"Me when I put my toes in the water"

Lake Norman Trip Teaser - Editing Now

#photography #landscapephotography #bofipho #mirrorless #canon #winstonsalem #nc #northcarolina #yadkinville #piedmont #lakephotography

Quickie - Hampton Lake,
Yadkinville Memorial Park

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"There's a WHAT behind the trailer?"
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My landlord told me there was a creek about 1/4 of a mile behind the property and a trail that went all through the woods, at a peak of property lines owned by 3-4 different people and the state, collectively creating a general no-man's land of "forest" that no one really claims, but those able, curious or interested, wander around in, drive 4x4's through and, as I have, "vibe".

Areas like this exist all over North Carolina and it was common where I grew up for older folk to own a few acres of property, but then ignore the entire back half of it like it isn't there. That's all well and good, curious people, weird folk and kids on journeys to find themselves make good use of these areas throughout their lives.

The first four photos are of the creek area I found, actually, what part of it I walked... because there's actually far more I didn't have time or energy to deal with today, but I did walk a fair half mile of it.

You know, if a guy wanted to take a tent out there and go camping, he might just enjoy that. Hm... that's a fun thought.

Someone aught to do that.

#photography #wildlifephotography #naturephotography #landscapephotography #canon #mirrorless #bofipho #r8 #cameras #northcarolina #nc #winstonsalem #highpoint #trees #flowers #plants #blueways #greenways #spring #springinforest

Highpoint Lake Rematch* and The Busted Heel
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Yesterday night at work, I grabbed my toolbox to put it up and ran over the back of the heel of my foot. That night, I fantasized about the next morning, this past Thursday, a sunny, slightly-hazy spring day, where I could venture to places at the HighPoint lake trail I had missed previously... after being at work for 10 hours, awake for 14 hours, with a busted up heel. I am a stubborn person.
Even so, some part of me is entirely unaware that it's early spring and that there really isn't much in the way of things to take photos of at the moment other than fisherman taking advantage of the weather-changes as fish move from place to place, but even without a camera, I'd still be hiking, and there were a few good shots here and there... but really, I didn't consider this much of a win day photo-wise, I just had fun hiking lol. ow... yeah, my heel hurts.

I think this area will be a lot better in the mid-fall or late spring when flowers are everywhere, or possibly when it gets damp for mushroom hunting. There are deer here, although I'm not skilled enough, nor do I have the lens (you camera guys know "the lens") to get a deer reliably but there were a few running around.

For now, at least as far as hiking photos go, I need to let Spring bake a bit. There are some local targets to go after around my house tomorrow to get. Apparently our neighbor has a HUUUUGE redbud tree in their front yard that just bloomed all-magenta.

Next "big" trip will be Natural Bridge, but it's going to be an overnight stay at least and require some planning. I'm pushing the lighthouse trip off until late summer. With the war going on, I need to be conservative on money for my own safety for now.

Natural Bridge will also be an exercise in timing. Would you want to go with 200 tourists photo-bombing your shots every five seconds? lol, off-season or bust, yo. I gotta get it done before Spring Break at least.

Another one-off or two before Saturday, I'm taking my mom out to eat tomorrow and it'll be pretty tomorrow too and I'm sure I'll see something to hit the brakes for. Cya!
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#photography #wildlifephotography #naturephotography #landscapephotography #canon #mirrorless #bofipho #r8 #cameras #northcarolina #nc #winstonsalem #highpoint #trees #flowers #plants #blueways #greenways #spring #springinforest

Early Spring - Muted Pastels and The Eastern Redbud
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I woke up today mad at how it looked outside. I get one valid day a week to go out and do this hobby and today was a constant melancholic overcast suited for a Danny Boyle film, and here I am wanting to go take pretty pictures of the plants.

In some odd way, I feel like I made it work, but in the most... crowbar'd way. lol, I wanted some sun, but I'll make do with what I'm given so I went for trying to get the most out of the pastel look the entire day had, mute the contrast a bit, make it look dreamy and like someone's playing shoegaze in the background.

Also the area I went to, "High Point Lake" had a small spot with a bird feeder so... I wasted way more time on that than I thought I would and felt like I could almost make an entire day out of sitting there aimed at birds. Every time I walked away something new showed up and I had to stop myself lol. It's EARLY spring. We will birdwatch... but not right now. Let it get a little greener.

I started this thing this year with the Bradford Pear where I want to photograph, if not native plants, then at least plants "that are here" and whether or not they're invasive or not invasive. In two of these photos I have here is an Eastern Redbud.

"The pink to reddish-purple flowers emerge in early spring on old branches and trunks, before the leaves. After blooming, the heart-shaped leaves emerge and mature to a dark green, turning yellow to yellowish orange by fall. The trees produce clusters of green seed pods that look similar to snow peas, but brown when mature."
https://www.buncombemastergardener.org/garden-detective-purple-flowering-trees-native-redbud-invasive-paulownia/

The Eastern Redbud is Native to the Eastern US and North Carolina. When I got up on it, I thought something was kinda alien about the purple flowers growing on it, but so far, considering my roster of... 2, this is my favorite tree thusfar this year.

My only real issue with this tree so far is that finding good examples of it that are planted on purpose seems to be a bit rare. They're every 70th tree on the highway, but I've yet to see one alone. This one I literally had to park 1/4 from and find. They're really pretty, I mean, I'd plant one. The entire tree has these little clusters of buds on it. Apparently they change color through to fall.

#photography #wildlifephotography #naturephotography #landscapephotography #canon #mirrorless #bofipho #r8 #cameras #northcarolina #nc #winstonsalem #highpoint #trees #flowers #plants #birds #blueways #greenways

Pretty? Yes, but also invasive.
These are Bradford Pear blooms, a very invasive species in North Carolina. They dominate other varieties of plants and animal habitats.

"They displace native plant and animal species by overtaking landscapes and crowding out all other trees. Often, you’ll even see the space beneath them to be bare and muddy because even grass can’t make its way in. Though nice to look at, this tree doesn’t support our native wildlife."
https://conservingcarolina.org/bradford-pears-pretty-but-invasive/

HOWEVER

...they are pretty ngl.
And they are the first plant to flower... that I've noticed, this spring.
So here they are. Bradford Pear Blooms.

#photography #plantphotography #naturephotography #canon #mirrorless #bofipho #northcarolina #north-carolina #nc #winstonsalem

Bag - check
Phone - check
Combos - check
Diet Soda - check

Motivation - ...getting there... woke... making coffee.... alright, I'm up.

loading firekeeper.sh

.....................................
System online!

Happy Shooting! 📷

These were all taken on 3/6 at Salem Lake in Winston Salem NC, my usual stomping grounds. I wanted to reset my gear, reset *me*, reset everything, and get ready for the new season. It took about half the day to get back into the swing of things, and I had some great shots by the end of it, I think. With this, I'm back in the game and ready for Springtime flowers.

...if it would stop RAINING.

Error, a longstanding issue with my instance is that my upload speed is "ass".
Soon, my GoToSocial will either be:
Remade as a Ghost blog
or
Transfered to my VPS and ran there instead
...but I do have some performance concerns with that one as it's a 1Ghz 1GB system already hosting prosody and proxying media and whatever else one could ever guess.

Anyway, just give the photos a little time to load, as you do, for now. We'll speed it up soon.

#photography #wildlifephotography #landscapephotography #canon #mirrorless #bofipho #r8 #cameras #birds #ducks #geese

Misc Dump!
This includes a few photos from a walk I did in Kernersville at Cascade Preserve, and two misc shots from a night at my cousin's band's show at Monstercade in Winston Salem.
More shots to come from inside Monstercade soon. I want to do a whole post on that bar.
The lighting wasn't great on the walk but I got some fungi and one decent wintery shot. The rest were a bit too messy and hard-lighty on the lighting to share, but I might pick another out.

Some of these fungus shots have me wanting to mess with "focus bracketing" on my R8, and then taking the photos into Gimp to stack the focus together so I can get more focus on these F1.8 shots up close, but not on the background. I will 100% need my tripod for that so, wherever I go for that needs to... not be far lol. My bag does have a holster and it doesn't weigh too much, but it's still more than nothing.

#bofipho #photography #landscapephotography #cityphotography

Got that rustic mad max southern vibe going on today.

#bofipho #photography #cityphotography #winstonsalem #northcarolina

New shots soon!

-W

Well guess what, guys? My first roll of film is developed.

Fujifilm 200
Canon Rebel 2000 with an 18-70mm lens that's horribly slow

I, love this? I don't know how exactly to express this, but I remember framing up every one of these and knowing the ones that would be winners would be winners. These were the shots I expected to get off of the roll and these were the ones I pushed through #rawtherapee. There's a level of safety and care that goes into knowing each roll of this shit is ~$10 a pop. I messed with exposures and things to my liking a bit as I would any shot from the R8, but I didn't remove a single film grain, it's part of the charm, damnit.

Well, this proves the Rebel is in perfect working order and is ready to shoot and shoot and shoot. That's great considering I paid a whopping $15 for it and it can use EF lenses and that's half of my kit. I can take it, My R8, a 24mm EF lens, a converter, and use them on BOTH the film lens and the R8.

I don't have a 24mm EF lens yet, but bare with me.

>Dad's roll

Isn't at the lab yet, as I wanted to vet LowFive first as well, and since they're good to go, the Rebel is g2g, I guess I'm g2g on shooting film. The Minolta X-700 has a finished roll, and the X-570 has a counter that won't reset. Note, that this doesn't mean it can't shoot and develop film, it just means I won't know when the roll is out until the crank hits tension. I bought the X-570 broken as a hail-mary towards making the X-700 a trophy piece on a shelf I dedicate to my dad. I love the action on the camera and how vivid the viewfinder is, but I need to test film off of it as well. So, the next two rolls will be those two getting tested.

So, this roll was half Thanksgiving with my family, and half out at Reynolda Museum, which I will return to, I just didn't have the time that day and was just trying to test the camera. Here's some shots from Reynolda. Some shot with autofocus, some not. The R2000 doesn't have the most gangbusters viewfinder but it works well enough.

#bofipho #photography #landscapephotography #wildlifephotography #streetphotography #northcarolina #winstonsalem #camera #filmphotography #35mm #slrcamera #fujifilm #filmcamera