Mornings...

Yesterday morning, when I opened the blinds in the living room, the moon was full and bright across the valley as it headed toward the mountains.  It's beautiful when that happens: the sun coming up, the moon going down, like star-crossed lovers forever destined to remain apart.  (Okay, okay, I'll admit to watching Ladyhawke a multitude of times over the years...so sue me).

Anyway...

I got out my camera and took a few shots.  And I know I say this a lot, but damn.  Do I have a great camera, or what?  The amazing thing about the telephoto is that most of the time I don't use my tripod, just shoot hand-held, and still the images are clear.

So, this morning, after downloading the pictures to my photo program, I was dinking with some special effects, just for fun.  I discovered one that I really like called Holga, named after the toy camera first made in Hong Kong in the early 1980s.  Now the picture looks kind of 1950s to me...faded B&W and slightly blurry around the edges.

I truly have to start taking my camera with me everywhere I go.  The boys and I went out to the county park for our walk today.  It was quiet, cool and sunny, perfect for a walk in the wilderness.  I watched a hawk glide across the surface of the river and snag a fish out of the water with a lightning strike; saw a raccoon wash its hands on the opposite bank between two boulders as a couple of fishermen drifted past in their aluminum boat, totally oblivious; smiled at a woman picking wild blackberries in a dense thicket, her fingers stained dark blue.

Ah well.  I might have missed the chance to photograph these moments, but at least I was able to file them away in my memory bank.  And that's almost as good...