Welcome brother! Some advice from a fellow retired LEO. Find a community college nearby that has a photography class and take one. While I only shoot monochrome film, I am mixed in class with the digital folks and we feed off each other and have been doing this for years. We all have become better photographers because of each other. And watching them edit images on the computer is a skill as necessary for the best photographs as are my skills in the wet darkroom.

One other thing. Don’t talk politics here.

Sent you a private message.

Great timing with your post. The answer for me is yes absolutely! I just received an email from a new company that their glass film holders for my 8x10 view camera will be shipping in April. I have been waiting for almost a year for them so I can start shooting with glass dry plates just like they did 100 years ago.

Okay I can’t take it anymore. If you use a polarizing filter you HAVE to manually turn the ring; it is easy and simple to so. It works most efficiently when 90 degrees from the sun.

While looking through the viewfinder to see where the maximum desired effect is happening I either watch to see the sky darkening of lightning; or if the reflection I am trying to minimize is minimizing or not. It is fun to watch the image change while you are moving it around to get it where you want it; sometimes not necessarily at its maximum effect.

While I shoot large format cameras the system works the same. I find them to be the most valuable filters in my bag. It enhances textures on things you would not even think were being affected by reflection.

What a beautiful shot of this fun little bird.

They are fun to listen to this time of year in the early morning. The call is what I would call musical chatter. How they can stand on and nest in cholla cacti is a skill. Cholla cacti is also nicknamed Jumping cactus because if you just go near it it seems to get on you and man does it hurt!

But perhaps my favorite thing about the cactus wren is they wait for me to get home and pick off the bugs from the front of my truck.

Do you mean a print taken from a large format camera? That is what a large format print means to me. (We all interpret the things we hear differently depending on our lives experiences.)

If so I do have several taken with my 8+10 large format camera done the old fashioned way on Tri-X film and printed on silver gelatin paper. The prints vary in size but are no bigger than 11+14. Or do you mean just a large size print?

I am even proud to “know” you here on UHH who knows her. Can’t begin to imagine how proud you must be.

God Bless America for giving us young women like her.

Jerry

That made me laugh out loud. Thank you!

I am a 62 year old kid. I asked my wife for a Venus Fly Trap for my birthday. Stacie came through.

I named him Jimmy. He sits on a southern facing window sill since he loves a lot of sunshine. He drinks only distilled water because tap water makes him sick or can kill him. And he loves live food. I will catch a fly every once in a while and feed it to him with tweezers. But he usually attracts them on his own. He is quite the charmer.

Seriously they are very cool plants with special needs to keep healthy. No wonder they never lived long when I was a kid. No internet to do the research. The company I got it from was awesome. Had the information about how to take care of him, the spongy potting material and he was wrapped well and healthy. You could tell the guy loves these plants. Get one and feel like a kid again!

Very nice photos by the way. Jimmy liked them too!

Laddie Bobbie,

I was going to thinkin’
I was the only one a rememberin’
By liftin’ a wee dram or two
All the good writin’ and
About the lad he was that Robert Burns
Happy to see I was a mistakn’

Slainte
Your mate,
Gerard

Great shots! Please keep them coming!

Mike,

It was the upper part of the private water below Bend Pool. Just downriver of the little wooden bridge.

Jerry

The decline of participation in organized religion over the last forty years and what seems to be a war against God in our Country is what I was alluding to. The separation of church and state does not mean disallowing people to pray in schools or in government buildings. It means that the government cannot stop people from worshipping whatever God they want or endorsing one over another. Our Nation was founded on this principle. Just look at the inscriptions of some of the most iconic buildings in Washington DC if you don’t believe me. Yet this foundation seemingly has been erased from our lexicon as has our country’s history that has been torn down with its statues and monuments.

That is me and the fish with my jealous brother.

The Frying Pan is one of my favorites. I try to get up there every year to catch the Green Drake hatch. Nothing like one of those hogs on a mysis shrimp! But the biggest one I caught was down River a ways that was 29” and taped out between 19 and 21 lbs on a size 18 hairs ear nymph. Don’t think i will ever catch one that big ever again.