Annette Bryant - Photographer

Annette and I discuss photography from philosophy to execution.  I keep bugging her until she shares some basic tricks with the i-Phone.   

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Hello, I'm Jim Williams, and you're on the porch. Good day for me today because I have my close friend again up here with us, Annette Bryant. Nett, thanks for coming up.

SPEAKER_04 0:50

Jim, thank you for asking me. You know, your front porch is legendary, and it is always a pleasure to come back and talk to you and Janet.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Well, thank you. We like being legendary, actually. I'm pretty much just going to turn the show over to you today because we're going to talk about photography. For me personally, it's going to come as a good time because Janet and I and Annette are headed to Alaska on a cruise here in a few weeks. I'm going to try to get some pictures with my little telephone, but I don't really have to worry because Annette's gone and I'm going to take all of her pictures. Why do you want to talk about photography?

SPEAKER_04 1:27

Well, I think everybody has a hobby.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

True.

SPEAKER_04 1:32

A lot of them are related, if you think about it. Uh and photography just kind of developed in my life through the years and has meant so much to me in ways I never expected. So it's uh not so much about photography as the philosophy of having a good hobby. Something that takes your mind and your body away from those things you have to do. Because a hobby is an e it's an escape in a way.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Well, yeah, that's true. I think you're right. I've had a few hobbies myself over the years and and uh my mother thought it was going to be music, but she was wrong. Oh, I I wish and I've tried. I have two guitars and a banjo upstairs. Uh and uh I can play a couple of tunes, but yeah it's all by memory.

SPEAKER_04 2:20

It's it kind of has to come to you. Yeah you have to figure out what makes you happy.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

I am good at watching TV. I'm good at that. Good. Because I can I can play the remote forward and backward. We like photography. And I let me just say, I'm I'm gonna get into this a little bit later. You have some pictures. Uh I guess we'd still call them pictures, right? Those that adorn the community building, those are pictures, right? Oh yeah, sure. But they're big.

SPEAKER_04 2:54

I mean Well, they're just pictures that I had blown up.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Yeah, well, i and anyone that goes to the community building, they're looking at your work exclusively, right?

SPEAKER_04 3:03

No, there are others represented in the city. Oh really? I have probably the most, but there are several other artists, photographers I should say, represented there.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

I'm going to talk about my all-time favorite photo that you took, and I think it might surprise you because I know you're we're gonna talk about what you like to shoot, but you have a photograph that I think is just absolutely beautiful.

SPEAKER_04 3:31

All right, we want to talk about So you got to tell me which photograph before we go on, or my curiosity is not gonna It's Grandfather Mountain.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

I think at sunrise the color and the panorama, uh just the absolute scope and clarity of that photograph, I think is just beautiful.

SPEAKER_04 3:54

That probably is my best photograph ever.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Really?

SPEAKER_04 3:58

Well, it's things just came together that morning. Uh it's not something you plan, sunrise, you know, you may get one, you may not. And the year before when I was up there, I didn't get one. Uh but right down to the fact that the little wildflowers that only grow on Grandfather Mountain were all over the rocks that morning. I've been back again and they weren't there. So you it just came together that that day.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Well, the color and the depth in that photograph, I think I the it's it actually brings a uh serenity to the viewer, which y you know, a photograph or any work of art needs to instill, it needs to bring something out of your, I'm just gonna get poetic and say, it needs to bring something out of your soul. I have paintings that I enjoy. The birth of Venus by Bodticelli back in the 1600s, for some reason that is a moving painting for me. And maybe not more moving than that Grandfather Mountain photograph. That thing is beautiful.

SPEAKER_04 5:06

That's putting me up there pretty high.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Well, and I intend to because I and I wonder, you know, when we think about and I'm getting off philosophy here, but I wonder if some of the greater works of art are just everything came together at the right time. I think so.

SPEAKER_04 5:22

Yeah. I think so. Because there's so many elements that you can't control. Well, the artist in a studio can come a lot closer, but when you're a photographer, you're dependent on a lot of things that you absolutely can't control.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

Yes. One, I wouldn't hike around on Grandfather Mountain for the shot, but but I'm glad you did because I really enjoy it.

SPEAKER_04 5:43

It wasn't the hiking around, it was getting up and getting over there and being on site at 5 30 p.m.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

Yeah, I didn't know they made it.

SPEAKER_04 5:52

That's the part I don't enjoy, but it's worth it when it happens.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Well, it it's worth it to me to watch it since I didn't have to suffer at 5 30 in the morning. How long did it take you to get to this point in your photographic life?

SPEAKER_04 6:07

My whole life. I started really young with a little little brownie junior that my dad gave me before I was ten years old. I don't remember. But those were the days with film. And so you take a roll of film and it might take you a year to do it. Then you hope someone had the money to process it for you. I brought you a show and tell. I know we're not on TV, but my f then I this was the second camera I ever had. It's a big brownie. Okay. Has the little side flash on it. Use that for years because I had children, birthday parties, be sort of became the family photographer at family events. Finally in 1975, somewhere along, no, 72 or 3, I was working for Mary Mont, which was the precursor to Universal down on the interstate. They sent me to town to Eck and Rhodes Studio to buy a good camera for the company. And while I was there, I found the uh Minota that I've got over there, and it was a used Minota, and I thought, you know, fifty dollars or whatever it was, maybe I can afford that. And still a film camera.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 7:18

Used that exclusively until 1997. By then, the first digital, which is the Sony that's lined up there. Yes. That's a digital camera using a floppy disk.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

A floppy disk.

SPEAKER_04 7:32

Before the CDs or SD cards were uh available to the public anyway, so that had a floppy disk in it. Thought it was a good camera, but the pictures were terrible. Only found out over time that it was the quality of the paper. We didn't even have photographic paper available to the consumer. So I used regular paper and it was the quality of the printer. Actually, I went back later, took pictures with it, and they're good. It's very small. I don't know what it is, it's but it's the the format was very small. Yes, yeah. So I didn't get pictures that I could really blow up. Thought it was so bad that see the little one there on the end? Right. That goes back to just an old film camera. But I was so disappointed in it that it's probably been used twice and it's set on a shelf ever since.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Well, is there such a thing as a film camera anymore?

SPEAKER_04 8:24

I think so, and actually I've heard that people are kind of returning to film, but I not for me. I d I don't know. Can't speak to that.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

Well, going back to my favorite one, that's all digital, right up on Grandfather Mountain. Yes. No film involved.

SPEAKER_04 8:41

Oh, that was a DSLR and you know, modern in a sense. Now it's not as modern, but it was very I'm still using those cameras, in other words. That's still my good camera when I talk about a good landscape or whatever, a good close-up. Okay, you asked me about my learning curve for actually where I'm where I am now. And it's just a lifelong experience. You just build on what you know. I'm not educated as a photographer, I'm self-taught. Uh a term I've learned to love. I'm self-taught in that I've read books, I talk tutorials now on as TV our uh internet has progressed. There are lots of tutorials on TV, uh internet as you know, and uh so I've watched many tutorials. Sure. Some of the best advice, some of the best information you get is from other photographers. And once you kind of get in that circle and develop some friends, Russ Banata in our club years ago in the Rotary Club was a good friend who helped me a lot. Lemmy Ichioma, who is a guy from Nigeria that came as a Rotarian uh on an exchange trip. He stayed with my family for two nights. He is a premier photographer in I Nigeria, uh teaches at the university, did. He doesn't now, but he did. So every time I he sees one of my pictures, he's still like the teacher teaching the student. He'll comment to me on usually what's out. There have been others. Well my best friend's son is a professional photographer. Anytime I have a real question, I send it off to Tim and get an answer back real quick.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

But see, there's more than just looking through the eyepiece and clicking the shutter. Oh, sure. I think I'm just gonna use this one photograph throughout our interview to refer to. But the use of negative space in that photograph of Grandfather Mountain and other things, is that something that you learn through YouTube or whatever, or do you think that's a natural gift that you have? Because Janet and I both know we we've looked at your bird pictures a lot because you do calendars and things. And it's not just the picture of the bird, which in my opinion is kind of dull anyway, it's the use of the negative space and the space around the bird. That that's like playing the guitar. That's kind of a natural thing, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04 11:09

Well, it's called framing. You look for things that make it look good. You're just about to get too technical for me because like I say, I am not a trained photographer. Uh and I just do what feels good, what looks good to me. It's just something that is there for you or it's not.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

That's my point. That's the difference between someone who just picks up a camera and takes a picture and someone who captures a moment in time and does it in a beautiful way. And I think that's where you are.

SPEAKER_04 11:46

Well, you develop these things over time too. Well, you'd learn that's where the learning curve comes. You ask questions and you look at other people's work and you decide how you could do it better.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

And how many pictures do you have stored?

SPEAKER_04 12:01

Oh my goodness. I don't even know. I think there's about ten thousand on my phone and got an old computer that developed a virus that our local guru couldn't get rid of, so I can't go online with it. But I can use it to edit my pictures, make it exclusively. And you know, when I got into really serious photography, Adobe Photoshop was called. Yes, I know that. Everybody wanted Adobe. Right. You could buy the little C D and put it on your computer. You owned it, you didn't have to renew it every month, you didn't have a service that changed it on you every time. So that Photoshop, and it's an old version, but it's the one I know and can use, is on that old computer. So between jump drives and CDs and all the things that I've learned through the years to transfer it over to a current computer, I use that one to edit all the time. And it's just a combination of old technology and new technology, and it's all in our heads, you know. We we all came through this, so it's not that it's gone just because we're not calling it current anymore.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

In the computer age, everything is up for grabs for everybody. Where I'm going with this is how do you protect your images?

SPEAKER_04 13:15

I don't. You don't worry about I'm an amateur. I'm not worried about someone else, even online, copying my pictures and had it happen one time. She won a prize with it, in fact.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_04 13:28

Saw a magazine, it's a state magazine, and it was a picture that I took up on Rough Ridge. And I said, That is my picture. And pulled it out and overlaid it, and it was absolutely I don't care. I didn't see that. I didn't you know that contest. If she could see it, like it, enter it, it made me feel good that she liked it enough to enter it in a contest.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

But that can't be right.

SPEAKER_04 13:54

It's not. Not if you're a professional. But I'm not a professional. I take pictures for fun. Yeah. For uh as to make me feel good, and if they make somebody around me feel good, then I'm happy.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

Well, do you ever enter in contests?

SPEAKER_04 14:09

No.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

Huh.

SPEAKER_04 14:10

I did one time. You had to pay a $15 entry fee, and I didn't win, and I thought, well, that was fifteen dollars wasted. No, my my greatest compliment is when somebody asks me to send them a copy of my picture. Yeah. Picture that you're talking about is in an apartment in New York, it a copy of it's in an apartment in Washington, D.C. Oh. Every member of my family has it hanging somewhere in their house. I can imagine. You know, that to me is what makes photography worth it when somebody likes what I do. And that is the part that I wanted to talk about this morning that I would like for people to take their hobbies more seriously. Now, I've got a hobbyist in my family that takes his fishing very seriously.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 14:59

And it's interesting how much fishing and photography are similar. The equipment's expensive.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

True.

SPEAKER_04 15:06

The dedication is unreal. The stories and the one that got away get bigger and bigger as time goes on. There's just a lot of a lot of comparisons that work. But that's his hobby. He wouldn't pick up a camera and take a picture if he had to. Right. But he'll be out on the lake probably two or three days this week.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

That's another thing. Uh going back to this trip that we hope we all get to take together. I was thinking about that, and I I've got a l kind of a list of things that I'd like to see on this trip. Probably like everybody else, I'd like to see a an orca and a humpback whale and a grizzly bear.

SPEAKER_04 15:48

A salmon in its mouth, pre- preferably.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

Yeah, yeah, with a salmon in its mouth. But the truth of the matter is, if I see those and if I have my camera, which will be my phone, it it's a 50-50 chance that I won't even bother to take a picture.

SPEAKER_04 16:05

Well, that brings up something that I've debated in my mind. Do I see and remember the event or I do I see it through my pictures and the camera lens? And it's it's a pretty serious debate because I think m most of the time I'm seeing whatever wherever I am through the lens of a camera.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

Well, that's an interesting point because I would be just the opposite. I like to remember the Yes.

SPEAKER_04 16:31

Well, that's one thing that iPhones have taught me. You know, with iPhones, you can take 500 pictures in two hours.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

Right.

SPEAKER_04 16:38

Most of them meaningless. But what I've learned from all of that, and it's taken a while, is take a few pictures you think are good and then put it down and enjoy the event. And I'm getting better and better at that. I want my picture, but I still do want to be a part of what's actually going on. And you just have to think about that a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

Yeah, I think that's a good point. And I think uh if I let this go this way, which I'm not going to, we could get into a whole philosophical uh discussion about that, about what's more important, real life or life the way your camera sees it.

SPEAKER_04 17:19

Uh you can maneuver an event. Yes. You can and that's why I worry about TV news sometimes. Not that they intend to, but it's the only way they can do it. The camera zooms in on a certain portion of the event. And that's why being at a concert live or at a uh whatever the event is, you see the whole thing.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

Well, going back to Grandfather Mountain, through your eyes, did you see the beauty there that I see now in your photograph?

SPEAKER_04 17:51

I did because that was just such an amazing morning. Okay. It's not always that way, but that morning was truly and not only that picture, fifteen minutes later when you know you you get your shot and you kinda know in your heart the minute you got your shot you're done.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:09

Y this is it, I can't do anything. We left and went around to the other side, went up towards the swinging bridge. Well, the sun had come all up into the sky by that time a little bit. Not as pretty, not that big ball of s sunrise, but it the sky was beautiful. And there were two photographers. This was a photographer event sponsored by Grandfather Mountain, so there's a lot of us up there. They had gone out across and were kind of in silhouette off on the horizon, and I got the second best shot.

SPEAKER_00 18:43

Yes, I've seen both of them.

SPEAKER_04 18:44

You've seen that one too. It's not as good as the first one, but it gives me a good feeling because of those two men in it that had their tripods and their camera and their trips into trying not to step on anything they shouldn't step on. And it just tells the story a little better of the morning.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Well, see, that's the thing. When I think about I'm just gonna say artwork in general, not necessarily photographs, but two things happen. You create an event, and that's what you did with the photographers in the picture. You told a story there. And that's and you set the viewer right down the path. They had no way to go. There's guardrails on both sides. Th this is something you want to emote, but the other one is just wide open for interpretation. And some people are gonna get caught in it, like me, and dwell on it and think about it and enjoy it, and others are gonna just pass it by.

SPEAKER_04 19:40

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

You know, there's some more flowers.

SPEAKER_04 19:42

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

So what?

SPEAKER_04 19:44

But we're all different, so we look for different things.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

Gonna try not to stay on that too much. It's just that I happen to like it. But you probably more than well, more than anyone we know, your love seems to be birds.

SPEAKER_04 19:59

Well, that sort of came about as a necessity. You can just go to sun drive to so many sunrises and be disappointed. Yeah. Sunsets I like and look for and have driven to specific sites for sunsets. But I also like to grow flowers, didn't it? And I have a lot in common there. We're we're always doing flower stuff together. And so my yard started evolving towards the things that birds enjoy because birds I'm always at home.

SPEAKER_02 20:28

Right.

SPEAKER_04 20:29

I have the kind of windows that I can open up, but don't keep screens on my windows. So I have the kind of windows that can open up, give me a clear shot from within my house out to the birds. So I've built a lot of things that and I've gone more and more to the natural flowers, the perennials that uh are native flowers. So that that's the ones the birds like. They're native birds who like native flowers. It makes sense. Right. First I tried bird houses, then I tried well, first I tried bird feeders. That has a that's another whole story. That's uh a rabbit hole you really don't want to go down if you're serious about uh taking care of the environment and the birds because they really need to be out in the woods and getting their food that way. Right. Uh I'm I'm digressing. But anyway, birds are always there and I'm always at home. So I could any time of day. Yeah. One side of the house or the other, the sun is good, you know, for the lighting. And uh it just started. I took a picture of a bird and it turned out pretty good and I was thrilled. But it doesn't ever last. You want that challenge, and that's where I really enjoy bird. There's always a challenge.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

Well, some of these pictures, they look posed to me.

SPEAKER_04 21:44

So it may have taken four hours to get that posed.

SPEAKER_00 21:47

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 21:48

I've stood in a bird my husband built me a bird blind. It's four pieces of plywood, three three by three by three, you know, on a big set of wheels that will roll all over my yard.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

My gosh.

SPEAKER_04 22:00

And uh I have gone out there and just stood in that bird blind for as much as four hours. Oh my goodness. Waiting for that that shot. They don't just happen. That's the challenge. Uh we've got a big blueberry bush in the yard, and when they start ripening, I always take my bird blind around and position it, and then just get it. And you have to stand any 30 minutes before you get anything because the birds have to kind of get used to the changes in their environment. Then, because I'm inside, they've kind of gotten used to me. I'm fairly close to that blueberry bush. And I've had some experiences that are unreal one day I was out and I heard a pileated woodpecker, and you can hear him a mile away, coming towards me. I thought, is he gonna land on this? He didn't land on the roof of the blind, but he did land in the tree above me. When he got comfortable, this pileated woodpecker jumped over into that blueberry bush. I've never been so close to one in my life.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 22:59

And it almost got boring taking shots of him because he just ate and ate and ate. And, you know, it's just different angles of the same bush. Sure. But that was an experience, never before or since. Scarlet Tanager, same way. They're very secretive. You you hear them, but you don't see them very often. They love blueberries, or anybody, I guess, but the blueberry bush, I not only have the male, I have the female both in the at the same time in that bush. Female's yellow. You wouldn't recognize her if you didn't see her with the red male. So many things have happened in that bird blind at that blueberry bush. It's just hard to remember all of them, and I don't guess I ru I don't guess I remember them all. But it's really uh it's the challenge of getting now I'm not happy with a bird sitting on a fence. I want him flying into the birdhouse, or I want him doing something, or I want the two of them. Goldfinch really like to fuss a lot. They don't they seem to be very territorial. I don't know that that's a fact, but that's what it appears to me. And they'll just go at each other over seed or some flower, something they both want to get at. So it's the challenge of getting something that I haven't had before.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

Well, you seem to have studied the habits of a lot of these birds. You're as much a bird watcher as you are a photographer.

SPEAKER_04 24:22

You kind of have to be. And you know, you uh yes, I have studied them, but at Cornell Labs in Ithaca, New York has made it real easy. They sponsor bird cams all over the world. Oh. I watch birds in Panama, I watch birds in New Zealand, I watch two different bird cams in Ithaca, New York, because one on their campus as well as one that's a red tailed hawk. And right now the red-tailed hawks, the little babies are getting ready to fledge and they're just fun to watch. But you watch them from the time the bird starts sitting on the egg until babies leave the nest. So you watch the habits of the parents and the instincts that they have to take care of them and feed them. Yeah, you become r uh really fascinated with just the day-to-day life. There's a in Montana, watch an osprey nest and I was looking at it this morning because her first so she has three eggs and one of them, the little chick, is out now and she's feeding it, and you got two eggs still there, and you watch how those little claws go around so they don't step on the eggs, and it's just the the dad brings all the nesting material in. It just gets m fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 25:29

Well, it is fascinating. You know, Janet and I watch those uh eagles out big bear.

SPEAKER_04 25:34

Thank you for telling me. I watch them daily now.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

Yeah, they're they're gonna leave pretty soon.

SPEAKER_04 25:39

Anytime now.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

Yeah, those are big birds.

SPEAKER_04 25:41

They are big. They're not even easy to see until the afternoon sun turns gets around to the other side of the nest where you can see them in detail. They've kind of been a shadow in the mornings. But that's again part of light and what what you deal with.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

On our trip, are you going to because you told me you're taking a good camera. Yeah. You think you're going to get some eagle shots?

SPEAKER_04 26:04

I have no idea. I've never gotten an eagle shot, so wouldn't that be nice? Yeah. They're out at the lake. I've gotten photographs of the nest. Never seen an eagle out there. I've the rangers keep telling me that they saw one this morning or there's they're down there. I've never seen 'em.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

Oh.

SPEAKER_04 26:20

So I hope I'd be happier with the grizzly bear with the salmon eggs. Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_00 26:26

That's if I could see a grizzly bear and a a killer whale.

SPEAKER_04 26:31

That I'm too worried about. I don't think we're going to see that on the inside passage.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

But oh, the killer whales? Oh, I'd I'd bet many. In fact, we need to make a bet on that. I think that's one of the first things. I'm not going to see that. They they stay inland so they can get to the food supply.

SPEAKER_04 26:50

You know, we'll just take it as it comes. Oh, absolutely. It may be raining. We may not get a picture.

SPEAKER_00 26:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:55

And I've been watching the weather. There's a pretty good chance it's going to be raining.

SPEAKER_00 26:59

Oh, yes. Yes. Uh but that's why they have those coffee bars.

SPEAKER_04 27:03

I can't imagine being in Alaska and not having a good camera with a long lens. And I've got a 300 millimeter that's lightweight. You can get them that weigh a ton, and I've got 'em. You have to have a tripod for those, and I can't I can't hold them still enough. Right. But this little 300 millimeter I can manage. And so that's the camera I'm taking. It's a it's a good camera. It's old now, but you know, cameras still evolve. The new thing, if you want to be a professional, is the mirrorless candle cameras, because they take as the quality is is good, but they're lightweight. They don't have all that mirror working inside that the older cameras do. So, you know, it's a let me tell you, let me show you. This this is a camera, and it is a special camera in the history of cameras. It looks like a little square box that's about four inches long by one inch wide.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 27:54

But it's came out and I had to have it when I read about it. There is so much technology that I've never really managed to use it very well, and it didn't I still don't know how you transfer it from the camera over to a a computer so that you could do things with it. Oh what it does, you turn it on, and then as you take your picture, you've got now you've got a one-inch screen, one and a half inch screen is the biggest here, so it's tiny. It's the first camera developed where you could touch the screen and that would be your focus point. Oh. And you touch down here and it's it focuses on the that corner or the other corner. And I read after it been out about a year, that they really did they knew in the beginning, after they reached this level of competency, the developers knew that it would never be a hit with the general public. What they did, they sold this technology to your iPhone, to Apple. Oh now when you pick up your phone and you're shooting a picture and you touch it where you want to your focus on the tree or down here on the flowers, it started right there with that little tiny camera.

SPEAKER_01 29:01

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_04 29:03

And so I've kept it and it still works. It's it's charged right now. I could still play with it and lose my mind trying to figure out how to do all that stuff in that little tiny screen. But that's it's interesting. It's just one of those things that developed and went away real fast to the public because technology was moving so fast in the beginning of iPhones.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

Put a pin right there because I want to talk to you about iPhones. But I want to go back uh and ask you a question. Not counting Africa, the birds in Africa, what is your favorite bird?

SPEAKER_04 29:40

It has to be our little eastern bluebird.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

Really?

SPEAKER_04 29:43

One, they're right in front of me every day.

SPEAKER_01 29:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:46

Two, they're beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 29:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:49

And three, they exemplify the best parenting I've ever seen in human or in birds or humans. They work together, they communicate, you can hear them just talking, it's their little throats move, beaks don't move, but you can see their throat moving. And she gets mad at him and she starts flapping one of her wings, and he won't do what she wants, so he you she's following him down the fence. You just they're fascinating. Huh. And they take care of their children, their little chicks so well. Feed them. I mean, you can tell when they're getting ready to fledge because it's just a constant, nonstop mom and dad feeding those chicks, and the chicks start hanging out the little hole in the house, and all of a sudden they I've seen them fledge one time in all the years. They do it very I've learned I'm learning. You still you never quit learning. I'm learning that um they usually fledge in the late evening so that they can get their chicks into the trees in the darkness of night because they've got predators everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 30:50

Back to cell phones.

SPEAKER_04 30:52

Back to cell phones.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

Don't you think the camera technology has improved uh along with cell phone technology?

SPEAKER_04 31:03

The camera in the cell phone? Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I subscribe to Tips for iPhones, went through the 14-day uh tip of the day. Oh and tried to memorize all of that, and then you've got others that want to get in on the action, so it's like podcasters that just put up a one trick a day, whatever it might be. They're so complicated it could take a real professional working full time to understand, fully understand an iPhone camera. They are that good now. They are really good. I have uh probably at least sixteen by twenty pictures that are enlarged to that size from iPhone pictures.

SPEAKER_00 31:45

Oh sixteen by twenty.

SPEAKER_04 31:47

See that's a pretty good size enlargement.

SPEAKER_00 31:49

Yeah, because I watch YouTube and then I see things on YouTube that they call 'em shorts, and the image, the frame image is such a small size that I think, well, that must be shot with a a camera. So I have been of the opinion that you couldn't have a nice full size image if you shot the picture with the iPhone.

SPEAKER_04 32:13

You can if you really look at that picture before you decide to enlarge it. It better be in focus.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:21

There's an old saying in photography that is so true. It doesn't matter what camera you're using, it's what's between your ears. And that I think is That's absolutely true. You've got to really remember quite a few things. If you're now we do fun and game photography all the time. Everybody does. Snap a picture of a bird or a flower or your child or the ocean scene or whatever, just for fun. But if you're doing real photography, the two or three things you have really have to do, whether it's your camera or whether it's your iPhone, because that to me that's as good a camera as I ever want for just daily use. Yes. It's the only camera I took to Egypt with me. And you've seen some of my Egypt pictures. Yeah. I've enlarged them huge because I really wanted I didn't want to carry the big heavy camera. But I concentrated on my photography a lot more in Egypt because wherever in the world am I going to see things like that again? Only in Egypt.

SPEAKER_00 33:21

And I guess I wasn't aware of the fact that you took those pictures with your iPhone.

SPEAKER_04 33:27

I did not take a DSLR with me.

SPEAKER_00 33:31

Now why are you taking the other camera on the trip? Is it just telephoto? Telephoto.

SPEAKER_04 33:38

With the iPhone. You've got your whole it's a handheld. Yes. Unless you and I have a little tripod for my iPhone. I may take it with me. Yeah. Even if it's not sitting on a table as you would normally do a tripod, you hold it in your hand and it's easier to hold it still. You've got to hold the camera perfectly still. Right. And especially think about you're multiplying that movement ten or fifteen times if you're shooting at a distance. Yes. I just cannot get a distance shot that I'm happy with with my iPhone. But my pictures from Egypt I'm pretty happy with. Oh, I guess. Even the ones up in the um hot air balloon with all those balloons around me. You haven't seen those. No, I haven't seen. But uh I've got one enlarged to 20 by 30 and it's it's an iPhone picture and it's it's still in focus. Because you're perfectly still in a in a hot air balloon. You're not unless you've got a lot of wind, which we do now. You're perfectly still. So that was the start. Now if you're on a on a boat, you're gonna be moving. I don't know what kind of pictures we'll get on the boat because you've got things around you you can control again.

SPEAKER_00 34:47

Let's hope that the boat is not moving too much. We'll be a lot happier if it's steadier.

SPEAKER_04 34:55

There are quite a few of us that are going to be taking dramamine along with us.

SPEAKER_00 34:59

Now you have a note here, and it says amateur are professional. So I'm taking it based on our conversation so far. You consider yourself an amateur.

SPEAKER_04 35:09

Absolutely, and I want to keep it that way. I've had people say, Oh, you need to go pro and that's a compliment. I take it as a compliment. But that's the last thing in the world I want to do because this photography is my escape from reality. Yes. My escape from daily routines and responsibilities. And if you start calling yourself a professional, then people can ask you to do things for them. Right. Would you come and take my child's birthday party or would you whatever. If you're a professional, you want to because you're earning money doing it. So that's that's where you've positioned yourself. I don't want that. I just want to take pictures when I want to take pictures.

SPEAKER_00 35:50

I've I've got to believe that the most torturous thing in the world would be to have to take someone's wedding pictures.

SPEAKER_04 35:59

Well, it can be. Yeah. Depends on the mother's attitude. I say that with some affection because I have taken a lot of family weddings. Most of the time the mothers were just a little bit hovering.

SPEAKER_01 36:15

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:16

They want what they want. There is the difference between being a professional. You you want to please that client.

SPEAKER_00 36:22

Right.

SPEAKER_04 36:23

And so that's part of the job.

SPEAKER_00 36:25

So you need to see the photograph through the mother's eyes instead of your own.

SPEAKER_04 36:30

Well, sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 36:31

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_04 36:32

You want to get the good shots, but you want to get the shots she wants to.

SPEAKER_00 36:36

Now we picked out your American bird. I saw numerous photographs of birds in Africa. Those were mostly Africa. So what is your favorite bird in Africa?

SPEAKER_04 36:51

You know, Africa's got so many birds that I didn't see because they're small, they're out in the bush. I don't recognize them. I don't know what they are when I see them. But uh we were sitting, we had had breakfast and we're out on a patio early one morning, and these great big hawkbill birds. I think it's the current bird for the for June right now on the calendar. Okay. It's got a big, huge orange hawkbell. They're not necessarily that pretty, but they were landing within um across the room, across the patio. They were on some of the light, the standards where the light fixtures are on top of the columns. So I got to get up close and personal with them, and they're just so different from anything we're ever is ever gonna see here in this country. They compare a little bit to the toucan, which people are more interested, more accustomed to seeing a picture of. They've got that humongous bill, and you wonder how in the world they can eat, but it's designed for the food in their area, and they have no problem eating. And I saw a kingfisher, we were just riding down the road, and it's uh a little different from our kingfisher, but not a lot. I recognized it immediately. And it's that bird that you come up on that you're not expecting. Right. And they also had uh a roller, they called it. But it had just it was like a kaleidoscope of colors. It was beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 38:15

Are there land-based birds in Africa? Oh yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:18

Yeah, they're all, I guess, land-based in a sense. You gotta land somewhere. Yeah, yeah, okay. They're in trees. They're I'm not an expert. I don't know. I just Yeah. But uh it was fun looking at the new ones. Maybe the most exciting was the morning we saw the weaver bird makes the little they weave their nest and it kind of hangs down from the limb. Make the little oping into the side. Well, the whole tree was full of weaver birds. They were everywhere, and that was exciting.

SPEAKER_00 38:46

Well, while we're still in Africa, what about just being a tourist and taking pictures of, I don't know, elephants and giraffes? Did you do that?

SPEAKER_04 38:56

I actually walked out among the giraffes. They're very gentle. Oh. If you leave them alone, they'll leave you alone. And one morning I had gotten up at 7 30, uh six well, I was out taking pictures at 7 30. The z zebras were still asleep. I found a a whole group of zebras still on the ground sleeping. It was that early. And one of the uh uh men on camp on the grounds that kind of looks out for the tourists that keeps them from getting lost, he said, You want to go out and see the zebras. And there was a couple of other people around, so uh not the zebras, the giraffes. Right. And by the time we got there, it was a pretty long walk. By the time we got there, the sun was up. And of course they're in the tall trees eating. And he said, As long as you don't approach them, don't touch them, you'll be fine. And I just walked out among them. There was one kind of a yearling, I would call it, a just smaller one. And they're peeping over the trees and they're it was just fun. Uh yes, we did a lot of that. Zebras you can get close to, but don't touch 'em. You will be kicked twice if you touch a zebra. And we stayed in some lodges where the some of like the zebras and the giraffes are loose to wander around the grounds because they just kind of ignore everybody and do their own thing. Just don't get too close. I saw a lady, she didn't get kicked, but the zebra kicked at her. She wanted her husband was taking a picture of her and she wanted a picture of her hand on this giraffe's I mean this zebra's hip. Nope. Wrong thing to do.

SPEAKER_00 40:29

I don't know why people do that.

SPEAKER_04 40:30

Just just tempt nature a little too far.

SPEAKER_00 40:33

Yeah, yeah. Well, you ought to know, they're already dressed in prison uniforms.

SPEAKER_04 40:37

And you're warned.

SPEAKER_00 40:38

Yeah, really. Leave it.

SPEAKER_04 40:40

Everywhere you're warned, don't touch the animals.

SPEAKER_00 40:43

I and I don't know what it is about Americans or human beings in general. We went to North Dakota or South Dakota, one of those states, had buffalo or bison. It's good. And people would pile out of their car and run up to touch this big thousands of pound bison. They didn't want to just get up close, they wanted to touch it. Well, what is it about us? I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 41:12

That I can't explain. I I really want to live a little bit too much to to tempt nature that way.

SPEAKER_00 41:18

Because it's documented some of those people get hurt.

SPEAKER_04 41:21

Hurt badly.

SPEAKER_00 41:22

And bears are particularly vicious if you get close to them.

SPEAKER_04 41:28

If they have a cub in the area. Yes. Yeah. That's why I like birds. They're not really dangerous. They they are as afraid of me as much as I am of them in a way.

SPEAKER_00 41:38

I think we've touched on this, and you've mentioned it a little bit about whether you would rather sell a piece or just share it. We have.

SPEAKER_04 41:48

I I you know, I would rather share it.

SPEAKER_00 41:50

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:51

I would rather share it. I had a business to run for a long time. Right. I don't want a second business. I want to this was my hobby.

SPEAKER_01 41:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:00

And that's the thing that if we do anything this morning, I want to encourage other people to enjoy their hobby. Yeah. And have a hobby. My husband didn't have a hobby. He went to work and worked. He came home and then work was his hobby at home. I think he was uptight more than he would have been if he had had just a place to go and relax. Something to take your mind off of work.

SPEAKER_00 42:23

You know, I think that's really important because obviously all of our little group, and you're certainly one of them, and Janet and a couple others that you know. We've kind of moved me into this new hobby of doing the podcast. I certainly enjoy it. It not only does it occupy my mind, but it's it's just relaxing. Unlike what I'm doing with the podcast, you have something tangible that you can hand to your friends and they appreciate not only the item, the physical item, but what you've put into it. And that I I admire that.

SPEAKER_04 43:01

Well, thank you. Uh I hope they appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 43:06

Oh, um speaking for us, I know we do.

SPEAKER_04 43:09

Well, you know, now that we're into this iPhone era, we all share pictures all the time. Yeah, that's true. And I know that I enjoy getting someone else's pictures. Yep. You know, my travel group that I've traveled with a lot last few years, they're on a trip to uh England and I'm not sure exactly where they're going. They were in Stonehenge yesterday. Oh, yeah. Well, a lot of those pictures showed up on Facebook this morning. Yes. Great. I'm thrilled to death to see those pictures. So it's a sense of sharing that I really enjoy.

SPEAKER_00 43:38

On that subject, do you think that the abundance now of photographs, do you think that waters down the truly artistic photograph?

SPEAKER_04 43:50

I don't think so. Sometimes on Facebook I wish people would analyze their picture just a little bit more before they post it. Oceans don't run downhill. You really need to look at your horizon and s be sh there's two things you could do to a an iPhone picture before you post it that would just make it look so much better. And one is to be sure your horizons are level. Yeah, that's a good point. Buildings don't lean. They need to be straight up and down. And you could just hit the light. There's a light button there when you go into uh edit. The very first thing that comes up is a little round circle with a star in the middle of it. If you just touch it, it brightens the sp the uh picture. Oh, I didn't know. And it's just two little tricks that make them so much more presentable to the general public. Uh but I I get tickled because some people are meticulous about it and some people just don't care. They take a picture, they put it up. Well, that's okay too, because they enjoy putting that picture up.

SPEAKER_01 44:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:50

If you really want to present your work a little bit better, make sure it's balanced. Because everybody's idea of framing may be different, but but a building just doesn't lean.

SPEAKER_00 44:59

If I take a photograph, and uh uh I I'm speaking for you. I'm you now when I make this scenario. So if I take a photograph and I know it's good, let's say that the back to the Grandfather Mountain shot, let's say I did that on my iPhone, and I'm thumbing through, and I know this is a good shot. I can I see it. You just feel it. Do you then say, well, I want to send this immediately, I want to send this out to all my friends, or do you say to yourself, you know what, I think I'm gonna have this printed and enlarged and made into an art piece. Do you save it for yourself or do you send it out to everybody?

SPEAKER_04 45:46

When I know I've got a really good picture, yeah, almost always I keep it.

SPEAKER_00 45:51

Yeah, yeah. So yourself that's mine. That's what you're saying. I'm selfish. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_04 45:56

No, I'll share it later, but I I want to be sure that I've edited it correctly. I've enjoyed it for a while. And I don't necessarily put it on Facebook. Right. I may send it to friends if I think they're interested or if they have a a a reason for wanting it. But uh the ones that I consider that's kind of personal. Yeah. You know, it it becomes something that's mine more than just my general shots. You know, when you're on vacation you're just taking pictures all the time and you're sharing them. But when and you know, it's interesting too when I'm when I'm shooting birds you can be out and I've I've spent hours, as I've told you earlier, trying to get that one shot. But when you get it, you know it. I like now to get birds in motion. I like their wings out. Right. And when you get the one where the wings are out and they're in focus and the balance is good, you instinctively know immediately, and you it's time to quit. Yeah. You're not gonna do better than that.

SPEAKER_00 46:57

So And when you get that, you decide to hold that for yourself. That's the one I keep. For your calendar project or what?

SPEAKER_04 47:05

Usually that's what I'm saving the bird pictures for. Yeah. I think I've got thirty pictures that I've set aside right now for the 2027, and this is just June. Wow. So I'll have to go back then and go through and decide which ones I really wanted which twelve I'll choose. Or thirteen really, because I put one on the front that's not inside.

SPEAKER_00 47:24

Have you ever taken a picture and you've said, Man, this thing is beautiful, and then you send it off and you have a I don't know, sixteen by twenty or what's the next size up? They're big. Twenty by thirty. Twenty by thirty six.

SPEAKER_04 47:37

Thirty-six by something else. I forgot. They go huge.

SPEAKER_00 47:40

Okay, so you you print it up into a big, nice, huge one, and it comes back from wherever you send it, and you're just going, ah, that's not at all.

SPEAKER_04 47:51

Got one right now propped up beside up against the wall in my bedroom. We were out at the lake one night. My son had taken me out on his boat, and we were at sunset, and you're down right next to the water, and I said, Let's go over there. And he went over and just as we approached the sun setting, it was beautiful, he swerved the boat, and we got that wash that comes up like a wave. Yes. And and I got that. And it's absolutely beautiful in the camera. But when I had it enlarged, and I had it enlarged to thirty-six by whatever the I mean it's huge. Everything gets spread out so that nothing shows up like it should. And it's the biggest disappointment I think I've ever had. It's just it just didn't work as a big picture. It works better. And it would probably work fine as um an eleven by fourteen. Okay. That's a good ratio. Yeah. It just didn't work as a great big picture. Everything got too too specific.

SPEAKER_00 48:51

Other than Grandfather Mountain, which I keep harping on, do you have any other photographs that you know are just great?

SPEAKER_04 48:59

They're great to me. I don't know how great they are. I've got several favorites. One is the picture I took of the YMCA one day from the side of the road in the fall of the year. It's posted in the community building. Yeah, I've seen it. That's one of my favorites just because it kind of it's got the mountains behind it, it's got the fall colors, and it was before the cutsu took over. And so that it's got a good open view to the YMCA. And it was at a time when we were all proud. You know, one of the things that I have learned about photography that uh that has guided my photography a lot. Years ago when we first moved here, the uh many of the pictures that Mr. Best, I think, he had a studio uh on Main Street upstairs, and then Mr. Eckinrod, Tom's father, bought Mr. Best's selec I believe I'm telling this right. It came into the Eckinrod family. All of those pictures that Mr. Best had taken. And there was a newspaper article about it, and I read it, and one of the comments was the history of your town is recorded through photographs through the years. Oh sure. And that's what he had done. He had Main Street with 1939 cars just lined up. And it's just really interesting because that's a history of the way Main Street looked in our town in 1939. So I started taking pictures of our buildings. Oh and that's really wh and and our surroundings. And that's where a lot of those pictures in the community building came from was just an interest in sort of recording that moment in time on Main Street.

SPEAKER_00 50:39

See, that's such a good idea because I've tried to do some research on Marion, and I go back because you think that things like YouTube, they're just bottomless bits of information. But you can't f you can find pictures of people, but it's hard to get mundane things like a shot down Main Street.

SPEAKER_04 51:01

Right.

SPEAKER_00 51:02

You know, and those are now, those are the things that are valuable to you because that's a snapshot, if you will, of life. Right. Yeah, at that time. And those are hard to find.

SPEAKER_04 51:14

Well, that was sort of my motivation, it still is. Okay. Bob Boyette commented one morning before one day in the community building. He said, you know, we don't have a picture of the new City Hall. Oh. That was the one he wanted to add to the collection that's in the community building. I've been uptown at seven o'clock in the morning. I've been uptown and because the sun rises facing, so you have to get the morning shot.

SPEAKER_02 51:40

Right.

SPEAKER_04 51:41

To get a good shot of the community of the uh new city hall, which is the former bank building, the dome that we all associate with downtown. I've made about three trips to town trying to get the shot that I like, and I still don't have it. I'm still working on that shot.

SPEAKER_02 51:59

Really?

SPEAKER_04 51:59

Well, either there'll be a trash can sitting over here, and you can remove pictures, you know, items from a picture now, or that but I want it pure. I I want the shot I want without doing a lot of editing to it. Right. And so I'm waiting now for either the ginkgo trees to be pretty and green or in the fall when they're bright yellow. I'm looking for something there to add to that building. It's a kind of a hard building to shoot because it's so tall. And yet to get the detail in the word city hall over the door, it it's I just haven't found it yet. I'm still working on it.

SPEAKER_00 52:34

Here's something that's off the subject kind of. Do you ever think about converting or shooting in black and white?

SPEAKER_04 52:43

That's the debate that photographers have every time you get them together. Oh, really? It is, because you've got the purest.

SPEAKER_00 52:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 52:51

I just want realism. And to me, I don't see in black and white, I see in color.

SPEAKER_01 52:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 52:57

When I look out your window, off your porch here, I'm seeing green trees. I'm not seeing shades of gray. And so that's what I want. But there are others who absolutely won't shoot. This friend, this the son of our best friends years ago that is my expert when I need an expert advice, Tim. Yeah. I called uh when he goes on vacation, he always does a beautiful job of documenting the whole trip. But he doesn't put it up until he's gone home, edited it, and put it into black and white. He only sees black and white. Or sepia. Sometimes he will do things in sepia because it gives it a warmth.

SPEAKER_00 53:35

The most famous photographer of all time, Ansel Adams. Of course. Black and white.

SPEAKER_04 53:39

Black and white. Which was more prevalent in his day? You didn't recolor as much.

SPEAKER_00 53:46

In that black and white shot, and now I I'm gonna compare you to Ansel Adams.

SPEAKER_04 53:51

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 53:53

I'm gonna I I think about your again, Grandfather Mountain shot. Ansel Adams did a shot of Half Dome in Yosemite in black and white. The clarity of the rock, he brought out the texture of the rock in black and white, and yet you kind of did the same thing with the color there at uh Grandfather Mountain. So I don't know which one I prefer.

SPEAKER_04 54:19

Well, I'll tell you the difference. The difference is he was a professional and knew what he was doing, and I was an amateur and got lucky. That's the difference in the two of us.

SPEAKER_00 54:30

Also, I believe that texture has a lot to do with it. You know, when you're shooting rocks, you've got texture to play with.

SPEAKER_04 54:40

And other people see things I don't see. I took a picture of Tom's Creek Fall Falls one day. It's in color, but it was kind of a fall day and it was not a lot of color. Well, a friend of mine saw it, zeroed in on the little area where the falls come together and make a real interesting splash kind of she just zeroed in on a very small portion of that picture and said, That's the one I want. I sent it to her, she had it enlarged to about uh eleven by fourteen, and then had me a copy made. And it's basically black and white, but it's just a a a work of shadows and the water splashing. She saw something I didn't see at all. I'm looking at the sides and the you know the the depth and the length of that fall and just all of that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 55:30

Do you think that's fair? Do you think that Absolutely in the you do? It's because we're in the digital age. Uh-huh. So you you have this shot that you think's good, and you send it to a friend, and then they edit it and bring out another picture and she said this is the part I want.

SPEAKER_04 55:48

And I was thrilled.

SPEAKER_00 55:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 55:50

She taught me something. I didn't I hadn't looked that closely at it. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. She j but we we crop pictures all the time. That's one of the main things you do is to pull it down, get the interesting part of whatever picture you've taken. But you've cropped pictures on uh on your phone.

SPEAKER_00 56:08

Well, yeah, but uh I've never cropped anybody else's picture that I could think of.

SPEAKER_04 56:14

Everybody knows I don't care. Do what you want to with my picture.

SPEAKER_00 56:18

We could go down another rabbit hole because I'm trying to decide, is that the mind of a true artist? Yes, because I think of like Van Gogh. Van Gogh was just a jerk. He would not allow uh one tiny teeny extra little brush stroke on any of his paintings. He would just go berserk if somebody tried that. Now, did that make him the artist? Or is it someone like you who is almost philanthropic in the way you share your photographs and you let people enjoy what they want to enjoy out of them? Are you an art? Do you consider yourself an artist? Well, no, don't answer, because yes, you are. Anytime you can bring beauty into someone else's life, that's an artist. And you're doing that. I gotta say, you know, I don't tell you this in person. In fact, I seldom compliment you in person. Okay, let me get off of that. I uh you've got some notes for me here. You've got a note here that says, a community of photographers.

SPEAKER_04 57:21

That's one story that I'd like to tell because it really made a lot of difference in my life and my photography. I was having cataracts removed from my eyes. You know, I'm I'm old now, so that happens. And this was years ago. I don't remember the year, but it was easily 15 years ago. And Dr. Kath was a member of Morganton Eye Clinic, and he was the doctor that did the surgery. Dr. Kath is known for being an excellent surgeon, but he's also known for being a very quiet person who rarely speaks to you when you're in the room. He has that very reserved personality. And he had exhibited that to me through examinations. But uh, somewhere along the line, because that's a process, you go several times, or at least you did when I was going, uh, he learned that I was into photography. He got so excited, he started talking to me about photography, started telling me about his daughter, who is a professional photographer. Oh. And it was just I had bought the uh Adobe Photoshop, but it was just as Lightroom, which is an adjacent program to it. It's a uh an addition, started telling me about Photoshop. I mean uh Lightroom, I'm sorry, and a book that I needed to buy. I went out immediately and bought the book, and it's uh an inch thick if it's anything. He said, now you read this book all the way through before you put it on your computer and start using it, which I did, and it's a lot of technical I had to read and reread sometimes. But you know, that opened up a brand new world to me in editing and because photography's all about light.

SPEAKER_01 59:00

Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 59:01

Shades of light, light, dark, shadows, so many things. And just that little brief encounter with Dr. Cass just redirected my photography. And I use it to this day, and now you can get Lightroom on your phone. Except if you've got a late model iPhone, you don't need it because it has the built-in editing tools that are just as good as Lightroom, but Lightroom is available if you want it on your phone. It'll do a few things that your phone editor won't do.

SPEAKER_00 59:34

Well, speaking of the iPhone, we know I'm going on a trip. I'm gonna take my iPhone. Just give me a couple of things that I could do to make my pictures better. I know to turn it on. You know, I hit that camera button and it comes on and I aim it and I hit the button again and there's a picture there.

SPEAKER_04 59:54

Well that will that will work because iPhones now are that good. Yeah, I get that. But if you particularly want that bear on the shore, touch the bear and bring it more into focus. That will focus the bear and the surround your the area around it will maybe not be in the focus as much. And then there's another thing you can do. As you've touched the bear, you can run your finger up and down the screen and that will quickly bring up light or it'll bring light down. It will help you adjust your light a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:29

Let me just get that's enough because that's that's really all you need.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:33

I'm in camera mode and I'm looking through my iPhone, and there's a bear up here in the upper right hand corner, and you're saying that if I touch the upper right hand corner of the screen, it's gonna focus on that bear.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:48

Jim, this is basic. You should have known this already.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:53

Oh man.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:55

A little a little, it will be framed with a little yellow frame, and that's showing you what's in focus. I've seen that little yellow frame. That's the focus spot. And you've also seen a little star. That little star is showing you where you can adjust exposure, up or down, by just sliding your finger up. And now it takes a little practice, so you need to get over here on the porch and take a few shots of your trees and practice getting your light right.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:23

My goodness. Did you know that, dear?

SPEAKER_04 1:01:27

That's that may be all I know.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:29

That's enough.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:30

I I uh it really helps you, and then if you don't get it right, you can go into your editing tools after your shot. Editing. But you can't decide which area of the picture you want to focus. That's coming, I'm pretty sure, but it's not. That's what this little camera I was telling you about a while ago uh actually started was the ability to focus one area of your screen.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:53

Well, that's pretty good.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:55

You can do this. Just get out and practice a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:58

And then you can share all these photographs with the whole world. You you've got a couple we've talked about the iPhone. Anything else you want to tell me about the iPhone? You've already helped me for this trip.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:10

Not about the iPhone in general, but just my philosophy is let it come to you. Don't set your mind on a specific something you want. Like if I spend my whole time on this trip we're getting ready to take looking for a grizzly bear. Right. I will miss so much as we're going through the inland passage. Now there's gonna be other things, of course, but if that's the one thing I want, my trip will be a disappointment if I don't get it. But if you just let the trip come to you, let the day come to you and see what happens, you'll get a better picture.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:44

Are you gonna have your good camera? I I'm saying good camera in quotes, I guess. Are you gonna have it with you most of the time? Or are you gonna y no?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:54

That is specifically because it's heavy, and I don't want to carry a gear around with me everywhere I go. Because the iPhone is that good now. I I take good landscapes with the iPhone all the time. I take in my better camera just for uh the ability to zoom.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:10

Okay, you brought something up. Landscapes. I've seen people turn their phone sideways to take a picture. Do you ever do that?

SPEAKER_04 1:03:18

It's called landscape mode. Yeah. You know, you turn it sideways and you get the landscape mode, which gives you a broader, wider view. And you can always zoom it back, I mean you can crop it back down to a p a portrait ratio if you want to, if there's something in there. But portrait is for up and down, landscape is for horizontal and it it works beautifully.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:42

What is that portrait part? I tried to use it once, but I couldn't quite figure it out.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:48

Says natural lighting. I can't tell that much difference, but then that probably means inside in a studio or in a room in in your h home. Yeah. And most of my photography and my interests is outside.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:03

I've done panorama shots. Yeah. Have you ever done that?

SPEAKER_04 1:04:07

Good way to do a building.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:08

A building. Oh.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:10

If you got a tall building, put your own panorama. It starts slow and you just go up the building, you can get the whole building. You can't get a tall building. These European buildings are so tall and the cathedrals and things. You can't get far enough back to get the whole building if you just take a regular shot. But if panorama comes in, it's be you it's the best trick I know for getting a tall building.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:33

Are you telling me that you can do vertical with panorama?

unknown 1:04:36

Sure.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:37

Turn it sideways.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:38

And the arrow goes up and you just take your your camera up. Well, this is like I just went out and bought a nice new piece of equipment.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:47

I'm wondering how much of this our audience is really interested in. I hope we're not boring everybody.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:54

No, uh listen, there's got to be somebody out there that's just like me that didn't have any idea that you could do a vertical panorama.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:03

So it's I you know I didn't come to be an instructor. I came to share philosophy a little bit because I I'm a pure amateur. Well I've learned a few tricks along the way.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:17

You you have uh instructed me quite a bit. What do you want to impart to us as your kind of your parting shot here?

SPEAKER_04 1:05:26

Whether it's photography or whether it's hiking or whether it's fishing, if it's a hobby, enjoy it. Don't make it a job.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:34

That's a good note to end on. So thanks, Annette, for coming up on the porch with us.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:39

Jim, I think this is your sixteenth. I'm not sure. Really? I was your first. Yes. And I'm thrilled to death to be your sixteenth. I will not be your thirty second.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:49

Oh no. Well, we don't know that. Uh hopefully there is a thirty second. There will be. And if there is, hopefully you'll be here to uh to take part in.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:59

I'll be cheering you. You won't.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:00

Okay, well I'll I'll take it. I'll take any chair and I can get. Here's some things I keep promise you that are coming up. I do have now, I have secured uh someone who is an eyewitness to a Bigfoot sighting. I'm gonna bring them on the program probably in July. I have convinced a couple of prominent people to come and talk to us about the ghost story. So kind of got that in a bag. So that's coming up. Still searching for our Brown Mountain Light expert, but I guarantee you we'll find an expert and we'll find out if there is such a thing. So keep an open mind. That's coming. Next week, uh Steve Pierce and I are going to talk in detail. We're gonna pick about a dozen trails and we're gonna talk to talk to you about them in detail. So if you're a hiker, you wanna be aware of this program. You may want to record it or some iPhones will print it out because we're gonna give you directions on how to get to the trailhead, what to wear, what to take. Now these are hardcore trails. We're not gonna talk about the Greenway or Fanta Flora, all good options, but you can find those uh on the internet if you want to. Steve and I are gonna give you our opinions about some little more difficult trails. So if you're a a hiker or you're vacationing in the really western North Carolina area, uh you want to catch this program. I think you'll you'll get some good out of it. Uh again, I want to thank everyone. Believe it or not, uh I have a counter that shows how many of you uh punch that follow button. Uh I'm over 700 now. And I I just want to thank everyone for that. Really, I'm kind of where I want to be. Uh I've got numbers now that have far exceeded where I thought I would get with the podcast. So uh I have everyone uh in the listening audience to thank for that. And I certainly do thank you. Uh also thank you for your emails. You can get in touch with me at On the Porch with Jim Williams. That's one word, on the porch with Jim Williams. I know it's a long one, at gmail.com. Send me an email and let me know if you've got something that you want me to try to talk about. Remember, we focus on Marion and McDowell County, but we're pretty much unlimited. If you've got something that you want me to investigate, I'll be glad to do it. Or if you want to come and talk to me, I'll be glad to do that too. Again, thank you all for listening and enjoying the show. I hope you're enjoying it. I certainly am. And I'll see you next week on the board.