I didn’t see much on this morning’s walk:  just the oriole nest, a cow by the fence, the front of Town Hall, portion of a bird’s wing, the garden with the haze from the Canadian wildfires, and the recently planted planters.

I doubt that I will be posting tomorrow since I’m busy tonight and tomorrow.  I have also been busy taking more pictures for the model train guys and I have more upcoming photography of Homewood happenings.

I have been thinking about a “next step” relative to my cameras.  I like my Pentax K-3 III camera and I have no intentions of replacing it.  It is optimized for outdoors under wet or hot or dry conditions and is rugged and heavy.  I never intended it for a camera that I would always have with me.

I have always preferred smaller pocket cameras for photography within crowds of people; i.e., a more discreet camera.  A Fujifilm X100V or a Ricoh GR3 III camera would suit me fine, but they are next to impossible to acquire due to demand and limited supplies.  When I acquired my current Pentax DSLR camera I knew that and I had started thinking that now might be the time to switch to a better smartphone with better photographical capabilities.  There are no other new discreet affordable easy to carry cameras other than smartphones being made.  Using one in public doesn’t seem to bother others so it is easy to blend into “the crowd”.

In my case the lack of a zoom capability with longer reach has always been a stumbling block.  That situation is not currently as limiting with the latest smartphones, so I am considering upgrading to an Apple iPhone 14 Pro.  My biggest stumbling block now is considering a new system and making a massive change in my workflow.  Many of us 80+ oldsters are not eager to make such changes, especially since we aren’t sure what we will be photographing in the coming years.

Yesterday I took a walk and made various test images with my current iPhone SE (2).  The first image above shows contractors working here at Homewood at Plum Creek as they replace a drain pipe that had rusted and collapsed.  The first image was transferred from my iPhone as a jpeg file into my computer where I then created a virtual copy, adjusted the processing, crop-zoomed in, and then increased the pixel dimensions to achieve the second image.  The third image was taken indoors and then a similar workflow was used to achieve the last image.

I haven’t decided yet, but it isn’t a route that I am anxious to go down with my photography.  I will have my current iPhone in my pocket and will use it occasionally, but I still would rather have a good camera.

On Saturday I photographed residents looking at cars in a show that was held at Homewood.  I will turn over the images of the residents enjoying the show and refreshments to the staff since they contain personal information that I cannot display on my website.  

Now that we are back to normal after the Covid restrictions and hopefully will be returning to more special events in the personal care sections, I hope to get back to photographing them again for internal uses.

We had no measurable snow this past winter and the month of May set a record for being the driest ever for this region of Pennsylvania.  Our ponds at Homewood are low.

Be prepared for changes.  I think that we either will have water rationing or else we will have heavy downpours from storms coming up from the south and east with possible floods like in 2018 … or maybe both since they are both expected results from human created climate changes.

These were made this morning from in the garden behind Creekside down to Plum Creek, and on the path up the hill on other side.

I use my pocket camera as a “note maker” as I walk about looking to see what things look like.  Since my fellow residents keep demanding that I make color images, I often record whatever and wherever I see colors just to see what they look like on a digital screen.

But, I also wonder if monochrome doesn’t often work better than color.  Someday, some may start pleading for a little less color.  Sometimes local color doesn’t look so good in color.  This image shows the outlet of the repaired, reduced size, culverts under Morning Glory Drive.