Monthly Archives: July 2013

I’m still having a blast with family, and that’s why I missed blogging yesterday, I bet you will forgive me!  Last night we all went over to Wesley’s home for dinner, and Rhonda and Wes did a great job on a wonderful meal, the fellowship was even better.  We played Trivial Pursuit well into the late evening, the laughter of family is one of the sweetest sounds in the world to me!  Before dinner my grandchildren, all except for Abigail, (who was at a church camp), surrounded me for a picture!  I will treasure this one shot made by Wes for years to come!

 

I’ve started to pick up some cameras for my post semi-retirement life.  I will go through the whole story on a future post, but I have added two very important components.  Since I own over 25 Nikkor lenses, both old manual focus classics, and modern current autofocus glass, I needed to decide on a series of bodies to support my Nikon system.  I have two now, and will add another later.  The Nikon D4 is the monster, do everything, DSLR in my stable, my desert island DSLR, and I just picked up a D800.  There are a lot of things about the D8o0 that make it difficult to use, and they are the same things that make it indispensable; super high resolution, big juicy files, and a robust build!  If used carefully, (and I do mean very, very carefully), it simply produces the best looking files I’ve ever seen!  I also picked up another Fuji X camera, the X100s.  I already own a X-E1 and a number of Fuji lenses.  I needed a lighter system for everyday carry, more on that in another post too!  My doctor ordered me to stop carrying a heavy bag full of gear, the Fuji was the perfect answer. when weight mattered.  The X100s is my in the car, all the time, to all family functions, and my side kick camera.  For a modest investment it is spectacular as a personal camera.  The two images below are of my granddaughter Hannah, Scott and Diane’s daughter.  The first is about 60% of an APS-C frame, cropped,  the next shot is a 100% crop of the first image.  The lens and imaging system in the X100s is simply wonderful! I’ve always loved classic rangefinder cameras, but simply couldn’t afford to own a couple of M’s and three or four lenses, probably a $30,000. investment, but his little Fuji really does the job in a spectacular fashion!  * Point of order!  Does this mean Nikon has fallen out of grace with me???!!!  Absolutely not, I still love my Nikons and they are my go to DSLRs, but when weight matters, and I’m not willing to give up killer image quality, the Fuji’s step up to the plate, and hits it out of the park!

 

 

100% crop from image above:

 

 

As Phil says on Duck Dynasty,  “I’m Happy, happy, happy!”

 

Blessings,

 

the pilgrim

 

By-the-way, a big shout out to Nick Coury who is celebrating his 5th Anniversary of being clean from cancer!  Brother we are thrilled to have you with us!  I’m a two times cancer survivor myself, and I know how great those reports feel!  I shot a fun image standing next to Nick in Nashville last week, below, he is a great guy, a wonderful shooter, and has a fantastic family, (I had the pleasure once again of spending time with Aaron, his son, and meeting Marlene for the first time,!) Congrats my friend!

Check out www.nickcoury.com!

 

I drove back from Nashville Sunday a.m., leaving the hotel at 4:00 a.m.  The workshop was one of our best ever!  Ricky was fabulous, my team outstanding, and the group was one of those really special groups that you wanted to adopt them all!  I got in Sunday and while the family went out to the lake I took a 4 hour nap!  Man do I love retirement!!!!  Anyway, my entire family is in Corbin for the week and we are spending a lot of time on the back deck around the fire pit just loving on each other! (It has been shockingly cool for July)  Above, four of my girls, Rhonda, (Wes’ wife),  Cassidy, (Catherine and Clint’s daughter), Abigail, (Rhonda and Wes’s daughter) and Diane, (Scott’s wife).  Family is so special and we are having a wonderful time just being together.

 

I am finally acquiring the gear for my retirement system and I will talk about that more soon, but I have two new cameras that I will use a lot.  This shot was made with the new Fuji X100s, which is a world class rangefinder type camera, it is fantastic for family shots like this.  I also picked up a Nikon D800 (I had to send Nikon’s back!!!)  It will get a lot of use as my equivalent to the old 4X5 view camera!  I’m really enjoying both of these cameras for the specialized things they are both best suited for!

 

I will post through out this week, but will be spending a lot of my time with the family, I’m truly a blessed man to have this group here, around me!

 

Blessings,

 

the pilgrim

 

It’s dangerous to call this the best workshop ever, but wow, it is close!  Ricky was great, this group has been wonderful to work with and the shooting locations filled with great potential images!  This morning we went down to Marathon Motor Works and shot at the Antique Archeology store (American Pickers!),  and found some killer stuff to work!

 

I would be thrilled if all our workshops were this much fun!  Tonight Ricky gave a shout out to our group in front of 3,000 adoring fans and had very nice things to say about Jim Begley and I, by name, from the stage, during the show!!!  Doesn’t get much better than that!  Tomorrow the workshop continues with more great American subject matter, wish you were here!

 

Blessings,

 

the pilgrim

The first night of workshop can set a tone that carries the event for days, or can cause it to come crashing down!  Fortunately tonight was one of the great nights!!!!  This is a wonderful group of people all excited to be here, and they immediately gelled into a cohesive unit!  Of course great programs by Ricky, Jim , (Jim’s slide show was breathtaking), solid work from Snake and Chuck and the personalities in the group all added up to a wonderful start!

 

Laughter is something I always look for the first night and we had a lot of people having a big time! Frequent attenders, like Kent Irvin, Miles Smith, Carl Turner, Ted Thelin, the Haverstock’s, and Bud Motter kept the ball rolling and everyone enjoyed it!   Workshops are so much more fun when people are having, well, fun!!  As always, Stephen Hart’s prints were a huge hit.  I know that the services of Nick Coury, and Tim Issacson are also going to be a huge contribution!

 

I think this group will really be a joy to work with.   More tomorrow!

 

Blessings,

 

the pilgrim