Scanning Made Easy with the Epson FF-640

If you’re old enough to drink (alcohol that is), then you may remember the shoebox in the closet stuffed with family photos. They sit there collecting dust until someone brings up a past event that has you digging through hundreds of prints looking for the time that Uncle John took you fishing and you caught your first keeper.

Our family has been taking and collecting photographs since the 1920s. As the unofficial designated keeper of the archives, I’ve been slowly scanning these photos with the goal of organizing, documenting and distributing them to the many relatives and friends among our (very large) extended family.

About the year 2000 I acquired my first flat bed scanner similar to this one. Although a flat bed produces good quality digital images, it is slow and laborious to operate. Each photo is carefully placed on the glass top, the cover is closed and then the computer is instructed to start the scan. Owing to my lack of patience, I can scan only a couple of dozen prints using the flat bed at one sitting. Afterwards, I have to take a break. At this pace, it will be a long time to complete my archiving obligation. NOTE: The flat bed scanner to the right is a newer advanced model that can produce very high resolution digitized images from your photos. It can also produce digitized images from film negatives (do you remember film?) and transparencies (slides). For the many shoeboxes full of old photos that I have to organize, I’ve decided that speed is more important than high resolution. At this year’s WPPI Conference and Expo, I found a solution that is now helping me make progress dealing with the thousands of prints that have been collecting dust in the closet – the Epson FF-640 FastFoto scanner.
	The FF-640 scanner connects to your computer with a USB-cable. The computer here is a MacBook but the scanner is compatible with Windows PCs as well. Photos are stacked into the feeder face down. The guides on the feeder are adjustable and accommodate up to twenty or so photos of the same width. The Epson software lets you specify the level of resolution – either the lower 300 dpi or the higher 600 dpi. While you can save hard disk space by using the 300dpi setting, I’ve always scanned at the 600 dpi setting since I’m not concerned about conserving hard disk space. You can also select a folder for storing the scanned images.
The photos are loaded into the feeder face down. The gray guides are adjusted to the width of the photos.	Here I’ve specified the name of the destination folder for the scanned image.
You can start scanning your stack of photos by clicking on the FastFoto software start button. Alternatively you can press the blue button on the FF-640. This is another nice feature since you can take as much time to load subsequent groups of photos into the scanner without having to reset the software.	When you’ve completed scanning one or more stacks of photos, the FastFoto software displays the digital images on screen. The software lets you enhance the brightness and contrast, remove red eye and restore faded colors of the original photo if you’d like to save editing time afterwards.

My mother often wrote “notes” on the back of the photos. The FastFoto has a built-in feature that lets you scan both sides of the photo so that you can keep the notes with the digitized image.	This is an example of a scanned image from a photo with a note written on the back.	The note refers to Steven’s school grade when the photograph was originally taken.

This is an old photo from the shoebox. The original was quite faded.	Thanks to the ingenuity of this scanner I can digitally record the imprint on the back of the original. The photo was processed in 1951!
Here is another old vintage b&w photo.	Conveniently annotated from 1950.
Below is a short video of the FF-640 in action. I can scan four or five dozen photographs with the FF-640 in about ten minutes. It’s an amazing time saver.

 

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The FF-640 sells for about $650 – a considerable investment. However, I’m thoroughly happy with this scanner. It has saved me countless hours of time on my quest to archive the thousands (tens of thousands) of family photographs.

For more information, please visit Epson.

 

 

 

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April 22, 2017   “Today we celebrate the 47th anniversary of Earth Day. Here I recount some thoughts since this movement was in its infancy.”

Earth Day was founded by the late Senator Gaylord Nelson in 1970. His intent was crystal clear – to focus attention on the environment, to assess the effect that our population is placing on our limited natural resources, and to implement the urgent actions to keep the earth sustainable for generations to come.

In these intervening 47 years, a generation or two has passed. Yet the Nelson’s urgency has not translated into the wide and responsive action that many of his disciples would have hoped.

Could it be that Nelson’s intent is now gaining traction? Exactly one year ago under the auspices of the United Nations, the Paris Agreement was signed. It’s long name is the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change for limiting greenhouse gases emissions. This agreement became effective in November 2016. So it seems that little by little we are inching our way towards a gentler and kinder treatment of Mother Earth.

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To borrow a phrase from Vonnegut, follow me for a few minutes as my mind becomes unstuck in time.

My favorite author was the late Kurt Vonnegut. When he died in 2007, I recalled meeting him in the late 1960’s. Vonnegut was invited to be “writer in residence” while I was studying at the University of Michigan (UofM) in Ann Arbor. As a wildly popular author of this time, he was sure to have a large, welcoming audience at UofM.

He sometimes visited “The Brown Jug” for coffee and to smoke cigarettes. As an aside, he claimed that smoking was the slowest form of suicide. My wife Kris, also a student, waitressed here and on occasion would serve him. Due to her hearing difficulty she admitted that she wasn’t a very good waitress and frustrated Vonnegut with her (lack of) service. More to the point, his stay on campus as writer in residence ended prematurely when he abruptly left saying something like: “I’m leaving Ann Arbor since I have nothing more to teach you about writing.” So it goes.

Kurt Vonnegut photo courtesy of Colleen Taber	the author and his dog living “60’s back to nature”
Motown’s Four Tops	James Taylor	Gordon Lightfoot

The late 60’s was a very vibrant and exciting, yet conflicted era. From my high school yearbook a Charles Dickens quote describes the period: “it was the best of times and it was the worst of times….we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way”. This was the period of Viet Nam and Kent State, living off the earth and making peace, hippies and long hair. We were contemporaries of heavy metal, Motown, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, James Taylor and Woodstock music. With this as a backdrop, we happen upon the Earth Day 1970 teach-in at the U of M.

After Vonnegut’s departure, the folk song artist Gordon Lightfoot visited Ann Arbor. Gord had been drawing large audiences around the US, Canada and Europe. Here he performed his Canadian Railroad Trilogy (click for lyrics) for more than 12,000 screaming students. It is a poetic ballad describing the building of the railroads across Canada and the difficult tradeoffs between developing the economy and keeping the land pristine for the future – an apt way to point to the environmental conflict in musical terms.

Lightfoot’s concert was part of the first Earth Day teach-in, a gathering of some 50,000 in Ann Arbor to discuss, educate and find solutions to environmental problems created by the earth’s inhabitants. From all of the excitement and the energy which went into the production of the first Earth Day teach-ins, many of us believed that we were on the verge of saving the environment.

I was planning a career to revolve around conservation, ecology and recycling. I studied writings from the likes of educators and humanists Kenneth Boulding, Buckminster Fuller and E.F. Schumacher and took courses such as forestry, resource management and cost-benefit analysis.

My great enthusiasm for all things environmental waned not long after graduating with a degree in Natural Resource Economics. It was fully a year later that I was still trying to find a job in this nascent field. Instead, I ended up in the computer and publishing business. So it goes.

I tend to shy away from talking politics so I won’t comment on how well or how poorly us earthlings have done to improve the environment these past 47 years. However, like others, I’ve seen a very large and urgent movement in recent years to resurrect many of the same or similar ideas from these earlier decades that call for a change in our lifestyles.

Of course there have been numerous events that have flashed attention on Earth Day. How about a song with a conservation theme: Conviction of the Heart (click for lyrics) was performed by writer/singer Kenny Loggins at Earth Day 1995 in Washington, DC.

A few years back we took our young grandkids to see The Lorax, a movie based on a Dr Seuss’ book. It describes a place where the trees have been clear cut so there are no trees left. Everyone depends on manufactured air to provide oxygen for their survival. Through battle with “industry”, the hero finally succeeds in planting a single tree. This act restarts the path to regenerating oxygen naturally. While the story is a little far fetched, it presents the oxygen depletion issue to a young generation.

We later took them to see another movie – The Croods which depicts the struggle of a family of cave people to survive in a deteriorating world. They survive through human ingenuity with inventions such as fire, shoes and wheels. I hope this isn’t the only lesson for our next generation – that technology alone is going to save our environment. Yes, we are quite ingenious. But a lot of us have reservations that technology by itself will solve our planet’s woes.

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Photography and the Environment

So what does all of this rambling have to do photography? Well, to continue in the same vein, I thought it might be interesting to look at photography then and now to compare their individual environmental impacts.

At first, I thought this was going to be a “no brainer” – that digital photography yields huge environmental savings compared to conventional photography. But as I began to dig deeper, I see that there are two sides to this argument.

Conventional Photography

Having worked in several commercial photo labs long before the advent of digital, I’m familiar with the processes that are used in conventional (film-based) photography.

Most conventional cameras use a cartridge or canister filled with film for 12, 20 or 36 exposures. Each “roll” of film is individually packaged for sale in hundreds of thousands of retail locations. Besides the resources needed to manufacture the film, a considerable amount more are used to market and distribute the products.

Film derives its light sensitivity from a chemical mixture of silver halide that’s coated onto its surface. After being exposed to light by the camera, the film is first “developed” – the silver halide image is converted into a metallic silver and then “fixed” – the unused silver halide is dissolved. This makes the negative image permanent. Color film requires additional chemicals to form the dyes used to reproduce the various colors. And still other chemicals are used to enhance the drying of the photographic materials. In addition to these chemicals, a large amount of water is used to rinse and clean the chemicals from the surface of the film.

Conventional photographic prints are processed similarly using a silver halide sensitive paper and chemicals to develop and fix and wash the positive images. Most commercial photo labs make prints from each exposure on a roll of film.

The environmental impact of conventional photography is significant. A large amount materials is consumed to make film and photographic paper. A large amount of nasty and toxic chemicals are used to process both the film and prints. And an awfully large amount of fresh water is used in the process as well.

Digital Photography

At first glance, the coming of age of digital photography appears to have a beneficial impact on the environmental.

With digital, no longer is there a need for roll after roll of film. Instead a single chip (SD-card or CF-card) can capture hundreds, maybe thousands of images.

Now, these digital images no longer require chemical development. Rather, the images are immediately available to review while still in the camera. For permanence, the images can be copied to your computer hard drive for safekeeping, further enhancement and presentation.

Unlike conventional processing where each exposure is mindlessly printed by the photo lab, you can be more selective. Instead you can choose to print only the best of the best images. And it’s your choice to print them using a conventional photo process at your favorite photo lab or print them at home on your color ink-jet printer.

Regardless of which camera you’ve purchased, digital photography seems like a winner from an environmental standpoint.

The Rest of the Story

As with many things in life, digital photography has a few “gotcha’s” that cloud its environmental friendly moniker.

The upside is that digital provides big savings in resources by eliminating film, packaging, paper and chemical processing. However, digital shifts the resource burden to the manufacturing and maintaining of the personal computer. Yes, there are some who make do without a personal computer. These picturetakers bring their digital film to a photo lab to make their selected prints. But most picturetakers collect, organize, retouch, process and present their photographs using a personal computer.

While it’s dated, a United Nation report tells us that “the average 24 kg desktop computer with monitor requires at least 10 times its weight in fossil fuels and chemicals to manufacture, much more materials intensive than an automobile or refrigerator, which only require 1-2 times their weight in fossil fuels. Researchers found that manufacturing one desktop computer and 17-inch CRT monitor uses at least 240 kg of fossil fuels, 22 kg of chemicals and 1,500 kg of water – a total of 1.8 tonnes of materials.”

Of course a personal computer is used for other tasks as well, so it’s not fair to put the full blame for digital photography’s negative impact on the environment.

And to power all of these cameras, computers and accessories the need for electricity either from the wall outlet or batteries is climbing. Does this contribute to our CO₂ footprint?

Not surprisingly, manufacturers are working feverishly to add new and amazing whiz-bang features to their cameras. But now instead of buying a conventional camera every ten years or so, the buying cycle for digital cameras is a lot more frequent. Read: more resources consumed.

Wrapping it Up

We can credit the overwhelming adoption of digital cameras for saving the environment from millions of rolls of film and the required chemicals to develop the the film and prints. In addition to the great quality of digital technology, we benefit from a huge reduction of harmful photographic chemicals.

Unfortunately, from an environmental standpoint, digital photography is a mixed bag when considering the pervasive number of new cameras and extensive use of the personal computer.

In his novel Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut might comment on this no-win situation with the phrase so it goes.

A while back, I wrote another article that might be of interest if you’re following the status of our environment.

After all of these years as an avid photographer I’m still a proponent of carefully using our precious natural resources. Aside from photographing family, my favorite pastime is nature and landscape photography. Below you can see some of the ways that I commune with nature.

	These photos were taken in many of our National Parks, Monuments and parklands. As you read this, I’m off to other outdoor places to experience more of our earth.

 

 

To the best of my ability I continue to practice “leave no trace photography” – disturb neither our wildlife nor its surroundings. Photography, whether conventional or digital, is a gift that lets me enjoy the wonders of our amazing world visually. I think many others agree.

Again I say Happy Earth Day!

 

 

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More Information
Here’s a few articles that touch on the conventional vs digital photography debate.

• Five environmental impacts of electronic communications
• The Environmental Impact of Digital Photography
• Environmental impact of digital cameras compared to film
• How Photographers Are Reducing Their Environmental Impact
• How to Be an Environmentally Friendly Photographer

For those of you who are interested in the movement, here is a link to one of the main Earth Day sites.

History of Earth Day

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Written by Arnie Lee, former flower child and founder of Stay Focused.

Please leave your comments below or address your thoughts about this article, to Arnie via email

 

 

 

 

 

Canadian Railroad Trilogy By Gordon Lightfoot

There was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run When the wild majestic mountains stood alone against the sun Long before the white man and long before the wheel When the green dark forest was too silent to be real But time has no beginnings and history has no bounds As to this verdant country they came from all around They sailed upon her waterways and they walked the forests tall And they built the mines the mills and the factories for the good of us all And when the young man’s fancy was turning to the spring The railroad men grew restless for to hear the hammers ring Their minds were overflowing with the visions of their day And many a fortune lost and won and many a debt to pay For they looked in the future and what did they see They saw an iron road running from sea to the sea Bringing the goods to a young growing land All up through the seaports and into their hands Look away said they across this mighty land From the eastern shore to the western strand Bring in the workers and bring up the rails We gotta lay down the tracks and tear up the trails Open your heart let the life blood flow Gotta get on our way cause were moving too slow Bring in the workers and bring up the rails We’re gonna lay down the tracks and tear up the trails Open your heart let the life blood flow Gotta get on our way cause were moving too slow Get on our way cause were moving too slow Behind the blue Rockies the sun is declining The stars, they come stealing at the close of the day Across the wide prairie our loved ones lie sleeping Beyond the dark oceans in a place far away We are the navvies who work upon the railway Swinging our hammers in the bright blazing sun Living on stew and drinking bad whiskey Bending our old backs til the long days are done We are the navvies who work upon the railway Swinging our hammers in the bright blazing sun Laying down track and building the bridges Bending our old backs til the railroad is done So over the mountains and over the plains Into the muskeg and into the rain Up the St. Lawrence all the way to Gaspe Swinging our hammers and drawing our pay Driving them in and tying them down Away to the bunkhouse and into the town A dollar a day and a place for my head A drink to the living and a toast to the dead Oh the song of the future has been sung All the battles have been won Oer the mountain tops we stand All the world at our command We have opened up the soil With our teardrops and our toil For there was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run When the wild majestic mountains stood alone against the sun Long before the white man and long before the wheel When the green dark forest was too silent to be real When the green dark forest was too silent to be real And many are the dead men too silent to be real

 

 

Conviction Of The Heart By Kenny Loggins

Where are the dreams that we once had? This is the time to bring them back. What were the promises caught on the tips of our tongues? Do we forget or forgive? There’s a whole other life waiting to live when One day we’re brave enough To talk with Conviction of the Heart. And down your streets I’ve walked alone, As if my feet were not my own Such is the path I chose, doors I have opened and closed I’m tired of living this life, Fooling myself, believing we’re right I’ve never given love With any Conviction of the Heart One with the earth, with the sky One with everything in life I believe we’ll survive If we only try How long must we all wait to change This world bound in chains that we live in To know what it is to forgive And be forgiven? Too many years of taking now. Isn’t it time to stop somehow? Air that’s too angry to breathe, water our children can’t drink You’ve heard it hundreds of times You say you’re aware, believe and you care, But do you care enough To talk with Conviction of the Heart?

From the Midwest to the West at 75 mph

It’s a long way from Grand Rapids, Michigan to the western USA and when you’re driving there’s an awful lot of space between here and there. For those of us who enjoy traveling, there are many familiar sites along the amazing interstate highway system that connects the great expanses of our country.

My journeys are accompanied by a camera or two. These cameras usually stay packed until we reach our final destination. However, I have a nice little point-and-shoot which sits on the dashboard – waiting for me to grab it to capture “stuff” as we pass by at highway speeds. Below is an abbreviated scrapbook that shows you some of that stuff that we saw along the highway as we made our way from Michigan to California. Excuse me if some of the photos are 75mph blurry.

 

the rolling farmlands of Illinois	the paths between rows in Iowa are irrigation ditches
colorful clouds as the day nears sunset	huge irrigators watering corn
rolls of hay in Nebraska fields	gigantic stockyard in Ogalalla, Nebraska
Lincoln statue near Laramie, Wyoming	oil refinery in Sinclair, Wyoming
solitary monuments near Green River, Wyoming	steep upgrade ahead in western Wyoming
skyline of downtown Salt Lake City	salt processing factory near Grant, Utah
Tree of Utah sculpture	production company filming at Bonneville Salt Flats
mountains leaving western Utah	mighty diesels pulling freight at Battle Mountain, Nevada
hillside letter at Carlin, Nevada	work train near Lovelock, Nevada
weather approaching Reno at sunset	Lake Tenaya in Yosemite Nat’l Park – driving much slower!

 

 

the compact Canon SX710	it’s small but capable of recording excellent images

 

 

I hope you enjoyed our most recent cross-country adventure in these few photographs courtesy of my handy Canon SX710 camera.

 
Written by: Arnie Lee

 

 

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A “must-have” for the pool owner

For nearly thirty years my wife has been after me to build a swimming pool in our yard. Finally, I sort of succumbed to her pressure two years ago. But instead of building one, we found another home that already had a built-in pool.

I have to admit that the swimming pool has been a great addition for the family, especially for the grandkids who drop in regularly to cool off. This being our second summer as pool owners, we’ve hosted many ad hoc combination swim/BBQ dinners. This in turn has given me lots of opportunities to photograph the kids in action.

Late in 2013 I added a neat camera to my growing collection of equipment. The Nikon 1 AW1 had just been introduced as the first rugged mirrorless, interchangeable lens camera. The feature that won me over was the AW1’s underwater capability. Without having to use a bulky and expensive housing this compact unit is usable down to 49 feet. Additionally, it is shockproof from falls up to 6 feet and can operate in temperatures as low as 15 degrees F. Along with the camera, I opted for two lenses: a zoom 11-27.5mm (30-74mm equivalent) and a fixed 10mm (27mm equivalent).

For extra protection, I ordered two accessories: the orange silicone protective jacket and the convenient hand strap.

 

Here’s a sampling of how I use the AW1:

 

teaching one of the young ones to swim

a very cold and wet whitewater trip

 

underwater action	a pair of grandkids
lounging on top	half submerged, half above water

 

 

As an old school shooter, I’m both comfortable and used to messing around with the camera settings. However with the AW1, I’ve come to use it almost as a point-and-shoot camera. Of course the overwhelming number of images that I’ve shot have been in and around the pool, usually with lots of sun. Although I’ve haven’t changed the ISO, white balance, aperture nor shutter speed on the AW1, the photos have turned out well.

For those occasions when the natural light is low, pop up the built-in flash which works underwater too. Press the red-dotted button and you’re shooting movies – either above water or below water. And of course I can change lenses from the zoom to the fixed wide-angle.

 

All in all, I have found the AW1 great not only in and around the water, but it performs well on dry land too.

 

 
Written by: Arnie Lee

 

 

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Just Faces

Here’s a small album of pictures that show you that Summer is here.

 

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April 22, 2016 – “The 46th anniversary of Earth Day. This article has become an annual ritual to recount my thoughts since this movement was in its infancy.”

Happy Earth Day. The late Senator Gaylord Nelson founded Earth Day way back in 1970. Yet for many mostly political reasons, Earth Day has remained a low profile movement that recognizes and encourages thoughtful consideration to our planet’s limited resources.

I’m not a tree hugger. I’m a concerned citizen who cares how our life habits affect the environment. But frankly, I’m amazed by those who refuse to accept our collective culpability and lax management of earth’s natural resources.

This past December 195 countries through the United Nations, unanimously ratified an agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – an acknowledgement of the seriousness of climate change. So we are finally inching our way towards a gentler and kinder treatment of Mother Earth.

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Let me digress for a short while as my mind becomes unstuck in time.

As a young adult I was attracted to Kurt Vonnegut‘s black humor. He died in April 2007 just prior to the original version of this article. News about his life and death took me back to the late 60’s when I was a student at the University of Michigan (U of M) in Ann Arbor. Vonnegut was invited to be “writer in residence” and as one of the most widely read authors of the day, he was sure to have a large, welcoming audience at U of M.

He often took breakfast at “The Brown Jug”, where he’d have coffee and smoke lots of cigarettes. Vonnegut claimed that smoking was the slowest form of suicide. My wife Kris, also a student, waitressed at here and on occasion would wait on him. Owing to a hearing difficulty she admitted that she wasn’t a very good waitress and frustrated Vonnegut with her (lack of) service. More to the point, his stay on campus as writer in residence ended prematurely when he left suddenly saying something like: “I’m leaving Ann Arbor since I have nothing more to teach you about writing.” So it goes.

Kurt Vonnegut photo courtesy of Colleen Taber	the author and his dog living “60’s back to nature”
Motown’s Four Tops	James Taylor	Gordon Lightfoot

The late 60’s was a very vibrant and exciting, yet conflicted era. From my high school yearbook a Charles Dickens quote describes the period: “it was the best of times and it was the worst of times….we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way”. This was the period of Viet Nam and Kent State, living off the earth and making peace, hippies and long hair. We were contemporaries of heavy metal, Motown, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, James Taylor and Woodstock music. With this as a backdrop, we happen upon the Earth Day 1970 teach-in at the U of M.

After Vonnegut’s departure, the folk song artist Gordon Lightfoot visited Ann Arbor. Gord had been drawing large audiences around the US, Canada and Europe. Here he performed his Canadian Railroad Trilogy (click for lyrics) for more than 12,000 screaming students. It is a poetic ballad describing the building of the railroads across Canada and the difficult tradeoffs between developing the economy and keeping the land pristine for the future – an apt way to point to the environmental conflict in musical terms.

Lightfoot’s concert was part of the first Earth Day teach-in, a gathering of some 50,000 in Ann Arbor to discuss, educate and find solutions to environmental problems created by the earth’s inhabitants. From all of the excitement and the energy which went into the production of the first Earth Day teach-ins, many of us believed that we were on the verge of saving the environment.

I was planning a career to revolve around conservation, ecology and recycling. I studied writings from the likes of educators and humanists Kenneth Boulding, Buckminster Fuller and E.F. Schumacher and took courses such as forestry, resource management and cost-benefit analysis.

My great enthusiasm for all things environmental waned not long after graduating with a degree in Natural Resource Economics. It was fully a year later that I was still trying to find a job in this nascent field. Instead, I ended up in the computer and publishing business. So it goes.

I tend to shy about from talking politics so I won’t comment on how well or how poorly us earthlings have done to improve the environment over the past 46 years. However, like others, I’ve seen a very large and urgent movement in recent years to resurrect many of the same or similar ideas from these earlier decades that call for a change in our lifestyles.

Of course there have been numerous events that have flashed attention on Earth Day. How about a song with a conservation theme: Conviction of the Heart (click for lyrics) was performed by writer/singer Kenny Loggins at Earth Day 1995 in Washington, DC.

A few years back we took two of our young grandkids to see The Lorax, a movie based on a Dr Seuss’ book. It describes a place where the trees have been clear cut so there are no trees left. Everyone depends on manufactured air to provide oxygen for their survival. Through battle with “industry”, the hero finally succeeds in planting a single tree. This act restarts the path to regenerating oxygen naturally. While the story is a little far fetched, it presents the oxygen depletion issue to a young generation.

Later, we took them to see another movie – The Croods which depicts the struggle of a family of cave people to survive in a deteriorating world. They survive through human ingenuity with inventions such as fire, shoes and wheels. I hope this isn’t the only lesson for our next generation – that technology alone is going to save our environment. Yes, we are quite ingenious. But a lot of us have reservations that technology by itself will solve our planet’s woes.

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Photography and the Environment

So what does all of this rambling have to do photography? Well, to continue in the same vein, I thought it might be interesting to look at photography then and now to compare their individual environmental impacts.

At first, I thought this was going to be a “no brainer” – that digital photography yields huge environmental savings compared to conventional photography. But as I began to dig deeper, I see that there are two sides to this argument.

Conventional Photography

Having worked in several commercial photo labs long before the advent of digital, I’m familiar with the processes that are used in conventional (film-based) photography.

Most conventional cameras use a cartridge or canister filled with film for 12, 20 or 36 exposures. Each “roll” of film is individually packaged for sale in hundreds of thousands of retail locations. Besides the resources needed to manufacture the film, a considerable amount more are used to market and distribute the products.

Film derives its light sensitivity from a chemical mixture of silver halide that’s coated onto its surface. After being exposed to light by the camera, the film is first “developed” – the silver halide image is converted into a metallic silver and then “fixed” – the unused silver halide is dissolved. This makes the negative image permanent. Color film requires additional chemicals to form the dyes used to reproduce the various colors. And still other chemicals are used to enhance the drying of the photographic materials. In addition to these chemicals, a large amount of water is used to rinse and clean the chemicals from the surface of the film.

Conventional photographic prints are processed similarly using a silver halide sensitive paper and chemicals to develop and fix and wash the positive images. Most commercial photo labs make prints from each exposure on a roll of film.

The environmental impact of conventional photography is significant. A large amount materials is consumed to make film and photographic paper. A large amount of nasty and toxic chemicals are used to process both the film and prints. And an awfully large amount of fresh water is used in the process as well.

Digital Photography

At first glance, the coming of age of digital photography appears to have a beneficial impact on the environmental.

With digital, no longer is there a need for roll after roll of film. Instead a single chip (SD-card or CF-card) can capture hundreds, maybe thousands of images.

Now, these digital images no longer require chemical development. Rather, the images are immediately available to review while still in the camera. For permanence, the images can be copied to your computer hard drive for safekeeping, further enhancement and presentation.

Unlike conventional processing where each exposure is mindlessly printed by the photo lab, you can be more selective. Instead you can choose to print only the best of the best images. And it’s your choice to print them using a conventional photo process at your favorite photo lab or print them at home on your color ink-jet printer.

Regardless of which camera you’ve purchased, digital photography seems like a winner from an environmental standpoint.

The Rest of the Story

As with many things in life, digital photography has a few “gotcha’s” that cloud its environmental friendly moniker.

The upside is that digital provides big savings in resources by eliminating film, packaging, paper and chemical processing. However, digital shifts the resource burden to the manufacturing and maintaining of the personal computer. Yes, there are some who make do without a personal computer. These picturetakers bring their digital film to a photo lab to make their selected prints. But most picturetakers collect, organize, retouch, process and present their photographs using a personal computer.

While it’s dated, a United Nation report tells us that “the average 24 kg desktop computer with monitor requires at least 10 times its weight in fossil fuels and chemicals to manufacture, much more materials intensive than an automobile or refrigerator, which only require 1-2 times their weight in fossil fuels. Researchers found that manufacturing one desktop computer and 17-inch CRT monitor uses at least 240 kg of fossil fuels, 22 kg of chemicals and 1,500 kg of water – a total of 1.8 tonnes of materials.”

Of course a personal computer is used for other tasks as well, so it’s not fair to put the full blame for digital photography’s negative impact on the environment.

And to power all of these cameras, computers and accessories the need for electricity either from the wall outlet or batteries is climbing. Does this contribute to our CO₂ footprint?

Not surprisingly, manufacturers are working feverishly to add new and amazing whiz-bang features to their cameras. But now instead of buying a conventional camera every ten years or so, the buying cycle for digital cameras is a lot more frequent. Read: more resources consumed.

Wrapping it Up

We can credit the overwhelming adoption of digital cameras for saving the environment from millions of rolls of film and the required chemicals to develop the the film and prints. In addition to the great quality of digital technology, we benefit from a huge reduction of harmful photographic chemicals.

Unfortunately, from an environmental standpoint, digital photography is a mixed bag when considering the pervasive number of new cameras and extensive use of the personal computer.

In his novel Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut might comment on this no-win situation with the phrase so it goes.

A while back, I wrote another article that might be of interest if you’re following the status of our environment.

After all of these years as an avid photographer I’m still a proponent of carefully using our precious natural resources. Aside from photographing family, my favorite pastime is nature and landscape photography. To see some of the ways that I commune with nature, please click here.

To the best of my ability I continue to practice “leave no trace photography” – disturb neither our wildlife nor its surroundings. Photography, whether conventional or digital, is a gift that lets me enjoy the wonders of our amazing world visually. I think many others agree.

Happy Earth Day!

 

 

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More Information
Here’s a few articles that touch on the conventional vs digital photography debate.

• Five environmental impacts of electronic communications
• The Environmental Impact of Digital Photography
• Environmental impact of digital cameras compared to film
• How Photographers Are Reducing Their Environmental Impact
• How to Be an Environmentally Friendly Photographer

For those of you who are interested in the movement, here is a link to one of the main Earth Day sites.

History of Earth Day

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Written by Arnie Lee, former flower child and founder of Stay Focused.

Please leave your comments below or address your thoughts about this article, to Arnie via email

 

 

 

 

 

Canadian Railroad Trilogy By Gordon Lightfoot

There was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run When the wild majestic mountains stood alone against the sun Long before the white man and long before the wheel When the green dark forest was too silent to be real But time has no beginnings and history has no bounds As to this verdant country they came from all around They sailed upon her waterways and they walked the forests tall And they built the mines the mills and the factories for the good of us all And when the young man’s fancy was turning to the spring The railroad men grew restless for to hear the hammers ring Their minds were overflowing with the visions of their day And many a fortune lost and won and many a debt to pay For they looked in the future and what did they see They saw an iron road running from sea to the sea Bringing the goods to a young growing land All up through the seaports and into their hands Look away said they across this mighty land From the eastern shore to the western strand Bring in the workers and bring up the rails We gotta lay down the tracks and tear up the trails Open your heart let the life blood flow Gotta get on our way cause were moving too slow Bring in the workers and bring up the rails We’re gonna lay down the tracks and tear up the trails Open your heart let the life blood flow Gotta get on our way cause were moving too slow Get on our way cause were moving too slow Behind the blue Rockies the sun is declining The stars, they come stealing at the close of the day Across the wide prairie our loved ones lie sleeping Beyond the dark oceans in a place far away We are the navvies who work upon the railway Swinging our hammers in the bright blazing sun Living on stew and drinking bad whiskey Bending our old backs til the long days are done We are the navvies who work upon the railway Swinging our hammers in the bright blazing sun Laying down track and building the bridges Bending our old backs til the railroad is done So over the mountains and over the plains Into the muskeg and into the rain Up the St. Lawrence all the way to Gaspe Swinging our hammers and drawing our pay Driving them in and tying them down Away to the bunkhouse and into the town A dollar a day and a place for my head A drink to the living and a toast to the dead Oh the song of the future has been sung All the battles have been won Oer the mountain tops we stand All the world at our command We have opened up the soil With our teardrops and our toil For there was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run When the wild majestic mountains stood alone against the sun Long before the white man and long before the wheel When the green dark forest was too silent to be real When the green dark forest was too silent to be real And many are the dead men too silent to be real

 

 

Conviction Of The Heart By Kenny Loggins

Where are the dreams that we once had? This is the time to bring them back. What were the promises caught on the tips of our tongues? Do we forget or forgive? There’s a whole other life waiting to live when One day we’re brave enough To talk with Conviction of the Heart. And down your streets I’ve walked alone, As if my feet were not my own Such is the path I chose, doors I have opened and closed I’m tired of living this life, Fooling myself, believing we’re right I’ve never given love With any Conviction of the Heart One with the earth, with the sky One with everything in life I believe we’ll survive If we only try How long must we all wait to change This world bound in chains that we live in To know what it is to forgive And be forgiven? Too many years of taking now. Isn’t it time to stop somehow? Air that’s too angry to breathe, water our children can’t drink You’ve heard it hundreds of times You say you’re aware, believe and you care, But do you care enough To talk with Conviction of the Heart?

Have Camera, Will Travel

One of my former careers was developing, publishing and marketing software for the tiny flight simulator industry. This fact alone entitled me to become a very big fan of aviation, even though I’ve loved all things that fly since I was a kid. I’ve also had a lifelong affair with photography. Whether on the road for business or pleasure I always have a camera as a traveling companion. This was the case several years ago when I was on a long haul from Grand Rapids to Sydney. My flight by way of Los Angeles arrived at Sydney’s Kingsford Smith Airport early in the morning. While reading the local Sydney newspaper I learned that the first commercial flight of the Airbus A380 would be arriving from Singapore that afternoon. This was exciting news to me – for years I had been following the creation of this monster aircraft. Right then I decided that I would return to airport following a scheduled meeting in nearby Silverwater.

 
 
When I later returned to the airport, the lobby overlooking the tarmac was jammed with loads of very anxious onlookers. After considerable wrangling I was able to find a small standing space next to a window from which I could view the arrival gate.

The wait was about 30 minutes. Due to the inclement weather, you could see only the faint lights of the A380. They grew larger and somewhat brighter as the aircraft approached the runway. As the aircraft touched down, the crowd broke out into cheers and applause. Flight SQ380 then hurried past us, exited the runway and made a U-turn to taxi to the awaiting gate. Down below on the tarmac, scores of workers and dozens of vehicles were on hand to greet the arrival.
 
 

 
 
I was lucky to be at the right place at the right time. Being able to report on the arrival of this Singapore to Sydney flight back in 2007 is another reminder to me to continue to carry a camera while traveling.

And of course I was able to use the camera to take a few sightseeing pictures as well.

 
 
Written by Arnie Lee

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Why I use filters instead of lens caps

Note: This is a followup to an article written more than a year ago.

It happened just a few days ago. As I was getting out of my car, one of my cameras slipped from my grip and dropped onto the cement floor. I picked it up believing that it would require a trip to the repair shop. On further examination I could see that the lens filter was shattered. I turned the camera’s power on and to my delight the viewfinder lit up brightly. Next I pressed the shutter half-way and was even happily surprised to see that the autofocusing was also working. I felt lucky AGAIN for this isn’t the first time that a filter gave up its life to save an expensive piece of glass.

In my photography early days, I was a faithful user of lens caps. Whenever I wasn’t shooting, I would snap the lens cap onto the lens. I considered this a safe way to care for my equipment. Of course, most of us also enclosed the entire camera inside its companion leather case. Yes, we were very protective of our precious equipment. And yes again, I spent a lot of time looking for misplaced or buying replacement lens caps.

When I acquired my first SLR at age 14, I quickly fell out of the habit of using lens caps. I may have inherited this trait from my photography mentor for whom I worked while still a student. John explained that removing a lens cap required too much time when you are trying to capture the action.

Instead, I began to using a filter on the lens to protect the front glass element. The filter prevents dust and dirt from accumulating on the lens surface. And the filter is easier and safer to clean. To this day I use either a high quality UV or Skylight filter for most of my shooting. Now that digital cameras have replaced film cameras I also notice that leather cases have all but gone out of style. I see very few them of them these days. But I do notice that many photographers still use lens caps to protect the glass in front.

I’m not here to make a political case for or against lens caps, only to suggest that filters offer more than dust protection for your lens. In addition, they can protect the front lens element from nasty scratches. Here’s my latest proof. I was carrying this camera into the house when it slipped out of my hand and onto the floor. As you can see the filter is shattered.

Of course my heart missed a few beats as I watch the camera as it hits the floor. However, after removing the filter I can see that the front lens surface remains untouched. In spite of the fall, the camera is working perfectly. Apparently the lens barrel took the brunt of the fall so I’ll have to repair the lens’ electronics.. But the glass is still pristine.

Again this isn’t the first time that I’ve had a mishap such as this. Actually, this is the third forth time that a filter has saved the front glass element of one of my lenses. This alone tells me that I should keep on buying filters for each of my lenses.

 

 
Written by: Arnie Lee

 

 

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April 22, 2015 – “Today is the 45th anniversary Earth Day. Earth Day is one of my serious interests. Over the years, I’ve written and rewritten this article several times recounting some my thoughts since this movement was in its infancy.”

As signs of Spring slowly appear in my home state of Michigan, April reminds of Earth Day.

You might think that frequent news reports should also be reminders of Earth Day. What do these events have in common?

• severe drought and water shortages throughout central California
• massive oil drilling in several northern states
• the culling of bison herds in Wyoming and Montana
• railroad derailments resulting in spills of hazardous oil
• invasive pythons in the Florida jungles
• protests against fracking for natural gas in many communities
• islands in the Indian Ocean and elsewhere are endangered by rising ocean levels
• precipitous drop in oil prices resulting in massive layoffs within the oil production industry

These events are all part of the interconnectivity of the various parts of our planet. Yet we often fail to see the connection between a single event and the larger picture of what is happening to whole of the environment and society.

I consider myself a concerned denizen of the environment but I’m certainly far from being a tree hugger. However I’m dumbfounded by those who don’t acknowledge our rapidly changing climate. Yes, the years have flown by quickly since Earth Day 1970 but 45 years of additional science and empirical evidence has given me even more reason to continue my concern. Nevertheless, it’s apparent that many still remain stuck in low gear on this topic.

Regardless, follow along as my mind becomes unstuck in time.

I was attracted to Kurt Vonnegut‘s black humor early on. He died in April 2007 shortly before the original version of this article was published. News about his life and death took me back to the late 60’s when I was a student at the University of Michigan (U of M) in Ann Arbor. Vonnegut was invited to be “writer in residence” and as one of the most widely read authors of the day, he was sure to have a large, welcoming audience at U of M.

He frequented “The Brown Jug”, a small, local campus restaurant where he’d have breakfast and smoke lots of cigarettes. As an aside, Vonnegut claimed that smoking was the slowest form of suicide. My wife Kris, also a student, waitressed at The Brown Jug and on occasion would wait on him. But owing to a hearing difficulty she admitted that she wasn’t a very good waitress and frustrated Vonnegut with her (lack of) service. More to the point, his stay on campus as writer in residence ended prematurely when he suddenly left declaring: “I’m leaving Ann Arbor since I have nothing more to teach you about writing.” So it goes.

Kurt Vonnegut photo courtesy of Colleen Taber	the author and his dog living “60’s back to nature”
Motown’s Four Tops	James Taylor	Gordon Lightfoot

From my perspective, 1970 was a very vibrant and exciting, yet conflicted era. A Charles Dickens quote from my high school yearbook describes the period: “it was the best of times and it was the worst of times….we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way”. This was the period of Viet Nam and Kent State, living off the earth and making peace, hippies and long hair. We were contemporaries of heavy metal, Motown, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, James Taylor and Woodstock music. With this as a backdrop, we happen upon the Earth Day 1970 teach-in at the U of M.

Shortly after Vonnegut’s departure, the well-known folk song artist Gordon Lightfoot came to Ann Arbor to perform for more than 12,000 screaming students. Gord had been drawing large audiences around the US, Canada and Europe with his classic Canadian Railroad Trilogy (click for lyrics), a poetic ballad describing the building of the railroads across Canada and the difficult tradeoffs between developing the economy and keeping the land pristine for the future. His music was great back then and to this day, I remain a Lightfoot fan. I was so much the fan that a few years ago I traveled to Las Vegas (by myself since no family member wanted to accompany me) to hear him in concert. And I ended up staying for two of his performances. I even have a life size poster of Gord which was gifted to me by the advertising manager of the casino.

Lightfoot’s concert was part of the first Earth Day teach-in, a gathering of some 50,000 in Ann Arbor to discuss, educate and find solutions to environmental problems created by the earth’s inhabitants. From all of the excitement and the energy which went into the production of the first Earth Day teach-ins, many of us believed that we were on the verge of saving the environment.

As an economics student, I was counting on a future career that would revolve around conservation, ecology and recycling. I studied writings from the likes of educators and humanists Kenneth Boulding, Buckminster Fuller and E.F. Schumacher and took courses such as remote sensing of the environment and cost-benefit analysis.

My great enthusiasm for all things environmental waned not long after graduating with a degree in Natural Resource Economics. It was fully a year later that I was still trying to find a job in this nascent field. Instead, I ended up in the computer and publishing business. So it goes.

It’s not my intention to talk politics so I won’t comment on how well or how poorly us earthlings have done to improve the environment over the past 45 years. However, like others, I’ve seen a very large and urgent movement in recent years to resurrect many of the same or similar ideas from these earlier decades that call for a change in our lifestyles.

Of course there have been numerous events that have flashed attention on Earth Day. How about a song with a conservation theme: Conviction of the Heart (click for lyrics) was performed by writer/singer Kenny Loggins at Earth Day 1995 in Washington, DC.

A few years back we took two of our young grandkids to see The Lorax, a movie based on a Dr Seuss’ book. It describes a place where the trees have been clear cut so there are no trees left. Everyone depends on manufactured air to provide oxygen for their survival. Through battle with “industry”, the hero finally succeeds in planting a single tree. This act restarts the path to regenerating oxygen naturally. While the story is a little far fetched, it presents the oxygen depletion issue to a young generation.

Last year, we took them to see another movie – The Croods which depicts the struggle of a family of cave people to survive in a deteriorating world. They survive through human ingenuity with inventions such as fire, shoes and wheels. I hope this isn’t the only lesson for our next generation – that technology alone is going to save our environment. Yes, we are quite ingenious. But a lot of us have reservations that technology by itself will solve our planet’s woes.

Photography and the Environment

At this point, I’ll take a turn in the road. What does all of this rambling have to do photography? Well, to continue in the same vein, I thought it might be interesting to look at photography then and now to compare their individual environmental impacts.

At first, I thought this was going to be a “no brainer” – that digital photography yields huge environmental savings compared to conventional photography. But as I began to dig deeper, I see that there are two sides to this argument.

Conventional Photography

Having worked in several commercial photo labs long before the advent of digital, I’m familiar with the processes that are used in conventional (film-based) photography.

Most conventional cameras use a cartridge or canister filled with film for 12, 20 or 36 exposures. Each “roll” of film is individually packaged for sale in hundreds of thousands of retail locations. Besides the resources needed to manufacture the film, a considerable amount more are used to market and distribute the products.

Film derives its light sensitivity from a chemical mixture of silver halide that’s coated onto its surface. After being exposed to light by the camera, the film is first “developed” – the silver halide image is converted into a metallic silver and then “fixed” – the unused silver halide is dissolved. This makes the negative image permanent. Color film requires additional chemicals to form the dyes used to reproduce the various colors. And still other chemicals are used to enhance the drying of the photographic materials. In addition to these chemicals, a large amount of water is used to rinse and clean the chemicals from the surface of the film.

Conventional photographic prints are processed similarly using a silver halide sensitive paper and chemicals to develop and fix and wash the positive images. Most commercial photo labs make prints from each exposure on a roll of film.

The environmental impact of conventional photography is significant. A large amount materials is consumed to make film and photographic paper. A large amount of nasty and toxic chemicals are used to process both the film and prints. And an awfully large amount of fresh water is used in the process as well.

Digital Photography

At first glance, the coming of age of digital photography appears to have a beneficial impact on the environmental.

With digital, no longer is there a need for roll after roll of film. Instead a single chip (SD-card or CF-card) can capture hundreds, maybe thousands of images.

Now, these digital images no longer require chemical development. Rather, the images are immediately available to review while still in the camera. For permanence, the images can be copied to your computer hard drive for safekeeping, further enhancement and presentation.

Unlike conventional processing where each exposure is mindlessly printed by the photo lab, you can be more selective. Instead you can choose to print only the best of the best images. And it’s your choice to print them using a conventional photo process at your favorite photo lab or print them at home on your color ink-jet printer.

Regardless of which camera you’ve purchased, digital photography seems like a winner from an environmental standpoint.

The Rest of the Story

As with many things in life, digital photography has a few “gotcha’s” that cloud its environmental friendly moniker.

The upside is that digital provides big savings in resources by eliminating film, packaging, paper and chemical processing. However, digital shifts the resource burden to the manufacturing and maintaining of the personal computer. Yes, there are some who make do without a personal computer. These picturetakers bring their digital film to a photo lab to make their selected prints. But most picturetakers collect, organize, retouch, process and present their photographs using a personal computer.

While it’s dated, a United Nation report tells us that “the average 24 kg desktop computer with monitor requires at least 10 times its weight in fossil fuels and chemicals to manufacture, much more materials intensive than an automobile or refrigerator, which only require 1-2 times their weight in fossil fuels. Researchers found that manufacturing one desktop computer and 17-inch CRT monitor uses at least 240 kg of fossil fuels, 22 kg of chemicals and 1,500 kg of water – a total of 1.8 tonnes of materials.”

Of course a personal computer is used for other tasks as well, so it’s not fair to put the full blame for digital photography’s negative impact on the environment.

And to power all of these cameras, computers and accessories the need for electricity either from the wall outlet or batteries is climbing. Does this contribute to our CO₂ footprint?

Not surprisingly, manufacturers are working feverishly to add new and amazing whiz-bang features to their cameras. But now instead of buying a conventional camera every ten years or so, the buying cycle for digital cameras is a lot more frequent. Read: more resources consumed.

Wrapping it Up

We can credit the overwhelming adoption of digital cameras for saving the environment from millions of rolls of film and the required chemicals to develop the the film and prints. In addition to the great quality of digital technology, we benefit from a huge reduction of harmful photographic chemicals.

Unfortunately, from an environmental standpoint, digital photography is a mixed bag when considering the pervasive number of new cameras and extensive use of the personal computer.

In his novel Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut might comment on this no-win situation with the phrase so it goes.

A while back, I wrote another article that might be of interest if you’re following the status of our environment.

After all of these years as an avid photographer I’m still a proponent of carefully using our precious natural resources. Aside from photographing family, my favorite pastime is nature and landscape photography. To see some of the ways that I commune with nature, please click here.

To the best of my ability I continue to practice “leave no trace photography” – disturb neither our wildlife nor its surroundings. Photography, whether conventional or digital, is a gift that lets me enjoy the wonders of our amazing world visually. I think many others agree.

Happy Earth Day!

 

 

---

 

 
More Information
Here’s a few articles that touch on the conventional vs digital photography debate.

• Five environmental impacts of electronic communications
• The Environmental Impact of Digital Photography
• Environmental impact of digital cameras compared to film
• How Photographers Are Reducing Their Environmental Impact
• How to Be an Environmentally Friendly Photographer

For those of you who are interested in the movement, here is a link to one of the main Earth Day sites.

History of Earth Day

************************************************************************

Written by Arnie Lee, former flower child and founder of Stay Focused.

Please leave your comments below or address your thoughts about this article, to Arnie via email

 

 

 

 

 

Canadian Railroad Trilogy By Gordon Lightfoot

There was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run When the wild majestic mountains stood alone against the sun Long before the white man and long before the wheel When the green dark forest was too silent to be real But time has no beginnings and history has no bounds As to this verdant country they came from all around They sailed upon her waterways and they walked the forests tall And they built the mines the mills and the factories for the good of us all And when the young man’s fancy was turning to the spring The railroad men grew restless for to hear the hammers ring Their minds were overflowing with the visions of their day And many a fortune lost and won and many a debt to pay For they looked in the future and what did they see They saw an iron road running from sea to the sea Bringing the goods to a young growing land All up through the seaports and into their hands Look away said they across this mighty land From the eastern shore to the western strand Bring in the workers and bring up the rails We gotta lay down the tracks and tear up the trails Open your heart let the life blood flow Gotta get on our way cause were moving too slow Bring in the workers and bring up the rails We’re gonna lay down the tracks and tear up the trails Open your heart let the life blood flow Gotta get on our way cause were moving too slow Get on our way cause were moving too slow Behind the blue Rockies the sun is declining The stars, they come stealing at the close of the day Across the wide prairie our loved ones lie sleeping Beyond the dark oceans in a place far away We are the navvies who work upon the railway Swinging our hammers in the bright blazing sun Living on stew and drinking bad whiskey Bending our old backs til the long days are done We are the navvies who work upon the railway Swinging our hammers in the bright blazing sun Laying down track and building the bridges Bending our old backs til the railroad is done So over the mountains and over the plains Into the muskeg and into the rain Up the St. Lawrence all the way to Gaspe Swinging our hammers and drawing our pay Driving them in and tying them down Away to the bunkhouse and into the town A dollar a day and a place for my head A drink to the living and a toast to the dead Oh the song of the future has been sung All the battles have been won Oer the mountain tops we stand All the world at our command We have opened up the soil With our teardrops and our toil For there was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run When the wild majestic mountains stood alone against the sun Long before the white man and long before the wheel When the green dark forest was too silent to be real When the green dark forest was too silent to be real And many are the dead men too silent to be real

 

 

Conviction Of The Heart By Kenny Loggins

Where are the dreams that we once had? This is the time to bring them back. What were the promises caught on the tips of our tongues? Do we forget or forgive? There’s a whole other life waiting to live when One day we’re brave enough To talk with Conviction of the Heart. And down your streets I’ve walked alone, As if my feet were not my own Such is the path I chose, doors I have opened and closed I’m tired of living this life, Fooling myself, believing we’re right I’ve never given love With any Conviction of the Heart One with the earth, with the sky One with everything in life I believe we’ll survive If we only try How long must we all wait to change This world bound in chains that we live in To know what it is to forgive And be forgiven? Too many years of taking now. Isn’t it time to stop somehow? Air that’s too angry to breathe, water our children can’t drink You’ve heard it hundreds of times You say you’re aware, believe and you care, But do you care enough To talk with Conviction of the Heart?

 
Mother Nature often stages wondrous events for us to see. One of these arrived today.

Those of us who arose early on this crisp Michigan morning had a perfectly clear sky to witness a full lunar eclipse. I peeked out my bedroom window and against a dark, black backdrop viewed a single bright orb slowly become a silhouette behind the earth’s shadow.

To get an better look, free of trees and leaves, I headed to my office a few blocks away to take in the magic show from an unobstructed balcony.

Once there, I grabbed a camera, a long lens and a tripod.

Here’s the lovely scene that graced the western sky.
 

here is where we’re just about approaching the full eclipse	as the moon settles toward the horizon, daylight is starting to lighten the sky
Here, the sun has awakened and brightened up the sky. At this juncture the trees are starting to interrupt our view and we’re about to loose sight of the moon. The sky gazers further west, perhaps in Nebraska or Colorado, are able to view the next stage – the unveiling of the moon as the earth shadow recedes from the sun’s path.

 
 
I thoroughly enjoyed the sights. In case you missed this morning’s, we’ll be treated to another lunar eclipse in April 2015.

What a wonderful way to start the day! Thanks again to Mother Nature for a fine performance.
 
 
Written by: Arnie Lee
 
 

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