She Kept A Parrot
A Journal For Charlie
Just Because I Like Them….and I screwed up my real post…
If anybody can tell me how to fix my real post, I’ll post the thing. You see, I have managed to screw up the last three little photographs (which were supposed to be on the left side of the frame with text beside them). They are now stubbornly aligned in outline format. The photos are of equal importance. I do not want them aligned in order of significance. Sigh… I may give up this blogging thing entirely. Aaaaak!!
FAIL
Thirty-year-old Shotgun Shells in Silver Cup in Cupboard
Eyeball for Elmeliat
Bronze Catherine of Wuthering Heights
Abandoned Lamp
Monkey Lamp
Boy's Fish Hook
63 Comments on “Just Because I Like Them….and I screwed up my real post…”
Comments
She Kept A Parrot 
Boy’s Fish Hook is amazing! And oh please….just stop… I don’t believe for a second you’re thinking of giving up.
Btw…I use to LOVE shooting my 12 gauge, completely fun. I don’t think I could hunt though, I’m more of a gatherer. 😉 My deal has always been..you shoot it and clean it….I’ll cook it, serve it, and clean up afterwards. I have no problem doing my share.
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You know what a drama queen I am. I was about to shoot the monitor that night. I still don’t know how to imbed a link. And, yes, I have instructions. They don’t work. 😉
You are a skeet shooter. No pulling off dove heads. No tramping through fields. Just stand there and issue the order: “Pull!” That’s really more fun and more difficult too.
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I’ve no problem with tramping through fields…I think I may just be too impatient to hunt. I’ve never been big on fishing either, until I went deep sea fishing. Even still I didn’t want to actually fish…but I get damn excited when someone else catches something!
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Oh, dear. I had forgotten about this silly post until you came back here. Funny how I remember everybody who “liked” the post. With the exception of one, I have followed all of them at least off and on. I miss Lance Weisser. I never knew what happened to him. He just stopped posting. I hate it when that happens. Cowboy did the same thing. I see tons of spectacular photos and great blogs, but there are a few folks whom I identify with, I guess. I can even remember the names… And that’s something for me! I’ve tried to figure out why we are immediately attached to some folks here without knowing a thing about them. I might not visit for weeks, but I never lose the person in my head. I find myself thinking that I have to visit soon in the same way I think I need to call a friend or write a letter. Then, I go back and spend forever going through what I missed. Actually, that’s the way I prefer to do it.
I missed the PBS documentary titled something like “The Earth As You’ve Never Seen It” the other night. I suggested it on my FB page and then didn’t watch it myself! Did you see it? Maybe I can watch it online. A friend told me it was something else. He said if you didn’t believe in global warming before, you’d believe it after watching the film. He was struck by how interrelated everything is.
When I look at these old posts, I am even more grateful to you guys for following me. 🙂 I doubt I’d have followed myself…
I love shooting my 12 gauge too. I always liked skeet shooting better. I don’t do it anymore, but Dean and I used to reload our own shells when Kelli was a baby. She was about two when he had her stepping on the thrower foot release. When he said “Pull”, she jumped the gun and the thrower arm hit him in the head. He had a big gash and a bigger headache.
I hunted doves with my dad and with Dean. I don’t hunt anymore, of course.
It’s fun to see you here at the old post.
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do not give up the blog…do you still have the shotgun for the shells?
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Of course. Dean loved long guns. He gave me a Centennial model 20-gauge shotgun one year for Christmas. I haven’t been dove hunting since we went together many years ago. Handguns make me nervous. I much prefer a shotgun. There is at least a good reason to have a shotgun. I had one standing in the corner of my bedroom collecting dust in the barrel for forty years until Boy came along. Kelli never touched it as a child. I didn’t trust little boys!
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Some strikingly beautiful photos here, George. That rabbit is definitely thinking uncomplimentary thoughts. Its expression is so loud, I can hear it. What did you do to upset it, George? There’s a definite “Go away!” happening there.
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That rabbit is a chinchilla whose name is Che. He isn’t angry at all. That’s just an odd macro shot of his face. He’s a sweet little fellow, but the image looks as if his face is at least four times its actual size. Thanks for the compliment on the photographs. I’m glad you like them, Lady D.
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O. K. Having just read the other comments, I see that the grumpy “rabbit” is a chinchilla named Che. My humble apologies, Che. (George, do you think that I have upset him? He already looked less than welcoming. Oh dear!)
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I was writing to you while you were writing to me. I’m pleased that he’s not as grumpy as he looks in the photo.
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🙂 🙂
Not to worry. For a raisin, I expect that he will forgive such a minor transgression.
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Love your photography and your adventures in photography and blogging. Don’t feel bad about getting frustrated. Remember, unlike the youngsters who were born in a digital world, we are immigrants to it. We need to learn the language and the customs and it it takes time and effort to adjust. My wife gave up sending her sister gift cards for Amazon. My sister-in-law can not navigate the site to order anything. She and her husband gave up on Skype because they became frustrated with that too. I keep encouraging my fellow teachers to make better use of Mass Media to bridge the gap between generations, but it is a slow process.
These are wonderful photographs. You do have a real sense of composition. Thanks for the eye. 🙂 Check out this eye post. Very impressive street art.
http://elbuenoelfeo.wordpress.com/2012/03/26/eye/
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George, this is a lovely post; I say to heck with the other one. By leaps and bounds, my friend, the first picture of you is marvelous. In every sense of the word, you caught yourself.
Blessed day to you,
Cara
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Thank you, Mollusk Girl. I just posted some photos that I like. I have begun to think we’d all like to know each other better through photos of the animals, people and objects that surround us. I’m happy you liked it. 🙂
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i can’t place that animal. it looks somewhere between a rabbit and a mouse. what is it?
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That animal is my little Che. He’s a chinchilla! And the cutest little guy you ever saw. This macro makes the face look as if he were a huge rodent. He’s really very small. A fur ball with a tail.
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what’s it eat?
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Not people regardless of his fierce appearance here. He eats Timothy hay and pellets, which are specifically designed for chins’ diets, along with a bit of alfalfa hay treats, rose hips, and some grasses. Chins can live as long as twenty years. He acts very much like a squirrel. These animals are not domestic. They retain their wild behaviors and are not little lumps of stupidity like hamsters. He’s very entertaining.
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You must have an intuitive sense then for composition, which is fantastic! I’m not bothered by the flash; your images are very strong, and often the flash works well. But it would be an interesting challenge to give yourself a trial-period without it, just to see what you discover. When I began taking photographs (a little over a year ago) and made the decision not to use a flash, I found that I began to SEE in an entirely new way.
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Somehow this got bumped to a different section. I meant for this to be a reply to an earlier comment. You’ll know what I’m talking about.
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Well, now that’s interesting. If you see differently, that’s incentive enough for me to try. Since in photography, as in painting, light is everything, it really is crucial to learn. Aw, crap. Not something else. 😉
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I love the pictures of the fish-hook and the pretty lady with the camera. 🙂
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Flattery will get you everywhere. 🙂
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Well I wasn’t fibbing…I thought/think it’s a nice photo. 🙂
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What did Churchill say? Neva eva give up! I don’t think I can help you without sitting with you in front of your computer….I usually hold my breath until my own photos are uploaded. It’s a beautiful post, I always enjoy your pictures and stories.
xo
elisa
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Thanks, Elisa. I figured out this problem Now, if I were as talented as a middle-schooler, I could figure out how to imbed a damn link. I feel like a moron every time I enter a whole link. Working on it….
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The link thing is hard. Once you get it, you will be the master!
elisa
p.s. don’t be so hard on yourself. This blogging stuff isn’t for the faint of heart!
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i thought snooki said that.
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egads!
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churchill. snooki. easily confused.
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“These pigeons are ruthless in Italy. They will attack you and bite your ears off.” snooki
Now THAT is a snooki quote! I am sorry to report how easily accessible that was..
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is that live ammo?
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Yep. Just shotgun shells. They won’t bite you, I swear. You need a 12-gauge shotgun to fire them. 🙂
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I’d like to see your picture of that…and yes that is me too…..hope your only shooting with your camera
🙂
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You should come dove hunting. Dean and I shot so many doves when we first went to the valley that we threw them away. Didn’t cook even one. They flew over our field all day. Easy pickings. We never went back. We were exhausted, and I had a black and blue shoulder all the way to the elbow. I was shooting a 12-gauge shotgun with heavy loads. It rained off and on all day. We had an inch or so of mud caked on our boots. We had to take them off to get into the truck. What fun! I’m sure these shells were leftovers from that hunt. Camera is the only shooting I do now.
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I used to shoot a bb rifle at summer camp….
I really don’t think I could shoot something living…
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A very nice post. Like the photography. Especially one… Seems like I had the good luck to come upon this post after the solutions were found… but I see that it still says ‘draft’ at the top. maybe just the ‘r’ has to be eliminated…
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Ha Ha, Simon! You are entirely too clever! I am laughing aloud. I agree. Just the ‘r’ would solve the conundrum….
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Nooo, you can’t give up!
I love your photos!
The hook is awesome,it looks like the earth seen from above,like google earth 🙂
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I think I will adopt you, Pablo! You are so nice to me about my blown out light photos! I really can see what is wrong with them. I am just shameless enough to post them anyway. Sweet Lemony is trying to help me even. I know it pains her to see the blow-outs on my photographs! 😉 I am not a photographer like you guys. I could never do what you do, but I like playing. And I love it that you are so accepting of my mostly bad photos! It’s the thought behind what I’m doing that I like. I am self-critical about that, but not about the quality of the photographs. Thank you, sweet boy!
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George, your photos are enot bad at all, if they were, I would not be suscribed to your blog and I wouldn’t look forward for your upcoming posts!
I like seeing them, I enjoy it a lot, and reading your storioes too.
🙂
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Thanks, Pablo. I am having a good time with this. That’s all that counts. I am shameless, you know! 🙂
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Another great series. So wonderful to see your face. I’m crazy about the fish hook. Love the shotgun shells, too.
I’ve been meaning to ask you if you use a flash most of the time and if you’ve tried experimenting with natural light (for your indoor and low light shots).
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George, did you get this post sorted out or not (I couldn’t tell based on your exchange with Nia)? Whatever the situation is, you simply cannot disappear from the blogosphere. Persevere, friend! You have to get some shots of those tombstones!
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I do most of my playing at night. I have trouble, as you can see, with light reflection from the flash. I have jacked the ISO up to as high as 3200. I was surprised at how little noise I got at that setting. I forget to change the ISO and everything else. I don’t know how to do anything except adjust that. I saw some guy’s photographs of city high rise buildings shot at 1600 ISO in daylight. It gave a very interesting and complimentary texture to the building surfaces that you would have assumed were natural. He was talking about some famous photographer who shot at 1600 all the time. Mays, maybe? Light is the secret, I know. I am just not dedicated enough to develop any skill at this game. I can adjust the external flash brightness and angle, but I forget that too. I am hopeless. If you have an idiot-proof tip, I’d love to have it. 🙂 My son-in-law never uses a flash! However, he knows how to set aperture and shoot in manual. That’s hopeless for me.
That fish hook is a single hook. It was lying on the island in the kitchen one day. Until I looked at the photo, I didn’t realize that one of the lights in the pot rack above it was creating a discernible pool of light right on the hook. I snapped it and fooled around with it in those Picasa crazy effects things until I liked it. I think I reversed color and Lord knows what all else. It reminded me of an ice fishing hole when I finished. The second “hook” is a shadow of the top one. I think you could create that effect with any kind of light pool. The reverse color helped here too. This is about the only one of those nutty effects things that I ever really liked. I will send the original photo. It was blah at best. I posted this one for you because I know you like glass and water, etc.
There is a color self-portrait photo of me on here, you know. Kelli says it doesn’t look like me either. My sister just said this looks much older than I look. I doubt it, but she isn’t given to exaggeration. Who knows. I just happened onto it when I was looking for something to post in place of the “real” post. Glad you liked them!
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I never use a flash and usually shoot in “aperture priority”. (I have a visual impairment that affects my ability to focus manually.) It’s actually a fun challenge to shoot without a flash. That’s how I learned to use my camera actually! It can seem overwhelming at first, but if you just concentrate on one thing at a time, such as ISO, with which you seem to already have a solid familiarity, you can make fairly rapid progress. Exposure compensation is also useful if you need to bump up the light a bit. And, of course, aperture would be the third thing to experiment with, when shooting without a flash, and this is what I’ve been playing with lately and slowly figuring out. I’m a beginner myself and am one of those people who has to learn by doing and arriving at a point where my experiments have led me to what everyone else has already figured out long ago. I’m sure other more experienced photographers would have much better advice than what I can offer.
The fish hook really is such an interesting shot and it sounds like you had fun creating the image. I can really see the ice fishing hole! I still haven’t had a chance to download Picasa. My computer is so overloaded at the moment; I have to wait until I can make room.
I’ve seen the color self-portrait, too. I just meant that it was nice that you included in image of yourself in this group.
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Okay, can I use aperture priority without going full manual mode? I need to get JC to teach me. He knows all this stuff. I just haven’t done it. I am getting frustrated with the flash because of the blow-out problem and having the photo look as if I used a flash. It’s just easy. That’s why I do it. I think I recall hearing JC say he shoots in aperture priority too. Thanks, Lemony. You are pushing me, you know….
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It may depend on the camera, but I can on mine. So, when I’m in aperture priority, the camera will autofocus, and will also set the shutter speed. You should be able to control exposure compensation, too (which if you’re not what that is right now, don’t worry about it). One thing at a time! 🙂 Switching to AP will be a big, big moment! I’m excited for you!
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Don’t give up! PLEASE! This blogging thing will not be the same anymore!
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You guys are so nice to me. I can hardly believe it. I get crazy sometimes when I allow myself to talk before I think, but you are so good to me. No, I figured out what I was doing wrong. It was as obvious as the nose on my face. I just didn’t see it. I’ve always approached everything carelessly and then had to spend forever working my way out of the mess I created! Thank you, Ana.
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🙂
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Don’t give up.
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Oh, I am the quintessential drama queen, you know. Hey, did you see Tom O’Connor’s reelection signs? We have to get photos of those. I never in my life saw a political poster like them. They’re actually cool.
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I don’t think I would have recognized you from the Macro photograph but I liked it. You are MUCH younger looking than the picture suggests!!
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Well, that’s nice of you, but I am probably much older looking than the picture suggests. 🙂
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Dear George, you can choose on your post page which side you wish, when you upload a photograph I mean when you click on “add media” symbol and then in this window you select your photograph from your computer and then before click on insert in post” you can chose the size and also the place where you want, left, right or center… but it shouldn’t be full size otherwise there may not be a place to write next to the picture… Oh dear George, I hope with my English you can understand what I mean… even maybe I misread you too… 🙂 Sorry for this. Your photographs amazing as always, so impressive too. I loved especially the first one, well captured yourself… Thank you, with my love, nia
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Nia, I understood you perfectly. I did all of that as you said. I think I tried to format a paragraph and that’s how I got it screwed up. I noticed a choice to un-format so I am going to try to reformat that part of the post. If that doesn’t work, I will ask again! Thank you so much. You are always right there helping and encouraging everybody! Bless you, Nia! 🙂
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I don’t know what you talk about now 🙂 But let’s see try it… You are welcome dear George, Blessing and Happiness to you too, love, nia
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There is a little eraser icon at the top of the work post area for removing any formatting that you do. I highlighted the problem pictures and text and erased the formatting. The pictures and text went back to normal arrangement. Thank goodness… 🙂 Thank you, Nia.
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Never give up! George, these are gorgeous photos. I am always curious about what photos you will choose to share. You do not have to cross oceans to find fascinating subject matter. Thanks for another great post.
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Well, Naomi, if I have to cross a small pond to find a subject, I’m outta’ there! Actually, I was thinking on my way to pick up boy today. What a shame that I am so lazy. There are tons of things on my trip there that I could photograph…probably without getting out of my car. Victoria has some beautiful old architecture too. And the oldest tombstones in Texas. The city locks that part of the cemetery, but the fence is just a “courtesy” fence that even I can scale. It makes me really happy that you like my photographs. I know nothing about photography. I just know when I like something. 😉
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George, you have to stop saying you don’t know anything about photography. It seems to me you know a LOT about composition.
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I know what I like when I see it through the lens. I do not know how to use the camera to good effect. I never will. I am relatively happy most of the time if I don’t blow out the whole face on something! I know that must bother the heck out of you if I can see it too. I will try to tone down the light from the flash. Perhaps, I should remove the flash and force myself to find light elsewhere?
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