Time

Well it is time, something that we never consider until we are much older I think.  That bank that we are constantly withdrawing from.  Never depositing into.  Something we all will run out of at some point.  I look around at how much idiocy there is in the world people are so screwed up and yet they do not choose to realize that time is precious and that there is no need to do stupid stuff.  That is what worries me most about the future.  My children and the crazy world they have to deal with.  People going off just because.  Religious idiots that stand for nothing and would do anything to hurt people in the name of their religion.  Harmony and peace is said to come from faith, what ever your faith.  But then there is that small group of people that take it that extra yard and you get the idiots.  That is also true of non religious idiots.  Trust me they are available in both camps.  Many colours and stripes. I will generalize it and say that the idiots are ruining the world.  You know who you are.

Back to time.  What I really want to say is how I have seen time slipping away with our wonderful fella.  Sparky, aka cole.  We had a point in the weekend where I thought I was going to have to take him to the vet for that last moment.  I was totally crushed, tears and anger that he was at this last stage so quickly.  He has bounced back again seems to be better and not so messed up.  But as with all things older be it people or dogs.  He did not bounce quite as high this time.  He is still showing some signs of favouring his one leg a little. Once he is moving it is ok and he does not show any issues.  But it was that thought that I was going to be taking him in for the moment I fear is coming too soon.  I will walk that last mile with him because he would do the same for me with no questions.  It is that simple thought that has made me think about how wonderful he has been to have in our family.  I miss him and his youthfulness that has slowly slipped away over the last number of months.  10 months ago he as taking full walks around the park.  5 months ago he was taking shorter walks.  This past week no walks as we are just letting him rest his shoulder and leg a bit.

So again our pets, these small or big furry family members teach us how precious time is.  More so to those that only get a handful of years.  It teaches us to look at the senior animal as you would a senior family member.  Pets always helping to learn the lessons we need to learn.

So I have taken time this past weekend to lay on the floor with sparky get covered in dog hair, tell him my thoughts and to reassure him we will never let him suffer.  We have been feeding him ibuprofen for the past 2 weeks to help his aches.  Seems to be working.  But you and I know you can't stop time.  It will march on and it will one day catch up to us all.

So for those that fail to understand the value of life and the precious time we have.  Maybe they would benefit by having a pet.

I miss my guy already and he is still here but he is not the same he is older and we all know it.  It is so heartbreaking and I can only think what I would do to take time from one of those idiots and give it back to our guy.  An inter bank transfer so to speak.

As a footnote to this rambling comment.  I was up in Edmonton for work this past week and we have been discussing the fact we want to have another dog in our home.  Timing is whatever no rush but it can happen organically.  I have been talking to some people about a rescue dog so I went to see here as she is in Edmonton this said rescue dog.  She did not like me period over an hour she tried to attack me repeatedly and would not come near me at all.  In fairness to both the dog and my family she is not the right girl for our house.  So we will continue to look and see what we find.  When we are ready it will happen I am sure.  I could think that it would be hard to introduce another dog into our home as I am immediately expecting sparky and his mannerisms.  Another tough transition to allow a new pet to become themselves much like my kids you want to give them the ability to develop into who they are but with a dog you want to also help it understand the boundaries.  Yeah enough on that.

Love your pets they are only here for a short time but they give you everything everyday without question.

Cheers

What is it all about

I have spent a few days looking around at my photos.  I ended up thinking a lot about how skilled I am as a photographer.  By no means do I have the professional skills of some people.  I think what it boils down to is how do I feel about my photos.  I look at some of the other work out there that is truly amazing.  Tones are awesome and composition is flawless or so it seems.  I have spent many hours looking at videos on photography, I have seen some hard core individuals that go on and on about you should study this persons work or that persons work.  I started to realize that there is really no right or wrong.  If you look out there in the vast pit of photos on the web there is one of everything.  I looked a photo the other day and it was blurry, but you know what there is photographer that shoots his images that way.  They call him inspiring and genius.  So what?  My photos are not as good as his blurry images?  Seems odd.  I take a bad shot and it is off to the trash this guy intentionally does this and it is a masterpiece.

So I am come to two points in this muse of mine.  Aaron Nace, phlearnvangalist (phlearn.com).  He said in one blog post, you spend a lot of time reading and watching and probably looking at photos.  You are scratching your head about this that or the other thing as you look at the awesome images.  He final comment was stop looking at them and go take pictures.  The best way to get better is to go and take photos.  So in the previous post I was spurred on and went downstairs and took photos.  Not a brilliant sunset or anything.  But something that made me think.  Credit to Dale for giving me the idea of just going and taking a photos.  Have fun with it.  I sometimes feel my photos totally suck and yes not everyone is a keeper, 90% are probably a waste of 1's and 0's but there are some that you can work with.  Which leads me to the next point.  Neil Young does an interview with Howard Stern, his comment about making art was interesting.  I will paraphrase it "make art however you feel you want to make art or however you are inspired.  If you like it then who cares what anyone else thinks".  In my mind this coming from an artist that succeeded at making his money and fame and can now say whatever.  But it is totally true.  I am an artist of some kind.  I choose to share my work with those I want and not the entire world wide web.  In the end what I get is art that I like or love.  I guess what I am saying is if you are waiting for somebody to say yeah that is it man you have it.  Well you may be waiting a very long time.  Create something, if you have inspiration I believe it will reflect in who you are and what you create.  Which leads me back to the first point, get out there and take photos big or small good or not so good.   Try and do and be inspired on whatever level you are at.  That will create passion and passion will result in something amazing.

So what is it all about for me?  I think I have started to figure it out.  we will see but I am looking forward to see what I can create.

cheers.

Buttons!!!!

Can you say buttons?

So here they are my buttons, well not my buttons but buttons none the less.  Had a bit of fun putting these together played with some actions and also some black and white.  But mainly just fun.

Did anyone get the plate of that car that just went past me? I think it was the weekend?

Yep the weekend has packed it in on us again.  Jammed full of do this do that sort of things.  The biggest event was probably serving the breakfast for Sinclaire's friends as they came in to Calgary for a birthday event.  Anyway enough about University kids and the fun they get to have.

Weekend.  Over.  I am not sure where the time went but I am again facing that little winter blah.  I am not sure if I want to really do much beyond sit around and relax.  I am not finding very much all that interesting. I am going to try and motivate myself to get after some other photos, something that needs to happen is take some pictures.  I will be hopefully getting these old black and white negatives which I am very curious to see, I plan to spend some hours on those.  Maybe I will get a chance to work on them in Feb or March.  Not sure I have a bunch of work related travel so I am sure there will be a few nights of boredom.

I have been hard at work doing some painting on Friday, again bored so figured it was something that needed to be done so went ahead and did that.  Colour is great and the room looks very fresh and new again.  Now if we could just get rolling on the kitchen.  We are going to get the quotes in Feb or March for the ceiling work.  I am away too much in Feb so it may be March but we really need to get the drywalling done.  The plan is laid out and I think a go for the most part.

Enough on the home renos I am going to get back to my photos.  I have found a bunch of new concepts on how to edit my work, this expose for the highlights and then recover the shadows.  Works great.  I have started to use this more often so that I actually remembered to do this the last time I picked up my camera it was funny I shot a couple of pictures and then went back and shot again as I said need to try exposing this a little differently.

Well camera stuff is on my mind as I am really thinking of what to do, I want to maybe update my camera to a newer body.  I see some things in the d750 that I really like lots more brackets of exposure that I could use to elevate my HDR shots.  Tilt screen, I know who uses that but I know I would.  Anyway tough to justify the money right now but I have been looking at selling a few items and then I would sell my d600 and hopefully cover the expense a bit.  So if anyone is in the market for a nice camera nikon d600 full frame sensor, keep me in mind.

I got into  a discussion on Facebook about buttons.  I know some of you may know this already as you are in that discussions so I am going to go and find some buttons to photograph.  I think this a great thing.  The challenge, find a way to put buttons into your image, make a few pics and see what we come up with.  Anyway I am going to maybe work on that tonight.  Button photos.  Sounds like a good indoor picture opportunity.  Going to try and get creative.  So come on back and see if I get my motivation going and post the pictures......one has to have a little fire every once in a while

Cheers