Where do  I begin to capture this past week?

On Tuesday night Tuvia and I traveled to Ellenville to support my brother, Jeff, in his run for his third and last term of office as mayor.  Last time he ran unopposed and wildly popular.  I was never far from a phone but it didn’t seem that a trip on election day was necessary.  I waited to hear the vote count and it was high and Jeff rode on his own record.  This time around he had some competition.  Not serious competition in itself, but Jeff is no longer the new guy on the block.  Ellenville has been hit hard by companies moving out of the area, jobs lost and taxes ever on the rise.  A new guy offers the opportunity to express frustration and maybe hope for something better.

I felt good calling in the morning offering my version of “break a leg and even better to arrive and join in around the campaign table reconnecting with old students now parents themselves and moms of old students. And of course my parents, and family grateful to have me with them.

Go know on the way home as we traveled on a very dark Route 209 as I scoured the roadside for deer, a wood chuck would be racing across and run into me.  And what a thump.  What damage to the center of my bumper.  $3,000.00 later I will be paying the $250 deductible and a local road cleaner is stuck clearing the remains of my very dead woodchuck.  Thank god it wasn’t a deer!

It so happens that while I was home supporting my brother, I was also able to pay my respects to a good friend, who after a long and horrible fight with cancer, finally reached her peace. I stopped in to see you kids sitting vigil at Ginny’s open coffin.  Tuvia walked over to inspect, I stayed with Ginny’s daughter.  The body in the box is not longer the friend I knew well during my teaching years in Ellenville.  I am holding on tight to my memories of Ginny.  There’s more to say, but not now…

A great day! A GREAT DAY! I download photos and remember, hey, I took those. I discovered the power of the tripod. I always wondered about the photographers who dragged their tripods around with them and took the time to set them up and shoot. I wondered why and even when I had my own and from time to time lugged it with me, I couldn’t get it set up fast enough to use it. I lugged it back home and put it back in its case in the closet.

Today with Sharon’s help I broke through and connected with a tripod and lived to see its value in creating photos that I would not have without it. Ahhhh…B and H get ready for yet another phone call from Bonnie Kaplan in Nyack. I will be calling for yet another item to purchase.

What else???? MANUAL!!!! Aperture, Shutter Speed, Macro, Manual Focus…. operations available on my camera that I never used before. And now… and now… and what about my menu: White Balance, ISO…and a host of new settings, new possibilities…

I am rich with the possibilities…

It’s cold up here and I didn’t take exactly the right clothes. No gloves, hat, winter jacket…but Sharon knows how to share and so I had gloves, special camera gloves, her hat( and I didnt care how it looked on me), a better tri pod than I brought( I didn’t have to waste time stopping home to get mine)…

We began the moment we arrived. Off we went… it was very cold, windy, freezing and I wanted to eat…I had trouble using the tripod, mine and Sharon’s so I just faked it as best I could.  I was not comfortable yet, but I knew I would be…

Last night…

Today…early morning, really early… crack of dawn early and outside into the darkness…it was wonderful and not as cold…

But we were drove to the stream….I got to learn things I was dying to know about: manual shooting, in Raw… and I get it… it was a bit too long for me at each shoot…but I didn’t care. and I do get the point about using a tripod…

I  just looked at the photos I took.  I’m blown away…wow is this great…