David_Cavan

<p>Wow. Just wow. This thread is eating its own tail, I think.</p>

<p>We joined a club last year - its the first time we've ever belonged to a photography club and we are really enjoying the experience, especially the guest speakers. And now that you've asked your question it caused me to decide what I enjoyed about those monthly presentations. I think it's what is suggested above - that is, why do you shoot what you do, and how does a specific shot support that? It doesn't always have to be wildly theoretical or artistic - some of the best explanations are about how the light worked for that photo. </p> <p>I will bet that it causes you to consider your photography and how you explain it to others, which is not a bad thing.</p>

<p>"by the time I get up in the morning my batteries will be charged.." Good one Harry. </p>

<p>My job is to make sure that devices are charged when needed - phones, cameras, laptops, computers, flashlights, and the list goes on. Same problems as you have Michael - where do we plug all this stuff in. I've got a few favorite plug-ins around the house, but occasionally have to fight for them. You know the drill.</p> <p>We're renovating our home, and one of the features we're adding is a rechargeable closet in the main entrance. Apparently it's become quite a common request for architects to deal with.</p>

<p>Due to the low cost of cards and disk we shoot by default at highest JPEG resolution, with RAW turned on. It's easy to downsize for various purposes once photos are downloaded, but even then the original sizes are kept and downsized shots are handled as additional copies. At $100 for 2tb drives it makes sense for us to do that.</p> <p>The exception is if we're shooting action, such as auto racing. If I'm going to turn the camera to multiple shots per second (e.g. following cars through a corner for 20+ shots, or shooting a hockey play) I'll turn off RAW, and very occasionally if I know the shots are just for posting on-line I'll set the resolution down one step. Otherwise it makes sense to me to have the highest resolution available for any cropping or adjustments.</p>

<p>I can share the cactus spines experience - more than once. I rarely wear shorts out into the desert for that region. I had a spine from a saguaro end up all the way through my hiking boots once - it took a pair of pliers to get it out.</p> <p>Perhaps the worst outcome though was a case of Lymes disease in 2006, probably contracted while crawling around the wood of northern Virginia where we were living at the time. Fortunately self-diagnosed quickly enough that there were no long-term effects, but we were much more careful after that about friends and family reporting any symptoms. </p>

<p>+1 for Howard. If I like the result it was worth it. If others like it, well, that's a nice thing but not critical to continued enjoyment.</p>

<p>The most beautiful camera is the one in my hand when a photo absolutely must be shot. Otherwise for me it's like comparing which hammer is prettiest. It's a tool.</p>

<p>There are components of my approach to photography in all of the above answers (including taking photos of where my car is with my cellphone so I know where to find it later, Sanford). Initially photography was about "I was here"; it evolved to "this is my family and here's where we went"; and it's now more about "I'd like to make this a really good photograph". I've used photos to document my hobbies and trips, but over the years the quality of that documentation has become more important to me. I'm here on photo.net a lot; and I browse other sites to get ideas and read critiques. Since moving back to Vancouver we've become active in a local photography club that actually focuses on photographs, and that's helping me understand better what is considered a good photo. What I produce is important to me, and I recognize that it may not be important to others. A few prints sold but I haven't gone out of my way to do that - otherwise it's purely for my enjoyment, and to share with friends and family. </p> <p>Two of the most satisfying aspects of photography over the past few years have been creation and digitization of a complete library of family photographs back into the 1800's; and using that material to write a book about my mother's life on her 90th birthday last year. A copy of that is now in the library of her small town in Saskatchewan; and everyone in my family has a copy as well. Having that role in the family is due to my interest in photography, and I think that's cool</p>

<p>I'm chiming into this discussion late, but it's been fascinating to scan through. I'm sure that photos are important in different ways to different families, and whether they survive is largely dependent on the passion of one or two people along the way. In our family we've expanded the overall "library" to 10's of thousands, and because I care, and one of my cousins cares, we've been able to keep a well-organized, searchable approach that allows anyone to go back in the 1800's to get photos of an individual or family grouping. But we've also kept the photos of trees and rocks that mattered to various people along the way, and those are apparently important to some other individuals in so far as they show what was important to that photographer. We've published a couple of books using the photos, and all in all we have more of a sense of family than we had before the digital age as a result. </p> <p>But it does come back to someone caring enough to make the effort - in our case thousands of photos that were on their way to the usual fate have been preserved, and are used. Will that last into the next generation? Maybe, maybe not. Not my problem - someone else will have to decide if they care enough to make this a family tradition.</p>

<p>@Lex - the work laptop has a somewhat locked-down environment which makes IE our default browser - agreed about other browsers being a little more nimble. On the other hand IE is not as bad as advertised, but like Chrysler in the 90's it's got a bad rep to overcome.</p>

<p>After waiting all these months I have to say that I love the new look of the site - very "back to the future" kind of thing. This whole retro thing will really work when Kodak starts producing Kodachrome again - life will be perfect, indeed.</p> <p>Sorry - couldn't resist. It was the first thought that popped into my head this morning when I had trouble connecting. I'm using Windows 8, IE 10. The whole thing seemed to clear itself almost immediately. But it did make me thing that we should highlight the 'retro' button for old guys like me when we're feeling nostalgic.</p>