Enough to make me weep...

Movies, books, music, and all the arts go here.
Give us your recommendations and reviews.
Post Reply
User avatar
Gob
Posts: 33642
Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2010 8:40 am

Enough to make me weep...

Post by Gob »

Knowing I'll never be this good...

Image

Weather photographer of the year 2020 in pictures.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”

User avatar
Bicycle Bill
Posts: 9015
Joined: Thu Dec 03, 2015 1:10 pm
Location: Surrounded by Trumptards in Rockland, WI – a small rural village in La Crosse County

Re: Enough to make me weep...

Post by Bicycle Bill »

Well, the summer heat didn't kill the coronavirus as we were promised.  Maybe sub-zero cold will.
C'mon, Winter!!!
Image
-"BB"-
Yes, I suppose I could agree with you ... but then we'd both be wrong, wouldn't we?

User avatar
Long Run
Posts: 6717
Joined: Sat Apr 17, 2010 2:47 pm

Re: Enough to make me weep...

Post by Long Run »

That picture certainly presaged Winter is Coming.

Burning Petard
Posts: 4050
Joined: Fri Feb 12, 2016 5:35 pm
Location: Near Bear, Delaware

Re: Enough to make me weep...

Post by Burning Petard »

Gob, I share your pain. For many years I carried in my billfold a clipping of a 'help wanted' classified ad in the Paris Herald Tribune from Black Star for a dark room worker and I knew I probably did not have enough talent to qualify for emptying the wastebaskets. I recently put up a print of 'Walk Through Paradise Garden' by W. Eugene Smith on wall in my library. Once upon a time I was shooting 25 36x cans of 35mm and about 10 rolls of 120 every month.
Processing my self in an Army hobby dark room. After 3 years of this, I had a trunk full of negatives and about 20-30 individual frames that worth printing as more than tourist snapshot records. And two of them were from the first and second rolls I ran through my new Rollie.

Our only hope is aa small scale test of the 'million monkeys with type-writers' hypothesis. Digital lets us take thousands of pictures and never spend a dime on processing equipment or materials. Just keep hitting the delete button until we once in a while manage one worth saving.

snailgate

User avatar
datsunaholic
Posts: 1791
Joined: Sun Dec 13, 2015 12:53 am
Location: The Wet Coast

Re: Enough to make me weep...

Post by datsunaholic »

It's funny. I still take flak from a professional photog buddy over one picture I took a few years ago. I've posted it on here, I think. Anyhow, he has all the high end gear, whereas I have a Canon Rebel with the bottom-end consumer grade 85-300 zoom. I was shooting a test session for our latest restoration on a stormy day, since I wasn't on the crew list. As were my photographer buddies. It was a big deal, getting this boat wet for the first time in 30 years and 40 years since it last ran in it's original livery.

Boat was getting pushed back to the dock after a run and the clouds looked REALLY ominous. But my 300mm zoom was too close-in and my little lens was in the truck. So I shot a couple with my cell phone just because. And caught a lightning bolt in the background. All the professional photographers with their rapid fire "read the part numbers on the spark plugs from a mile away" setups never got a single lightning bolt that day. I got one with the boat in frame, with my damn cell phone.

My buddy still asks me "catch any lightning bolts today" every time I run into him at the races.
Death is Nature's way of telling you to slow down.

User avatar
Econoline
Posts: 9555
Joined: Sun Apr 18, 2010 6:25 pm
Location: DeKalb, Illinois...out amidst the corn, soybeans, and Republicans

Re: Enough to make me weep...

Post by Econoline »

The perfect shot takes a lifetime of waiting plus a fraction of a second of exposure. ;)
People who are wrong are just as sure they're right as people who are right. The only difference is, they're wrong.
God @The Tweet of God

User avatar
Gob
Posts: 33642
Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2010 8:40 am

Re: Enough to make me weep...

Post by Gob »

Burning Petard wrote:
Mon Oct 19, 2020 2:40 am
Gob, I share your pain.

Our only hope is a small scale test of the 'million monkeys with type-writers' hypothesis. Digital lets us take thousands of pictures and never spend a dime on processing equipment or materials. Just keep hitting the delete button until we once in a while manage one worth saving.

snailgate
Agreed. "One in a million" shots can even happen to us!
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”

User avatar
Bicycle Bill
Posts: 9015
Joined: Thu Dec 03, 2015 1:10 pm
Location: Surrounded by Trumptards in Rockland, WI – a small rural village in La Crosse County

Re: Enough to make me weep...

Post by Bicycle Bill »

Econoline wrote:
Mon Oct 19, 2020 7:00 am
The perfect shot takes a lifetime of waiting plus a fraction of a second of exposure. ;)
In almost forty years of photography, I've been able to get one — exactly ONE — picture that I can point to with pride and say, "Yes, I took that."
The rest are just pictures and snapshots, and their only value will be that, if they survive, at some point in the future they could be used to document that something was in a certain place at a certain time and that this is what it looked like.
Image
-"BB"-
Yes, I suppose I could agree with you ... but then we'd both be wrong, wouldn't we?

User avatar
Bicycle Bill
Posts: 9015
Joined: Thu Dec 03, 2015 1:10 pm
Location: Surrounded by Trumptards in Rockland, WI – a small rural village in La Crosse County

Re: Enough to make me weep...

Post by Bicycle Bill »

Also, a lot depends on circumstances, too.  How rare and valuable do you think pictures of the 'RMS Titanic' would be if it HADN'T sunk?
Image
-"BB"-
Yes, I suppose I could agree with you ... but then we'd both be wrong, wouldn't we?

User avatar
Gob
Posts: 33642
Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2010 8:40 am

Re: Enough to make me weep...

Post by Gob »

“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”

Post Reply