Saving Weeks – SOILED

The past week was not my best week of lumbering, but I’m still on track to get over 100 miles in my feetz this month, so I guess I have that to cling onto like a deflated life jacket whilst sinking in a sea of American suck and worldly misanthropy.

Regardless of the lack of lumbering, intense heat, thunderstorms, and the endless appointments I seemed to have had last week, it was a good week if, for no other reason, our B-Man was back home after a month of school in London and some European travels to Amsterdam and Ireland.

Graduation photo by one of B’s friends.

It was great to have him home safely, see him, hug him, and hear all the stories from his trip. He’s going to be back living in East Lansing for a while doing some editing for a local media company as well as starting the process of sending out his reel to potential employers and clients. Ah, to be young, talented, motivated, smart, creative, and full of hope for the future… *sighs heavily, cracks beer*

The week before last, I planned on doing an easy week of hiking and failed, but I guess it all worked out this week with only a little over 20 miles completed. Hopefully, I can get back to my normal mileage through the heat and humidity we’re supposed to get over the next couple of days.

PART II: Macro Saturday

After a late night of fetching B-Man at the airport in Detroit, I was up early on Saturday morning and looking for something to do before the heat of the day kicked in. I decided to go to the Sylvan Solace Preserve with my macro-lens and look for bugs and shit to photograph.

I used to go to Sylvan, and some of the other local nature preserves all the time for Photo-Creeps five or six or years ago after I’d finally drag myself out of the Bed of Torment each morning. I have to admit those creeps were during a tough time in my life mentally, and now, the thought of walking those trails brings back a bit of PTSD and regret for wasting time obsessing about what some folks thought of me, my views, and my life choices. Then, once I started my daily lumberings, I skipped Sylvan due to its lack of available miles.

In any event, I was back on Saturday morning with the Nikon 105mm macro lens, trying to give the lens one more try before I started the selling process.

As you can see from some of the pics here, I finally started feeling more comfortable using it, and it may have just got a reprieve from the used market. I think my problem was I wanted to use it with the smaller, lighter Nikon z50, but they just weren’t playing nice together; pair it with the z6, and it’s a different story.

Handheld macro in nature is its own thing, and it often reminds me of fishing. When fishing, sometimes, you make hundreds of casts for hours only to catch a couple of fish, if any. And sometimes, with macro photography, you take shot after shot of a tiny little insect, working with a tight depth of field, adjusting focus and apertures, as you stand silently hunched over a flower, trying to be as still as possible as sweat rolls down your face from the hot, humid morning air, only to come home with a handful of keepers (if you’re lucky) out of hundreds of shots.

But when it works out, you are allowed access to a whole other world of nature that most folks never even think about, let alone want to photograph.

It was nice to get out in the woods before the heat got too intense, and I think I got some keepers to nerd out on. I ended up creeping two miles, but those miles do NOT count towards the Ignorance is Bliss Tour. Hell, my second mile was completed in 35 minutes!