Post a good thing that happened in your life today

[sb photos]

2 hours ago, Bryan said:

Went for a walk through Hawthorn Dene and along the beach near Seaham in Co. Durham. Saw wild orchids growing alongside the path and then spotted an excellent  stone and driftwood artwork on the beach related to the coronavirus. It included a sailing ship named Hope, rain clouds, and a NHS reference. Photo to follow.....

 

Sounds like a nice walk. I visited a local nature reserve last Sunday that was renowned for its orchids. Spent most of my time lying down photographing them. Never knew there were so many verieties. Only 1 edited to date. It was about time I gave my 90mm macro lens some use.

 

[george]

28 minutes ago, NYCat said:

 

Oh my. I hadn't even thought of that. They do keep an eye on me.

 

Paulette

[Bryan]

2 hours ago, sb photos said:

 

Sounds like a nice walk. I visited a local nature reserve last Sunday that was renowned for its orchids. Spent most of my time lying down photographing them. Never knew there were so many verieties. Only 1 edited to date. It was about time I gave my 90mm macro lens some use.

 

 

I rarely photograph wild flowers because I have no expertise in that area.  I don't know their names, haven't spent any time developing the skills to shoot them and I don't possess a macro lens.  However I did get down on my knees to take a couple of shots, but without success. I wasn't low enough and  had to hold the camera at an angle, so, while the bottom of the plant is sharp, the top isn't. There is more to this than meets the eye.  I need to take something to lie on, a mini tripod and a bellows and/ or extension tubes, but then it becomes too much like hard work, particularly if you have to lug this gear any distance.

Edited June 23, 2020 by Bryan

[spacecadet]

28 minutes ago, Bryan said:

 

I rarely photograph wild flowers because I have no expertise in that area.  I don't know their names, haven't spent any time developing the skills to shoot them and I don't possess a macro lens.  However I did get down on my knees to take a couple of shots, but without success. I wasn't low enough and  had to hold the camera at an angle, so, while the bottom of the plant is sharp, the top isn't. There is more to this than meets the eye.  I need to take something to lie on, a mini tripod and a bellows and/ or extension tubes, but then it becomes too much like hard work, particularly if you have to lug this gear any distance.

You'd be surprised how convenient this is, even hand-held.

An old 100mm. process lens held on the bellows with hot glue  a sophisticated home-made adapter. The close stuff I'm putting on the nature thread is from this.

Edited June 23, 2020 by spacecadet

[Bryan]

3 hours ago, spacecadet said:

You'd be surprised how convenient this is, even hand-held.

An old 100mm. process lens held on the bellows with hot glue  a sophisticated home-made adapter. The close stuff I'm putting on the nature thread is from this.

 

 

Thanks Mark, might just give that a try, I've got all the bits!

[spacecadet]

We see a fair few pigeons, er, expressing affection on an old pergola, but today were delighted to see the incubation changeover- they've nested and laid.

Edited June 23, 2020 by spacecadet

[Michael Ventura]

I am happy to say that my daughter told me last night that the amount of Covid patients at her hospital have dropped so much that she has been taken off that duty and returned to what she was doing before all hell broke loose.  She is back in her Progressive Care Unit and her having to live in a hotel will end at the end of the month.  The other good news is that she is looking to rent a place along with an old high school girlfriend who also wants to get out of her parents' house too.  Kids are leaving home much later than when I was their age.  I think mostly due to housing and life in general is much more expensive than forty or fifty years ago...even with adjusting for inflation.

[Cecile Marion]

Congratulations, Michael! Lots for you to celebrate all the way around.  I imagine this whole experience has educated your daughter much more than anything she could have ever learned in school.

 

My youngest daughter left my home today, where she’s been since she fled New York City in early March. It was wonderful to have her here, and I wouldn’t trade the time we spent together for anything, but I’m also feeling a tiny bit guilty at my slight joy of having my home back to myself. 

[Michael Ventura]

6 minutes ago, Cecile Marion said:

Congratulations, Michael! Lots for you to celebrate all the way around.  I imagine this whole experience has educated your daughter much more than anything she could have ever learned in school.

 

My youngest daughter left my home today, where she’s been since she fled New York City in early March. It was wonderful to have her here, and I wouldn’t trade the time we spent together for anything, but I’m also feeling a tiny bit guilty at my slight joy of having my home back to myself. 

 

Yes, I think she did some growing up in the last few months.  I totally get your joys....to have her there and then to have your place to yourself again.

[Betty LaRue]

A robin dive bombing you possibly? Pffft.

My nephew has a pair of Great Horned Owls living at his farm. They are silent flyers. Last year, as he was walking across from his house to the barn when it felt like he was hit In the head with a baseball bat.
It was Mr. Hooter. I went there to photograph them and even with 3 sets of eyes watching, he managed to get on the roof behind where we were sitting on the deck while we had eyes on the fledgling, his daughter. 

 

This is the female fledgling 

 

Edited June 24, 2020 by Betty LaRue

[Michael Ventura]

On 09/06/2020 at 09:01, Michael Ventura said:

Most of you probably know that my daughter is a hospital nurse working with Covid patients. Back in early April, I wrote the publisher of one of the city magazines I have had a good long working relationship with.  I told him my daughter's story of going to a local school for a nursing degree and then getting her dream job at the best hospital in the area (which happens to be where I was born) and starts working in their Progressive Care Unit, in 2019.  When the pandemic hit our area, her unit was converted into a Covid ICU and she was thrust into the "frontline" with relatively little experience in the nursing world.  It also threw her home life sort of upside down since living with me would be tough with her constant exposure to the coronavirus.  So she has been living where she can and has been in a hotel since early May.   Well I just heard that the magazine wants to include her in a cover story on "healthcare heroes" of the area they cover.  A writer has been assigned to interview her and I just spoke to the art director and she wants me to shoot the story...there will be six medical professionals in all to photograph and possibly the cover as well!!  So happy I wrote to the publisher!!  I now have some work to look forward to and my daughter is nervous about the attention but willing to be part of the story.  She is concerned that there are plenty of veteran doctors and nurses who deserve much more credit but I told her that her story of being fresh out of nursing school with no idea of seeing and dealing with death daily while also keeping people alive as well, is what makes her story interesting.  She told me yesterday that this job has been much more stressful than she ever imagined.  Fortunately, new Covid cases are decreasing by the day here!

 

This nice story of mine took an odd turn.  Been waiting for details about when I can start the shoot of the six healthcare workers (including my daughter) and today, I got an email saying that I will only be doing three of them as they did not want me to be the photographer of my daughter....so they gave her and two healthcare workers to another photographer!!  The editor said the higher ups said it would be a conflict of interest.  I really can't imagine that any reader would care in a negative way.  My daughter is not too happy about it either. I did express my disappointment, but being that they are essentially my income stream, I can't make a scene about it.  At least the deadline has been extended to  the 10th.

[Michael Ventura]

17 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

A robin dive bombing you possibly? Pffft.

My nephew has a pair of Great Horned Owls living at his farm. They are silent flyers. Last year, as he was walking across from his house to the barn when it felt like he was hit In the head with a baseball bat.
It was Mr. Hooter. I went there to photograph them and even with 3 sets of eyes watching, he managed to get on the roof behind where we were sitting on the deck while we had eyes on the fledgling, his daughter. 

 

This is the female fledgling 

 

 

Very nice Betty, I never see owls in the wild....tho I do hear them early in the morning sometimes.  There are some big old growth trees across from my house and there must be a nest in there.....love their calls!

[Betty LaRue]

5 hours ago, Michael Ventura said:

 

Very nice Betty, I never see owls in the wild....tho I do hear them early in the morning sometimes.  There are some big old growth trees across from my house and there must be a nest in there.....love their calls!

These have been at my nephew’s farm in Oklahoma for at least three years. They raised this one female I photographed the first year. Last year, 3 eggs or nestlings were lost in a storm. This year, they have fledged two. I love birds and it was a huge thrill to see them. 

As far as your medical shoot goes, I think they gave you the shaft. Conflict of interest? C’mon.  I would be furious.

[Bryan]

On 23/06/2020 at 14:17, spacecadet said:

You'd be surprised how convenient this is, even hand-held.

An old 100mm. process lens held on the bellows with hot glue  a sophisticated home-made adapter. The close stuff I'm putting on the nature thread is from this.

 

 

Taking inspiration from Mark's photo I bodged up an ancient 135mm M42 Pentax Takumar lens and a bellows, followed by the simpler arrangement of the same lens and a 15-25 mm M42 helicoid to take a few pics in the garden. All good fun!

 

French Marigold - in the greenhouse to keep the bugs off the peppers

 

Clematis Comtesse De Bouchard (I think)

 

Edited June 25, 2020 by Bryan

[spacecadet]

1 hour ago, Bryan said:

 

Taking inspiration from Mark's photo I bodged up an ancient 135mm M42 Pentax Takumar lens and a bellows, followed by the simpler arrangement of the same lens and a 15-25 mm M42 helicoid to take a few pics in the garden. All good fun!

 

French Marigold - in the greenhouse to keep the bugs off the peppers

 

 

Clematis Comtesse De Bouchard (I think)

 

 

Good fun isn't it. You have much better glass..

However I can up the ante with a red mason bee(?) inside a nettle-leaved bellflower.

This is on the nature thread as well.

 

 

[NYCat]

I got a HAIRCUT... WHOOPIE... NYC is definitely coming to life as we are in the second stage of re-opening. More people on the streets and my neighborhood salon is open. The chairs have always been a decent distance apart and I was happy to see that we didn't have plexiglass partitions. We were all in masks which is weird but I got a great cut as usual. It's not a fancy place... The owner and almost all the staff are Chinese. Most clients have been going there for years and happy to see everyone. The owner and the woman who cuts my hair are both left-handed. I wonder if they need special scissors. Betty can tell us. She's another of those lefty geniuses.

 

Paulette

[Michael Ventura]

Not sure if this is a good or bad thing, but yesterday we had real rush hour traffic again....as much as I hated being in it, it made me feel like we are getting back to some sense of normalcy here.  We are also in the second stage of re-opening and people are elated!  Also, today I got an email from the magazine which has been my best client for the last 6 or more years, saying that they will be giving out assignments to their freelancers again and shortly after that email, in came three shoots!!  Time to ditch the comfy house clothes and put on real pants!

[NYCat]

I am also getting cat-sitting bookings again. Life resumes.

 

Paulette

[spacecadet]

I've finally fixed all the punctures in my inflatable flashgun mini-softbox.

[Betty LaRue]

6 hours ago, NYCat said:

I got a HAIRCUT... WHOOPIE... NYC is definitely coming to life as we are in the second stage of re-opening. More people on the streets and my neighborhood salon is open. The chairs have always been a decent distance apart and I was happy to see that we didn't have plexiglass partitions. We were all in masks which is weird but I got a great cut as usual. It's not a fancy place... The owner and almost all the staff are Chinese. Most clients have been going there for years and happy to see everyone. The owner and the woman who cuts my hair are both left-handed. I wonder if they need special scissors. Betty can tell us. She's another of those lefty geniuses.

 

Paulette

For many years, all scissors I ever saw for sale were for righties. Using my mother’s scissors left painful, deep impressions nearly to the bone in my thumb area especially. There was a slant inside the holes where you put your thumb and fingers Slanted for righties.  
They aren’t formed that way these last years. No slant, just a neutral roundness. Thank God. During my short sewing years, cutting out fabric nearly brought me to tears.

 

[wiskerke]

2 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

For many years, all scissors I ever saw for sale were for righties. Using my mother’s scissors left painful, deep impressions nearly to the bone in my thumb area especially. There was a slant inside the holes where you put your thumb and fingers Slanted for righties.  
They aren’t formed that way these last years. No slant, just a neutral roundness. Thank God. During my short sewing years, cutting out fabric nearly brought me to tears.

 

 

The really good left handed scissors have the blades the other way around too, not just the handles. I'm no south paw, so I wouldn't know, but my OH sometimes curses *regular* ones, even when they are rounded off evenly.

She prefers her left handed red Fiskars. The orange ones are right handed.

I cherish my Westcott 14232 Titanium Ultra Smooth 6" Spring-Assist Scissors.
Which seems to be out of stock everywhere. It is right handed as per where the blade sits, but otherwise totally bipartisan:

 

Uhh ambidextrous 😁.

 

wim

[Betty LaRue]

12 hours ago, wiskerke said:

 

The really good left handed scissors have the blades the other way around too, not just the handles. I'm no south paw, so I wouldn't know, but my OH sometimes curses *regular* ones, even when they are rounded off evenly.

She prefers her left handed red Fiskars. The orange ones are right handed.

I cherish my Westcott 14232 Titanium Ultra Smooth 6" Spring-Assist Scissors.
Which seems to be out of stock everywhere. It is right handed as per where the blade sits, but otherwise totally bipartisan:

 

Uhh ambidextrous 😁.

 

wim

Those images are a perfect example, wim. Funny, I never paid attention to the blades. I did buy some left handed scissors when they finally became semi-available. Not everywhere offered them, but they could usually be found at the fabric stores.  The thing is, the shops don’t order many pairs, so they tend to fly off the shelves.
I most definitely am not ambidextrous. 

When fishing, though, this is how it went with my husband and me using exact setups for right-handers. Being a rightie, he cast with his right hand, switch the pole to his left and reeled with his right.

I cast with my left, reeled with my right, never having to switch hands. So I could do something with my right hand.
Did I ever say I caught more fish than anyone in my extended family?  Usually, when fishing from a bank, family members soon edged closer and closer to me until pretty soon I couldn’t have swung a cat should I have been so inclined. (Sorry, Pauline, just a figure of speech, 😁)

Then, there was the guitar I had to string backwards and play with the pick guard up because I couldn’t afford the inflated price wanted for a left-handed one. Eventually, in my late 20s I did get a left-handed one, but arthritis was making itself felt in my hands by then and it was painful to play.

Edited June 27, 2020 by Betty LaRue

[Allan Bell]

The gas man came today to service my boiler and gas fire. He also showed me how to work the fire.

 

Allan

 

[NYCat]

I have a bit of good news and bad news. Nature is so tough! I was worried about our robins nest last night because we had a very fierce storm with buckets of water pouring down and I didn't think the nest was sheltered enough under the fire escapes. This morning the nest is empty and I did see a wee dead body on the cement a distance away. I also saw a live fledgling and saw it fed once. It's looking good and I got some images. I waited a while to see if I might get shots of it being fed but finally gave up. I'll keep and eye out. I couldn't bring myself to take a picture of the dead baby. It's too sad. Those birds can have a hard time surviving.

 

Paulette

[spacecadet]

41 minutes ago, Allan Bell said:

He also showed me how to work the fire.

Lincolnshire isn't that cold......