My Town

Some occasional shots of my town.

At a pastel event.

 

This dude walks his yaks daily.

At a bird festival.

The lowly ant

It could pull many times its weight!

 

Birds at the marsh

Here are some of the birds we saw today at the local marsh.

 

Some tips on photography

I was combing through my old books and within the National Geographic Photographer’s Field Guide was a type written sheet of notes my dad dictated to my mom 25 years ago to send to me when I first moved to San Francisco.  I had only a Canon body with a 35 mm, a 75mm and a 150 mm and a desire to follow my dad’s footsteps as a hobby photographer. Now I only have a point and shoot idiot proof digital camera.  I walk around the marsh and saw these guys with super long lenses still of almost 20 inches long.  Sure he has an equal girth to match it but he didn’t have any tripod, unipod to support it and I asked him how he could be so steady handed.  All my 200 mm hand held pieces have to be thrown into the waste bin.  He said his camera has built in stabilizer.  Groan.

So I’ll share my father’s notes.  He has inspired me all these years and my art with pencil or pen or paint does not come close to his art on photo paper. (Yep, my parents were fluent in English, one of the rare breeds in Hong Kong. Mom was educated by an American missionary and dad was sent to Adelaide, Australia for 10 years to work in the family restaurant.)

Dog

My youngest has a loaf dog as his desktop background for months and he wants a real loaf dog.  My middle son’s girlfriend chastised my youngest for being so cruel in wanting a 20 lb weight on four stubby immovable feet.  I can’t help him.  I don’t want to have to look after a dog.  This was my first pet and it had 6 puppies.  My parents then bought 2 bulldogs.  For a while I had a chow-retriever and I failed to groom it well unlike my mother.