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Common Lilac

It’s been a while since I posted anything now, and a while since I last shot with the camera I have used for this image. Some might say this camera can't quite match the newer models, but I still think the image quality is fine. Focusing is a bit fiddly, and I had to take several images to get the flower in focus the way I wanted. But I don’t mind that. It’s almost like a form of meditation to me.

Syringa vulgaris

2020 Our Year of Discontent

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2020 has come to an end, and the start of 2021 does not look much better than the closing stage of 2020. Lockdowns of one kind or another are in effect in several countries and regions around the world. And even if vaccination has started in most countries across the globe, social distancing, lockdowns and quarantine, and working from home will be part of our everyday life for many months to come.

Some have said that SARS COV2 is an "equalizer" as it does not distinguish between rich and poor. While this may be true to some extent, I think it is evident by now that it hits rich and poor in very different ways. Many people have lost their jobs or small businesses due to lockdowns and travel restrictions. Another point is that many low-paid workers have jobs where they meet many people during a working day, which makes them more exposed to being infected. This is not the case for those of us who can do our work from home. In the wake of this pandemic we will see the gap between rich and poor widening.

2020 Our year of discontent (1/3000s @ f/2.8, 50mm, ISO 320)

So much for the Original Idea

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It was not intentional. Though I have seen it many times. Elliott Erwitts image of the couple reflected in the side mirror of a car. I bet you have seen it too. If you don't know which image I am referring to, try searching for “elliott erwitt car couple” on your favourite search engine.

It did not occur to me as I was taking the picture. It dawned upon me as I sat down at the computer to take a look at the images I had taken a couple of days ago. It does look familiar, yet not the same. The point is, we don’t start with a blank canvas, or as Ansel Adams put it

“You don’t make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved”
— Ansel Adams

Rover 100 (1/1000s @ f/2.8, 50mm, ISO 320)

Rainy Day

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Where I live, June was very warm this year. But the weather has changed, and today we’ve had a strong winds and heavy rain. The temperature dropped quite a bit too, and it felt more like early September than the first week of July. Even if it felt like the autumn briefly visited us, it is within what we might expect. It is the high temperatures in June that are outside the norm.

Rainy Day (1/16s @ f/2.0, 50mm, ISO 320)