Bet you thought I got lost at the zoo, eh? Well, no such luck, but I have been feeling much like these folks here for the last while 😉

It’s not that I’ve haven’t done anything at all for the last two months. I’ve been out shooting around town occasionally, and I did the photos for the Surrey Board of Trade’s Police Awards last month.

You’ll find some of those award event photos on the SBofT Flickr page here. There was the award ceremony and about an hour of attendee portraits with two of the constables before dinner. A fun time, and a great cause. (If you are looking for other event work I’ve done, look back in that Flickrstream for photos (2010) that start with _DWS. That’s me.)

Anyway, I see that it’s November already, and NaNoWriMo is upon us. A quick Google search shows me that there is also a NaBloWriMo (blog writing) month for wayward bloggers, heh. That seems to happen in October or November, depending on who you read.

I really want to write here more often, and I expect it will take a concerted effort to get back in the habit. Maybe if I declare my own NaBloWriMo for November, I can catch up with this month and make it happen. Care to join me?

I have a mess of photos to process from September and October, so I’m sure there will be a few of those to post and write about. Throw in an upcoming election and some growing a business  stuff, and it should all come together. Guess we’ll see.

More tc 

Traffic signs: usually I just drive by, and I don’t notice everything they have to say. You can usually get the drift with a quick glance; STOP, CAUTION, YIELD pretty much says it all. Even the shape can often transmit the message without actual words. You know, kind of a sign nirvana of sorts.

A few weeks ago, I was on foot, on a short, pensive walk, thinking about the future. When I looked up in my meditative state, this sign in the photo is what I saw.

I guess they needed shorter verbs, or wider signs to get things just right. But hey, you get the message, eh?

It’s been quiet here for a couple of months. The cold weather and a bout of pneumonia has kept me pretty much under wraps for a good chunk of December and most of January.

While I was there, I went into ‘stealth mode’ and did some serious thinking about ‘what’s next’. I didn’t want to accidentally spill the beans before any decisions had been made, so Twitter and Facebook have been barren too.

Still waiting on a specialist to deal with the infection, but a decision has been made.

Monday January 31 was the end of the day job. It’s all good. It was a great job, and I love the people I worked with. But after 4.5 years there, I just feel ready for a change. I’ll take a short break to do some more planning about where I’m going from here, and then get on with it.

I marked my first day off by getting a city business license for Donsca Communications; a “marker in the sand” that says this is the time and place. That felt pretty good.

Business planning is underway, but still pretty basic. There are a couple of certainties though: I will take more pictures, and I will write more. I loved doing both when I had the chance at work and whenever I’ve had the time in the past. Now I want to take that passion and do something with it.

Thanks to some savings, I won’t starve, but the technology budget has been frozen as of now 😉 Ahh, the financial part is always the hardest to bear. Of course, there is also part time work or a contract or two, as needed to top things up.

I’ll have more news to share about the journey soon. I expect it will be a slow start, but worth it in the end.

It’s been over a month since I’ve posted. Woops. With Twitter (@donsca), and all the reading these days about social media, you’d think I’d be more attentive here too. No excuse. Sooo…

Just a couple of notes from the weekend to start.

Going green?

I was reading the paper on Saturday when I had to laugh. The ad in the crummy picture here pretty much says it all: I can get 3-4 lbs of paper a week from the Vancouver Sun, but they insist I can be more “green” if I convert to e-billing. Huh? I guess there’s some logic there somewhere.

Be sure, they take the subscription right off my credit card and I don’t get a paper bill, but if I did, something tells me the ad wouldn’t change my ways. Probably a better bet would be to drop the paper completely and wait for the new to find me.

Posers

On Sunday I pushed my butt out the door to take some pictures at Bear Creek Park. While leaning on a bridge rail, taking some pictures of the local ducks, a couple of young ladies shouted across the pond and asked me to take their picture. Seemed a bit weird for them to ask a perfect stranger in the park, but whatever.

That was an interesting experience – having some ‘models’ to shoot in a park. The photos are up on Flickr (88103-8113). They’re not great, but it’s a start.

I’m more use to a business setting, and taking pictures at events. Having someone pose for me in a park was very different. I’d like to try that again sometime, perhaps with a model that had a bit more time.

Someone said that life was all about showing up. I tend to agree and would add that it’s often the little things in your day that make life interesting.

Till later…

Fall is definitely in the air. Maples are turning, berries are ripe and there is a chill out there on a cloudy day.

I spent a couple of hours in Delta today. Took a backpack full of camera gear, but once again, just used one lens. You’d think I’d learn.

Anyway, my 85mm was on the camera, so I used that. It was fine when the sun was behind the clouds, but when it was shining, whoa, what a lot of light for a fast lens. I’m starting to think the camera makers aren’t all that far off in offering lenses between f3.5 and f5.6. Especially for outdoor, daytime shooting.

I’m sure I’ll feel differently in the winter, but for now, f1.8 is a challenge, even at the native 200 iso on my Nikon.

I must admit, I’ve felt much like this little critter over the last month. A debilitating bout with the flue, followed by a crippling head cold. Needless to say I haven’t been out doing much photography.

However, that’s changing. A colleague and I went out to Ladner harbour at first light last Saturday. The sky was somewhat misty, so colors weren’t that great, but there were a few shots from the day worth keeping – even if they ended up severely cropped.

Speaking of cropped. I’m trying out a copy of onOne Software’s Genuine Fractals. Actually I’m trying the whole Plugin Suite. Neat stuff, and it should help somewhat with those shots where you just can’t get close enough. So far I’ve enlarged one picture from 4×5 in up to 35×43 in and the resolution is still really good. Enlarging with Photoshop is just a bit softer so far, so it will be interesting to see how far it can go.

I have been taking lots of pictures of events at work. That never ends, and unfortunately I can’t/shouldn’t publish those pictures here (work for hire?). I’ve been trying some things with my flash, like zooming and dragging the shutter. Learning lots through that, however I’ll probably retain even more now that I’ve feeling better, heh.

Onward and upward, as they say. Here’s looking to a more productive summer.

Just a test to make sure my new feedburner feed is working nicely with google reader.

Also, I spoke too soon (below) about the LaCie drive I’m using with time machine. It disconnected again tonight. No idea why. Back to the drawing board on that one…