Properly equipped

Before I type anything else, a disclaimer:

I have a cold.

I spent a good part of the weekend trying to convince myself that I was not getting a cold. Apparently, though, the Power of Positive Thinking does not extend to whether or not one gets a cold.

Who knew?

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The item you see relaxing beside the pool (ok, sitting on the edge of the fish pond) would be my father's compact tripod. It's not a mini-tripod although it looks it -- the thing really does unfold to a full-sized photographic tripod with more bells and whistles (well, more like levers and screws. Not too many bells and/or whistles on a tripod) than even my full-sized extremely NOT compact tripod at the apartment has.

It's a neat little gizmo, that tripod. Just about everything on a tripod that you could imagine being adjustable is adjustable. It's old enough, too, that it was made much more solidly than your average mini-tripod of today's Made In China mercantile society.

Sorry for that last weird sentence. I have a cold, remember?

I don't normally use a tripod anymore. I used to, back when I was still using a film camera. Film camera to a cheapy like me automatically meant that I kept the experimentation to a minimum because I didn't want to have to pay to develop mistakes, so any time I was doing something where steadiness was an issue I'd have the tripod out.

My tripod has a few miles on it.

Or did have. It hasn't been used for yeeears now.

Ever since I entered the digital world of disposable photography I've been much more willing to take dozens of shaky hand-held shots without worrying about the proper equipment. Don't like a photo? Heck, that's why god created the delete button.

Most of the pointlessness that reaches the blog (including every macro) is hand-held. It's not at all obvious, I know. Usually the shakiness and less-than-optimal focus doesn't bother me enough to do anything about it, to be honest. After all, I consider anything I post here to be more or less ephemeral. If the whole thing disappeared tomorrow it wouldn't concern me a whole lot. I'm not really trying to make a statement with my own personal brand of pointless photography, if anyone wondered. It's all just stuff I thought was neat. Not much effort put into any of it.

Except for this weekend, for some reason. This weekend I actually took out my father's tripod and SET UP SOME SHOTS. I know, I was shocked too.

The nice thing about that tripod being so compact is that you can use it as a tripod or as a monopod braced against your body. It gives a person a fair amount of flexibility.

So what was the result of properly planning my photos instead of taking the usual quick snaps?

Well...

I'm not going to tell you.

Some of the photos will no doubt appear here in the next week, but I'm going to intentionally intersperse them with some taken in the usual way. I'd be willing to bet that no one will really notice.

But it was fun for me. I'll have to get back to doing that more often.

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As a final note, I'd like to say that today is an anniversary. One year ago today, Snodgrass texted to remind me that it was Hugh Laurie's birthday. It seems to me I teased her for a week afterwards, didn't I?

Sad that I get such amusement out of such minor things, I suppose. Happy birthday anyway although it's pretty much wrong that I'm wishing happy birthday to a public figure who doesn't know me from Adam when all I did for my brother's on the 2nd was to ask my father to say happy birthday from me when he phoned him. Ah well, happy birthday to you too then, bro.