Every day for the past 100+ days Victoria’s Premier, Daniel Andrews, has started the daily covid press conference asking, “Everyone right to go?”
So much so that a clip of a number of his beginnings have been put together and you can find it here. I don’t do Twitter so hopefully this will link through ok
Yes, Mr Premier, we are indeed Right to Go. Please.
In Saturday Evening Post, #87: The fine art of procrastination, I rambled on a bit about the huge amount of uncurated photos I had languishing my photo library and my lack of motivation to do anything about it. Why wade through photos from 2011, when I’m certain to have shots that are better, technically improved, more meaningful than those older efforts.
So the photos continued to glug up the hard-drive(s).
Not being able to get out has plagued (if you’ll pardon the poor pun), my photo enjoyment and the ability to share new work here, and on Flickr among other places.
So to amuse myself I started a little game of opening a year, and then clicking randomly on a month and then day and viewing the shots that showed up. Some were, to say the least worse than I had anticipated. Did I really photograph that!!!!! ?
But just occasionally a little gem would pop up, and my Flickr friends will have seen a few of them over the past couple of weeks.
Time as they say, marches on, and one morning I was messing about in 2011 folder, and I thought, “Why don’t I just delete these ordinary photos.”
So, I did.
It felt good.
I moved the next day, and soon had whittled it down from 75 also rans to 4 keepers.
I was on a roll.
By the end of the day, I had a mere 1,400 images from my efforts of 2011. And some of them I would be happy to use. Given that I had been out and shot for 235 of those 365 days, that works out at about 6 shots per trip. Many had less, 2 or 3 being much more average. Events like a nesting or special encounter might have up to 12 or more.
Hardly exciting stuff, but when I tackled 2010 the following day, I was both inspired and a man on fire. 2009, then 2008, then 2007 quickly followed during the week. And as the image count dropped, the gigabytes of images soon fell as well, and that gave me more enthusiasm for the project.
The challenge of course will be to keep the momentum going as I move toward the later years, and I might well—thanks to Dan—be back out in the field soon anyway.
Our Red-capped Robin is from the 2007 series. This was one of the first years that I was out in Woodlands. The camera was my trusty Nikon D90 and the lens was a Sigma 150-500m f/5.0-6.3 zoom.(it was filling in while my main lens was off at the camera hospital being repaired after a dreadful accident in 90kph+ winds). The rig was mounted on a Manfrotto tripod, and a Markins Q10 ball-head held it all secure.
Which again shows how I’ve changed, as I rarely shoot from the tripod rig anymore. The nifty little Nikon 500mm f/5.6 PF is handheld all the time.
Another change for the better is the use of modern NEF, (raw) converters.
I’m off now to charge up the batteries, and tomorrow hopefully we’ll be able to take some baby steps out into the wider world and begin to feel once again at home in the field.
Yes, Dan. We are indeed Right to Go.
Birds as Poetry —— Just because I WANDER - --doesn't mean I'm LOST 
Love the Robin image. And yes, being ‘confined to quarters’ freed up some time to clean out files, update the apps etc. It has good to look back and see where I was back then and see that there has been a change for the better in how I approach photography, from taking the shot through to finished product. I am so hoping that we will be able to get into the field soon although it will take me a day or two to get back up to speed, I went after a couple of flight shots today, I was way too slow!
We await the presser tomorrow.
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Yes, I am a bit rusty I must admit. My major concern is the time to takes to build up rapor with the birds, so the first few times might be a bit more an exploration.
All good.
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Indeed, we are all on tenterhooks! Fingers crossed we are allowed out and about to some of our favourite places.
It does feel so good to throw out the bad shots, doesn’t it! I have kept some, but only until I can go back to FNQ or wherever and get some better ones. Otherwise, I simply asked myself if the shot was good enough to go up on Flickr. If it wasn’t, out it went. Not that I’m going to put them all up of course, but it made a good rule-of-thumb.
A beautiful shot of the Robin, looking so dapper against that lovely soft background.
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Hello Eleanor, I do shoot a lot of sequence things, hoping to make a good visual story for the blog and for the occassional photobook, but I’ve learned to be a lot more ruthless, and also to value the really good ones rather than hope, that like wine the others will improve with age on the harddrive 🙂
Hope you enjoy your 25km. At least we can get as far as Point Cook now
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G’day David, so it’s official now and we can venture within 25 km radius and I’ve been astounded by the news that “outdoor photography is allowed”. Looks like I haven’t been sticking to all the rules. I admire your commitment to cull some of your old photos because I’ve had this idea too, yet I couldn’t really get to it in such a full speed. Now it’s too late and I’d rather keep my external drives stuffed than hope for another lockdown.
Love your gems rescued from the purge and can’t wait for the new photographs as much as I can’t wait for tomorrow.
The robin is stunning as all your robins are.
The spring is still here so let’s rejoice. All the best!
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Have to say I was somewhat amused by the “outdoor photography” but for some folk whose living is in that work, it has been an horrific time.
Not sure I’ll finish the job, about 50% through and about 30% of images gone.
Helped me see how my style has changed over the years if nothing else.
Good luck with your 25km exporations.
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That’s great news David, we were so glad for you all to hear the news, it has been a long slow boring year for you. We just hope the ones who perpetuated the virus causing the delay in recovery will begin to realise the need for continued caution. Go out and conquer while Spring is still sprung !
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Thank you Ashley. It’s hard to say yesterday morning whether I brushed away a tear of joy, or there was some dust in my eye. 🙂
We have developed our own Covid Safe plan, and will be following it as much as it possible. Somethings have to be done of course, but we’ll continue to limit our contacts.
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