Digital photography

 

Art in the Park has a large book sale and Rick and I both bought books. You pay whatever you want for them. I bought this one. Each chapter is about one photograph and the decisions that the author made to improve/change the original. 

 

Normally, when I get my photos on to my computer, I use the photo editor that came with the computer and make a few minor adjustments: I may straighten, crop and enhance the brightness or colour if I don't think the camera has picked up the scene the way I remember it. The author of the book makes the point that a photographer is adjusting the photo to try and duplicate the feeling that he got when seeing the scene.

Rick has loaded a program called Gimp on to one of my laptops and suggested that I would have more flexibility with that. I had a look at it and found it rather intense, set up a lot like photoshop. I decided that rather than learning a new program I would first see if I could get more out of the one I am already comfortable with. So I went into the garden and just took some random photos to play with.

Original. Dead tomato plant leaf.

 

Modified. The author wrote about taking everyday objects and making them look almost abstract.

Original. Broccoli floret (Not going to get a huge meal from my broccoli)

Modified. The program allows you to blur the background and to either make the colour warmer or cooler - in this case warmer.

Original. This is a plant that just started to grow in the vegetable bed. I think it must have been from a seed in the compost - melon?squash?cucumber?

Modified. I think I have gone too far on the brightness but like that it has bought out the fuzz around the leaves and the tendril.

Original, another dying leaf.

Modified, cropped and colour enhanced, cooler.

I tried a couple of inside images too. Original.

Modified.

Original

Modified.

When Eve visited we took a walk around Silver Lake and I played with a couple of photos that I took there.

Original. Great Blue Heron.

Modified. Very blue.

Original. Little Green Heron

Modified. Mostly just cropping and a slight increase in contrast.

Original. Little Green Heron

Modified. I was trying to enhance the reflection. It took a lot of playing around.

I have also signed up for a 2 day digital photography course at Fanshawe so there will be more messing with photos to come.

Chaos Race 2025

 The Chaos Race has been held in August for the last 4 years. In the past it has been a two handed race but this year boats that planned to raise a Spinnaker could take as many as 4 crew on board. I think I have done it with Rick twice and Gord once. One year I bailed on him because it was very windy.

The night before we had supper at Hoovers Marina in Nanticoke, watching the small boat traffic and the heron.

 

The original start time was to be 8am but there was a bit of a rebellion on Wednesday night and it was changed to 9am. I must admit I voted in favour of the later start. Rick even hoped to pick up his cinnamon buns at the market, prior to the race, but was foiled by a late arrival by the bakery.

Bill and Jan, our committee boat for the start, often come out on Wednesday nights and take photos of the race, only fair to take one of them.

We started in handicap order, so, as  the slowest boat, we started first. Sunny, 10+knt wind and hot.

Heeled over on our tack up to Bluffs Bar

It is called a Chaos Race because you have to go around the buoys of Long Point Bay but you can do them in any order. Some went to Turkey Point, then Bluffs Bar, then Nanticoke Buoy and then back to ED2 (Port Dover). Some went in the opposite direction: Nanticoke, Bluffs, Turkey and home. We (and one other boat, Trident) decided to go diagonally across the square (its roughly a square course), Starting across to Bluffs Bar, then to Turkey point, then down to Nanticoke and then home. The beat up to Bluffs Bar was fast and bumpy and Rick and I spelled each other off on the tiller every 20mins to half an hour.

Rounding the mark at Bluffs Bar. This marks where a sand spit sticks out from the north side of Long Point. Behind it there is a protected anchorage where some boats can anchor safely overnight.

As we headed up to Turkey point, along the north shore of Long Point, we started to meet boats who had chosen to go there first. Messenger.

Followed shortly by

Racer X

This was a much more comfortable sail with the wind on our beam and we were able to get out the comfy seats and eat some wraps, grapes and cookies.

We consider these 2 to be our usual competition;

Grey Escape and

Islay.

Great Day for Enigma, just

rocketing by us.

We had a very enjoyable sail to the Turkey Point buoy and then headed down wind towards Nanticoke, about 10 nautical miles. We were doing about 5 knots so figured about 2 hours. Then the wind gradually dropped. At the half way point, 5 miles we were doing 3 knots, then 2. We were gradually getting closer but whenever we did the math, it was still an hour away (2miles away doing 2knots is an hour, 1 mile away doing 1 knot is an hour!!). We played with the sail, tried wing on wing, tried taking the wind a bit more abeam, nothing made any difference, we began to think we were only moving at all because the left over waves were pushing us.

It was no longer fun so we radioed the fleet that we were retiring from the race. Neither of us very happy to quit but we were hot, tired and frustrated and wanted to remember the fun parts of the day not the last 2 hours. We weren't the only ones, many of the other boats retired too. 

As we motored up to ED2 we saw Nexus finishing at about 4:30. They had gone clockwise around the course and sailed spinnaker so were able to go faster downwind.

 Very hot and very tired we had cold drinks and dinner at the Yacht Club and commiserated with others.

The Shed and Sunset Cruise

 

When my tree was hit by lightening, in May, some of the flying wood hit the garden shed. In this photo you can see one of the holes, there were also a couple of other cracks and the door didn't shut properly.

My insurance (Allstate) was very good, responded quickly and communicated well, but they were just going to replace the shed with another "plastic" shed. I decided I wanted a wooden one instead and so took the "buy out" from the insurance company and dealt with it myself.

I got a couple of quotes to have it removed but then the man who repaired the bent eaves trough said he wanted it and he took it away for free. That was a win for both of us!

 

That left me with the wooden platform. Rick ripped it apart, and created a perimeter frame which we then had filled with gravel, for the new shed to sit on.

I hadn't expected it to arrive on such a huge trailer. I had taken some plants out of the bed by the driveway for the trailer that removed the old shed

but now had to remove some more.

It was an amazing trailer with wheels that dropped down underneath to move it sideways,

tipped up, extended in the middle and

had a ramp at the back that could be moved from side to side. All of that was controlled by the driver with a hand held remote control.

He placed it perfectly without out ever touching it himself.

A trip to Canadian Tire for some shelf brackets and we put in shelves. Rick built a potting table in front of the window

and we mounted brackets for the tools to hang. Now I am gradually moving things back, out of the garage.

Moving everything out made me realize that I had a lot of stuff in there that I hadn't used in the 5 years I have lived here, so a lot got recycled, donated or thrown out. This has given me a lot more room in the shed though there does need to be room for the 3 rain barrels that go in for the winter.

Rick also made a ramp which is just there temporarily while we try and figure out how to "skirt"the shed to keep animals out from underneath. (They chewed the bottom of the old shed to get in). I have replaced the plants but some are looking a little "shocked", I hope they recover.

 

I like the look of this a lot more and like the extra light inside, that the window provides.

Rick and I rewarded ourselves with an evening cruise, sailing with a brisk wind and a bit of chop, and

then dinner while

moored up to "happy face", the buoy in the centre of the race course.

Took me 2 tries but I sailed up to the buoy, Rick caught it with the boat hook and we dropped the sails.

Rick with a beer and me with a glass of wine and

we watched the sun sinking, turning more and more orange due to the wildfire smoke and

leaving an orange reflection on the water.

On one side the bright orange sun, low in the sky and

on the other side, high in the sky, a pale moon. (By the time we got home it was lower, and orange too)

We let go from the buoy and only raised the jib to sail back in to the marina. A lovely, lovely relaxing way to spend the evening.