now Rich. Not asleep yet. Been watching youtube videos.
I have been considering starting a Weekly thread at the old site. I am very conflicted about that. I feel let down. I should not say more about that aspect.
Watching jimmy and natalie living/travelling in a van they outfitted. Their youth and adventures are making me feel old! I’m am so I guess that is to be expected.
Andrew
As an aside, son number one and wife went to Detroit for their anniversary three weeks ago. Their Pacifica was stolen from the hotel parking lot. Son number two drove to Rochester, NY for work Sunday. When he went to leave Wednesday he discovered the tailgate from his 2008 GMC pickup had been liberated. Apparently the northern states are not good places for Canadians to take their vehicles!
You certainly have a great selection of roses to choose from Rich. I was impressed by the detail in Cornu aspersum.
Dicky.
Very nice set, Rich … and as always need to view them in the gallery view!! … gallery view much better here than over on DPR! ….. I always like your roses even if my approach is different and always evolving
while yours seems consistent and always very good. I still think your roses should be printed large … Maybe you're familiar with Christopher Baker's work with roses in a book by Allen Lacy on “The Glory of Roses” … some interesting compositions … as part of a garden …
I find that I am losing much interest in the Internet as I continue to age and the parts start wearing out … The pandemic had me reduce activity and lose parts faster than expected so I no longer walk even my urban paths with any regularity … I'll be spending more time on the computer looking back through the files and reducing the back log that ProCap provided … Not sure how much I'll be here … or over there ...
Reading your thoughts on Climate Change .. this was predictable easily in the late 1960's maybe before .. Just think about B. Fuller's energy slaves and how India and China were evolving.. One has only to realize that civilization and technical progress has made more energy slaves available to each of us every year but also each increase in good service (energy units) is accompanied by an increase in waste and pollutant products …. I was a proponent of nuclear energy only after they devised a means of controlling the waste products whose presences would outlasts many generalizations. The answer was always that we invented nuclear power in 20 year and that science would solve the waste problem in another 20 so let's start now . .. Another problem put off for future generations.. enough of this nonsense … I'm rambling …
Stay active and well …..
WhyNot
Thanks, Dicky. The snail is a focus stack. I was lucky that it held still for it. 🤣 Rich
Thanks, WhyNot. I like your pink bouquet.
Same here, the pandemic has accelerated my aging process and my brakes are shot.
I realized what was happening in the 1960s when I read Heinlein's prediction of our future. People living in cubicles, eating yeast based food, and competing to emigrate to new planets which are not (yet) crowded. The part of the biological imperative which is reproduction will be the end of us, and sooner than later if we don't figure out how to stop it....other than famine, pestilence, thirst, or war.
How about putting birth control in an aerosol and spraying it everywhere? LOL, I bet the bible pounders would love that. Rich
I am also conflicted about going back, on several levels, Andrew. And, I also feel let down. And, I am trying to keep from saying it more specifically in public.
Lots of theft of auto parts easily taken and easily sold here. I hadn't heard about tail gates, but that would be easier and quicker than a catalytic converter.
I have been using a 'Club' on my steering wheel since both Kia and my insurance company informed me that Kias and Hyundais with the old fashioned ignition key can be easily stolen using the USB port. After they break in, they just have to rip off the plastic steering column cover to unlock the wheel, then use their tool on USB to tell the computer to start the engine.
Well, The Sun just came out! It's been overcast tight during the day and foggy at night for a week. I'm going out to find some birds as I'm over flowered for a while. Rich
Yes, it could easily done a runner....
Andrew,
In researching things to help with my insomnia, I found out that the light from displays such as computers and televisions can interfere with the body's process for getting sleepy. It was suggested that shutting such devices off an hour or two before bedtime and doing something like reading a book would help, which I found that it did. I don't think it had to be reading, just anything that didn't involve a display screen, -- something to do with the type of light they emit.
Lynne
After solving the Da Vinchi Code Dan Brown posited a similar solution in Origin .....
WhyNot
Lynne, I put on tv and wait to fall asleep. I can doze off in late afternoon easily. The trick is to watch something boring!!!! I like books that are mystery oriented I have a difficult time putting them down. I stay up well into the night reading. This was when I did not have difficulty sleeping. The issue now I am sure is related to my back issues and drugs.
Thanks for the suggestions. The lack of sleep does not really bother me, it is just the way things are now.
Andrew
Two things, Andrew. Do you let yourself sleep as late as you can in the morning?
And, if you like mysteries, check out "Chaos" by Tom O'Neill, which I read a couple of weeks ago. It is about Manson and his killing spree, but not really about him, or those particular murders. It is about so many things going from WW2 and on into the 70s, and how they may have, or did influence Manson, and some other murderers. It is fiction, sort of.....maybe not. It left me with many more mysteries than I started with. and I found it vastly entertaining. It's 480 pages and I could not put it down and read it overnight. 🥱
I used Nik darken/lighten center on this one. It does a lot more than just darken/lighten center, as you said. I need more practice with it. Rich
Now that I think about it, WhyNot, I realize there would have to be an antidote. We would need some births. Who would decide who gets to breed? That would make a great work of fiction, but would need someone on Orwell's level to write it. Rich
I suppose the subject matter can make a difference. My preferred reading is biography/history or Dickens. I just finished
The Wager : a tale of shipwreck, mutiny and murder
a recently published book on a little known incident in the obscure War of Jenkin's Ear and a fascinating story.
I've read most of Dickens' books several times -- I have a complete set in both hardback and quality paperback. My favorite is Bleak House, late enough to be mature Dickens and early enough to not have as much of the overthought contrivedness that crept into his later work.
I do like certain types of mystery as well. I recently read a couple of different series set in medieval England: Dame Frivesse and its interwoven companion series "A Play of . ."; and the Crispin Guest series. Both are rated highly on their authenticity as to the time period.
Best wishes that your discomforts abate soon.
Lynne
Nice set Rich I don’t have many flowers or photograph them but do enjoy seeing other peoples flowers and plants ie urs and Andrew’s
Try Clarke's "Against the Fall of Night" ..... been decades since I read it but it may be close ...
WhyNot
I read "Against The Fall of Night" in the 1950s, WhyNot. Clarke rewrote it as a full novel and called it "The City and The Stars" in 1956. It, and "Childhood's End" are among my favorites. Clarke had a spooky side, too. Try "The Nine Billion Names of God." Rich
Thanks, Paul. Andrew gets on his knees and gets dirty for his flowers, while I am a parasite on other people's hard work. Rich
