Upde Designs

Good Sunday Greetings.

I’m very reflective as I write today’s blog.  The blog is almost 14 years old and for a lot of those 14 years I was posting material every day.  I loved taking pictures and sharing them with those who took the time to visit. 

I was very active while working 50 to 60 hours a week.  I thought that when I retired I would really up my photography game and learn new things and new techniques and post more blogs than normal.  I was wrong.  The photography and blog posts dwindle to about once or twice a month.  On any given year I would average 10,000 to 12,000 images a year.  So on my various external hard drives I have close to 100,000 images. 

I’m talking about this because I came to a cross roads this year.  Because of my chronic health issues I had to give up golf.  I guess I didn’t realize just how much time and resources golf was taking out of my life.

So when I made the decision I resigned from the golf club I was a member of, sold my cart and took up drone flying again.  That is a entirely different story for another time.  Suffice it to say it didn’t take too long to eat up the money I sold the golf cart for.  🙂

Which brings me to the other point I wanted to talk about.  I have a serious chronic condition known as GAS.  Better stated NAS.  GAS & NAS stand for Gear Acquisition Syndrome.  Substitute gear for Nikon (which is what I shoot) and you get the idea.

Some times it was hard for me to tell whether my passion was photography or gear acquisition.  The two were compatible as long as I was working and had a steady income. But when I retired and had a fixed income the two were no longer compatible at all.  🙂

Now I have to throw in the wild card.  When I retired I had the (then) Nikon flagship top camera the wonderful D5.  I also had a D4S plus a crop sensor D500.  When I took the photography course with Bill Fortney and Joe McNally in Nashville I found that I was not an aberration at all.  There were 24 students at the school and we were all gear heads.  I actually felt normal.

Anyway I digress.  When in the last few years the entire photography community became enthralled with mirror less cameras I thought to myself there is no way I’m going to do that.  I love my DSLR and the sound the shutter makes when the mirror flops up.

So after much pondering I decided to jump in but with some hesitation.  I found a Nikon “entry level cropped sensor” the Z50.  It was a great bargain and after doing some research from YouTube University, it sounded like it would meet my needs.  There was indeed a learning curve and I’m still learning about it.  However I was pleased with the results of the images I took so I was happy with my purchase.

Well then I came across the Nikon Z5.  Again an “entry level” full frame camera.  However it has the same features as the more expensive cameras.  And again I’m happy with the results and it has rekindled the photography passion in me.  So we will see if I start doing more.

So about these images.  They were all taken with the Z5 and the Z50.  I had never seen this ambulance before so I was taken aback when I saw it.  I had to photograph it. 

It was either from WWII or more likely from the Korean War.  It had MASH # the rest of which I could not read.  As I was putting my gear away a couple from Chicago stopped and was admiring this wonderful machine.  They were taking pictures of each other and so I asked if they would like me to take a picture of the both of them.  They were grateful and happy to let me do that.  They handed me their iPhone and it was small and for some reason it fell out of my hand and onto the pavement. 

Ugh, I told them I would pay for the damage but they insisted that it had been dropped many times before.  After inspecting the phone I could see that it had been dropped before.  They were so nice and gracious.  I gave them my card if they wanted to visit my blog.

Well that’s it if you made this far congratulations and thank you.

Enjoy your day and be careful.