You're right on with everything you said. Not defending but explaining, this was as much an exercise in shooting my "new" camera and my first roll of Velvia 50 slide film. As I became more familiar with the somewhat narrow latitude of the film, I did improve with the wide contrast a little. Thanks. You did very well with the critique.

You're right - it's that "new and different" thing for us that excites us and renews our vigor and interest.

Thanks Francis. I was sitting at the dining room table, had just cleaned my lens, looked up and saw the solitary iris in a vase on the table in front of me, backlit by the light coming through the sheer peach colored draps, raised my camera and took one shot, haphazardly and thought it had SOME merit, and you're sure right, I should have at least bracketed if I wasn't going to pay closer attention. I'd been having some spots on some shots so I was trying to determine if it was the lens or the sensor. I already had some extension tubes onboard for something else I was doing. This is one of those "not set up almost good serendipitous shots." I'll do better next time and thanks again.

Thanks DB. I'm from Arkansas, maybe you've seen where I've said before, on about the same latitude as Memphis and subject to much the same kind of weather so I'm not overly familiar with snow myself, that is until moving to Colorado. Still, snow in Denver is not nearly as predominate an issue as one might believe, not that it doesn't happen. Still, Denver has actually only had snow falling on Christmas Day 7 times out of the last century. I try not to purposely go looking for it except when I have camera in hand. Just a quick tidbit - our worst snows come from the east when a comma system gets stuck over Albuquerque pulling moisture up off the "Baja" and/or "Gulf." We get very little from the west, as one might think, and almost none from the north during those bad storms that bear down in the middle of the country and freeze everything, often including the oranges in FL.

Thanks Strubbles. I also wanted to convey the potential feeling of lonely isolation that one could ascribe oneself to, transferring to a human condition the act of being out there alone in that kind of weather, forever - knowing all the while that the bridge, the tree, the lake, indeed the park were all surrounded by a densely populated area just feet away all conveniently removed by mother nature solely for the purpose of allowing me to get such a picture. It's beginning to look like I failed in my intent, imagination run amok. That may be the major thing wrong with my sense of one of the main purposes of photography. The mind races ahead and imagines situations that the camera cannot depict. It's almost seems to be a little "nuts."

Well said and very informative - casts a new and valid light on the subject. Thanks.

His book was about 11x14, landscape naturally, and it was set up so Jackson's shot was on the left side and the local guy's on the right. It's sole purpose was to convey and contrast the images side by side. It was very interesting and he sure did a good job, never passing his role off as being anything other than that.

Thanks mommy. I'm not enthralled with the "auto-contrast" version because it strips part of what I intended to convey - namely, that after the fresh snow it was so cold that there was a fog set in that caused everything in the scene to lose clear focus, even to the naked eye. I like the re-composure fine except for one thing, as in the first one - it makes the bridge look ever so slightly bigger, which is actually an optical illusion, and leaves the impression that I was closer to the bridge than I was and would hence diminish the degree of severity to which the fog impacted the scene. I don't know, maybe my idea of what I wanted to convey is a little over the top with respect to what I CAN convey. We can sure talk ourselves into stuff, huh? It was not the bridge or the tree in the first two that was my subject - it was the atmospheric conditions that existed in a record cold incident. Thanks.

This conversation is warming up nicely. Interesting the comment about "finding other's tripod leg holes." Let me revisit our local photographer who snowshoes and camps in a snow caves to get "those special pictures" I mentioned earlier. He recently spent some great amount of time putting his tripod in those holes left by William Henry Jackson when he came out west with Albert Bierstadt and the rest of the survey team. He did a remarkable job and it was hailed as a monumental success and sold like crazy. Jackson's shots were in B&W, naturally, and our local man's was in color. It offered quite a contrast but in reality, most of the shots, especially those with structures in them when Jackson shot them, structures now gone, yielded shots I would walk right on by on any given day never raising my camera. While it was an intriguing study in how things change in just over 100 years, it otherwise made little or no sense to me. Which raises another question in parenthesis for this subject - can we truly argue with success without it looking like "sour grapes."

I don't think anyone in this post said anything about not liking the camera they now have which would almost make your contribution seem as though it is an advertisement for Canon.

You sir/ma'am, it would appear, seem to be contributing to this forum solely for the purpose of pumping up Canon sales. You have submitted no images for critique and a noteworthy portion of your posts are urging people to buy Canon, use Canon, or get support from Canon.

I don't mind your advice but I have been using Canon since the FTb came out, along with several Nikon products over the years, currently using the EOS 5D MkII, but if your purpose here is only to pump up Canon sales, it might be a good thing if you were to frequent some other avenue to achieve your goals. Your suggestion that I look at the Rebel line makes little sense given that it would represent a sizable step backwards for me.

If I'm incorrect, I humbly apologize and while I'm not the "hall monitor" in here, I don't appreciate you taking my time to read a manufacturer's advertisement.

...just so you ladies don't think I'm just all about bull elk, here comes my sissy side - what do you think about these apples? Tell me what I'm doing wrong with my flowers, please.

Look at the whiskers on that Iris


another wildlife shot


pollen inside a Moss Rose

Yah, especially if they have funds to do that with or are not tied up in court for a few years. And, you bet, I AM not being very positive and AM looking on the dark side of things.

I'm glad to hear you're safe. A lot of folks aren't. I am aware of some of the sites but not all the ones you mentioned. I'm just real leery of online companies. Some of them aren't very secure and often when they go out of business, they just lock the doors and walk off. It's good the one you use has a plan. Now, if they'll only do what they say they will. My excessive method is my way of guarding against the unpredictability of those online companies. I'm going to trust 'em, just about as far as I can throw 'em. Thanks for the response and offering up those free sites. I'd do more'n one and still do gmail because some of the restore processes of "cloud" companies are not terrible convenient or quick whereas gmail is right there when you want it and as quick and simple as opening an email. My question about online storage is whether or not some of those guys are going to compress my images and degrade them to save themselves some bucks.

You have nice toys Jim. I'm having trouble making out the hood ornament on the car. It looks like a 33 to 35 in that range somewhere. Is it a DeSota or a disguised Ford or what? Yep, I'm an old biker. Bought a Harley when I was 18 and a Western Union messenger. The sucker had a suicide clutch and fell on me while I was juggling all the controls soon after I bought it so after short run at another Harley I gravitated to British bikes, the first one being my beloved Triumph. To me, no bike ever sounded sweeter. Harleys were too big for me, a short guy, and still make way too much noise for me.

Being raised in the Bible Belt/Tornado Alley, I spent way too much time being shoved under the bed or the table when it got cloudy by my lil' God fearing mother that I think I'm way too conditioned to stand right in front of a tornado. Dodging a hungry cat is pretty tame by comparison, I reckon.