A Day In The Life

That sounds like a good day

One of your more mundane days in the pursuit of the perfect shot.

No dead batteries, mud bogs, no gator wrestling, not even a poisonous snake or two. You must have been bored to death.

I know, to make up for the missing adrenaline rush, you drove all the way home in reverse, right?

Next time, if you need some more excitement, let me know and I will drop by and lay down some AK-47 cover fire while you are doing that slow crawl. :-)

We have to see this bottle shot now, make sure you let us know when you upload it.

I'm tired already after reading that, or maybe it's the grandchildren who are tiring me out.

I hope at least you got some good shots out of the trip. Went out with the grandchildren the other day on a hike and their job was to tell me once in a while to "check my filter for tree poop" which they promptly forgot to remind me but I made it through the hike with no stray blobs on my filter anyway.

JC - Have you ever thought about getting a GoPro to video the perils of your "search to find" captivating images? So many people see a beautiful photograph but cannot appreciate nor visualize the journey undertaken to get that image.

Several years ago, a painter undertook a personal challenge to paint three plein air paintings for 30 days straight.. in the middle of the winter in freezing snow and wind. He did it, chronicling each day's adventure and paintings via blog. His paintings sold as he went. He had a huge following who read the misery he was experiencing. By the end of the 30 days, he had sold over half of them for $400 each (and by now has likely sold all of them). I always find the backstories fascinating, and I believe knowing same adds interest and value as well as talking points for buyers.

Awesome day. I like when it starts that early, it is still so calm..
I am not a professional photographer, but we went Eagle Watching yesterday and because I have a little camera, I can only make close-up pictures, so I photographed Wild Salmon Graveyard instead.

There were men on the boat with professional cameras, I am sure they get some wonderful images of eagles.

Not sure how to attach a photo so I won't show it here, but that was quiet a view of salmon bare bone carcasses.

I'm impressed you're in bed by 8pm! When I do sunrise shoots it's usually on 4 hours of sleep :).

The first thought to pop into my head was, "JC is going to talk about the Beatles! " :)

You jam-pack so much in one day. That's admirable not wasting any time. Very productive.

Have you considered taking an older camera to the beach? I know all too well about the salt spray and sand problems when shooting at the beach.

1430-1800: Realize that I can in fact yell loud enough to hurt my own ears.

Love that -- but have no idea what an Iron Bowl is. Any chance ice cream is involved in that? ;-) Off to Google . . .

No cheap camera even for beach shots. IF it falls into the water it is the cost of doing business. (It is also warrentied/ensured for such an event.)

A Go-pro, or two IS on my long term budget for just that reason. I really want to film the planned bridge shot I have in the near future.

Yeah, a relatively tame if somewhat busy day. Sunrises really do shoot better than sunsets because of the lack of people on the beach. Also why I do most beach shots in the winter along with better skies.

The Iron Bowl is the Alabama Auburn Football game.

The keepers are all up and the first few images on my image list.

This one is in a protected gallery but is the Pensacola Visitor's Center.

Its amazing how different your life is from mine up here in the stark winter cold of Toronto. Would you mind if I post my morning activities for comparison sake. I don't want to hijack your thread.

Please do.

JC, sent you a PM a moment ago.

Thanks JC. Rolled out of bed around 9 am. It's 20F outside and my old bones are still aching from 3 hours out in the damp cold last night watching the unveiling of xmas lights and fireworks at Toronto city hall. My wife and 2 girls get up and start preparing to go to church. I'm going out for my morning coffee (i know, i know, so sue me). After my morning coffee it's now around 11am and I haven't done anything worthwhile. The family gets home from church and excitedly talk about their upcoming trip. Next Monday they're going to Asia for 6 weeks leaving me alone for xmas. I'm not going because I can't stand the heat and humidity. I wanted to go away somewhere too but everytime I mention a destination to my wife she's starts complaining that she wants to go there with me (women!). I might settle for a week in New York, it's only an hour away. We also have another 3 week trip coming up in the spring. But we will just go alone so I made the final arrangements for a friend to sleep over every night and watch the girls (11 & 12) while we're gone. That's gonna cost me a ticket to Paris. It's now mid afternoon and mom and one of the girls is making banana cake. I'm going to edit some pic from a bullfight I watched in Seville a few months ago and then take one of the girls out to look at toboggans and then get back in time for the Grey Cup this evening. That's Canada's version of the Superbowl.This is the 103rd Grey Cup and It will be played in Winnipeg. The Edmonton Eskimos against the Ottawa Red/Blacks. All in all it's already been a great day and will probably only get better. I'm a very happy guy and love my life.

Two totally different lives but we do have the Sunday football game in common.

Sounds like a great way to spend a Sunday. I spent a month in Winnipeg this time of year way back when. It is a touch chilly.

For the record it is 75 F here today.

I was shooting some old coke bottles in front of an abandoned saloon when the owner stopped to see what I was doing. He was also retired military and we chatted a bit then he offered to let me shoot them inside. I took him up on the offer of course.

Outside of capturing the world around me, probably my favourite thing about shooting is just what you described above. Meeting lots of people from varied lifestyles and talking for awhile. Very enjoyable and civilized. That camera around our neck sometimes acts as a connection between two strangers.

I don't think you'll mind JC a bit of a contrast to your day: Got up at 7 a.m. stayed home, have a very infected finger from an ignored hangnail that was too short to cut off, will be dousing periodically with iodine this a.m. in order to hopefully stay out of the ER. Went to the grocery store and shot Christmas evergreens outside, asked store personnel if I could shoot Christmas accessories inside (there's a very cool clear aqua blue mason jar with a silver sparkly evergreen in it I am drooling for). A store personnel replied to my request to shoot that I couldn't shoot without Mgr. OK. Didn't feel like asking right then. Got on the internet for the rest of the day and edited one wreath. Need to figure out a unique edit to draw attention. Done image by 5 pm. Starting now to do another edit of double wreaths with pretty red ribbons. Finger out of the woods beginning to use it without noticing. I'm starting to get tuckered out now from editing the one image! Lol