The days are lengthening. Here I am, at 4:00 PM, driving to Metro Cafe and I can actually see and photograph this guy and his bike. True, I am shooting at ISO 6400 at a slow shutter speed, underexposed by one stop, but still, I can photograph him even though there are no lights nearby.
This would not have been the case a very short time ago.
Shoshana served me my Americano and cinnamon roll, plus I brought a banana with me. I thought about doing more "Young Writer" studies of Shoshana, but I suppose I should not do them everyday but should give her a break between shoots.
Now here I am, driving away from Metro, on Schrock, toward the Talkeetna Mountains. Before I reach them, I will turn left, to the west.
I sip my coffee. I eat my cinnamon roll. I chomp on my banana. I listen to the news on All Things Considered. The NPR lady who fired Juan Williams has now been forced to resign herself.
NPR tries to get a quote from Juan, but he won't talk to them, so they pull a very embittered sounding quote from Juan Williams on Fox News, where he has been paid $3.5 million dollars to turn around on himself and is doing a very good job of it.
As I continue on, I spot the new moon. I understand that the way one is supposed to take such photos is to find just the right spot, stop his car, get out, anchor his camera on a tripod, shoot will as low an ISO as he can get away with and a stopped down aperture.
But I want to drive, to eat my cinnamon roll and listen to the news. So I shot at 6400 ISO, slow shutter speed, wide open aperture, many of the images through a dirty windshield but some, when the angle was right, through an open window.
This pictures look much neater on my big monitor and I hate to have to reduce them to this size, but that's how it is. They will appear a bit larger in slideshow view, but nothing like on my screen.
Oh well:
New Moon, Study #1
New Moon, Study #2
New Moon, Study #3
New Moon, Study #4
New Moon, Study #5
New Moon, Study #6
New Moon, Study #7
New Moon, Study #8
;)
Well, this battle for sleep continues. I got to sleep somewhere between 1:30 and 2:00 AM and could not sleep a wink past 5:00. I stayed in bed and tried my best until just before 6:00, when I quit trying, got up and headed to Family Restaurant.
I was almost alone there, but not quite.
It appears that the dreadful heat wave is over. It is still not cold: 6 degrees F (-15 C) at my house, but it isn't warm, either. Maybe it will get cold, maybe it won't. I wish it would snow a bunch first, because what little we have left is not so much snow as a hard, crust of ice, but if it gets cold it won't snow, because it never snows when it is cold.
Except for mid-winter rain, cold and no snow is the worst kind of winter weather - except for ice skaters, who get to enjoy long skates on snow-free lakes and marshes.
Any, here I am, having just stepped out of Family Restaurant, ready to drive home.
;)
After I got home, I prepared the pictures for this blog post. It was now about 9:00 AM. I suddenly felt a crash coming on. I had no choice but to go lie down for a bit. Jimmy, my good black cat, came with me. I crawled under the covers and lay on my side. He climbed on top of the covers and also lay on my side.
I decided to leave it up to him to decide when I should get up. When he decided it was time to get up off of me, I would get back out of bed. I figured this could be anywhere from from five minutes to one hour. I was kind of hoping for half an hour.
Crazy cat. He didn't move for 3.5 hours and neither did I.
All that time was lost.
Well, I will make up for it tonight, when rational people are asleep.
And this one from India:
Through the window of our taxi-cab, enroute from Bangalore to Mysore: Man climbs bamboo ladder.