The Online Photographer

Blog Note

I apologize, but I'm going to take a few days off. I'm into Week Two of a respiratory bug of some sort—it's going around where I am. A cough, low energy, and a headache. (At the window at a doctor's office yesterday I saw a sign that said "If you have a cough, please put on a mask," and I thought, well, they mean me.) I almost never get headaches.

Rightly or wrongly (I admit I have no way to tell), I believe my good plant-rich diet is helping my immune system fight the virus. I've been struck by how much worse other people are reporting feeling with this. They say it's a really bad one. I haven't been feeling all that bad. In fact for the most part I've just continued with my life—I've been aware I was sick, but I've felt like I was getting away with it.

But today I try to work and keep going around in circles. I need to rest for a day or two. It happens from time to time; I'm used to it.

I will keep working on the comments for the previous post.

Back soon! Sorry again...this is one of the problems with being a one-man band. When the drummer gets sick....

—Mike the bedraggled Ed.

Battleground (Blog Note)

A battle is going on. It's taking place on the cellular level, and the combatants are an unidentified rampaging virus and the aging but still game warriors of my immune system. The battleground is my head. The effect on the surrounding countryside is that everything that should be closed is open and everything that should be open is closed. Especially my ears—it feels like I'm-a goin' deef, which is scaring the bejayzus outer me. I like hearing and am defensive of it. The stuffiness in my ears is unsettling in the extreme. I cannot hear normally, especially in my left ear, except for a constant high-pitched screech. I hear things that aren't there and can't hear things that are there. The otolaryngologist is scheduling out to February, which seems to me, in my cantankerous state, to be little better than having no otolaryngologist available at all, as if I am in a third-world country waiting in a line. Of course all I really need from him/her is reassurance that this is not the tumbling onset of old-age deafness, because it might be.

Although objectively I deserve little sympathy and am not in peril, at the same time all is not right and I am not in a serene state. Been drinking lots of water and waiting. There seems little else to be done. I feel tired. Service might be irregular for a few days. I am sorry. Sorry being the correct word for a single lonely man-baby with scant comfort and a cold.

—The editor, headwaiter, functionary, factotum, chief writer and mop-wielder of TOP

Here's Your Illustration!

Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, B655-23B

A. Aubrey Bodine working under his enlarger 

This was supposed to be the illustration for the enlarger article. 

This happens more often than you'd think. I don't write articles in advance, and I generally search for illustration images while I'm writing. This was fine in the freewheeling early years of blogs, when everything on the Web was, by convention, free for the taking. Now, because still images have been used for a longer time (early broadband couldn't support video streaming—you can thank the porn and gaming industries for your YouTube and Vimeo and your other video content, by the way) and are more easily searchable, there are more "chilling effect" restrictions in place for still images than for video and musical streaming content. Which seems unfair, but oh well.

Anyway, I now have to secure the rights for most images I present. Usually that just means getting permission. Most rights holders freely give permission, as the Maryland Historical Society has done for me here (and thanks to them for that!), but it doesn't suit my way of working very well—instead of finding an image to post and including it inline with the post, I sometimes have to wait days or weeks for permission. Effectively that means I either have to publish the post without the image I wanted for it, or I have to set the post aside and wait for the image and then publish the whole shebang after a delay. You'd think this would be easy, but often one post leads to another and there's a sort of flow to what goes up when—or I hope there is, anyway—and anyway I'm not very organized, so I personally don't work well that way. For this post, for instance, I had to correspond with the four photographers, and it took about a month before I heard from them all.

At any rate, here is the illustration that I wanted to use for that enlarger post. Published by kind permission of the owner of the JPEG image; the print, I'm sure, is in the public domain by now. A. Aubrey Bodine was a Baltimore (Maryland) photographer who was sort of an amalgam of commercial photographer, journalist, documentarian, tech geek and photohobbyist, and Pictorialist, all rather uneasily (by modern standards) wrapped up into one. He was later championed by Kathleen Ewing, a longtime Washington D.C. gallerist (and acquaintance, and sometime mentor) who was one of the founders of AIPAD. He was popular; here's Kathleen's book about him. He published many books, some of which were award-winners in their time. Many of his photographs are quite beautiful, in a lyrical, lovely, camera-clubby, conventional-composition sort of way. (No slur intended.) This picture is a self portrait, I believe. My guess is he's holding the shutter bulb in his right hand. And the image on the easel is faked—he was a great multi-negative printer, quite a master of darkroom techniques.

Apropos my point: at the "Kathleen Ewing" link above, note the "Buy Photo" hotlink below the illustration photo of her. And the link is dead! It would probably take a lot of work and possibly some expense for me to publish that picture of Kathleen here in this post.

"And so it goes." (Credit Linda Ellerbee and Kurt Vonnegut for the phrase.)

Mike
(Thanks to Dan Goodrich and the Maryland Historical Society)

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Featured Comments from:

Speed Graphic: "Anyone who wears a bow tie and cufflinks is probably a pretty interesting fellow."

Michael Perini: "That’s a Saltzman 8x10 enlarger. Saltzman made the most robust studio camera and lighting gear ever. With the possible exception of the Deardorff 12' bi-post camera stand for their 11x14 commercial view camera (60" of bellows)."

Blog Note: D'oh!

On Thursday morning I wrote that “Magic Lens” post and then, thinking I had done my duty for the day, proceeded to do other things: cooked vegetables for lunch, drove to Geneva (no, not Switzerland) for some stain for the deck I just repaired and did a few other errands, came home and fed the dogs, then blithely went off to play pool with my 90- and 94-year-old friends Loyle and Norm and another friend. When I finally got to the computer again, there were no comments to the post, and I thought, wow, that’s odd—what’s going on?

I had forgotten to click the “Publish” button, that's what was going on. The post was sitting there all ready and waiting. I'd thought I was done for the day but actually I hadn’t done a thing….

You know what they say: Oh well.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the post (published a day later than I thought) has drawn some traffic from outside our normal audience, and there are many comments awaiting moderation. I'm on it. Please check back later this afternoon so you can read some of them.

Gracias,

—Your Semi-Competent Host and Comment Moderator

I Just Sent...

...Today's "Sunday Support Group" post to the Patreon subscribers by group email (I'd been meaning to experiment with that functionality), to thank everyone for putting me over the initial goal of 750 supporters. As I explained, I only picked the 750 number in the first place because I thought it was out of reach. How nice that it wasn't.

Ironically, the newest supporters, the very ones who put the number over the top, might not have gotten the message. (You'll have to tell me—I'm not absolutely sure who did and didn't get the group email). In the Patreon system I think I'm only allowed to message people I have "financial relationships" with—that is, who have actually sent money. Don't blame me, I don't make the rules! So new signer-uppers who haven't yet made their first payment might have gotten left out. Not your fault.

So, to them—you, if you're one of them—a big thanks, the same thanks I sent to everyone else just now. You're very kind.

Warm thanks too to those existing subscribers who increased the amount of their existing contributions! And don't think I've forgotten about you, Eric P. Still mulling that over.

And wow, I should email my supporters more often—the messages I'm getting back are so warm and generous and friendly it's making me verklempt. Thanks, truly.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Featured Comments from:

Kjell: "I just got the message through Patreon telling me how you just now reached your goal of 750 patrons. I myself have made a small donation of $3 each month for a while now. I think it is about half of what your content is worth, but being cheap, I always love it when I get a discount. I would highly encourage everyone to donate a small sum. Think of it this way. If don't, you're kind of stealing it, but if you donate $1 a month you get a huge discount on the best photo content on the web. Also keep in mind that this blog is the only photo-related site on the Internet that never, ever writes anything about pool (or other related sports). And that is really worth something."

Mike replies: Yes, you're absolutely right, and people really need to keep the value of that in mind. For example, I never post anything like this amazing break by Jeffrey DeLuna of the Philippines at the 2019 WPA Players Championships in Las Vegas. Because, duh, it has nothing to do with photography. Most people will probably never see a break like that because I don't link to it, but that's...wait for it...the breaks.  :-)

Kjell replies: "I'm so glad I never had to see, or even know anything about that break. I can only imagine it would have blown my socks off, and I really enjoy wearing socks in the winter."

Keith replies to Kjell: "Not to nitpick, but I would like to point out that there are actually two photo-related sites that routinely write about pool. You might check out Kirk Tuck's blog, where he frequently posts...oh wait, that's a different kind of pool."

Thanks (Blog Note)

My sincere thanks to those of who commented on the "Older You, Younger You" post. I was surprised by the wide range of ideas and moved by some of the more personal testimonies. I got a lot from those. Thank you.

Mike the Ed.

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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How Much Do Amazon Associates Earn? (Blog Notes)

Adam W. asked: "Mike, A very quick question: I do try to purchase through your affiliate links, and I'm just curious what rate you earn from this? I've heard Amazon has slashed their reimbursement rates and I'd like to know how it affected you. I'm just concerned—no agenda (aside from supporting content creators doing the good work :-) If you answer this please don't take long, I don't want to distract you from shooting and writing."

Mike replies: That's okay—this is writing too.

Amazon's rates used to be based on the number of items sold, on a sliding scale. In March of 2017 Amazon changed the fee structure. Since then it has paid a flat rate based on category. Most of those rates are lower than the old ones.

However, cameras and lenses and other items in Electronics were set aside in the old volume model—they were rewarded at a lower rate, a rate that hasn't changed. (I think I'm enjoined by the user agreement not to talk about what it is, but I'm sure you can find it online.) So while I've been affected by the structure change, it's not as catastrophic as you might expect.

As far as I can see, there are three factors that have been reducing TOP's affiliate or associate income since the peak year of 2013. The biggest change is the number of eyes. I still have a large, healthy audience, but in terms of pure numbers it's about a third of what it was at the peak, mainly caused by far fewer occasional or one-time visitors arriving through search engines and from other sites linking to me. In the old days when ordinary citizens (as distinct from photography mavens) were thinking of buying a camera, they'd do online research first, so a post with a title like "Canon G10 Review" would pull strongly. Also, in the pioneer days, people happily sent readers to other websites. Money changed that. These days, nothing I write "goes viral" any more, because so few sites are willing to send their readers to other sites. (Why risk sharing the shrinking income?) The casual digicam shoppers have all gone away, content with the cameras in their phones. Even loyal enthusiasts are buying less, and less often, now. That's merely because the digital camera product category is maturing, something I saw coming from way, way off. So that's the second factor.

A corollary to the second factor might be: I can't sell iPhones. And that nobody needs a camera reviewer to help them buy a smartphone.

The third factor is competition, mainly from video. Camera sites have proliferated, because they're known to be good sources of income. If I were starting this blog today, fergeddaboudit—it would fly like the Spruce Goose. And far more people are watching YouTube videos now than are reading the old-fashioned written word. I do it myself a fair amount (I follow cue sports, and mainly watch online), so I can't really complain.

The thing that is filling in the shortfall for me are your Patreon contributions. The trendlines with everything else are going in the wrong direction, but the Patreon donations are filling in the shortfall so that I don't have to go out looking for a new job yet. (That might be a tad bitter—a lot of the traditional jobs for writers have dried up while I've been off doing this. Gotta finish that book!) So thanks to everyone who pitches in the price of a magazine subscription or a couple of month of Starbucks on Patreon! You are what's making the difference in keeping our excellent community alive.

Still, people who use my links are still the biggest part of what keeps this little boat afloat.

Mike
(Thanks to Adam)

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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trecento: "Mike, I buy through your links as often as I can—for pretty much everything. I appreciate your work here, because this in one of the last sites I know of that have a really human voice to them. Yes, there are a few other photo bloggers who do a nice job talking about gear, or talking about photographs. No shade meant for them. But you don't talk like someone selling stuff, nor do you talk like an industry analyst. You talk like a writer. There's a transparency, and a lack of artifice to your work that I like. And, I like the personality that shines through. I hope this blog is able to keep going for some time to come. Wishing you well."

Mike replies: Thanks, trecento. I said a long time ago that I intend to ride this horse all the way to the inn, and that's still the plan. It's been fun!

The Film Years / Digital Years Scatter Chart, Final Version

[Click to embiggen—if it doesn't scroll for you once it's enlarged, try going to Reader View first —Ed.]

By Sarge

This is the scatter chart of 269 TOP readers* who responded to Mike's post "Film vs. Digital (Not What You Think!)," a sleeper of a TOP post. [And here is the post with Sarge's first attempts at this chart —Ed.] The chart is long, as befits the long collective experience of TOP readers shooting film (a "deep well" as DD-B puts it). Only 800px wide (the maximum allowed by the Typepad template), the chart is nonetheless wide enough to encompass the entire history of digital photography. When you scroll from the bottom of the chart up, you are going back in time 75 years to 1945. Likewise, you go back to 1990 when you read it from left to right along the Digital Years axis.

TOP's estimable Commentariat is well represented here. But the chart also includes several readers who were commenting for the first time, I think. I'm also glad that some readers who are digital natives like me (0,11) also commented. The 269 names in the chart is just a minute fraction of TOP's regular readership. It took some doing (see below) fitting all 269 within the chart. At its current size and aspect ratio, maybe up to 80 more readers' names can be accommodated in the chart with enough white space left for readability. Laborious though it was, I had fun making the chart as an homage to Mike's original post and a tribute to my fellow TOP readers.

The chart's Film Years and Digital Years axis labels (left and bottom) and that of the calendar years axis (right and top) are both five units (in years) apart. But they are not equidistant, graphically. That's because I "dilated" the middle grids of both axes to create more elbowroom since that's where most of the responding readers are. In other words, the space-time of the middle grids warped as a result of the combined gravitas of the TOP readers situated therein. The most densely populated grids for Film and Digital are, respectively: F30–40 (1980–1990) and D10–20 (2000–2010).**

It seems to me that the TOP readership (as represented by the readers who commented) is normally distributed, albeit "skewed to the right." Not that a distribution which "skews older" is a demographic feature unique to TOP's readership. With life expectancy rising all over the world, skewing older is the new normal, in my opinion. What may be unique about the chart though, is that the outliers are right on the margins or near it.

That many TOP readers had common coordinates contributed to the crush at the center. The green dots are shared by three readers, the red ones by two, the blue dots are unique combinations. Leader lines are provided linking readers' names to the green and red dots shared by them. Also to the blue dots when it isn't clear which dot belongs to whom. The "leader lines" are automatically generated by Excel, but positioning the names around the red and green dots and several of the blue ones had to be done manually. This was the easy part.

Dilating the middle grids also meant generating a separate chart for each differently-sized grid. The scatter plot is actually a composite seven stacks high by three frames wide, or 21 charts in all. Each frame was exported to Paint and stitched together to form a stack, which in turn were stitched together to form the whole scatter chart.

The hard part was fitting together the component charts in Paint and Excel*** which was manually done by eye and hand. And this has to be accurate down to the pixel or the dots and names won't line up across frames, not to mention the edges of the stacks. When these do not align, you go back to Excel and start over. I've had a much easier time stitching hand-held photos using Hugin, an early panorama executable. There must be an app for this sort of chart somewhere. Well, as Ctein used to say, "nobody cares how hard you work" to get things right.

Sarge

Here is Sarge's website

Notes:
*The 269 names in the scatter plot include readers who commented to the follow-up post. The master list of readers and their respective Film and Digital years can be found in this Google sheet. The readers' names are spelled as they appeared in the Comments section (minus diacritical marks, if any).

**The initial year label (2020) of the calendar years axes is omitted because we are not quite there yet. This has no effect on the value of the readers' Film and Digital coordinates.

***Paint 3D allows you to warp a selected part of a graphic (to get a fish-eye view) but I wanted a rectilinear printer-friendly chart. I use a 2013 Student Edition of Excel. In this version, the chart area has clickable dimensions but not the plot area where all the work gets done.

Original contents copyright 2019 by Ferdinand Garrido. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Featured Comments from:

Scott Moore: "This is a real gift to the community. Thanks, Sarge, for your effort and diligence on this."

Ernest Zarate: "Terrific! Who’d a thunk that a bunch of (seemingly random) dots along with even more names (also seemingly random) would be so fascinating? Thank you, Sarge, for the many hours you devoted to doing this—twice! Truly, the sum is far greater than the parts."

Blog Note

[Yr. Hmbl. Ed. is taking a few days off for battery rechargement. Back soon!]

Angry Mob

These people came to the door. They want me to go work on the Baker's Dozen "In the Museum" portfolio. They seem like they mean it. So I think I'd better go work on that. I'll be back soon....

Mike

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Shootouts

I'm hoping to do a shootout between the G9 and the X-H1 before the former goes the way of all things. (No, not death— eBay.) I also need to do a shootout between the Zeiss 12mm and the Fuji 14mm, because I'm not going to keep two ultra-wides—I don't do enough shooting with ultra-wide focal lengths to justify that. And I need to compare the fast and slow Fuji 35mms for the same reason—~50mm-e is not an often-used focal length for me any more (it was for a long time, but not lately) so I really can't see the sense in keeping both.

I have a nice post planned for tomorrow for "Sunday Support Group"—it's about a photography-related project instead of being off-topic. And then next week, something very unusual for TOP—a post about firearms! (This seems on topic to mention in a post called "Shootouts.") It's by a guest author, and features an interesting photograph.

Enjoy the rest of your Saturday—it's a very pretty day here in the Finger Lakes of Upstate New York, and it's peak season here—we are inundated with tourists and Summer vacationers. They picked the right time to visit.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Use What You Like

By the way, just because we tend to have Fuji discussions here once in a while, please don't think I'm advocating for any particular kind of camera for anyone else. I have a friend who shoots an EOS R, a friend who shoots 4x5 film, several friends who shoot Canon DSLRs, and a friend who treated himself a few years back to a Sony A7RIII. I know a guy who has lately been doing everything with a Leica Q2, a guy who adapts tripod cameras with movements to digital bodies, and a woman who bought one of the Fuji medium-format cameras. I also know lots of people who shoot all kinds of things. Some people buy a new camera every year and some are shooting with digital cameras from 2009. Some people love film and hang around on film forums as well. Some pros rent what they need when they need it. It's all good. It's true that I tend to talk more about the kinds of cameras that appeal to me, but the last thing I want to do is run a site where anyone feels that have to shoot some particular brand or type of gear to be welcome.

Just thought I'd mention that one more time. Lest any newcomer (or recent-comer) think otherwise. We are camera brand and type agnostic at TOP!

Mike

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Weak

I apologize—I said I was going to update today's post this afternoon. But then the mailman arrived with these...

...Along with sundry other tasty goodies, and I just had to play. What can I say? I am weak.

I'll try to get the previous post finished up tomorrow afternoon. Because I'll be able to stay away from the Fuji gear tomorrow.  :-)

—Mike the Official TOP Equipment Wrangler

[UPDATE: posted it late Wednesday. I figured I'd better finish it while it's dark out.  :-) ]

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Featured Comments from:

Peter Baglole: "Oh my, once you start shooting with the 90mm, I doubt we will hear from you for a while."

JohnW: "Tsk, Tsk. At times like this Sir a true aficionado does not 'play'; he conducts critical and essential research. You are excused to do so, on condition that when done you provide the requisite full and complete report. And yes, good research does take time. Someday I'll publish my report on ice cream."

Mike replies: More research is always needed on that.

Dexter (with Update)

Big day—this morning I'm off to Geneva (no, not Switzerland) to get temporary eyeglasses for Dexter. Very exciting.

"Dexter" is my recently surgically treated eye—Oculus Dexter being the optician's term for "right eye," from the Latin. That's why your vision prescription cryptically says "OD" and "OS." The latter stands for Oculus Sinister, or left eye.

My uncorrected eyesight is much better than before the operation—no more Vaseline-on-the-filter haze, no more flare—but not particularly good. It still has blur and astigmatism at any distance. Good contrast and color transmission, however. I've been assuming I'm one of those whose implant (technical term pseudophakic intraocular lens or IOL) will end up having to be corrected with eyeglasses.

On the other hand, my doctor brother, who has had 11 eye operations, says his eyesight continued to improve for a whole year after his last corneal surgery, so who knows?

I'll update this later.

Mike

UPDATE Tuesday afternoon: A bit anticlimactic. They really just wanted to check my eye pressure (it's fine), take a look at the graft ("It looks really good, really clear"), and make sure my eyesight is at least no worse than it was when I last saw the surgeon. (I saw a colleague of hers today.)

And indeed, like Dr. Charlie said, a DMEK can continue to improve for a up to a year...so the prognosis is, broadly, that "it's still a work in progress."

Dexter has supposedly improved from 20/40 to 20/30.

But you know me, I've got lots of unpedigreed theories which are the effluvium of thinking too often. And we see with both our eyes and our brains. So, as I've said before, I've long been of the opinion that I do better on eye-chart tests than I should, on account of my brain is better at seeing than most peoples' brains are. I'm aware when I'm looking at tiny, indecipherable letters that I am almost intuiting what they "must" be, and that I make good guesses. No one's in a position to test such a hypothesis, but I would guess that I can detect a "G" where the average person with the exact same eyesight as me would default to an "O," and that I can guess "O" for the O-like letters (Q, G, O, D) where other people (not you; average people) with the exact same eyesight would have so little clue that they'd give up altogether.

What big eyes you have!

This sounds like I'm bragging, but I'm pretty convinced of it. I think my brain sees better than the average brain. I certainly do exercise it, after all—I see things other people don't—and people who exercise abilities become better at them than people who don't. Seeing is play to me; "Seeing is the soul's perfect delight." The good become better.

A counterexample: I'm really bad at throwing objects at targets with my hands (basketballs into hoops, wads of paper into wastebaskets ten feet away, playing catch with a Koosh ball), and, sure enough, I never practice that. And the bad become worse. I have no doubt that I'm inferior to the average, normally coordinated male at throwing objects at targets.

So what I'm saying is that I don't actually believe Dexter is 20/30 as measured. He just tests well is all. On account of my great brain.

We have had astonishing weather today. In the Finger Lakes you are often very aware that the atmosphere is an ocean. When I went into the grocery store after my appointment, it was sunny and hot; when I emerged it was pouring down rain. All the way home I traced the edge of a storm front, the sky on the left storm-dark, the sky on the right with towering high roiling clouds against pure sky blue. It was like I was driving in a line down the boundary.

Pictures left and right, or should I say picturae sinister et dexter.

But the bottom line is that all is well and everything's fine. I did get a new prescription. I paid $30 to get my PD measured in fancy dual numbers (all the best people know their dual PD), and ordered a new pair of computer glasses from China, corrected for 18 inches. The better to see you with, my dears. —M.

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Fred Haynes: "I am looking forward to you eye update. I too have had many eye operations, though not as many as your brother. And I’ve been following your eye health posts from a year or two ago. Medicine, in general has made such strides, and there’s this parallel between a post you made a few days ago, where things happened in photo technology, autofocus, image stabilization, etc. just in time to make a difference. And I might not be alive today were it not for a tricuspid valve repair that wasn’t possible until just a year or two ago. And I would not be able take pictures without autofocus, or my doctor at Manhattan Eye, Ear, and Throat hospital. I think we’re two lucky dudes, having good doctors and advancing technology to make our photo passions a possibility."

Mike replies: Makes me choke up a little. We are assuredly fortunate and blessed in this regard, Fred.

Blog Note

To the readers who have asked, plus anyone else who is curious: Yes, I will try to get to the interrupted Baker's Dozen, "In the Museum," soon. I'm still not actually up to full speed yet, not so much because of my eye but because of a series of debilitating backaches. I start PT for that soon but none too soon. Plus, I'm an old dawg with a grizzled muzzle and I like lying in the shade.

But, as the Hoosiers used to say, I ain't forgot.

Mike

91 Novels

Some time on Saturday the counter ticked past 220,000 comments posted here on TOP since 2007. About 20,000 of those were added to the posts as "Featured" comments. If you accept an approximated average of 50 words per comment, that would mean I've read and moderated some 11,000,000 words of comments since moving here to TypePad from Blogger—about the same number of words as 91 full-length novels*.

And you know what? I still very much enjoy receiving and reading comments. That should be obvious! I look forward to them every day. When I was "down" during my recent eye operation, I missed them. They amplify, expand, and modify almost every post. Collectively, the TOP Commentariat has vast experience, deep wisdom, and a well of knowledge. I learn something new every day, and I've certainly been kept entertained. I'm sure the many people who "lurk"—that is, who read but seldom comment themselves—would agree.

I'm always trying to figure out ways to draw out more knowledge and different stories from you. I get good recommendations and advice and tips, as well as edification, education, and enlightenment. And excellent feedback—hearing from readers immediately and learning to anticipate objections and dissenting opinion has made me a better writer, or at least a more fair and compassionate (and oh yeah, more humble) one.

Many thanks, and please keep those comments coming! And now, back to moderating comments.  :-)

Mike

*That sounds like a lot, but it's only 7.5 novels per year—I actually know real people who regularly read that many novels every two or three weeks or so.

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I'm Back

Xander disobeying a sign. Or was he? We were not kicked out.

The news about my eye yesterday was as good as it could be. The glamorous young surgeon, her assistant, and her "shadow" (a young doctor new to the practice who was observing) all smiled at me happily. "I cheated," was the first thing Dr. Hindman said to me, beaming, as I passed her at a desk on the way from the eye test to the exam room. "I peeked at your chart. You're doing really well." Evidently the period of doubt is over and all signs are positive.

I told Dr. Hindman that I had learned something about myself throughout this process—that I'm a pessimist. I had been prepared for the worst. In reply she said that one thing she's learned about herself from doing eye surgery is that she's not in control. "We put everything in place, and then it's up to God or nature or whatever controls these things to do the rest," she said. Mostly it works and sometimes it doesn't, and "...you need a little luck."

I've been lucky. "The graft adheres," meaning that the donor tissue, the Descemet's membrane and the vital single layer of squamous epithelial cells that compose the endothelial layer, has attached itself firmly to my cornea in the proper place. I will wear glasses for the rest of my life—the intra-ocular implant doesn't have the perfect prescription, because "sometimes the shape of the cornea changes in ways we can't foresee"—but she said my uncorrected vision will likely be 20/40, legal to drive with uncorrected. My eyesight is still not great at this moment, but, according to the good doctor, my right eye will get better and better from now on, as my left eye continues to get worse. I'll have to have the same operation on the left eye eventually. 

I'm still curious about how it will affect my photography, and I still have more pondering to do over the remarkable fact that I'm now using part of another person's body in mine.

Both of those things are subjects for later, though, not for now.

Fred
After my appointment Xander and I went to a house museum officially called Sonnenberg Gardens and Mansion State Historic Park, which is also in Canandaigua, the pleasant resort town where the Eye Care Center is located. Thursday was a beautiful, hot Summer day. Sonnenberg means "Sunny Hill" in German, and the estate is known more simply around here as Sonnenberg Gardens. It attracts 35,000 visitors a year, which is a lot in these parts—it's more than the year-round population of the county where I live. Sonnenberg Gardens consists of a 40-room, 21,000-square-foot Queen Anne style house on what used to be 200 acres of highly landscaped grounds, of which 50 remain. It was one of the five (count 'em) residences of a fellow named Frederick Ferris Thompson and his wife, Mary Clark Thompson, who also endowed the original F.F. Thompson Hospital in Canandaigua in his memory. Frederick was one of the founders of a bank that is now part of Citibank, and his original partners, his father and brother, departed to form their own bank, Chase National Bank, named for their friend, Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase. Their bank is now part of JP Morgan Chase. F.F. Thompson's house, with Mary in charge, was built at a frantic pace by more than 200 workers, some of them craftsmen from Italy, in 1885–87. The grounds and gardens, which were Mary's passion and are now the main attraction, evolved more slowly, from 1902 to 1919.

Fred

Evidently Mrs. Thompson was in charge of spending the couple's copious supply of money, and most of the tourist information in the home and gardens is about her. But, in addition to being ungodly rich, the man of the house (I'd call him Fred if we were out photographing and probably wouldn't even be allowed into his presence at the bank!) was one of us. A wall plaque described him as "an avid amateur photographer," and, in the only picture of him I noticed in the house, he is standing with an air of recognizably geeky pride behind an imposing view camera. A row of his cameras—decidedly modest compared to the rest of his life (maybe he was the frugal one of the pair?)—is presented atop a bookcase at the top of the stairs.

Fred's Century Grand Studio No. 7 8x10 portrait camera,
missing its included "cabinet holder" and "Semi-Centennial Stand."
It cost $72 in 1902 (~$2,144 today).

There were photographs on the walls here and there, but no notation as to whether they were his or not. This visitor would like to have known.

I'm half back
Anyway, I still have to be on half speed for a while, but I'm back. The comments to this post are open! Hallelujah. Yesterday was a good day all around.

Mike

P.S. I have no idea if Frederick F. Thompson was known as "Fred" or not. It's just that all us Photo-Dawgs are on a first-name basis here in the friendly club environs of TOP, no matter what our walk of life.

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Featured Comments from:

Dennis: "Welcome back ! A few years back, my family stopped at an ice cream shop. When we walked in, there was nobody at the counter, just a couple of teens in the back, but there was a box with a note on it that said 'Do Not Open.' My wife—the nosier, more curious of us—really wanted to open it. When we walked out with our ice creams, the teens followed us out—turns out they were students doing an experiment for a psychology class. They asked whether we wanted to open it and why we didn't. I replied that I just generally obey signs, but later realized that I respect signs/rules on private property much more than signs/rules on public property. Then you have the paper tickets you get when you enter raffles that say 'Keep This Coupon.' I kept one of those for over 20 years and nothing ever came of it. Good luck on the rest of your recovery!"

Joe Holmes: "Whew! Congratulations! Welcome back. Your pessimism isn't necessarily a bad thing. If you don't believe me, I highly recommend The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking by Oliver Burkeman. Makes a very good case for pessimism as a path to happiness. I also recommend Jim Holt's really wonderful book Why Does the World Exist, one of my favorite pop-philosophy books, which at points touches on similar topics. Anyway, as I said, welcome back! I missed you."

Steve Jacob: (partial comment): "I found cataract surgery affected my photography quite a lot. I stopped oversharpening and oversaturating images for one thing and I could calibrate my screen properly again. ;-) We don't really give much thought to the range of vision issues people have when they express preferences for one image, or camera, over another."

Mike replies: So true. We will really need to talk about this!

What Does a Guy Have to Do? (Update)

My son Xander is here visiting, and in this house, he is about the most eminent guest possible. Human and canines are all delighted. Tomorrow he'll drive me to the Eye Center for my checkup (the first in 18 days), upon which a lot is riding. I have no sense of how I'm doing. I'm hoping for good news.

During my convalescence I've been listening to Ron Chernow's Washington, and I thought this little factoid was funny: George Washington's mother never approved of him. She never bragged about or complimented him on his accomplishments, and she complained persistently about his lack of attentiveness and support. As far as Chernow reports, she never offered him the slightest morsel of encouragement, esteem, or respect, even when he was understandably preoccupied with little things like, you know, keeping his ragtag army together at Valley Forge or pounding Cornwallis into submission at Yorktown.

What does a guy have to do to impress Mom, anyway? Apparently being the Father of your Country and the first President of the United States just didn't quite measure up. After the Revolution, Washington was arguably the biggest celebrity in the Western world—truly the man of the age—even British aristocrats pestered Benjamin Franklin for letters of introduction. But Mary Washington still wasn't a fan.

More news when I know it, but in the meantime, I sincerely apologize for the lack of original content and discussion here lately. I guess it's remarkable that I managed to keep the blog going for thirteen and a half years without any long content outages, but that doesn't make this long dry spell any easier to bear. I'm very sorry. I hope to return soon, but I'm at the mercy of necessities beyond my control.

Mike

 

Bored Out of My Gourd (Mike Update)

Nothing much to report. My recovery is going well enough as far as I can tell, and I'm comfortable. Yesterday marked one full week to go till my next checkup. I'm already seeing interesting things out of my repaired eye, such as greatly improved color transmission and gorgeous large-structure contrast. Resolution is not yet adequate, but then I'm wearing a protective cover over the surface of the eyeball like a contact lens. My nine daily eyedrops include a beta-blocker, a quinolone antibiotic, and an anti-inflammatory synthetic corticosteriod. I haven't missed a one.

But I can't...do...anything. if you're ever tempted to think that "time flies," just put yourself in a position where you can't do most of the things you normally spend your time doing! On Tuesday I was cleared to make short drives in daylight, so I am able to get to the grocery store, but I'm not allowed to exert myself, exercise, or do much more than light housework, and I can spend only a cumulative total of one hour per day reading and looking at screens of all kinds. (I wrote this post in three ten-minute bursts across three days.) Next Thursday's checkup might—emphasis on might—clear me to return to my usual routines and get us back to normal. Keep your fingers crossed.

It's difficult to hold silverware with your fingers crossed.

I'm very mindful that this is not real suffering—it's certainly very far from the worst thing in the world. It barely rises to the level of an extended inconvenience. All the same, the passing of time has slowed to a crawl, and I am bored out of my gourd*.

It's probably one of those times that seem like a trial when we're in the middle of it but that we can compartmentalize and allow to fade from memory once it's been endured and is over with. But it's a trial even so. I can't wait for it to end.

More anon.

Mike

*Odd expression, isn't it? I don't know where it comes from...it just bubbled out of my brain. I suppose gourd = head.

(Live Update)

Dateline, Monday: I've learned today that my recovery is going to take somewhat longer than I had hoped. To string a few extra days from the material I have ready, one post per day will appear for the next few days. After that I will do something. I am not allowed to write, read, watch video, or look at images and whatever else on the computer or other kinds of screens—which is inconvenient as I have belatedly realized that pretty much all I ever do in my entire life is...write, read, watch video, or look at images and whatever else on the computer or other kinds of screens!  :-)  It’s quite a shift to go cold turkey.

Otherwise all is well. I’m comfortable and keeping discouragement at bay, and I remain grateful for this chance at restored eyesight. I’m listening to an American classic I’ve never read before, The Grapes of Wrath, narrated by Dylan Baker, and enjoying it. 

Mike