Adventures in Video

Please turn off/ pause/ rest your camera while you are walking around. Bouncing images make me wish they were all still photographs.

I can’t read in the car. Each time I get car sick, or nearly so. So I don’t read in a moving vehicle. I can listen to music because I don’t have to look at anything to hear it.

Sometimes I get that swimming inside my own head feeling when I watch urban exploration videos. The bouncing images are hard to follow, often not in focus and move onto something else before I have seen as much as I want to see.

I haven’t tried making videos, more than twice. None of them were exploring videos. One was a woodpecker we watched in Orillia. Another was a video of family and that’s when I discovered my camera doesn’t auto correct direction when I take video. So I am not going to offer advice on how to take better videos based on all my years of experience.

I will say… one thing you can do is stop filming while you walk around. Turn the camera on when you are standing at the location you want to be and can take a moment to focus yourself and the camera.

Eventually I may be lured into trying exploring video making. I’m not keen on it. I really prefer a photograph I can take my time looking at. There are so many details I want to see and so many things I missed in the moment I was taking the photo but see later when I upload it.

 

Lost Russia 20th Anniversary Edition

I’d like to see the anniversary edition. I wonder if it will actually be updated or just dusted off and sent out again.

lost russiaLost Russia: Photographing the Ruins of Russian Architecture [William Craft Brumfield] on Amazon.com.

Twentieth Anniversary Edition, with a new preface by the author, available in June 2015.

Source: Lost Russia: Photographing the Ruins of Russian Architecture: William Craft Brumfield: 9780822315681: Amazon.com: Books

Backyard Orchardist

Tis the season for driving along country lanes and finding apple trees loaded with fresh fruit, never picked. Kind of sad those trees that grow forgotten along the road. Once they would have been picked, the apples used in pies or eaten right off the tree. Now people just drive on by and only notice them in passing. Yet those are our history, our heritage.

Next time you see an apple tree stop and pick a few. Some may be bug eaten, but some of the brown patches are only places where it rubbed on the tree branch and not anything you can’t just peel away. It may be the best apple you have ever had, if you give them a chance. Of those I picked almost all were edible, not bug eaten as I expected they would be. One was especially delicious. It’s a shame I don’t know what kind of apple tree it came from.

Would you grow an apple from seed? Have you ever grown a plant from seed? Why not try one, even something tropical or exotic and have it grow by your writing space. Keep your seedling company and let it inspire you with something fresh and growing where you work.