Recent trip. First is Bradford-on-Avon; a lovely old stone town (pop about 10,000) that seems to have been there forever. This image is a tea room, a stone's throw from the river (Avon). It was actually a very nice day, weather wise, but the mood in my mind conjured up something else - hence the tampering. Would have looked too much like a post card otherwise. Second is Robin Hood's Bay; a charming village with winding little streets and plenty of smuggling connections; even Dracula! We stayed in the top right room looking out over the sea with fish and chips (what else), wine/beer (what else) for dinner. Heaven!

The Chicago Yacht Club's Race to Mackinac is one of the world’s largest annual offshore races, drawing top-notch sailing talent from around America and the world. Known as ‘The Mac’ to everyone in the region, the ultimate test of Great Lakes navigation starts each July just off Chicago’s Navy Pier. Passing through some of the most beautiful coastal waters in the world on the 333-statute mile (289 nautical miles) race route, the fleet faces the storms, reefs, calms and competition that truly make it "America’s Offshore Challenge".

2022 Boat Parade - Race to Mackinac by Paul Sager, on Flickr


The total surface area of the Great Lakes is approximately 94,250 square miles (244,100 km2) -- nearly the same size as the United Kingdom, and larger than the U.S. states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire combined.

Chico 2


The Great Lakes are estimated to have been formed at the end of the Last Glacial Period (the Wisconsin glaciation ended 10,000 to 12,000 years ago), when the Laurentide Ice Sheet receded. The retreat of the ice sheet left behind a large amount of meltwater (Lake Algonquin, Lake Chicago, Glacial Lake Iroquois, and Champlain Sea) that filled up the basins that the glaciers had carved, thus creating the Great Lakes as we know them today.

Seadog tours


The Great Lakes contain 21% of the world's surface fresh water. The lakes contain about 84% of the surface freshwater of North America. They have enough water to cover the 48 contiguous U.S. states to a uniform depth of 9.5 feet (2.9 m).

Phantom


Except when the water is frozen during winter, more than 100 lake freighters operate continuously on the Great Lakes, which remain a major water transport corridor for bulk goods. The Great Lakes Waterway connects all the lakes; the smaller Saint Lawrence Seaway connects the lakes to the Atlantic ocean. Some lake freighters are too large to use the Seaway and operate only on the Waterway and lakes.

Maggie Mae


Only four bridges are on the Great Lakes other than Lake Ontario because of the cost of building structures high enough for ships to pass under. The Blue Water Bridge is, for example, more than 150 feet high and more than a mile long. Major ports on the Great Lakes include Duluth-Superior, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Twin Harbors, Hamilton and Thunder Bay.

Abino


Dispersed throughout the Great Lakes are approximately 35,000 islands. The largest among them is Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron, the largest island in any inland body of water in the world. The second-largest island is Isle Royale in Lake Superior. Both of these islands are large enough to contain multiple lakes themselves -- for instance, Manitoulin Island's Lake Manitou is the world's largest lake on a freshwater island. Some of these lakes even have their own islands, like Treasure Island in Lake Mindemoya in Manitoulin Island.

Spitfire


Lake Huron has the largest shore line length of any of the Great Lakes, counting its 30,000 islands. Huron is separated from Lake Michigan, which lies at the same level, by the 5-mile-wide (8.0 km), 20-fathom-deep (120 ft) Straits of Mackinac, making them hydrologically the same body of water. Aggregated, Lake Huron-Michigan is technically the world's largest freshwater lake.

Chicago Harbor Lighthouse


Started in 1898, the Race to Mackinac annually hosts over 3,000 sailors and covers 333 statute miles, starting from Chicago's Navy Pier on Lake Michigan and finishing at Mackinac Island, Michigan on Lake Huron.

Warrior Sailing


Images captured in this post come from a circa 2000 EOS 1v film camera and a circa 2015 EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6L IS II, mounted to a tripod. The film used included expired color film, and fresh B&W film with and without color filters. Details of the exposure, focal length and film type are included for each image using the URL link of the titles to their host Flickr pages.

Tall Ship Windy

This idea popped into my head many years ago - the system of how humans live worldwide.

We go to school for a good portion of our lives so we can learn enough to get a job. We work at that job for the best part of every day from youth till old age. Then, if we are lucky, we can retire. If there is another intelligent society somewhere in the universe, I wonder if they have come up with a better system, one that does not require everyone to spend most of their lives working. Money, of course, is behind it all. Without money, we can't have food or shelter, so we work to get it. If we are born into a family with lots of money, we don't have to work. "Not working" is the ideal situation.

Obviously, things have to get done, but couldn't there be a better way to structure society? This is where thinking outside the box comes in.

I am always sending her senior citizen jokes. She sent me this one. She is a long way from being this way she is spry and quick witted.

Two elderly ladies had been friends for many decades.
Over the years they had shared all kinds of activities and adventures. Lately, their activities had been limited to meeting a few times a week to play cards.

One day they were playing cards when one looked at the other and said, “Now don't get mad at me.. I know we've been friends for a long time... But I just can't think of your name! I've thought and thought, but I can't remember it. Please tell me what your name is.”
Her friend glared at her. For at least three minutes she just stared and glared at her. Finally she said, “How soon do you need to know?”
Laugh and have a blessed day.

I shoot RAW in digital and use a modestly priced FastRawViewer for culling. The tool immediately renders the RAW, not the internal JPEG. This is a big deal in speed as this lets me make a second / subsecond keep / delete decision at the 1:1 pixel level details. Maybe my computer is getting old, but it can take 2- to 5-seconds to dynamically render an image at the 1:1 details inside LR.

I run at least 1, cull and depending on the number of images, 2 or 3 runs in FRV. I might kick 50% in the first run. The next run(s) are more important as I'm looking at good vs maybe good in subsequent passes. Maybe at the end, I'll do a full-screen (non zoomed) review looking at the compositions. But for most culling, I'm looking only at the 1:1 details, seeking to kick every image even slightly out of focus.

Inside LR, I import and build only 'minimal' previews, making these the fastest load. As mentioned in a reply above, I then apply my own custom Develop presents to the images that sharpen, NR, set lens profiles and trigger the auto Tone and auto WB. Only then do I build the 1:1 previews in a background / batch process. The 1:1 previews let me look at the image details inside LR at the same immediate rendering as FRV, both individual images and the side-by-side compare: Using the LR Compare View in Culling

I'm working on three shooting dates from last summer's Chicago Air & Water Show. I don't have the original statitics, but let's assume 1000 frames per day, probably 3000 frames to start editing (probably actually more, but I've culled more than once since last August). As I pause to respond to this post, I've just reduced the count to 382. And, I know there's still some crap that will be deleted in the next culling round, but I want to update the keywords first. I hope there's really less than 100 of the very very best from what is now my 8th year of shooting this event.

There's nothing wrong with shooting a lot. But, there is something wrong with editing too many and keeping too many. Do you really have 2400 images worth editing in detail (6000 x .4)? Do you really even have 240 images work editing and keeping? Wasting time on editing inferior images is a discouraging waste of time.

You might need a better culling approach and / or tools and / or critical eye.

Regarding workflow, do you inspect your images at the 1:1 pixel level to confirm each image as a candidate keeper is, in fact, in sharp focus at the relevant details?

Regarding tools, do you have software and hardware that immediately renders the image details for 1:1 inspection? Do you have tools that render side-by-side images for comparison of similar images and a forced rejection of one, even if both seem acceptable? Do you have a database tool that lets you compare similar images, even across years, to confirm improvement and to reject more inferior and / or complete duplicative frames of the same subject?

Do you look at every image critically, with an approach of: give me a reason to not delete this frame? One must delete as many frames as needed to isolate the keeper. Consider what you'll do with each individual image? Would you share an inferior image, knowing in other's eyes, you're only as good as the worst image you share publicly? What would you do with two identical / near identical frames of the same subject? Couldn't you just re-crop from virtual copies of the 'best of all' frame and create different renderings?

If interested in some of the tools I use, continue to respond the discussion.