Due North

Can slowly drive you insane

I have running in circles for the last 3 weeks on organizing all the photo’s I have been taking. I have been using Microsoft Live Photo Gallery to tag them for quicker retriever and viewing. But once you find it and decide to do something with it, you have to try and find that one in the directory structure. If you have all in a single directory it is quite a chore.

I think I have solved that problem, by creating a directory structure to mirror the tag system I came up with. Up to a point: for instance photo’s of birds. I have that tagged as follows:

• Wildlife
  • Birds
    • Eagles

I stop at the birds directory and go from there. Which works until the photo count gets up to a high count. then I just add a sub-directory, in this case Eagles. That serves one problem.

The next problem is I have pictures from 2007 up to the present, and I only wish to keep a select few on my hard drive and keeping the rest on a 1 Terabyte external usb drive. Now there are applications out there that does this, but they all cost money that I do not want to pay and they only run on Windows not Linux. Which is one of the requirements I want. Which means I need to write something that will run on both. Will probably use QT4 framework and a database of some sort. Which will take me weeks or months to write, mind you in the past when I could think straight all the time, it would take me about 2 weeks to have a rough working solutions for both platforms.

The third problem is protecting my photo’s when I post them online, i.e.. copyright, ect. It turns out that you can embed , like with MP3 files, information into the photos. I have written a rough Perl script that will do at least the licensing part. And use Microsoft Pro Photo to get the rest, like comments, location, gps information. Not that I consider any of my photo’s worthy of being used in a commercial project but you never know, it has happened to be before, believe it or not.

Issue 4: I need or would like to combine all this into 1 program instead of one for this and one for that. Once again there is for windows, but they cost money and they do not run on Linux.

If any thing it will be something to do when the snow starts to fly, so for now I will continue as I am little bit by little bit. While I can’t do things like I used to because of other issues, I can do little bit by little bit and that helps solve my drive to develop something with out any time frames or deadlines. Which is a killer as in stress levels and panic attacks.

A bit frustrated in locating a doubler

Over the labor day holiday my brother gave me a couple of tips on photography, which he is quite good at, least in my mind anyways. He suggested that I get at least a UV filter, which I remember I had read some place but had forgotten. I did that and that helped quite a bit, least on the few I have taken since.

He also suggested that I get a 2X doubler to make my 70 to 300 MM lens go up to 600 MM. He said there was a place in the SOO, you think I can find it? Heck no, getting really frustrated on that score. My 600 MM lens does outstanding for the post part, however there are times I just can not sneak close enough to get a good shot.

It does not help that Pepper, my dog, who goes with me every time I go hunting with my camera , thinks it is all just a big game eh. However she is handy in finding things, that nose of hers. But at any rate, by the time I am close enough to get a shot, pepper spots what ever it is that I am trying to get a shot of and off she goes, time for the chase. ugh

Can’t fault her though, she is a good dog. Never to far from my side when we go for walks and comes rather quickly now when I call for her. The thought of leaving her in the trailer while I went out has crossed my mind, but then that would make me feel guilty. Though when deer hunting season starts I will have to do that.

So if any one that reads this, knows of a good source in the Soo or even on the web, where I can get a low cost doubler or even a higher MM lens, would be greatly appraised.  Mean while I will work at my stocking lol, now if I can just train pepper to run the prey to me it would not be so bad.

Organizing and pruning your photo collection

Recently have taken to taking pictures in more earnest I have racked up a few meg of photos. Every thing from birds, flowers, landscapes and the what not. I have I do not know how many times in the last month, started reorganizing them, basically because it does not look right.

Oh sure I use tools like Windows Live Photo gallery to assign tags, but having all the pictures in one folder is a bit much. My new camera a Canon Rebel XSI, included a ZoomBrowser tool, that helps in classifying photo’s into folders. It’s main way is either year then date and just date. As well as naming them a variety of naming conventions. I finally decide on a year main folder then main category folder (exp. wildlife, events) with the photo’s in the format yearmonthday.ext. And then using Windows Live Photo Gallery to tag them, further helping locate what I am looking for.

This tends to be rather important to me, I can not stand a messy file system. Every thing must be in it’s proper place. The problem is I have a hard time deciding on what the ‘proper place is’, which a lot of times gets me into an endless loop of organization. And then the worse part, when I am depressed or in the down mode I do not care and have a tendency to delete every thing to start over, then when I am in a up or manic mode it throws me into a panic because it’s not right. Thank god I bought an external usb drive to back things up.

I don’t think there really is a right or wrong here, but coming to a decision can be difficult if you suffer from depression and/or bipolar tendencies, perfectionism and indecision. There have been many days that I am about in tears over it (yes I am not ashamed to say I get that way, just hate for people to see me that way, it’s a guy thing eh.)

Then there is the pruning, a lot of pictures are not really the best, and that changes depending on my mood. I get to be almost a pack rate on them, not daring to delete any of them, or when I do fear that I may be deleting one I didn’t want to delete. Once again thank God for the external backup drive.

I have always been this way, especially when I was working. But when I was working, I had no problems coming to a decision and following through with that decision. So much so, other employee’s would really get upset with me, especially those that worked under me. As I expected from them the same thing I expected from my self. Being a systems administrator that usually worked rather well for the most part. Though my version of excellent work was far higher then the others, including my bosses. It was worse when I was doing programming and web design, my partner in web design would say I was the most aggravating person he used to work with. eh imagine that.

I lot of my employers liked my work ethic, for the most part. Especially after they let me go, when I would happen to see them out and about, they would say they wished I was back, because the kids that took over are making a mess of things. I guess being a perfectionist, work-a-holic and suffering with all I did/do , did have it’s good points. They just didn’t like that I didn’t play politics and would refuse to do something I thought was unsafe for their network or what ever I was doing.

Anyways, got side tracked again, happens a lot. If my fingers and spell checker could keep up with the thoughts flying through my brain, I am sure I could talk about 10 subjects all intermixed. Now imagine trying to read that rofl.

A Monday like any other

When I woke up this morning, there was a heavy fog out on the river, and shortly after the sun started coming up it looked really cool. To bad I did not think to take a shot of it. The fog looked to be hovering about 20 ft. above the water, and I could see the reflections of the houses on the other side, but not the houses themselves.

At the time I was trying to get some wood split for the upcoming winter. With the way my back is, it is a good thing Dad let  me use the wood splitter and tractor to do it. And even using the splitter I could not get it all the wood split and I have been working at it for about 3 days. I can only last about 40 minutes before my back and shoulder are screaming at me to stop. Hence I end up taking more pain meds then usual.

After that once my back stop complaining so much, I started to mow the lawn around the camp. I have to do it in stages other wise I will be flat on my back for a day or so. Same thing on the wood splitting. Doesn’t make me feel real good about things, I mean I can not do physical work like I used to. There was a time to where I could shove the pain in the back of my mind and not think about it. You know, the USMC training coming out in me. But even though I try it is past the point of being able to do that. Oh well, least I can do some things, others that I know can’t. Still does not make me feel better though.

I was laying on the couch watching TV when I happened to look out the door, happened to catch one of the ships heading up river to the Soo Locks. Which is kind of nice, almost like a train but much quieter and not so annoying. I can usually hear their engines long before they come into view. If your a ship watching this is a good place to do it.

The ships head down river on the other side of the island and some times the ferry, the only way on or off the island, has to wait for them to pass. So in that sense it can get annoying, especially when you have an appointment to keep. The ferry does not run every hour as most would think, so if you live on Neebish you end up planning your day around the ferry. And if you miss it either heading off or coming back, you have to wait. I’m here to tell you, it is a pain to miss the last ferry of the day and sleep in the back of the truck.

So living on an island can and does have it’s bad points, but it also has it’s good points. There are a couple of people that I know in town feel that I would be better off living in town, where there is people and things are close by. They don’t seem to understand, regardless of where I live I am going to feel secluded and isolated. Least on the island Pepper and I can go out for camera hunts and walks in the woods. Or simply sit, watch and listen to mother nature do her thing.

Though I admit there are times when the isolation does get to me. Either way, it has always been extremely hard from me to make friends. So that kind bites big time.

Anyways that is it for now

Where eagles fly

 

Was out on a picture hunt, looking for something interesting to shoot. It did not go all that well, spotted a couple of cranes, but as soon as I got into a half way decent range, my dog decided they would be fun to chase. So once again I heard them as they were flying away.

Next saw the biggest raven or crow I have ever seen, so black it was almost shining. But once again my dog , well you get the picture.

Finally made it back to camp and saw 2 very large shadows on the ground, circling me. Did not know what it was right off, but managed to get my camera up and focused in time to get this shot. It is not the shot I would desire, the eagles have a nest near by I just haven’t found it yet. But I will.

I have learned to carry my camera with me almost every place I go, cause I never know what I will see. And usually those few times I did not take a camera, I see something I want a shot of. Well this time it worked out.

Technorati Tags: photography,wildlife,eagle,flight

So many pictures

Since I am became disabled and can no longer work, I took up photography. I have always enjoyed taking pictures in the past, but it was a now and again sort of thing. I didn’t know what I was doing then and still don’t but I am enjoying it and learning slowly. Besides doing blogging and writing, photography makes me feel a little less useless and gives me a bit of purpose.

I have a Canon Rebel XSi with the stock lens plus a 70mm to 300mm lens. The later is the one I use the most mainly because I am trying to get shots of the wildlife here on the island and the surrounding area. I actually could use a bigger one, as usually my dog, Pepper is with me and scares off what ever I am trying to get a shot of. So normally mostly I get the back sides lol. But she is learning.

Depending on how I am feeling when I am looking at what I have taken, I either like or dislike the same picture. Usually when I am really depressed I get the urge to delete them all and start over. But I haven’t thankfully. Maybe when every thing is said and done I will take a class on it, so that I have a clue. Or find a few books on the subject or talk to a local professional to explain a few things for me. Like filters, I have none, but think they would improve my shots, I think?

Now if I can just remember when I go into to town to ask someone I’ll be set. But between the medications and my depression/anxiety issues among others I don’t remember or get easily side tracked.  Ahh anyways frustrated.