On the Monday before we left Omaha, we made a family trip to the Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium. I did a little math the day before, and even with my military discount, buying the yearly membership was only going to cost about $30 more than purchasing 5 individual tickets; so that what I did.

Lol, I obviously don’t live in Omaha and I’m not sure we’ll even go back within a year, but I like zoos, so it seemed like the right thing to do.

The first animal pictures I took weren’t even zoo residents.

At every eating location, the birds were very comfortable around people. That house sparrow above landed just a couple of feet from me, and didn’t seem in any particular hurry to move.

I loved the colors on this Brewer’s Blackbird.

Then we were off to ‘Africa’.

This is just a preference of mine, but if I’m going to photograph animals in a zoo and there’s no way to hide the fact that they’re in an enclosure, then I’ll probably try to include the people observing them into the image in some way or another. (you’ll see this again a few more times throughout this post)

I took several pictures of the lions, but the one above was my favorite, so for the sake of not overloading you with too many pictures, that’s the one I’ll post.

I also managed to somehow get a half decent shot of this Cheetah relaxing in the grass.

We did not see Pumba anywhere. Maybe the lions got him? 😎

The bubble blowing Rhino

I came around the corner, and Timmy had struck up a conversation with one of the docents. He was explaining that he hoped Hilly (the female rhino) would get in the water at some point, since she sometimes blows bubbles.

About 5 minutes later she did just that!

Everybody loves monkeys!

Okay, so this was just a bronze statue of an orangutan, but I liked the scene so took the shot anyway. We did also get to see some live monkeys.

The gorillas were all behind glass enclosures. But in some ways, that almost made interacting with them slightly more possible.

High ISO reptile photos

So this was not the sharpest image that I could have gotten of an alligator ,but you’re just going to have to believe me when I tell you how dark it was in that exhibit. I don’t have the newest camera, but it’s still leaps and bounds above my old 20D when it comes to high ISO. I would have been hesitant to go above ISO 1600 with that camera. I was a little nervous about 12,800 for this shot, but denoise in Lightroom is pretty amazing.

This rattlesnake shot was another good ISO 12,800 example. Between denoise and adaptive color, Lightroom turned the image on the right (that I might not have even attempted to edit in the past) into something almost shareable on the left.

The Aquarium

If there was one exhibit where I probably should have used my phone instead of my Canon 80D a bit more often, it was inside the aquarium. That said, I did capture what was probably my favorite shot of the day in that dark room with a 70-200mm lens attached.

I also had a few other shots in a similar vein that came together almost exactly as I’d planned them …

I did get fish picture that I didn’t hate.

Okay, this feels a little like cheating.

Many of you may be aware that I take a lot of bird pictures when I’m out and about back in Arizona … all in the wild. So I feel a little bit guilty about including shots of captive birds in this post. A bit of a mitigating factor though, is that most of these were taken in large open exhibits, such as the rainforest.

These burrowing owls are seen pretty regularly here in Arizona, but apparently we had to go all the way to Nebraska to see one up close.

Birds weren’t the only thing flying in the rain forest exhibit

Yep, that’s a bat!

Butterflies

There is a dedicated butterfly house that I didn’t discover until near the end of our day. I basically just walked through and snapped a few shots, but I could have easily spent an hour or more in this exhibit.

Centenarian?

I can’t say for certain this was the oldest creature in not only the zoo, but maybe the city. But I if I had to make a bet …

The American Teen

Finally, we arrive at some of the highest maintenance and most expensive to care for “animals” we encountered that day. 😎

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We arrived at the Logan IA community center at 9:15 am.

Aunt Ellen who owns the local motel was nominally running the show, but we quickly discovered that the plan was pretty flexible. None-the-less, one of the groomsmen, Jaden and I eagerly jumped in to do whatever we were told.

Despite mild warnings I’d been given, Ellen was easy to work with. She had her ideas, but was also open to suggestions, and even implemented a few of mine.

Then at about 11am Kelly and Aunt Becky took a break from cake decorating to come provide additional help with the venue setup.

For me at least, the atmosphere quickly became noticeably more tense.

I like to think that my time in the military provided me with the attributes of both a good leader and a good follower. But for some reason, when it came to the second task, I found it much easier to take “orders” from Aunt Ellen than even “suggestions” from Kelly.

Why is that?

What is it that makes it easier (for some of us anyway) to interact, work, and comprise with people we’ve just met, than with someone we’ve been in a relationship with for years?

In the end, I apparently held things together pretty well …

However, I’m left searching for strategies I can use to repeat this behavior when we’re back home with only ourselves (and maybe the teens) around.

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We’ve all heard the advice to “dance like no one’s watching”.

I think I need modify that a little bit for my interactions with Kelly to:

Talk and respond like the room is full of people you just met.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Til next time,

Todd

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… and yes, it’s true, I am very much Imperfect Todd

But even as much as I truly believe that I could be doing better at a lot of things, the reality is, relatively speaking (perspective) my life is pretty darn good.

And more importantly …

I fully expect (optimism) that it’s going to keep getting better.

I think perspective and optimism kind of go hand in hand, at least in the respect that it’s a little easier to be optimistic about the future if you possess the ability to put your past and present in perspective.

We humans tend to have a natural bias towards negativity (and sometimes it’s even warranted) but in every situation (especially the “bad” ones) there is a magic rhetorical question we can ask ourselves that helps put thing in perspective:

Seriously.

Sometimes it’s really hard, and it may take quite a while to come up with an acceptable answer, but ultimately there’s always going to be something we can grasp on to.

There’s also a kind of companion question that helps even more when it comes to perspective:

I’ll give you kind of a silly example …

I recently got a raise at work (yes, us federal employees get those every year or two) and after doing the math, I caught myself lamenting that the $200 or so a month (the actual amount of the raise) wouldn’t make a material difference in my lifestyle.

Then I caught myself …

Wait, what the fuck Todd?

If I were working for minimum wage at Walmart or a fast food place, I would be over the moon about earning $200 more a month.

Damn …

Shut up and be thankful already!

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… and that’s perspective in a nutshell.

No matter where we currently sit on the totem pole of life, we all almost certainly have some things to be grateful for.

Which bring me to Optimism …

I’ve actually been scolded that “you’re not really an optimist” because I sometimes get depressed, angry, or un-appreciative about the curveballs that life often throws our way. This totally misunderstands what that word means.

Optimism is not the (irrational) belief that things are “always good”.

Instead, it’s the faith that even when we find ourselves in stormy waters, we will eventually enjoy basking in the sunlight again, because given a long-enough timeline life pretty much always evens out.

At certain points in my life I may have take this slightly to the extreme. This was my literal self talk:

… and that’s always proven to be true!

The good stuff does come.

Which brings me right back to the theme of this New Greater YOU site.

It’s okay to suck.

Just because we’re imperfect now, doesn’t mean that there’s not a better version of ourselves parked somewhere down around the corner of time, just waiting to be discovered and occupied.

Til next time,

Todd

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If I lived in the Phoenix area I would probably visit the Riparian Preserve at Gilbert Water Ranch at least 2 or 3 times a week.

But since I live 3 hours away, I just get there when I can.

This past Wednesday I was going to pick my daughter and her mom up from the airport when I found out their flight was delayed. My camera was already in the car, so I popped the water ranch coordinates into my GPS.

When I arrived I quickly discovered that all of my hats were somehow still at home or in one of the other cars. Due to a very real fear of a sunburned head, I only stayed at the park for about an hour. 😎

But even in that short time, and even though the ponds were a little low (or in a few cases totally dry) I still saw so many interesting birds.

With seven recharge ponds and an urban fishing lake, shorebirds are usually the main attraction, and on this day I was not disappointed.

Even the White Pelicans who I thought were just migrating through when I saw them the last time in November, were still here.

And of course the snowy egrets!

In addition to the ponds, this park contains walking paths and lot of trees. So of course I also ran into some other non-water birds.

While these aren’t the greatest images, I’m always happy when I can capture pictures of hummingbirds nowhere near those red plastic feeders.

There was even a turkey vulture circling overhead.

Not sure exactly what he was looking for. Perhaps hoping that one of the pigeon fights might go a little more off the rails next time?

… and I managed to see and photograph all of that in about 60 minutes. 😁

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It was a long time ago.

Apparently I’ve got a slightly compressed L5-S1. In addition to the pain, I have continually numb feet and tingly legs, due to sciatica.

Now here’s the “interesting” (not!) part …

Ask me if I’m doing anything about my back pain? (other than commenting that it hurts multiple times a day)

Survey says: NOPE!

Now ask me if I’m already aware of things that I could be doing, but am apparently too lazy or stubborn to keep up with regularly?

You guessed it …

I’ve been to doctor’s appointments and physical therapy. I’ve also been provided numerous handouts and websites with stretching exercises to do daily. In addition, I’ve been talking for a while about doing yoga (which I quite enjoy) every morning.

I even found stuff like this already saved in my Google photos (not sure of the source)

But somehow I’m always “too busy” or even better “forget” to do any of it.

Instead I just say “ouch!” a lot.

Time for a turn around:

I know that I have to do something (other than belly ache).

But there are so many options …

Besides all of the articles about “back pain” here on Substack, I already subscribe to a couple of yoga publications.

Yoga Living 50 and Beyond

Does your lower back scream? How to make it happier

Lower back pain is common in aging adults. A quick Google search shows that anywhere from 39-84% of adults experience lower back pain at some point in their life. Yoga and core strengthening practices can give you the strength and mobility that you need to support your lower back, to both prevent pain, and help you through the pain when it happens…

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2 years ago · 24 likes · 37 comments · Janine Agoglia

Yoga For Tired People

A 5-minute midday stretch for the low back

Hi Tired Yogi…

Listen now

a year ago · 390 likes · 29 comments · Jo Hutton

Then The NY Times is telling me to strengthen my core and move every day.

NY Times: To Ease Sciatica, Keep Moving (gift link)

Duh, thanks.

Finally, the VA also has a ton of information and resources.

https://www.va.gov/WHOLEHEALTHLIBRARY/tools/low-back-pain.asp

… which probably goes at least a short way towards explaining why I so often do nothing.

I think I just need to get back in the habit of doing something, every day.

In the end, I think the easiest path is the 12 year old You Tube video I already have saved in my favorites and bookmarked on my living room tv:

And the 2-3 mile walk that we already go on most evenings.

When this becomes a legitimate habit, then I can try to tackle the more advanced stuff.

Til next time,

Todd

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But among the most easily falsifiable is the idea that:

Yea, nope … survey (and waistline) says BULLSHIT!

I’m not legitimately fat again like I was back in 2019. But damn if I don’t allow myself way too many doughnuts and second or third slices of pizza these days.

So what’s the solution?

Record every single thing that I eat, every single day.

If I want to eat a cookie or a piece of cake, I still can.

But it’s going to live on forever in my food log.

The psychology of this is more powerful than you might expect.

How do you track your food?

It could be as simple as carrying around a little notebook in your pocket. But let’s be real, these days just about everybody has their phone with them all the time.

From 2019-2022 I used an app.

Unfortunately that app is no longer supported, so I wasn’t able to load it on my new phone. I was able to find a reasonable alternative though:

Food Diary (android)

Opinions on this may vary, but here’s what I look for in a food logging app:

• It needs to have an easy way for me to record what I ate

• It needs to record the date/time I ate it

That’s it. I don’t want anything fancy.

I don’t need something to try to estimate calories, calculate the macros, build a grocery list, or any of that other extraneous crap.

I just need to be able to see what I ate and when I ate it … ideally going back years.

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So that’s the deal with food tracking.

It’s something I should probably keep doing forever (due to the obvious benefits).

It’s not at all difficult to do.

So why the hell haven’t I been doing it lately?

Another (easy?) fix that starts today.

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Onward and upward (or downward?) …

185 lbs here I come again!

Til next time,

Todd

www.AComplaintFreeWorld.org

First a confession: I bought this book over 2 years ago, and have been wearing one of (I bought a 10 pack) the purple wristbands almost every day since.

But I haven’t been actively trying to follow the program. 😟 In fact I can’t remember the last time I even switched it to the other wrist. I still complain A LOT … ironically, mostly about how much and how often someone else complains.

That changes today.

I’m going to reread the book again, but the basic concept is pretty simple:

• Wear the wristband

• Anytime you complain, criticize, or gossip you switch wrists

• You also go back to Day 1

• The Goal is to get to 21 Days complaint free

Even when you’re actively trying, it’s not easy. It may take months to advance past day 2 or 3. Then if you have a slip at Day 14, or even 20, it’s back to the start at Day 1.

This is an obvious first step towards my goal of trying to be the best version of Todd that I can be. One of my improvement list items in my intro post was working to cut down/eliminate my occasional outbursts of anger.

Here’s the thing, most/all of my angry outbursts usually involve some form of complaints or criticism.

Initially, even if having to stop to switch the wristband just cuts down on the duration of some of my rants, it will be a pretty clear win.

Wish me luck.

I won’t bore you with updates every day, but I will let you know if I hit a good milestone.

Anybody else want to give this a try?

(The book and the purple wristbands from the website are helpful, but you can do this with a rubber band, a ring, or even a rock or coin that you switch from pocket to pocket)

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Til next time,

Todd

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I know I (sadly) didn’t when I lived there.

Although it wasn’t a regular activity (again sadly) for me. My entire work crew did go hiking once (mandatory fun) the last time I lived there.

… and of course I brought my camera.

Most people who come to Waikiki Beach, and even some who are stationed at the military bases don’t realize that most of the middle part of the island is a literal jungle. Seriously, I have a friend there who does volunteer search and rescue, and it can sometimes take days to find someone who gets lost in the mountains and valleys of central Oahu.

As I said, this was one of those work gatherings where we all got together for a hike and called it “a long PT session”. Looking now at Alltrails this is supposedly a “hard” rated hike. But I don’t really remember it being that bad at the time. Of course I was in much better shape back then … thanks to PT 5 days a week.

I wish I could tell you the exact route we took, what I put in my pack, how it felt to ascend that mountain. But this took place almost 18 years ago, and I honestly wasn’t much of a hiker then. I was however just starting to get into photography at this point, and already owned a dSLR (Canon 20D) and a big white L lens (70-200mm) to go with it.

Remember a few paragraphs up where I told you that this part of the island is a literal jungle? Well, see for yourself …

It feels like you could easily disappear in those trees and never be found.

Of course those weren’t the only views. This hike takes place along a high ridge line, so you can see in several different directions as points along the hike.

I think in part of the view above you can see the Kualoa Ranch, where parts of the original Jurassic Park movie was shot after the main set on Kauai was damaged by Hurricane Iniki.

Of course the view provided a great excuse to stop and take a little break.

But then if you turned around and looked the other direction …

Even back then though, I also couldn’t resist taking pictures of smaller things that were right in front of me.

Eventually it was time to call it a day and head back to the car.

I’ve lived in Hawaii three times in my life, and I enjoyed every bit of each stretch. But if I lived there again today, I would definitely be up hiking in those mountains significantly more frequently than I did when I was last there.

Have you ever hiked in Hawaii?

Which trail(s)?

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I have a nice job, live in a great location, and have a supportive and loving family.

All-in-all I live a pretty good life.

But …

(lol, there’s always a “but”)

There are at least a few areas of my existence that I struggle with daily

… and the really frustrating thing is, I (think) already know what I need to do to improve many of these issues.

However, for some reason I don’t … at least not consistently.

Here is a short list of things that I want/need to improve:

• Stop Procrastinating

• Control (irrational?) outbursts of anger

• Stretch every day (or at least more often)

• Get my heart rate up / get sweaty every day (or at least more often)

• Eat more of the good foods (I actually like) instead of the junk that’s easy to grab

• Be a cleaner/neater person when it come to my/shared space (this one’s for Kelly)

• Read more fiction … and correspondingly less non-fiction / “news”

This list is obviously not all inclusive. Nor is it in any particular order.

These are just areas were I think/know I can improve, but I suspect that I might benefit from some accountability.

That’s where this new Substack comes in …

I’ll start of with what this won’t be.

I will not be presenting myself as any kind of an “expert” or trying to “teach” anything to anybody who may be following along.

What I am going to do is explore my own struggles.

Maybe share any resources and techniques that I choose to try.

Discuss what worked and what didn’t, and maybe ask for help with the “why”.

You know, “wisdom of the crowds” and all that.

I have no idea if anybody will even be interested in reading this. (and if nobody does, that’s okay,

… and I don’t have a good answer for “what’s in it for you?” if you subscribe.

But I feel like the whole exercise is more likely to help me if it’s an interactive experience. So Thank You in advance if you decide to follow along.

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Todd

p.s. I also can’t predict right now how often I’ll post here. The honest answer is probably “whenever it feels like I have something to write about”.

But, since I live here in the real world …

The overwhelming majority of pictures I capture these days happen on either a decade old Canon 80D dSLR, or my Pixel 9 Pro XL smartphone.

Heck, even with the 80D, I bought it used about 5 years ago for $500. Before that I shot for a couple of years with a $300 EOS M, and before that, with a Canon 20D that I did buy new, in 2004.

I’m not mad or disappointed about it though. Below are examples of images from each camera. If I didn’t tell you which two were taken on phones could you guess?

Heck, now that I’m lookin though my archive, I remember that my first “real” camera was a Sony F-717 that I got in 2002. Check out this shot I captured with that 5 megapixel fixed lens beast:

Final caveat: I DO own some pretty nice lenses. But even those were bought used, or are from quality 3rd parties. The Sigma 150-600mm that Kelly got me for my birthday is attached to the Canon 95% of the time. I also have a 70-200F4L (that I bought with poker winnings in 2005), a Tamron 28-75 F2.8 (this was the first and one of the only new lenses I ever bought, also in 2005), a 17mm Tokina, and (if I can ever find it) a Tamron 90mm macro (which was a gift from a friend).

Bottom line: it would be fun to have one (or more) of the latest and greatest digital cameras. But realistically, unless you’re getting paid to do this, you can probably have a perfectly enjoyable time taking just about any kind of pictures, with a camera that doesn’t cost four figures.

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At first I thought we might head down to the San Pedro River this morning. But then Kelly really wanted to see how far up Huachuca Canyon we could drive the Jeep … kind of a scouting trip for next time we try to climb Huachuca Peak.

A couple of weeks ago when we were in Sunnyside Canyon on the backside of Huachuca Mountains we’d heard 3 or 4 male trogons calling out (they have a very distinctive call, that sounds a little like a barking dog). Since I knew that the trogons are here, I was kind of hoping we might run into one if we went with Kelly’s Jeep adventure idea.

As you can see by the picture above, I was rewarded for my flexibility. 😎

It turns out the road really wasn’t too bad. It’s rocky, but we never even had to switch to 4-wheel drive. Our original goal was to drive up Huachuca Canyon road as close as we could get to Crest Trail. We ended up stopping about a 1 1/2 short due to some hikers on the trail (but we could have kept going).

It worked out well that we stopped where we stopped though.

Almost as soon as we got out of the Jeep there was a male turkey strutting around and displaying his feathers for a couple of females.

I was happy enough with at least one shot I got of the turkey. But then Kelly showed me what she captured with her phone, and I think hers is better.

Then we heard the trogon calling … and it was really close. Kelly pointed out what looked sort of like a trail off to the right, so we headed down it.

The first picture I took in these woods was actually a different bird entirely.

But then we caught a little bit of movement about a 75 yards up ahead. This is where I’m really thankful to have a 600mm lens and a camera that still captures reasonably good images even at ISO 2000. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure until we got home and I had a chance to look on the computer screen whether or not I’d even gotten a “keeper”.

As it stands though, I think I like this shot almost as much as the image I captured the first time I saw this bird up close way back in 2014.

After the trogon noticed us and flew away, we turned around and started heading back down the “trail”. I realized I’d left my phone in the Jeep, so went back to retrieve it. When I didn’t get back to where she was quickly enough, she called out to chide me:

lol, not quite. I knew we weren’t done. We still had to verify whether or not the rest of the road would be drivable all the way to the end.

It turns out we could have kept driving just fine. But since we were out of the Jeep, we managed to get a little two and half mile nature walk in addition to our canyon drive and trogon encounter.

Also, of course we got some butterfly pictures.

Interesting aside:

Up until November of 2025, every time I’d photographed this bird, I had (correctly at the time) called in the Elegant Trogon. Now experts have determined that there are two distinct species; with the Coppery-tailed trogon covering a range from southern Mexico into extreme Southeast Arizona, and the Elegant Trogon now only being those found in Central America.

In any case, our Southeast Arizona sky islands are the only place in the United States that you can see this bird … and it is a big part of the reason birders come here from all over the country, and the world.

Your Turn:

Have you ever set out with one destination in mind, only to have a change of heart lead you to something even better? I’d love to hear about the best thing you’ve found by being flexible.

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I consider myself more “birder adjacent” rather than an actual birder. But living in southeast Arizona, birds are one of those things that I do happen to take quite a few pictures of. I’ve had the eBird app on my phone for quite a while now, but never really used it. Then I was reading an article here on substack:

Birding University

eBird 101

If you’ve spent any time birding in recent years, you’ve almost certainly heard of eBird. Maybe it was someone mentioning a recen…

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2 months ago · 22 likes · 3 comments · Birding University

I end up taking pictures of almost every bird I see anyway, so there really no good reason I shouldn’t be filling out these checklists … at the very least later when I’m editing my pictures.

So this afternoon, that’s what I did.

First I went out to Ramsey Canyon and totally struck out when it comes to looking for birds, or any other wildlife for that matter. But then on the drive out I decided to stop down at the Brown Canyon Ranch House. There’s a little pond in the front surrounded by trees.

I was able to get pictures of 10 different types of birds. Nothing really unique or spectacular. But it did give me a chance to practice filling out the checklist and uploading my pictures to the eBird website.

The only thing I didn’t include were some hummingbirds that buzzed me a few times. I could take a guess about what type they were, but honestly I never really got a good look (let alone a picture), so decided to leave them off my list.

Here’s what I did see:

As you can see, taking pictures for birding identification is slightly different than what I might normally process and share. For instance, that Ash-throated Flycatcher shot with a freshly caught bug is an interesting scene. But given the missed focus softness of the image, if I didn’t need it for ID purposes, I probably wouldn’t have even edited it at all.

Your Turn:

Have you ever completed an eBird checklist? Did you include pictures or audio?

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Nobody likes flies. We have sprays, electric zappers, and even plastic swatters named specifically for the insect they are designed to kill. All of this is totally understandable. Flies really are pretty disgusting. They spread disease, they bite, and even when not doing those things, they’re still just plain annoying.

Plus, if you ever get a good close look, some of them are truly nightmare inducing. Could you imagine if that robber fly was the size of a bird?

Yikes!

But a really funny thing happens if the word Dragon or Butter comes before the fly part … they suddenly become super cool and people love them!

This is the despite the fact that I have plenty of pictures of dragonflies doing essentially the same thing (eating another insect) as that robber fly in the first image.

I will freely admit that it’s much harder to find anything nearly as objectionable about butterflies. But they do none-the-less still have “fly” in their name.

When I’m out on the trail in the mountains or down by the river with a long lens on my camera, I’m usually looking for birds or other animals to photograph. But it’s nice that there are almost always also butterflies and dragonflies around.

I don’t always just take their picture as an aside though. One time, back in 2013 I laid on my stomach in a field for about 45 minutes trying to get this shot:

Even just this afternoon when I stopped at Huachuca Canyon after I got off work, I couldn’t resist capturing (and now sharing) this dragonfly porn. 😎

Of course this a decades long love affair for me. While I couldn’t tell you when I first took a picture of a dragon or butterfly, but I’m pretty sure this image captured on a Sony F-717 in 2004 may be one of the oldest in my archives.

Your Turn:

We all love butterflies and dragonflies, but is there a 'creepy' insect you actually find fascinating to look at?

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I’ve had the Adobe Lightroom plan that includes 1 TB of cloud storage for 5 or 6 years now. Until very recently, I’d only used Lightroom and never explored any of the other features that are included with the plan.

I was vaguely aware of Adobe Portfolio, but I had no idea how it works; and to be honest I’m pretty sure I thought it would be really complicated.

The first thing you’re going to do is go to https://portfolio.adobe.com and sign in with your adobe account. Then you are going to click “New Site”.

You can have up to 5 sites. I first got the idea of using this tool when I did my 2025 Review post. Instead of downloading then reuploading a whole bunch of pictures, I just created a folder for each month right in my Lightroom cloud.

I then went back over to Adobe Portfolio and under “Integrations” I added all 12 albums, which then became separate galleries on that site.

If you later add more pictures to one of your albums, in portfolio you simply go to “Page” then scroll down to “reset from Lightroom”.

There are a lot of other cool things that you can do with your galleries, such as using a custom domain name and linking to your other site (like your substack).

But rather than bore you with more screenshots, I’m just going to link you over to Adobe’s Portfolio Knowledge base: https://help.myportfolio.com/hc/en-us

Your Turn:

Where do you normally host your picture galleries? If you build a site with Adobe Portfolio, shoot me a link below so that I can check it out.

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When I moved to Arizona the first time in 2014, this bird was one of my nemesis. I think it was a good 2-3 months between the first time I saw one down by the river and the first time I was able to capture a nice crisp image.

This shot was pretty indicative of those first couple of months chasing this bird. I could just never get close before it flew away, even if I did sometimes end up with interesting pictures anyway.

I did end up getting more shots of the vermillion flycatcher over the next couple of years, including a few of the male and female together.

It’s funny, because since I’ve come back to Arizona, it seems like almost every time I’m out with my camera (including yesterday) one of these birds will just fly up and pose almost right in front of me.

Unless you live in Arizona or south Texas, you may not have seen this bird yet.

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Vermilion_Flycatcher/overview

But if you do visit this area, I’m sure you’ll see at least a few. The male’s bright red feathers are kind of hard to miss. And if you’re hoping to capture a picture or two, I hope you have better luck than I did during that first year. 😎

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Like millions of other people around the country (and the world) we attended our local No Kings rally on Saturday afternoon. Of course I brought my camera. I clicked the shutter a little over 400 times. But after some editing time at the computer, I managed to come up with 30 images that I think tell the story.

I had a minor failure of persuasion before we even left the house. I asked the teens if they wanted to make signs and go. My 17 y/o daughter’s response:

“Come on dad, there’s going to be mostly old people there, and I already deal with enough of them at work.”

Fortunately we did see a few young people at the protest.

But ultimately she was mostly correct. This is a retirement town, so the demographics skew older. But it seems just about everywhere that the people showing up to many of these protests mostly have gray hair.

Another demographic that’s well represented in our town in Veterans, and they (okay we) were definitely out there among the crowd.

Another thing I saw a lot of this afternoon was American flags and smiling faces. Heck, even the police officer who was assigned to walk the crowd seemed to be enjoying himself.

Of course some people came dressed up in costumes or with accessories.

And last but not least, there were quite a few funny and imaginative signs …

Your turn:

Did you attend (or at least drive by) a No Kings protest in your city or town?

Leave a comment

Til next time,

~ Todd

p.s. if you’re not a subscriber yet, I’d love to have your join our little group. If you do already subscribe, thank you! Please consider sharing this post with others:

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As a weather forecaster who likes to take pictures, you’d think I’d have plenty of really cool storm shots. I have taken quite a few weather pictures over the years, but the ones I like best are mostly from the 8 months I lived in Lawton Oklahoma in 2017.

I have seen some interesting severe weather outbreaks, especially while I’ve been at work. Unfortunately, on most of those occasions, the only camera I had with me was my phone. Still managed to capture the blue/green skies indicative of potentially large hail.

Don’t get me wrong, even with just the phone I’ve managed to capture some pretty cool long exposure lightning shots over the years.

Every once in a while it’s even possible to catch a lighting bolt during the day.

Of course, not every weather shot has to have lightning or severe signatures. Sometimes just being accompanied by a rainbow is more than enough.

This past year, probably my favorite weather picture wasn’t ever really a thunderstorm. Haboobs (aka giant walls of dust) are relatively rare in this part of Arizona, so of course when it looked like one might be coming, of course I had to go get a few shots.

I had my Canon dSLR with me, but the best shots of this storm were actually captured using the panoramic mode on my Pixel 9 Pro XL phone.

For the first time in a couple of years, we are supposed to have above average precipitation this monsoon season … which will likely mean more photogenic thunderstorms. I plan to capture more images with my real camera this year.

I really need to try to find my tripod before then though. lol, I think it’s probably hiding in the same place as my long-lost macro lens.

Your Turn:

Do you ever chase storms or other weather to capture pictures and videos?

Leave a comment

Til next time,

Todd

I don’t want to make you think, I don’t want to try to teach you anything, and I certainly don’t want to sell you anything.

If you come across one of my notes or posts, I hope that it’s a “break” from all the serious stuff.

Or, if I occasionally let myself stray out of my happy lane, I hope that it’s at least something where we can find strength in numbers; knowing we’re not alone.

In the end though, I’m happy to just get out with my camera and maybe inspire a smile or two when I share the final results.

I don’t know that I’ll always succeed. But I do know that if I’m at least trying to hold up my end of the bargain, I myself will likely also have a much more relaxing time while browsing the substack feed.

Your Turn:

What sort of intentional efforts have you made to curate your Notes feed into something that makes you feel good when you scroll?

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Til next time,

Todd

Every photo tells a story, and stories are better with company. If you enjoyed this glimpse of our life in the Sky Islands, pass it along to a fellow explorer.

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I went from a day where I didn’t plan on taking any pictures, to having almost 1500 images on an SD card by the evening. I ended up editing about 150 images and plan to share a couple dozen or so in this post.

When I used to take skateboard pictures of my son, I almost always used a wide lens from a low angle. But since I didn’t know these kids (or if I was even going into the skate park itself), I just left the Sigma 150-600mm on the camera. I did still get some action shots, but the longer lens also allowed me to focus a bit on the skate crew and the crowd.

I had the aperture at F8 the whole time, so not always a lot of background blur (especially when I was at 150mm). But it sometimes paid off. For instance, I don’t even mind that the skater who wiped out wasn’t in focus here; the reaction of his buddies was the better visual story anyway.

If you know me, you know I like to take pictures of other people taking pictures.

Pretty sure this girls had the best seat in the house to catch the action.

As I said, getting “action” shots with the long lens was a bit different than what I was used to during previous skateboarding shoots. But I got a few I liked.

And then there were a couple of cool shadow shots (wish I’d gotten more)

Skate kids don’t always have the best reputation, but I remember from when my son was into it, that’s usually not deserved. This was a competition, but you could tell they were all friends and sportsmanship was front and center.

In the end, it looked like everyone, including the judges had a really good time.

Now that I’ve gotten a taste of this again, I think I may have to put the wide angle lens on my camera and got back over to the park one of these afternoons to see if I can get to know any of these skaters and maybe get some better action shots for another future post.

I made an album with the rest of the pictures:

https://sierravistaskatepark.myportfolio.com

Til next time,

Todd

p.s. if you’re not a subscriber yet, I’d love to have your join our little group. If you do already subscribe, thank you! Please consider sharing this post with others:

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I don’t know exactly how Josh’s idea about a group “car week” for photographers here on Substack came across my feed. But it sounded interesting, so my immediate reaction was:

One minor issue: I don’t actually take very many car pictures. I mean we definitely have plenty of very cool cars here in southeast Arizona, so I could probably head out with my camera and get some good shots. But there are some really talented photographers who also signed up for this, and I’m looking forward to seeing what I expect will be amazing car pictures from them. I wanted to try to do something a little bit (hopefully) unique instead.

I thought about the image at the top of this page (“The Fog of War”). It’s a little soft and and maybe even a bit out of focus ( took it from the passenger seat of a moving truck). But out of the nearly 1,000 images I took during that deployment to Iraq, it’s one of my favorites. So I think my contribution to Car Week is going to be sharing some other pictures of HMMWVs I’ve taken over the years.

Two things to know about the military HMMWV:

1. They are a pain in the butt to maintain

2. They are really fun to drive

Caveat: they’re fun to drive in rugged four-wheel situations. On a flat paved road convoy for hours and hours, not so much.

Of course there are other ways to get a HMMWV from point A to point B:

Whether up-armored and parked in the mud in northern Iraq

Or driving through a field in Texas on the way to an exercise

Your HMMWV will take care of you, as long as you take care of it …

Heck, you can even put your name on it so it’s easy to find in the crowd.

It’s been a few years since I’ve been in a HMMWV, but my memories remain fond.

We started this series with “The Fog of War”, and I think we’ll end along the same lines. Of course, if Mother Nature doesn’t provide the fog for your war, nothing says you can’t make it yourself.

It’s Car Photography Week on Substack
To see more car photography posts, visit:

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Welcome to Car Week!

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3 months ago · 9 likes · 6 comments · Josh Weinberg

Til next time,

Todd