Well I am away for a
couple of days.
Looking after my
brothers dog while he is in Paris.
I will be a lot closer
to nature, while I am here, and not far from somewhere I can get some
interesting photographs. Though I do have my usual problem .. I have
people nearby that can help and I have a .. secret weapon.
Alcohol!
Lol!
As it turns out the
chest issues seem to calm down if I have alcohol and as I have not
been able to see a GP since my return .. it is all I have available
and I do not even know if there is a drug for the chest issues? Maybe
the Tachycardia has a drug, I seem to recall reading about that some
place and that may help. But without a GP .. no prescription
medication.
I only have my
magnesium, calcium, vitamin D and vitamin B pills which I kind of
hope help with some issues. But on that afternoon on the beach where
I had felt calm for the first time in a year and never wanted to
leave? Yeah I had a pint of shandy and two extra pills of each.
My sister seems to
think it is the pills where I am inclined to think that the alcohol
played a part because it was not just my chest issues that seem to be
held at bay .. my anxiety was too.
Though I tend to think
it was a combination of the two?
So in the past few days
I have put the alcohol to the test and I have purchased pill boxes,
because I could not find my usual pill box .. well I did today. So I
purchased two others .. one for my Holland & Barrett pills to be
taken in the morning and another smaller one with just four
compartments .. to take out with me.
Actually it will be a
little odd as one thing I have in mind to photograph was one of the
very first things I took a photograph on with my first Nikon S8200
digital camera. In fact I used the picture on my corruption blog and
it got some likes and attention. It was kind of .. fitting .. in a
way towards what it is that I intended to do.
I will not say any more
about what it is but with my professional camera and my knowledge of
post-processing software for RAW images, Serif Affinity Photo, I
should get some much better, much more dramatic and much more fitting
.. photographs. Fingers crossed.
Probably rain for the
next two days which would be about par for the course with my luck.
Very close by to my
target is a couple of other things that involves some very old walls
and a gate and I am hoping a couple of other things besides.
There is also a nature
reserve nearby I used to frequent a fair deal.
However I have to think
about weight and I forgot to ask what buses go by here, if any at
all?
The nature reserve
really requires a second lens and .. it is kinda .. heavy. Though I
do have new ways of carrying this stuff which I have not put to the
test so will see how it goes.
Unfortunately I do not
have all the lenses I intended to buy .. really could do with a Sony
70-400mm f4 and a Tamron 90mm Macro. Could achieve so much more with
those two lenses but .. well .. life and all that. Maybe in time
something can be worked out ..
Provided these damn
conditions or government does not do me in, in the meantime?
I also spotted a
Passion Flower right outside the door sitting atop a wooden fence so
that will likely be photographed tomorrow morning, if I am up early,
or tomorrow night? Hmm .. maybe I should check the weather?
Yup supposed to be
sunny tomorrow and partly sunny Wednesday and Thursday.
I should have the
pictures up between Friday night and Saturday night on my various
accounts ..
- Flickr
- Instagram
- Tumblr
- Pinterest
I am hoping that if I push through this and I get a goof few days I
may able to add a fair few photos, maybe between 100 and 200? Mixture
of architecture and nature and I might even get some night time
shots?
As I want to build up many more shots on my professional camera I
have decided to not even bring my Nikon Coolpix P900 Bridge camera
along. I will be too tempted to take it along with the other camera
and will just end up weighing too much.
I also think I will be too distracted, and I am at the best of the
time due to various symptoms, from concentrating on what would make a
better photo with the pro level camera.
I always thought I had an eye for a photo and have started looking at
things in a new light but I never expected that I would get good
photos from day one so am still experimenting and getting used to the
camera and menu system.
Often I think I have a good shot but when I have it in post
processing I then decide I do not like it and cannot do much with it.
Sometimes I get shots I do not think I can do anything with and might
end up with three or four pictures from it?
Sometimes I get back and I look at a photo and think “Ooooh that
angle was just .. wrong!” Southwark Cathedral springs to mind.
There was one I liked and one I hated.
But therein lies another problem. When I do this I am thinking ..
- Poster
- Large Wall Picture
- Book Cover
- Magazine Cover
- PC Wallpaper
- Must try to think of other uses for pictures
Except what I like others might have a different taste and what I do
not like .. others may well like?
So I try to take various images at various angles and even in
post-processing if I think it looks a little bit cool or very cool ..
it gets turned into a jpeg and uploaded.
Though I am getting better at this while I am becoming more choosy
about the way I take pictures as well as what it is that I upload.
So hopefully from here on in I will get more hits than misses from my
shots and this I think can only be a good thing. With a good base
already it allows me to build something up.
However .. I do not the right subject matter of course and I am not
always sure what I am going to find.
For instance in Kent recently we walked a but of a way to our first
.. beach though more estuary and there were these chest wader boots
hanging from a frame. I was not really feeling up to the job but was
there. I had left the pro camera in the car and only had the bridge
camera. Took a shot with the bridge camera and that has been looked
at four times more than any other shot I took in that 24 hour
period?! Go figure.
Though it was too far of a walk I wished I had gotten shots with the
pro camera .. but then I would not have got shots, admittedly bad, of
the Oystercatchers.
Oh dear ..
I had planned to write this over the night I was here .. then the
following night after I had managed to get out and get at least some
shots with the camera. Only I am typing this the following morning
because something odd .. happened. I will also need to check
something out, which I am now recalling but not sure, when I get back
later.
I got up this morning and descended some stairs and stepped out of
the flat to have a cigarette as I cannot smoke in the flat.
Only as I started smoking I noticed I felt a little .. weird. Could
not work out why at first but the feeling became stronger and I
realised I was nauseous.
After another minute or two I also noticed that my legs felt very
wobbly and the last minute or two of smoking my dreaded roll up I
actually thought I was going to go .. down!
Now though this has happened many times previously it has never
happened quite like this. This normally occurs when I am standing up
from a seated or crouched position and does not always occur. In fact
I seem to go through phases where I can have nothing at all for a
series of days and then several times per day for a series of days. I
have never managed to figure that one one out and neither have
several GP Surgeries nor hospitals purely because they did not
bother, did not really want to find anything and had part of the
puzzle staring them right in the face.
Now two things about this ..
- Chomping at the bit, so to speak, to get photographs
- Worried now something will occur while out
- Though I do have the use of a mountain bike, thank God
- Had alcohol last night to calm palpitations
- Seem to recall alcohol has a negative effect on .. something
- Hypomagnesemia?
Jesus .. this is a good start! The first morning too!
Just watching Frasier right now while waiting for my phone to finish
charging and thought I would just type this out regarding the nausea
as I would likely forget later. Unless of course this ends up
incapacitating me for the day in which case I am unlikely to forget!
I have decided to not carry weight and so the Sony A99II is fitted
with the Sony Zeiss 24-70mm f2.8 only. Others will be left here.
Fast Forward and it is now 16:40 on Tuesday 3rd July 2018
and Sweden are 1-0 up against Switzerland. Not long now before
England play Columbia.
Yikes that was great .. and .. that was a .. nightmare at the exact
same time.
Bike had a rusty chain but was OK but seat a bit low for me and not
quick release. Had to pump the tyres up some too but despite
hesitating about going out .. it was not far and would be a piece of
cake if not for that bloody .. hill!
Get down there .. get a few shots before I move onto my old target,
which I am sure I can get a couple dozen pictures from when
post-processing. Should cause a stir as it did the first time I
published the picture of this .. subject over five years ago? Many
more people visiting now and the will likely see the same ..
symbolism, let us call it that, they did previously. I will wait and
see.
Massive headache from searing heat and long and also dry batches of
grass everywhere. I used to frequent this area a great deal .. not
seen grass this long nor this high.
So .. after a winter and spring with a lot of rain and hence the very
long grass it is now immediately obvious we are in a period of
drought?
Lots of old walls and lots of old .. entrances. Photographed! These
ancient walls also provided me with more subjects vie little islands
of plants growing on the old brickwork.
I walk around a corner and .. lo and behold a whole line of different
flowers of different shapes and colours. Well this is a bonus as I
have not even made my way to the garden I know is there yet! A dozen
photos.
Then I find the garden .. another dozen or so photos.
Then I am at a shop to buy some drinks .. a Root Beer and a Ribena,
one for now and one for the bottle holder. Outside I grab the bike
and start to walk .. oh wait a minute, this is not my bike?! I look
down .. no bottle holder!
Into the dragonfly sanctuary I am buzzed by a flash of metallic azure
blue as a bird flies across my path! What the hell was that?
Looking like an escapee exotic bird I did wonder if it was a
Kingfisher but it seemed far too big and the blue far too dark?
Trying to photograph butterflies with the wrong lens I am then buzzed
by an overly large yellow butterfly. Way too big to be a Brimstone or
a Clouded Yellow Butterfly .. I suspect I know what it is and that it
is not a butterfly at all but instead a moth. No photographs this
time but I have shot this species previously.
My head is starting to hurt. I hide in the shade, camera on my lap
awaiting a butterfly to rest for more than a microsecond? Naaah!
I decide to come back but stop at a rock carving feature and then an
Abbey. Few more shots.
My head banging like a thunderclap and a sharp long incline beckons.
I do not make it 100 metres of the 400 metres or so and am off the
bike, under a tree onto some grass and I am down. Might as well roll
a cigarette if I am down?
I decide to walk for a bit until the hill levels out. Which bloody
road was it? Ah this one? Hmm I do not recall that name? Maybe I
should just carry on going after all I might see somewhere else I can
visit with my camera tomorrow?! Oh .. there's another road? This one
looks more like it and .. what is that? How the feck did I forget the
name of this God damned road?! Dumb-arse!! On let me cycle down to
that roundabout was I am sure there is something along there? I am
sure I walked around some footpath or other with my brother a few
years back?
I find a footpath to my right but keep going, what's that? Red?
Poppies? I will look on the way back and when I do there are a few
wild flowers. Through the gate with the bike and .. ouch!! What the f
…?! Ankle high socks and I think I just hit a big batch of stinging
nettles?! That is smarting!
Dozen more photos and I am back in the car park outside the flat
where I am looking after a dog and a flat! I made it and I have not
died! Though I have to say it feels like my head is going to split in
two!
Ooh that Passion Flower?! Couple more shots and .. oooh those red
flowers in the car park?! Few more shots.
Hmm I wonder how many photos I took today? Thirty at least .. maybe
as many as fifty? Actually ow that I think about it must be closer to
a hundred? That must get me a couple hundred pictures right there?!
Day one of three .. not .. bad!
Pounding head and umm yeah .. look up Hypomagnesemia and alcohol?!
Done. Doesn't make sense as any talk about alcohol dropping your
magnesium levels only seems to apply to alcohol abusers. Well ..
alcoholics basically which is something I have never been in my life.
I had worked my way through a couple of cans and had thought that my
wobbling legs this morning had some link to the alcohol from last
night?
Which would have been kind of ironic as I was using the alcohol to
calm any heart palpitations and it also calms the anxiety too. The
only thing I have ever had that does have a positive effect on both
these things and as I have been screwed over backwards over and over
and over again by the NHS, because basically they can with no come
backs, happy 70th NHS, and currently without a GP I have
no choice. If I need to get anything done .. which I need to do.
I am stuck here currently because of my health and would like to get
things done I did not get done last year, but am being held back
because of my health.
Today I should have a portfolio of .. let me check .. 4,000
plus photographs on my Flickr account which many early ones do not
count as they are not of professional quality and were mostly just
shots of various animals and plants.
I currently have 2,400 plus but I think if I get a good day I may be
able to raise this up by a few hundred over this weekend?
I also have around a dozen photos from around three months ago I did
not finish post processing .. from my visit to London Bridge on the
day of the London Marathon.
In something of a twist I had planned to visit the city are of London
to get a few dozen shots but that plan went south when I picked up my
front wheel and the tyre was flat. Seems to have developed a pretty
bad puncture around the valve area, which are normally not fixable. I
did not remove the inner tube to inspect it .. I just heard it hiss
from that area.
So I have a few photos currently but once again I am down again. I am
pleased at what I got today but only in as far as that I had to force
myself to do it and work through various symptoms to get what I did.
On any other day and had this been just a few years back this would
not have bothered me as doing this would have been fairly easy. Today
it is not.
I am at the top of the hill while my targets today were a couple
hundred metres form the bottom of said hill. This was an area I
visited twice a week just two years ago and I could easily have
visited had I been fit enough and not bogged down with these damn
symptoms.
Not even going to bother mentioning the Fibromyalgia crap I have had to deal with for years that I am not even sure is linked to this or not yet.
So it is kinda strange to think I am really happy to get to a spot
that was actually fairly local to me just a few years ago and take
bloody pictures and get back again.
Weird...
