I’ve seen all three U.S. coasts, but I don’t have any photos of them that I can find. They are photos before digital cameras were invented, anyway. Here’s my “artist’s interpretation” of The Sea.
This is the aquarium at Cabela’s in Buda, Texas, where you can walk through and see fish on both sides.
Cabela’s Aquarium
Fat catfish
Turtle
Ebony and Ivory
My “sea” is an indoor, artificial, freshwater aquarium. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Sea
My friend Judy over at Crazy Basenji recently mused about why we collect things. She talks about drawers of pocket gophers and field mice from 1941, “polymerase chain reaction (?)” and scientific research at the microscopic level. Not all collections are scientific, don’t need microscopes or, as it turns out, even a purpose.
People addicted to fabric (fabriholics) tend to call their shelves of fabric “collections.” The implication is that our intent is to buy fabric without having to do anything with it later (like sew). People standing in line at quilt fabric shops shouldn’t be surprised when I answer “I don’t know yet” when they ask “What are you going to do with that?” I have matching collections of quilting books and patterns to go with the fabric.
Some collections come and go. Back when I cooked a lot, I owned a substantial number of cookbooks. I’m over that phase; the cooking part, anyway. I gave away most of the cookbooks and am down to a mere 50 or so, mostly of the vegetarian or vegan variety. Some cookbooks I know I will never use but I’m not letting go of them (Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child, Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, for example).
These are collections of items that I purposely acquired. But some collections just kind of show up, amassing on their own. For example, wire coat hangers multiply in closets and pens that don’t write congregate next to phones.
A box collection or a collection of boxes?
And boxes. They accumulate when I’m not looking. I’m wondering if these results should be considered a box collection or a collection of boxes. I’m thinking that “a box collection” implies explicit intentions while “a collection of boxes” could be the result of inattention and then someone (me) ending up with multiples of an item. Some of these boxes are currently in use (housing my envelope collection), some will be used in the near future (the USPS flat rate box) and the others are, let’s say, in transition from their original use to being empty and possibly on their way to being repurposed.
Maybe I’ll put my smaller collections inside the boxes. Aha! Instead of a box collection or a collection of boxes, they become a set of boxed collections. Or a boxed set of collections. Something to ponder.
Long, hot, dry days of August in central Texas. Some leaves are already turning brown from the heat and the stress.
I found this beauty outside Mother’s Cafe and Garden, a wonderful vegetarian restaurant. (I don’t know what kind of flower it is.)
A visual oasis
I use a point-and-shoot camera, so it automatically focuses for me. My efforts to try to get something in focus and out of focus at the same time didn’t work. That’s why I use a camera that already knows what it is doing.
Instead, here are two photos taken of the exact same spot: the top of the utility pole in our front yard (about a month apart, time-wise). The first photo, the Crested Caracara, was taken with a my old camera, a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FH20 with 8x optical zoom. The second photo, the Harris Hawk, was taken with my new camera, a Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS25 with 20x optical zoom.
Crested Caracara
Harris Hawk
Weekly Photo Challenge: Focus
In the recent Mashable article, Star Wars Episode VII to Use Film, Be More Like Original Trilogy, Chris Taylor talks about the upcoming seventh Star Wars episode. There seems to have been some noticeable amount of thought behind the decision to use 35mm film instead of filming the movie digitally.
I shall return . . .
As a fan of the Star Wars movies (at least some of them), I can tell you my concern is with the story line rather than the type of film. Oh, I’m sure that there are other Star Wars fans who appreciate the filming technology way more than I do. But we all know that the six movies are not universally loved, mostly due to their stories. Fantastic filming and special effects cannot overcome bad stories. I won’t go into any details about my opinion of where the weak spots are in the six Star Wars movies, but feel free to leave me comments about your Star Wars issues or raves.
The first movie, Star Wars, A New Hope, was groundbreaking in so many ways. I remember seeing it with my friend Judy in 1977 and it was breathtaking. It had a plot, characters that developed, drama, humor, technology and imagination. It wasn’t perfect, but overall it was so grand that its flaws seemed diminished. I’m hoping for a repeat of all that, regardless of how it’s filmed.
The seventh installment is slated to be released in 2015. Use the time well, J.J. Abrams, use the time well.
