16-7-31

Went for a walk today.

16-7-30

Welcome home. Thanks for dinner.

16-7-29

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16-7-27

Probably my favourite building in Vancouver.

16-7-26

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16-7-24

Commercial and Broadway. And crows.

16-7-23

"Can I make Johnny cakes?"

"Yup. You sure can..."

They were amazing.

16-7-22

Nope. It happens sometimes.

16-7-21

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16-7-19

It's all about that plane in the upper left corner.

16-7-18

The Nikon D750 is junk. It's too light, the shutter sounds plastic-y, it's small, you have to look into sub-menus to change the focus from continuous to single focus, the preview screen doesn't come with a protective cover and it's tilty which is code for "breakable" in my books. The command pad on the back is too small, the rectangular eye piece isn't as nice as the round one on the D700, and there's no shutter to close it off to do tripod exposures. It's a video camera, but I didn't buy a video camera. And the middle of the "focus mode" dial is also a button and it happens to sit right where my finger has also sat for 12 years of taking photographs with a Nikon, so I'm repeatedly changing focus modes when I don't want to.

But it takes better quality photos than the D700. And first and foremost, it's about better photographs, right?

But still...

I love/hate this new camera. Mostly love. But passionately hate. And I can't help but believe that with a firmware upgrade the D700 would be just as good, if my rear command dial hadn't quit working.

The other thing I have to remind myself is that the D750 cost 28% less than the D700, 8 years after the D700 came out. It's a cheaper camera.

So I'm complaining about a cheaper camera that takes better pictures.

No one has ever accused me of being smart. Well, almost no one.

16-7-17

New camera. New software. Same photo. The more things change, the more things stay the same. Though it's amazing how different the same thing is.

16-7-16

Oscar uses me as a scratching post. And that's alright.

16-7-15

Fond of Tigers.

16-7-14

I'm a convert. And now Adobe owns my soul and I will pay them a convenient amount monthly direct to my credit card to maintain it for me. Today's photograph compliments of a revitalized Fuji X100S. Photographs from yesterday and the day before compliments of a new D750. More on the D750 tomorrow. Probably.

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16-7-9

Oscar, the box hunter. He finds them even when they are hidden in the tree houses of 9 year old's.

16-7-8

I have a new camera on the way. So new editing software is necessary because the 9 year old software I was using wouldn't support the new camera that's on the way. It's also breathed a new life into my little Fuji X100S which, for the first time, I can shoot in RAW format, which is far superior. All these photos are out of the Fuji. I was starting to grow tired of it, despite it being the best little camera on the market and sporting my preferred 35mm (equivalent) focal length.

Adobe is evil, because they don't support their old software, which wasn't cheap, so your investment is limited to the lifespan of the camera you bought to use with it. If you buy a new camera, the old software won't understand the files, so I've only ever used the jpeg format of shooting pictures with the Fuji. But there's a dynamic range and crispness to these photographs that wasn't possible with the old software. So now I'm kicking myself for not investing before now.

It's strange being without a camera that I've owned for 8 years, and strange waiting for a new camera for the first time in 8 years, but in the mean time I'll use a different camera. It's good.

16-7-7

New editing software. It's better. There will be a learning curve but it's better. New camera on the way too. First one in 8 years. Well, first "big" camera in 8 years. It wasn't easy. But it should be exciting. Like a punch buggy yellow. No punch backs.

16-7-6

16-7-5

It's the distance between a space affected by the randomness of human intervention, but completely devoid of humans, strained by the baby stroller, which is not something people leave behind implying people are there, and yet they aren't. The floor is still wet, it's about as close to a warm seat as you'll find in such a context. The space has been touched recently by human hands, and yet it's devoid of humanity.

Or something like that.

16-7-4

16-7-3

6981kms.

Between June 22 and July 2, 2016, I rode that Italian motorcycle from Vancouver to Thunder Bay and back, stopping in Yakima WA, Spokane WA, Bozeman MT, Dickinson ND, Grand Rapids MN, Thunder Bay ON, Kenora ON, Weyburn SASK, Calgary AB, Nelson BC, and then home again.

I wore out a tire, a pair of headphones, broke my iPod, didn't read as much as I hoped, managed to luckily plan my one rest day for the same day the foothills of Alberta were inundated with rain and hail storms, and only had to fix the bike once roadside when the actuator dial in the clutch lever decided it didn't want to make the whole trip with me. I fixed it first with a pebble which got me to a shop that gave me a body panel screw that I mated to a few metric nuts (not easy to find in the United States) and a nylock nut to hold it all together.

There is no good reason to ride so far in so short a period of time on a motorcycle. And that's the best reason to do so.

I noticed I stopped taking nearly as many photographs when I got towards the end of the trip and was riding through familiar terrain.

And it's set me up to do something similar next year. Perhaps Baja California. I've been talking about going there for the better part of two decades. Maybe it's time.

16-7-2

I've lived in these leathers for a week and a half. Done.

16-7-1

16-6-30

Calgary, AB

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16-6-28

Sinclair, Manitoba.

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