Tag: Black and White

Did you see a white duck?

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The Fog
The Fog

I was standing by the water thinking of nothing in particular when a guy pulls up and asks me if I saw a white duck. I said no, why? And he said: I’m looking for him. At that point I knew it would be just another ordinary day in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

The rest of the morning was spent in a fog, literally, only now my thoughts went from thinking of nothing to thinking of nothingness. I waited over an hour for the sun to come out and took a few photos of nothing.

I was about to leave with nothing when I thought of something Jean-Paul Sartre wrote in Being and Nothingness: “It is therefore senseless to think of complaining since nothing foreign has decided what we feel, what we live, or what we are.”

Note to self: don’t buy that book and think of complaining that it’s too hard to understand. My uncle warned me about that almost forty years ago.

Feeding the Birds

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Turkey Vulture at the Conowingo Dam
Turkey Vulture at the Conowingo Dam

These cute and cuddly birds hang out at the Conowingo Dam in Maryland. The dam is home to hundreds of bald eagles although the peak season to see them is in the dead of winter. Every year photographers come from all over the United States to justify spending ten thousand dollars or more on a lens.

At this time of year a few die hard photographers still go there but the eagles are few and far between the scores of vultures that are there for lunch. They are actually turkey vultures but instead of turkey they like to eat cars. They also eat trucks and SUVs, but you have to park in the right place.

As you head into the parking lot bear right and park near the hiking trail, then simply leave for an hour or so. These angry birds will eat anything made of rubber from your windshield wipers to your bumper. They also tend to regurgitate as they eat as well as badly scratching all painted surfaces, which you may later decide is a problem.

These beautiful, majestic creatures are only doing what large angry rubber eating birds do, so don’t take it personally. Some people cover their vehicle with a tarp or two which only challenges them to eat through it. Your insurance will probably cover the damage but you will have to pay the deductible.

Alternatives are hiking somewhere else and/or feeding smaller birds such as ducks. Lititz, P.A. has been voted America’s coolest small town and in Lititz Springs Park they definitely have the friendliest ducks I’ve ever seen. Not only is feeding them allowed but there are machines filled with duck food. Park wherever you like, they prefer eating actual food to eating your vehicle.

Train of Thought

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Working on the railroad
Working on the railroad

“Trains are beautiful. They take people to places they’ve never been, faster than they could ever go themselves. Everyone who works on trains knows they have personalities, they’re like people. They have their own mysteries.” Sam Starbuck, The Dead Isle

Signs That Horses are Intelligent

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Give them a sign
Give them a sign

Back in 1966 Mister Ed went to college to become a veterinarian so he could help his friends beat the high cost of medical care. 50 years later here in Lancaster, Pennsylvania most horses are home schooled, which is more convenient and much less expensive.

Although not all horses are taught to read at a college level, the ones that pull the buggies are encouraged to develop basic skills including the ability to read signs. This is almost a necessity these days with all the confusing traffic rules like turning right on red.

You can lead a horse to water but if he finds it himself he has a sense of accomplishment and self-reliance. Note: we don’t know if horses are color blind but for the ones reading this I felt it was better in black and white.

Can Lightroom Presets Save You?

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Thomas Gets Clean
Thomas Gets Clean

Lightroom presets may not save you but they might be able to save you some time in post processing. Even if you don’t like the effect you can learn how it was created by looking at the applied settings, then just reset and start over.

The above photo is a RAW file converted using B&W Sombre Street, which is one in a set of twelve free presets called Street-Photography by Contrastly. Another set of presets I’ve found useful are offered by ON1.

Between the two there are ten free sets contain well over 150 different presets as well as free brushes for making local adjustments. Installing and removing them is as easy as shooting a bald eagle at the Conowingo Dam with a $12,000 600mm lens, maybe even easier.

All presets work with Adobe Lightroom 4, 5, 6, and CC. I downloaded mine a long time ago for Lightroom 3, so if you need that just do a quick search for older versions. Don’t forget to apply sharpening and noise reduction to your photos, they leave that up to you.

This photo is far from perfect but it took me ten seconds using the preset versus at least ten minutes to convert to black and white manually. Other than recovering some blown highlights you would never notice the difference at this size anyway.

Remember, you can’t save a bad photo; you can only convince yourself that it’s not a bad photo.

Note: Thomas is not in this facility to get clean and sober, he’s just having a bath. I feel it’s important to point this out for those who think that all trains come from the wrong side of the tracks.

Free Presets for Adobe Lightroom ON1 Inc.

Free Street Photography Presets by Contrastly

Amish Dreams

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For sale-$3000 OBO
For sale-$3000 OBO

Young Jacob comes running in the door one afternoon as excited as a rooster at dawn and pleads his case: “Dad-Dad-Samuel Stoltzfus is finally selling his buggy for only $3000 or best offer! Can you buy it for me-please, please, please?

Even the Amish know that if something sounds too good to be true it probably is, but he’s a good kid and it’s about time for him to have his own vehicle. So after milking the cows they go down and take a look.

Dads been around buggies all his life and he knows his stuff. He walks around slowly and looks for repairs to the body. Then he inspects the rims as well as the suspension and lights. Its bad, probably run into ground by Eli and Amos those hooligans. But Jacob sees only independence and freedom.

Dad says: Tell ya what son, at the end of the corn season you can have my old one and I’ll see about getting myself something new. Jacob is a little disappointed but in November he’ll be 16 and that means Rumspringa. He knows that patience is a virtue, and with a buggy and a little luck he might just end up with Emmas.

Stillness Speaks

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Stillness Speaks
Stillness Speaks

Eckhart Tolle: “All artists, whether they know it or not create from a place of inner stillness, a place of no mind.”

Me: “I have so many things on my mind right now its hard to even think!”

ET: “When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself.”

Me: “It’s too much trouble to set up my tripod so I’ll try to hold myself still.”

ET: “True intelligence operates silently. Stillness is where creativity and solutions to problems are found.”

Me: “I wish that damn bulldozer would finish up so I can concentrate.”

ET: “Surrender comes when you no longer ask, “Why is this happening to me?”

Me: “These mayflies are driving me crazy, why is this happening to me?”

ET: “Whenever you are immersed in compulsive thinking, you are avoiding what is. You don’t want to be where you are. Here, Now.”

Me: “I should have gone to the Shoe House instead of here in Wrightsville, I’d love a shoe brownie right now.”

ET: “Become at ease with the state of not knowing.”

Me: “I have no idea if this will look good in black and white, I just don’t know.”

ET: “Whenever you deeply accept this moment as it is-no matter what form it takes-you are still, you are at peace.”

Me: “Man its hot out here-it must be ninety degrees already and as humid as a rainforest.”

ET: “Suffering is necessary until you realize it is unnecessary.”

Me: “Put a fork in me I’m done, I’m gonna go home, crank up the AC and watch cartoons like a normal unemployed 58 year old man.

ET: “Here is a new spiritual practice for you: don’t take your thoughts too seriously.”

Me: “I think I have a few Rick and Mortys on the DVR, that should get my mind right, I hope so, I’m so confused!”

Four Optical Delusions

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Separate from the rest
Separate from the rest

“We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness.

This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for the few persons nearest to us.” Mister Ed, Einstein, et al.

Desktop to Instagram the Easy Way

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Mowing the lawn
Mowing the lawn

The Amish don’t care about Instagram but a lot of people do. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to get on there but I don’t have a smart phone believe it or not, and I looked into the workarounds.

Most are complicated and involve either setting up a Dropbox account or using an app to mimic a mobile device. But I found a Firefox add-on called User Agent Switcher which impersonates a mobile device, takes seconds to install and works perfectly.

After installing the free add-on you’ll see an icon on the toolbar with a dropdown menu to choose your preferences, choose Android / Crome 40 before signing in and you can upload, crop and caption. Use hashtags with abandon but the maximum allowed is thirty per post.

Instagram used to insist on a square format but now lets you upload landscape and portrait-oriented photos, although not with this method. So either crop to square in editing or change the aspect ratio on your camera to 1:1.  Photos should be 1080 x 1080 pixels but can be less if necessary.

If you’re already on Instagram this can save you a lot of time, but if you’re thinking of starting ask yourself why. I met a guy named Steven Maerz who owns thousands of dollars worth of camera equipment, posts absolutely stunning shots of bald eagles among other things, and has 464 followers while Love Food has 6.9 million followers.

So if you’re the competitive type consider posting a lot of photos of your lunch, because not surprisingly, a grilled cheese sandwich is much easier to compose square than an Amish man mowing his lawn.

Check out the User Agent Switcher Add-on for Firefox here. You may want to check out Love Food for inspiration but not if you’re on a diet, there’s a lot of cake.