A few folks have shown and interest in the ruins in San Francisco. They are what is left of the Sutro Baths. Here is a video with a short history of the Sutro baths and then some historic photos and video clip of what the place was.
Enjoy.
Life is full of decisions. Sometimes we make great ones and looking back some were bad. Right from the womb are we thinking let me back into my comfort zone or did we haul out screaming here I come universe? Decisions.
Good or bad they shape our lives –do our decision alter our destiny? Crap happens along the road of life. People disappoint, die, get injured, have bad luck but what we decide to do about these events really is huge. It is the stuff I have no control over that really messes up gig. Becoming disabled would be one of those.
Decisions. Maybe it was the house I did not buy waiting for a better deal, the car that turned out to be lemon, if I had turned left and not right? Decisions.
Some of us might decided to go out and eat dinner while other might choose to use the money to by groceries. Do I buy a new book to read or do I choose from the offerings at the local thrift store? Can I wait till that new (fill in the blank) goes on sale, do I really need it? Decisions.
To me it is obvious – circumstances do not always allow a decision. So I am not saying that everything that happens is a result of personal decisions made. But really, if you decided to do something and one the consequences is you do not get to do or have something else – why complain about it? I do – not really sure why as logically it makes no sense to. Decisions.
We all make decisions. Good or bad we make them. I have mad many bad ones and once in awhile I make a good one. Looking back the if only I had . … oh well, here I am universe and what an adventure I am having!
I started thinking that I am just gonna post about whatever’s I happen to be doing – just like I did before. I guess those of you whom might (is that suppose to be who or whom?) get bored no one if forcing you to read.
Yesterday was just another day really, truly, nothing much special happening here. I got up and went to Adaptive PE. I came home. KRP drove me out to the Mather Park. The swans had left the small lake and so there were only a few small Canadian geese that had the park duck mentality – feed me bread. I noticed some of them had those tracking rings on their legs. At the dock where they were hanging hoping for a hand out – people fish – especially kids. A couple of the geese were sadly wounded. Mostly leg injuries caused by fishing line and tackle. It was really sad and I finally left because I could not stand thinking about it. I felt helpless and it really pissed me off. When I fish I do not toss my line in where there are birds. Then I started feeling guilty that maybe some of my lost line had done this somewhere to some bird. So – I left.
I uploaded my photos to the computer and took a look at them. Next, I decided to try and take a picture of my little Angry Birds as I dropped them. I really need more practice on that one :). I moved on to playing with the white balance on the camera. Light is such a neat thing – I guess it is a thing? – although sometimes it does seem alive. I think the white balance on the new camera is more accurate than the old one. It might be fun to go out light painting. I played around with my little stuffed birds just cause – cause they are here. Zoom in zoom out . …
We only see the visible light in the spectrum (electromagnetic waves) and every light source is different. Kind of fun to play with when taking pictures. In a parking lot the overhead lights can make neat looking areas tinted green or some other color – and sometimes it looks like the light post is in a halo. Well, ok maybe not so awesomely cool to everyone. All sorts of stuff to learn about the color of light. The temperature of light is measured in Kelvin in my digital camera. 10,000 is real blue and 1000 red. The camera has setting for white balance in order to compensate for different lighting situations and end up with an accurate rendering of what our eyes see. Tell the camera what color the light is and it adjusts for you. Shoot a photo under a indoor lamp and it probably will turn out with a yellow/orange tinge if you forget to tell the camera that hey I am shooting under an incandescent lamp. the camera does have an auto white balance setting and the camera tries to get it right but it does not always do so.
On a normal sunny day if I want more reds I adjust, more blues – adjust. I always wonder if what I see as blue is what you see as blue? Unless your color blind if I hold up something blue we both will say oh that is blue. But is the blue you see the same as the blue I see? We both identify the light reflected as blue but . …
My favorite setting is Pre. That is where I take a gray colored card, hold it up in the light I will be shooting in, press a few buttons and most likely what I see is what the camera will render – color wise. No more blue egg yolks or red lakes. Usually I am to lazy to get out the gray card (if I even remembered to bring it). I have a cute little target deal that my friend Steve gave me years ago that I can clip to my camera bag – guess I will get up right now and clip on there before I forget.
Ok the target is attached! Sometimes I look at photos that cross into my stream on google or flickr and realize that some of them are just cool because they were taken somewhere most of us have never been so I like them because they show me some place or something I will probably never see. Then I enjoy some because they are good photographically – this includes zooms that come out looking like psychedelic posters. Technically they were hard to pull off. Then I look at some and go oh I have a bunch just like that on my drive. So I wonder? what do people see, think, react to when they look at mine? I have more fun trying to figure out technically how to pull something off or when the result is exactly what I saw how I envisioned the scene and relays to me how I felt at the time. Then again, does it really matter what someone else thinks? I think to me it does as I appreciate feedback – yet on the other side of the equations – I take them for me and never share some of them.
Years ago I would take a picture and run to my computer excited to share it with my readers and on flickr. I take many photos that never make it to the blog and I always forget to upload my photos to flickr now. When I do post it is not usually my favorite or what I might consider the best shot of the batch, sometimes I even put up some losers and photos that really do not excite me but are OK. I started a little album where I print out and hoard my favorites photos without sharing them and I am not really sure why I started doing it? Umm?
I spend a lot of time just sitting and waiting. I always have a goal in my mind. Sometimes it is to catch a little bird (LB -for you Donna) that is hopping around in the weeds. Seriously, some of those LB are a pain in arse to capture. Other times I have no goal in mind I just walk about photographing what catches my attention. I am always ever so hopeful to get the National Geographic Cover shot as my friend Chuck calls it – the one of a life time – hope I recognize if/when one of those photos happens 🙂 .
I think I have started doing something very similar with the blogging. I do not share much anymore and I can not say that I get excited about posting much anymore. Quite honestly the stuff I really want to discus would probably come off wrong, be misunderstood or my opinion more than likely would be considered unkind to some. So I tuck my thoughts away and stifle the urge. Not sure where I was heading with this one so I will end it here.
A few from yesterdays trip to the refuge (and yeah I know I can take photos without having to go somewhere – snark).
This next bunch of photos from last night are not photographically great but I cropped them so you can see the carnage. Do not look at them if the feeding habits in nature gross you out or if you really have a great love for bull frogs.