Your Canon Photos No. 26: 29th October to 4th November 2023

Dig,

I love your Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Steve Thomas

Steve,

Thanks. I just happened to see them walking by. I took it with a flash, but still had to enhance the lighting a little later. I didn't have much time. They were there and then quickly walked down the street.

Dunlin,

The squirrel is watching you. Did you scare the squirrel, trying to take its picture? 😀 In the second photo, I liked seeing the red and green in the background to match what we see with the plant. The pot of gold must be in that building. 😀

Steve,

Did you create those pink-purple colors later on your computer? It looks pretty that way.

Subject: A new way to show street photography

When I was in Portland, Oregon last week or so I had the opportunity to take a few street photos. I thought I would change the image in post processing just for fun. The woman appears astonished at seeing two people that apparently were heavily under the influence of drugs. I haven't been in Portland for a long time. Seeing all the drug activity and hearing about the crime, makes people stay away including myself. But I thought things were better so that's why I was there.

Unfortunately, I can't show the EXIF data independently for a while (as I've done previously). What happened is that I upgraded my IrfanView software. Then my EXIF data changed (the way that IrfanView shows it), so I have to change the code that I wrote. I thought I could just patch it, but it's all so different, that later I'll have to walk through each line of code to solve it. Hopefully, it will be easy. But I also wrote it for three cameras, the Canon 800D, Canon T7i and Canon M50 MKII. That makes it a little complicated.

Anyway, I hope you like my creativity.

Dig,

No. Those are, or were, the actual colors. It was a pretty sunset tonight.The whole sky lit up.

Steve Thomas

Yes and no. He stayed still long enough for me to snap a few pics, but after I moved to let a dogwalker through he had vanished into the trees.

I’m a Travelin’ Man
Made a lot of stops
All over the world
And in every port
I won the hearts
Of a million little boys and girls

Thank yew. Thank you very muuch

Steve Thomas

I am having difficulty in understanding this description, Digi. I have never knowingly seen a drug addict. Are you referring to the two walkers, who look quite normal to me? Are these the two people in your description? If so, where is the woman?

David

Steve,

Is that traveling man Santa Claus? That's a creative way to use the light to illuminate him. Who wrote the poem?

David,

Thanks for replying to my modified street photo. I had passed two people that were as still as statues, a man and a woman about 35 to 40 years old. They looked dead. They were standing and leaning on each other, where their foreheads touched. Their eyes were closed. Their clothes were ragged and one belt was partially off. It was so sad. I did not share that photo. I was walking west. About 50 feet later I saw the two people I photographed (in the photo that I showed here). The woman that I photographed (in the dress and on the left side in the foreground) was looking east towards the man and woman that appeared deceased.

Later I also saw two other men that appeared to me as being severely affected by drugs. They were also motionless and had their heads down but were in a standing position. There's homeless tents all around this location. I wasn't sure if I should show pictures of these people that appear to be affected by drugs. Some people on Dpreview would get upset if "vulnerable" people were photographed even though it's perfectly legal. Personally myself, I think everyone should be aware of these problems we face in society (even with photography). So even if I don't share those pictures of possible drug addicts, at least I can describe it. I had heard the problems were less in recent weeks, but I still found a lot of evidence that indicated to me that things are not normal. Not all of Oregon is that way. It's mainly around Portland, but drug & alcohol abuse and homelessness can commonly be found outside the area too.

We have people here in Vienna that are clearly in need of help, but I believe their problems are homelessness, alcohol addiction, or general poverty. Many are immigrants from eastern Europe. I find it very distressing to see such a contrast with the affluence of many inhabitants and tourists, and do what I can to help alleviate this poverty. When I first visited here 40 years ago, the streets in the center of town had normal shops that sold things useful to me. Now the rents of those properties are so much higher that the shops are like you would find on Fifth Av, NY: YSL, Cartier, Amani, Versace, Hermes, Montblanc, Jimmy Choo etc, so that the locals have been frozen out. There are bouncers at the doors and their customers are hyper-rich tourists.

I read about drugs in the USA, many of these are opioid prescription drugs, like Oxycontin, made by Purdue Drugs. I often read about it in connection with poor rural states like West Virginia. What is the explanation for this in what I take to be a prosperous city like Portland, Oregon?

David

David,

I don't know the reason there's so many homeless people and people addicted to drugs & alcohol in Portland, Oregon. I think the mild climate (even though we get lots of rain in the winter) might draw some of them to this area (to live in tents). Secondly, it could be the failed policies of the governing parties that could make a difference. I think that there should be more treatments available to help these people stay sober. I saw that someone had stated "the state’s underfunded treatment system is struggling to provide local solutions". Also it was written that "we are having an overdose epidemic like I’ve never seen...." There was at least one YouTube channel that would interview some of these drug addicts. What's alarming is that these people who appear to be addicted to drugs or alcohol are not hard to find. It's so common.

The new weekly thread is open here. Please start using it now.

Hi Digirame,

I don't know why but seeing the photo without enlargment, the womans facial expression reminded me of 'The Scream by Edvard Munch', 👍 👍 .

Hi Dunlin,

That's a good one of the squirrel, you've nailed focus even though there are branches in the way.

I've got my Linux box up and running and I'm trying Digicam as the DAM like yourself and Darktable to process my photos, I'm wondering what do you use for processing your photos??

After dumping windows and using linux exclusively for the last decade, I can tell you it is has been a challenge trying to find suitable replacements for many windows Image Manipulation programs. I have finally settled on a small handful of apps that work nicely on linux that I'm comfortable with and do all the things that I need for viewing and processing images.It is unlikely we will ever see programs like DXO or topaz for linux. You may find this helpful-maybe not. I have pretty much covered the windows apps sorely missed at first. 1) GIMP for anything photoshop. 2) XNview for simple image viewer replaced irfanview. 3) A-R-T(another raw therapee )for handling CR3s(which darktable and raw therapee did not at that time) thankyou Canon-NOT 4) Zerene stacking works nicely on linux /mac and windows. I have no use for any sort of organizer because my 6 decade mess of unorganized images gives me brain damage just thinking about it. AI will have to get a lot more intelligent to successfully tackle that mess.Linux could use a friendly competent stand alone printing app as printing out of GIMP is "like a box of chocolates-you never know what you're going to get" . Also finding linux drivers for OLDER scanners/printers can be troublesome. These things work well for me and that's all I know.

They are both very nice Steve, well done.
Cheers
Paul

Thanks mocha.
The three main apps I use are Geeqie (for speedy general photo viewing, I used FastStone on Windows), darktable and Digikam. It's my intention to use GIMP, but so far I haven't actually done so.
I'm very much still figuring out what works for me. Today I switched to a different Linux distro, for example.
I'm having trouble downloading all my photos back down from OneDrive. I'm planning on using a backup program (Déjà Dup) to sync them back into the cloud, it's just downloading them first that's the trouble.

Anyway, hope you're having fun with Linux.

Hi Dunlin,

I'm still trying different Linux Distros and as far as Software goes I found Digikam as an editing progam too frustrating, altering sliders then click and wait to see the outcome then start over again, not for me but I'll still use it for a DAM.

I've messed with both RawTherapee and DarkTable and am coming out in favour of DarkTable at the moment. I've not tried Gimp as yet.

I don't use Digikam for editing (except for occasional cropping); most people say it's not very good at editing. I too chose darktable over RawTherapee.
I'm actually not settled on a distro yet; that's partly why I haven't shared any photos in the current thread.