oneducksgoose.com

Duck, duck, duck…

  • Learning to Like a Camera I Love

    Alternate Title: I guess we’re a photo blog now.

    Boy I know how to pick expensive hobbies.

    Back last millennium, there was a school one could attend called the Brook’s Institute of Photography. Founded just after the second World War, it made its home in a small Southern California town and trained returning GIs on the photographic arts. In a way the location for it was perfect – founder Ernest H. Brooks was an avid underwater photography enthusiast it seems, and the rich coastline and easy harbor close to the campus made for fertile backgrounds and shooting locales.

    I never attended.

    help I’m turning into my dad

    The most formal photographic training I have is from a high school photography class, which has faded into such distant memory and mush I can probably credit mucking about with a camera for more of my understanding. My family gifted me a Nikon D5000 digital SLR kit for the purpose of the class, and there was some heritage in that little piece of kit. For me to find years on down the line, parceled away within a musty set of bags in our garage, was an old set of Nikkor lenses from sometime about the 1980’s for me to play with and adore. They belonged to my father and now they belong to me; the venerable Nikon F-mount being unchanged since 1977 means I can turn the helicoid on a 105mm f/2.5 with the added luxury of knowing what my shots look like immediately.

    It does not make me a better photographer, mind. Mostly a more fun one.

    Have you ever read one of your high school essays ten years on? Maybe college? I’ve shot on Nikon for well over a decade now, on and off between several different camera bodies, and I struggle to remind myself that I know what I’m doing and I’ve done it before. I’ll miss shots, botch composure, struggle to bring the camera up to my eye for entire days because I can’t figure out what I actually want to capture. Couple that with a beleaguering soft-focus issue on my main camera body and I hit a slump.

    They say that comparison is the thief of joy and I am SAD when I look at some of the photos I take on my fancy SLRs compared to what other people get.

    I took a look in the mirror(less)

    The Sony A6000 is the gateway drug D.A.R.E. should have warned me about.

    In a spur-of-the-moment decision and a wont to not be mugged on the street, I purchased an immensely cheap used Sony ICLE A6000 off a reseller and coupled it to the cheapest Chinese-built pancake lens I could find. The mission was to have a pocketable, but still capable, travel camera for a trip to San Francisco such that I could still practice getting back into photography while I had the inspiration. With expectations low and investment even lower, I was just hoping to get some level of joy out of it before it inevitably crapped out.

    If I ever write a review of the lens, it will be titled as such:

    TTArtisan 25mm f/2: Dammit.

    I took some of the best photos of my goddamn life on that trip. Even with zero electronics in the lens, the aids of the little A6000 meant I was getting crisp focus at a better take rate than the autofocus system on any of my Nikon bodies. It was nigh-imperceptible in my hands which let me get candid photos of my friends. It was exhilarating! It was infuriating! I was outperforming twelve years of investment in the F-mount with something I meant to be disposable.

    The doubt moved in fast. Had I made a mistake holding fast to my beloved DSLRs? Why was this cheap, tiny lens bringing me more satisfaction than any of my optically superior Nikon glass? What else have I been wrong about? Was I unhappy with my photography because, as I had already feared, I was being held back by inferior tools?

    The law requires that I answer no.

    Nikon knows what they’re doing, and maybe I will too someday.

    I got this shot maybe four months later.

    Turns out there’s some truth to saying that a shitty craftsman blames his tools. Money can buy you all the fancy tools and toys in the world, but there’s no buying the skill to use them. I did find that there were some flaws in various pieces of my gear, but the biggest one was me. It is so, so easy to forget patience these days – with others, with life, with one’s self.

    Slow down. I can’t compose a shot if I myself am not composed. Did I eat enough today? Is my lens clean? It doesn’t matter if I don’t like the picture on the little screen, it’s okay to come back later to be happy with myself. Don’t delete it. Just do the best I can now.

    I got good photos off the Sony because I was with people who encouraged me and gave me the freedom to try. I love my friends. I like that little Sony a whole lot.

    And now, what I actually set out to write about.

    Financially responsible, thy name is someone else – I bought a used Fujifilm X-T3, expanding me into a third lens mount and battery system. Compared to the Sony, it is… Well, it is unfair. Oceans of time separate the design philosophy and available technology between the two units. Spinning the physical control dials and reveling in modern focus assistance is anachronistic in the finest way, and the X-T3 feels like it was made just for people like me. It is tactile in the same way as a manual transmission car from the mid-2000’s – just electronic enough to help. The poor Sony, compact and competent as it is, had the misfortune to be designed by Sony and is as such afflicted with the most baffling UX decisions in the industry.

    But this next camera has not made me a better photographer, not one bit.

    I love the Fuji so much. I’m just still learning to like it.

    – Goose

    Your muse is in another castle. My musings are above.

  • A Letter from a Stranger

    I received a letter from a stranger today. A gentleman named Larry who lives in Oregon. When I picked up the handwritten, personally addressed envelope, I recognized the name Vote Forward listed in place of a return address. I smiled, thinking of Larry writing at his kitchen table or perhaps a local cafe, throwing paper and ink and hope into a nearby mailbox. I smiled because it reminded me of where I was five years ago.

    (Psst. Avast there. It’s too late to alter course. This post and blog are about to get political)

    I wrote for Vote Forward during the 2020 election. It’s a national progressive organization that coordinates letter writing campaigns. Folks write strangers in swing states, or where special elections are being held, to encourage them to vote for liberal policies and candidates. When I learned of this organization, I was hunkered down in quarantine, hungry to write and even hungrier to propel change. To feel like I was doing something, anything, to make a difference. I needed words. Even more, I needed casual connection with strangers; the connection I only missed after it was long absent from my daily life. A nod at the grocery store, an awkward conversation with a shop clerk, overhearing insane gossip from the people sitting next to me at a bar or movie theater. To this day, I get itchy if I do not experience at least one of these encounters in the course of a day.

    I know I don’t need to wax poetic on those isolated moments of 2020 because you, dear reader, lived them too. And I especially know (or certainly hope) that I don’t need to outline the even greater fear and anxiety that emerged from recognizing that the federal government was pushing America in the direction that brought us to where we are now.

    So I did what I always do in a crisis: write. I wrote and mailed a total of 75 handwritten letters to folks living in Midwest and Southern swing states, mostly Kentucky and Ohio. I implored my anonymous readers (I’m pretty sure their addresses were just gathered from phone books) to vote for democracy and my friends’ right to exist, not to mention my rights as a woman. I had no idea if my letters would reach their intended addressees. I did not know if my words would move anyone. I fully expected them to be tossed in the trash.

    Yet doing nothing always guarantees nothing will happen. When November 8th, 2020 rolled around, I smiled a bit brighter than if I had saved my ink and stamps.

    Proposition 50 is set to go for a vote next month in California. Given this post, I’m sure you can deduce how I’m voting. But Larry doesn’t know that. Larry mailed me a letter (undoubtedly getting my address from the Vote Forward records) for likely many of the same reasons I lifted my pen five years ago. We are scared. We are angry. We know collective action and community mobilization are the answer.

    “I’m an old guy, so I vote to leave a better world for my California and Oregon daughters,” wrote Larry in my letter. Larry, whoever you are, I have no way of writing back to you — but as a daughter of California, I promise to not let you down.

  • Chrysanthemums

    It is remarkable how the smallest things can reframe your outlook. The other night, after a long day of mental whirlwinds and worries, a lovely individual who I have long called friend (but only semi-recently could call mine), brought me a bouquet of chrysanthemums. Small purple fireworks with green rocket streaks.

    Slowly — ever so slowly — the day’s frenzy and boredom and frustrations reduced to the background. Because we had wine and soup and chrysanthemums. Admiring those delicate blossoms reminded me that there was a time not that long ago when sharing these simple pleasures together was an unattainable luxury. There was a time when receiving flowers was more of a signifier of grief than joy.

    I felt an impulse to call to my past self to reassure her that we navigated every obstacle to reach this moment, to receive her first bouquet of chrysanthemums. In the Victorian floral tradition, chrysanthemums symbolized friendship and happiness. They are also the official flower of Salinas, after John Steinbeck’s famous short story. As I’m writing this post, I’m realizing that he became one of my favorite authors after I read ‘The Chrysanthemums’–a poignant short story I better understand now as an adult than I did as a teenager. Steinbeck described this hearty flower as “a quick puff of colored smoke.” I still maintain that they better resemble bursts of light, holding far more energy than a smoke cloud.

    I hope to carry the memory of these little blossoms as I look toward my next expected (and unexpected) journeys; a reminder to commemorate and celebrate the everyday.

    These are the first sentences I have written for pleasure since the beginning of the summer. I’m realizing that is all too easy to fall into the patterns of daily life, cooking just to eat rather than savor, writing just to communicate rather than to explore new avenues of expression. I look forward to joining my avian-themed writing partner, Goose, in writing many more sporadic posts for this blog. I hope that by re-activating this challenging yet rewarding practice of writing without aim other than personal fulfillment that I not only improve my skills and reignite my passion for the craft, but keep a better eye out for moments of wonder like these mighty chrysanthemums. Readers (if they are any), I encourage you to bring flowers to a loved one today.

  • Spilling Gold on the Ground

    Southern California is an interesting sort of place. Particularly the Central Coast, where chaparral reigns fragile king.

    I’ve had discussions with people who struggle to see the beauty of subtropical desert environs such as these. Too much brown, too many tans. Even the green struggles to stand out. How could this compare to the deep emeralds of a dense northern forest?

    The scrub oak and sagebrush would scratch my skin if not for the heavy, reinforced denim around my calves. High boots keep my ankles safe from treacherous rocks crumbling under my weight. Leather across my shoulders avert the baking sun above; even at this high peak, the air is warm and dry and unforgiving at speed.

    The wildlife that thrives here need not my armor, they wear hide and carapace better suited to the heat. I’ve come across foxes, coyotes, deer, tarantula – lucky spots all of them, they only show themselves on the road on uncommon occasion. But like the affection of a street cat, there is something all the sweeter and more special for these chance encounters.

    Sure, rainforests are prettier in pictures. But the hills off north here are velvet in person. Let’s see the sunset if we have time.

    – Goose

  • Motivation (and Lack Thereof)

    Y’know, usually when I buy something I opt to use it.

    I’ve been working on and off on an article, a concept, for about three months now – inspired by a flight across my country for my responsibilities and beholden to my irresponsibilities. Pieces and fragments of thoughts and voice clips all tied together to make sense of a place, a thing, a person…

    And you know what? Non-technical writing is really difficult.

    My day-to-day affairs have me working in extremely dry, technical matters- cybersecurity documentation for the most part, with a dash of production instruction and shell scripting for flavor. I have a very nice keyboard and pair of headphones to keep my fingers moving up and down in places in accordance with cadence and timing such that the English language is produced, very much in spite of the other tasks and conversations that can intrude on my work.

    Stick with me here – I’m going to try and explain my malaise with computer parts.

    My desk used to be so clean!

    About a year and a half ago, my wrists started to hurt like mad. Blame could be placed squarely at the feet of the keyboard I was using at work – a smallish unit that kept my wrists at uncomfortable angles all day. Eight hours of tippity-tappety carpal’d my tunnels rather efficiently. It was the easiest (but not the cheapest) thing in the world to justify exploring a means of making my wrist-meat less uncomfortable by researching a more ergonomic keyboard that would fit both my needs and my lifestyle. Something that wouldn’t be too far removed from what I was used to, because some designs are just too wild for me to keep my pace on. Something with quiet keys so I don’t disturb my coworkers.

    Believe me, I tried the outlandish stuff too.

    I settled on a Keychron V10, outfitted with Kailh Deep-Sea silenced linear keys and a set of PBT side-shine keycaps. This quickly cemented itself as one of the most important changes to my work-life I could have possibly made. I had to do my research, assemble the whole thing switch by switch and key by key… But when I actually put in the time, I improved.

    Like a snowball down a mountain or a carnival balloon…

    So why am I rambling about my insane keyboard addiction and flaunting the slow degeneration of my desk?

    Because I am perfectly capable of spending money to resolve my woes and dilemmas and make the things that are hurting me go away.

    Because when I buy something, I tend to use it.

    And I haven’t felt like using this space I’ve built for myself.

    WHY?!

    A year ago, my life took a hard step to the left and I wound up in and out of an infusion chair for six months, as chemical agents were pushed into my body through a hole in my chest. Something inside me needed to die.

    Die it did, thanks to some of the most wonderful people I could ever have the privilege of knowing. Die it did, and I was given the opportunity to grow older. I still don’t know how much I lost (though I now know what an out of pocket maximum is), but it’s hard not to be grateful when what one gains are more years with those one loves most.

    Here we are though, some four months after my treatment ended, and I don’t know if I came back the same to the world. I’m slower now, words limp forth to my fingers where they used to crowd for attention like suckling piglets. Mustering the patience to read a book or compose a letter are exercises in agony in most circumstances. I used to read the news to keep my mind occupied; for various reasons, it is now easier to succumb to the algorithms of Instagram and scroll to my own doom.

    This blog thought-space ramblehouse concept thing all started because I am so sick of sitting on my damn phone all day doing fuck all and having nothing to show for it. It eats into my waking hours, my sleeping hours, my time to eat and drink and breathe. This menace, this addiction-cube sits in my palm feeding me scraps of dopamine and cortisol in even measures.

    What do I need forced into my chest to make this beast scream?

    I bought this space on the web to have not only a place, but a reason to write again. Started in journalism, used to write short stories, took pleasure in the written word to let out some of the pressure in this mind. But the initial rush of happiness I got when I found out One Duck’s Goose was an available domain space has been splintered across the bow of an enormous oil tanker burning dirty fuel through my mind. The name that set on this ship is Apathy and her sailors never sleep.

    Someday I’ll shoot the captain of this ship and sink her to the depths where she belongs. I’ve sent it to dry-dock before. I fixed my damn wrists when they hurt. I fought cancer and won.

    I should be able to write a few words on a screen.

    Not all keyboards spark joy.

    Dear reader, whomever you are, expect more from me.

    – Goose

  • A Wandering Foot or a Heart at Rest?

    A Wandering Foot or a Heart at Rest?

    I miss the wild west sort of days of the World Wide Web, even though I was never truly around for them. There are the faintest echoes of a time before time, where I actually used the bookmarks feature of the browser on more than one website to visit on the regular.

    For a while now, I’ve maintained a web presence pretty solely through one social media platform or another. Facebook, then Instagram, and then of course Reddit counts… But in the same way I will never own property, I’m far from landed on the megaliths of the internet. I’ve paid digital rent for profiles for years; paid with time and advertising clicks and untold sums of data whose value cannot and should not ever be defined.

    This site is pretty concise in its cost structure. Just under $140 at present, getting two years of this domain name and four years of hosting. Works for me. I like it when things are upfront.

    One Duck’s Goose. It’s a blog, or will be, or has the ideations of being. Like my typewriter, it feels a little old-fashioned in the modern world. I’ll put photos and ramblings and life updates here. Might even be that someone will read them!

    Be kind. Stay well. Wear a helmet on any heads you happen to have.

    – Goose