All of us who have ever loved and lost a dog might enjoy scrolling through these great quotes and musings, even though we already know these truths:
https://www.puplife.com/pages/quotes-about-dogs-our-favorites

My deepest sympathy.
A dog gives so much but asks for so little in return. We can learn a lot from our canine friends.

Outstanding shot.
That's about as good as it gets.

There is no right answer to this question because there are so many different types of photography.

I'm definitely an "A".
I do almost entirely landscape photography. My work is slow and deliberate, almost always with a tripod; often hiking miles in constantly changing weather and lighting conditions. Very little gets left to chance so I check everything I do in case I catch something that can be improved before my light changes.

Call me a chimp and pass the bananas, please.

On my first-ever attempt to shoot video of a family event with my Canon 6D, I had a similar experience.
The camera indicated the 32Gb card was 'filled' after only a few minutes of recording. Full 1920x1080 resolution.

I replaced it with another empty 32Gb card and got a similar result. I knew these cards were empty because I had backed up and deleted all the RAW files that had previously been on them just prior to packing my gear for this shoot. My family was incredibly patient as they stood around waiting and watching me struggle to figure out what was wrong.

In desperation, I copied the little video files to a laptop and then put the seemingly 'full' memory card back in the camera.
Instead of merely deleting the video files, I reformatted the memory card. Problem solved!

THAT resulted in the card being able to record long sessions.
Apparently, merely 'deleting' files is not sufficient for the camera to regard the card as empty.

See if that solves your problem. Good luck.

The Alabama Hills are a joy to explore. Thanks for sharing your nice images. They made me want to plan another road trip.
There may be no such thing as bad weather there because such fascinating moods come with every weather condition. Any hour of the day or night gives a completely different look and feel to the same scene.

Just a side note for anybody who visits this wonderful area...
Try to make some time to visit the "Museum of Western Film History" in the town of Lone Pine, especially if you are a movie buff.

The Alabama Hills has been a favorite filming location for hundreds of movies and TV westerns dating back to the earliest days of Hollywood. The museum is filled with props and posters from movies filmed there, including the dentist's wagon from 'Django Unchained', the worm monsters from 'Tremors', 'Gunga Din' (1938), 'Iron Man', and too many classic cowboy costumes and six-shooters to count. A really fun, nostalgic place to see, especially if you are a Baby-boomer who grew up on TV westerns like Hopalong Cassidy and Roy Rogers.

A great place to kill some time if you need to wait for the light or the weather to change before you go back out to hunt for your own images.
http://www.lonepinefilmhistorymuseum.org

And we thought they were kidding when they said 'the streets in California are paved in gold'.

I like your HDR post result, Steve. You preserved the red vein details in the highlight area while eliminating the bluish color cast. Maybe bump up the saturation a tiny bit ?

What was your f-stop? Could you have better isolated the orb from the busy background by working with a more shallow depth of field?

What a fun subject! It begs for a return visit at night to play around with 'light painting'.

The magazines (print and digital) for any equipment-involved avocation are supported by advertising and those ads are often subtle and disguised as articles. It's as true for photography as it is for any endeavor that uses tools; fly-fishing, golf, woodworking, gardening, flying, driving, cooking, video-gaming or anything else you might name.

There can and should be some educational value but the reality is that many people genuinely believe that the ONLY reason their images are not as impressive as someone with more talent is due to a difference in their hardware. "Oh NUTS! Apparently I bought the wrong brand Gimbal Head!"

Marketing departments prey upon our insecurities and our hunger for approval. Gadgets are dangled in front of us like carrots on a stick. It works like a charm for them.

Notice that those equipment inventory 'credits' attached to images are never mentioning low-end cheap gear. This often indicates either a kick-back from a manufacturer or 'humble bragging' by someone craving peer approval. Truth be told, I confess this as a past writer and recipient of plenty of 'freebies' in a different hobby area. That's the game, folks.

I happen to live near Placerville, California, one of the earliest boomtowns of the 1849 California gold rush. Thousands of hopeful prospectors flooded into this region, each blinded by the same ambition. In the end, there were several fortunes made in Placerville but almost exclusively by the merchants who sold those new shiny gold pans, wheelbarrows, eggs, whiskey or sex to the desperately hopeful miners. We are little different now.

In the end, 'excellence' it is rarely about the equipment. If you were scheduled for brain surgery, would you be asking your surgeon which brand scalpel he uses?

Just believe in yourself and enjoy the growth process of exercising your raw talent.

The powerful vistas of that region are often so compelling that photographers forget to balance their shots with foreground details.

Nice work. You have a good eye.
More, please.

Magazines?
Oh, yeah... now I remember. Those were like websites but printed on paper. Quaint.
Thanks for the stroll down memory lane.

Wow... just wow. It sounds like this is all about you, Medic24.
"Control issues" is a beautiful understatement.

I completely agree with all the preceding criticisms of this colossally self-absorbed, mean-spirited stunt.
Being a father, myself, of a lovely photographer-daughter, my instinct is to protect and enrich her; never to take delight in her horror, no matter how fleeting.

I'm heartened that you showed one dim flicker of conscience. You acknowledged a wisp of self-doubt by offering your so-called prank up for public comment. Let's hope you are doing some much-needed introspection as a result.

Am I safe to say that there are a few of us here who feel a visceral connection to how that crumbling cabin clings to its former dignity and strength against the absolute certainty of fate?

In other words, "Hey! I resemble that image."

Hang in there, fellow geezers! I hope people look at us occasionally and think the same sentiment that has been offered regarding the cabin: "I'll bet there are some great stories there."

I can't help wonder how this conversation would flow if it was about color saturation in some other artistic medium such as oil painting or water color. The level of saturation is one of our choices for artistic expression. We communicate visually with our audience. How can there be a standard?

To suggest one approach is preferable to the next is to imply that one form of artistic expression is superior to the others, be it photography, music, cooking, you name it. Do we want to constrain ourselves to merely being recorders of flat visual data, like statisticians - unable to offer our personal interpretations of a scene to evoke an emotion? Heck, no!

If manipulation of tones, contrast and color is an offense, then Ansel Adams may have been a felon.

Viva l'difference!

Uh... prowl the Internet long enough and you'll probably find them! Yikes!