2026-04-14

Hello! My first ever panorama photo!

I have a couple of ideas on what to talk about floating around, but none of them fit a certain photo. So today, let's talk about Christmas.

We're about as far from the Christmas craze as we could be today, so it's a perfect time for me to recount a story from Christmas 2025.

I'm not sure if it was from my annoyance with ads in music streaming, my short-lived obsession with physical media, or an itch to do something funny, but I ended up buying a stack of blank CDs and a CD burner in the fall. I had no purpose for them yet, but I knew this could lead to something interesting.

That opportunity came when my friends at school started talking about their gift shopping, and ideas were going 'round on what people liked. I thought that a CD with Christmas music would be unique enough to stand out, so I decided to start collecting music.

For the next few weeks, as I listened to music, if any thoughts popped into my head on funny Christmas tracks, I would find the accompanying YouTube video (or Spotify track, or Bandcamp link) and bookmark it. By December, I had collected too much music.

I realize that reading and writing to CDs is not supposed to be some arcane magic, but it is to me! I'm still not sure if I bought the right CDs for the job — apparently there's, like, seven types. But I knew that I could only fit so much music onto one disc, and so the process of filtering began.

I ended up with 15 tracks, including such classics as: A Christmas Miracle leading right into a mashup of Mariah Carey and My Chemical Romance, Jingle Bells by Hampton the Hampster, Mr Blobby's 1993 reveal for the blissfully unaware Americans, Vulfpeck's Christmas in L.A., and Al Yankovic's tale of when Santa Went Crazy. Also a few other songs that weren't nearly as funny.

The night before gift-giving was to commence, I was up until midnight learning how to quickly burn music to my discs. When I had eight copies, I grabbed a marker and drew simple holiday symbols unique to each disc. When passing them around to friends at school, I quickly realized I'm not the only one too young for CDs — most people didn't have a CD player, and the rest could only play it in their old car... and they didn't trust me enough to blast my choice of music to their parents on the road (a smart decision, I'm sure). Oh well.

While a few people listened to the tracks (especially after I sent out a digital folder of the songs) and laughed, it didn't get the punchline I was hoping. I've forgotten about it since. A digital copy of the songs live on my computer, untouched for months.

Until now. A friend recently dug up a monitor and CD player, and texted me that they were finally listening to my gift, months late. I promptly stopped what I was doing, pulled up my own copy of the songs, and listened to the playlist one more time.

Man, the grin on my face...

Cheers,
David

2026-04-13

Hello! I said I would go on a screen detox, but that didn't work out.

Hermitcraft, which I consider to be an all-ages TV show free on YouTube themed around Minecraft, has hosted their annual charity event. They've raised more than $1,100,000 USD, breaking previous records.

It's wonderfully chaotic and attracts me like catnip — as it's trending on Tumblr, I've used the social media platform more this weekend than the past year combined, probably. Sorting by new is an overstimulating firehose of crazy.

None of that has to do with this photo, which is a quick shot I got looking out the car window in Delaware.

Finally, a web game; it's been a long time, and I don't have much to say today. If you've played the classic Minesweeper game, you'll understand Kevin MacLeod's Hexsweeper. Along with making Creative Commons-licensed music, Kevin builds web games as well. This might be a bit easier than the traditional Minesweeper? I'm not sure, but I completed the board first try.

Cheers,
David

2026-04-12

Back among the starry night sky...

Hello! Every so often, I cycle through a regular process of building a high ego over something stupid and having it crash down. I wonder if this blog is unintentionally becoming an ego thing.

Anyway, enjoy an article of me praising myself on how clever I am.

The effect of star trails spinning around a central point was done in-camera; I don't even know how I would do this in editing.

I forgot my tripod, so the camera was set on a fence post. I took several shots of the bright stars at night, but none of them captured the special feeling of starlight that I felt that night. I've lived through thousands of nights, and I've seen the stars often, but never this many! Without light pollution, they really show up.

But they're dots in the sky, and hard to capture with a camera. I had to let the camera open the sensor for a longer time, exposing it to thirty seconds of starlight. I figured that I could make any motion blur seem intentional, so for some shots, I moved the camera on purpose.

This was the only time it worked. The camera faced the stars, and I slowly turned it on the fence post. Stars in the center of frame haven't changed much, but as you go further to the sides, the arc of star trails increases in length. Wonderful.

I wonder if, despite all my explanations of the photography process in detail, photography and art comes across like drawing an owl: there's not enough detail in between start and finish. I had the benefit of taking a short course on photography in school, but I knew the course material already and just used the class as a space to experiment. The theory is self-learned, which means there's no end in sight; I'm always still learning, and no end-of-school degree will mark the completion of my search for photography knowledge.

Cheers,
David

2026-04-11

Back at the university garden...

Hello! Writing to you from Delaware, where I'm yet again out of my comfort zone.

It was mostly cloudy when I took the photo, with only a few moments of sunshine. I took this photo in horizontal / landscape orientation, but cropped it as vertical. There are just too many horizontal photos posted on this website at the moment. Gotta switch things up.

Not much else in today's post. Sorry.

I spent last night watching videos from Courtney Victoria, nature and macro photographer who is also taking a break from social media in April, if you call YouTube as social media (I do). Her video of photography in unanticipated weather is especially inspiring for me, mostly because I know it'll give me the push I need to go out and discover "the secrets of the forest".

Cheers,
David

2026-04-10

Back at the university garden...

Hello!

It looks like I've sent up to one hundred emails out to each newsletter subscriber (one each day with the regular photo, as expected, and an additional daily email with the Originals for those who have supported me). I archive all my emails now, and going back, it's surprising how consistent I've been. I hit the ground running and I'm still going.

(I say this to convince myself that I'm still doing something of value here.)

I don't have a specialty in macro photography or close-ups; my shots tend to allow for lots of room rather than having the subject fill the frame. But I've seen those images where a spotlight beam seems to fall on the flower, while everything else fades to black. I wanted to give that a shot.

This was taken outside, under tree cover. A thin beam of sunlight shone on this flower, but the rest was done in editing. After taking the photo, I made it black-and-white; I think it emphasizes the texture better. It also makes it easier to cover the background in black, so I just added gradients to the sides that lowered the exposure by four stops — very dark.

The next few posts will be pretty short as I take more time off the internet.

Finally, the concept of the small web confuses me. Someone out there (or, more likely, a computer program) has listed me on several search engines like Google, Bing, and... Kagi Small Web? Along with 30,000 other sites, my website shows up on this random feed of personal blogs. I'm going to assume that's a good thing, and I hope that anyone finding me through the outside internet is friendly.

Cheers,
David

2026-04-09

Hello! Well, this is something.

Last month, I got in contact with WikiPortraits, an international organization that captures photos of people for Wikipedia and its sister projects. They let me go to the New Directors / New Films opening night in New York to take photos, and let me just say: oh my god i have no idea what i'm doing.

I've worked as an event photographer before — both paid (summer job with kids) and volunteer (school) — but this time I knew no one and felt thoroughly fish-out-of-water. It was great!

Outside of photography, I volunteer as an usher for a theater and auditorium, and each time they onboard someone new, the staff's go-to process is to "throw them in the middle of the duck pond" — which I have heard no one else say! The more conventional version, I guess, is to "plunge in the deep end". Do something challenging first, and learn quickly under pressure. It doesn't work for everyone, but that's how I like to do things.

So it makes sense that I signed up for my first assignment with WikiPortraits less than 24 hours after joining the organization. World moves quick, man. I think I set up WhatsApp wrong.

This was a red carpet event in formal attire in New York City. I took so many photos, and I'll license the good ones; you'll see my uploads eventually at Wikimedia Commons. So far, there's only one photo — this one — because it's funny.

Update 2026-04-10: I have licensed all images from the event and uploaded them to Wikimedia Commons.

Working with organizations and sending emails is still a bit beyond me; Jennifer Lee connected me in the first place (thank you!... and sorry for all the newbie questions!).

This is only my second Creative Commons-licensed photo on this blog; I thought I would have done more. The first photo was from February, where I submitted something for a competition.

Finally, Stephen Wan's city guide for New York City. I don't know how the hell I found this — especially since he works at an AI company, and I tend to steer away from that — but this city guide seems intimate and personal, and I figured it would be worth exploring. I only went to New York exclusively for the film festival, but if I ever get some free hours next time, I'll try following this guide.

Cheers,
David

2026-04-08

Hello! My life has been flipping east and left and all around, and I'm signing up to crazy things this month. Loving every second of it. So enjoy a post including nothing crazy, written in the wee hours of the morning.

I think that there are hidden gems all around town, and even when you've been to a place for twenty-ish years, there's always something new within walking distance. This discovery never ends, and always presents itself most when you think you've found everything. The goalpost keeps moving; the rainbow is sky-high.

I've gone to this state park for my entire life, and I have family who visits nearly every week if the weather is right. We've been to every trail, spent hours viewing the same views, and exhausted every street. We thought we were done with this park.

Of course we weren't. There's a whole section in the back, with its own parking lot and entrance that has trails connecting up to the main entrance. One quick browse of the trail map shows a couple of routes that join other, more familiar routes. There's even an entire art club that has taken over a former horse stable to display in the field. I visited all of this for the first time the other day.

I never sought to conquer every acre within reach, but I thought I had just about done it. Not even close. Now, I'm on the look out for more areas that I've always turned away from out of habit.

Maybe next time, I will find the end of the rainbow. Fat chance.

The internet is boring me more often than not, so I'm spending more and more time surrounding myself in books at the local libraries. If you've got book recommendations, get in touch! I haven't found my style or favorite genre yet...

Finally, a metal ruler on a piano. Ages ago, I saw this video and tried to emulate it with a piano at my school. Turns out, the piano was recently tuned to prepare for a performance that day, and if I left that ruler in there, the performance would have gone horribly. I would have also laughed my ass off, but that's besides the point.

Cheers,
David

2026-04-07

Hello! My homepage is getting boring, with all the landscape-oriented photos with the exact same aspect ratio. I oughta add a portrait of someone.

This photo is near Washington Crossing, on the New Jersey side. But the bridge to get into the state park was blocked off. They were doing a prescribed burn on some trees(!) and doing construction at the same time, so I guess they figured it was best to steer people away for the day.

So my family and I walked on the canal trail for a while. On the way back, a goose down the canal flew towards a group of geese closer to us. Within seconds of landing on the water, three geese (including the instigator) flew back down the canal as if racing.

I'm not sure if they were scared and trying to flee something (flying back to call for warning), or if they were just playing. They landed on a random spot in the canal, so it's not like there was food or a hiding spot over there.

Bless my camera's autofocus for being able to catch on to the geese in time. I don't have the fancy detection algorithms of current time. I just set the focus point and hope it can accurately guess the distance. I don't even let it continuously track — once it focuses on an object, it stays fixed at that distance until I call for it to refocus.

One of these days I should make a more detailed post ranking my editing softwares and the experience using each of them, but today, I'll draft up a short version:

• Affinity is free but feels unpolished. They're owned by Canva, which so far has a good reputation of not being evil, but more care needs to be put for photographers to really take advantage of this powerful tool. It's a great graphic design app, and I'd much rather use it over Adobe. I use it the most often, and I like learning more about this tool every time.
• Adobe's Lightroom Classic is begrudgingly the best editing software. It's overpriced, but I don't pay for it — I use the public library's shared computers (or my school's shared computers) and hope that they can keep getting away with it. It's just so damn quick and intuitive, and it's the only editing software that can work for batches of photos.
• Photopea.com is the ugly but really fun editing software. It works entirely in browser for free, so it's slow and limited, but I strangely love using it. If I'm doing light edits, I use Photopea.com.

Now I've reached Day 60 today, and it's a milestone in two ways — one, because I finally feel like the website is complete and I don't have to tinker too much with it anymore; it basically runs itself so long as I can supply it with my photos and my writing. Two, because bills are due.

I pay $21.85 USD per month to keep this website running (you can see the report at my Tip Jar) and I got an invoice a few days ago. Thank you very much to the folks who have already paid off that cost for the past sixty days; hope you're enjoying the Originals. To the rest of you, don't bother supporting unless you really want to. In reality, $21.85 USD isn't that bad, so I'm grateful that I only need to talk about expenses once every month to find a new supporter. If you want to be that new supporter, the link is below.

Cheers,
David

2026-04-06

Hello! This is from the backyard of my home, where I'm planting wildflowers and watching tulips bloom from the bulbs I placed last summer. It's a beautiful time of year.

No backyard is complete without a bird feeder, so I looked online for reviews and found this one that seems easy enough to clean. With a mix of black oil sunflower and millet, it only took a few weeks for birds to show up.

It only took a few more weeks for the squirrels to show up, but I have plenty of seed to last the next few months, so I'm not too worried. So long as they're not eating or breaking the plants.

This woodpecker (and others like it, I bet) has been drumming the trees for food for years, and I've never seen one in-person before. Feeding the birds was actually the first time I've seen a woodpecker up close, and they're gorgeous. Smaller than I expected, but still gorgeous.

Unfortunately, I'm not a bird nerd. I've used Cornell Lab's Merlin Bird ID before, but uninstalled the app after I realized I wasn't using it more than monthly. Photographing birds is a never-ending challenge — it seems like everyone starts with the common birds that look like black blobs, saving the odd colorful few, and then dreaming of rarer birds in faraway locations. Even once the professional bird photographers have captured a stunning bunch of shots in Costa Rica, the standard moves up to finding birds doing specific poses, or running specific actions.

Meanwhile, I'm just glad I can associate the echoey tapping noise of a woodpecker's hunt with this fella in my backyard.

The rain has been on and off these past few days, but I'm still taking photos and experimenting with my camera. I don't know if it's because I have more free time than the next person or if I just tend to prioritize photography over doing my actual work, but I'm doing well out in the field.

Finally, it's cool to be offline. There are quite a few things you can do without Internet. In fact, go outside (especially if it's dark or rainy) and take photos!

Cheers,
David

2026-04-05

Hello! I wonder if I should make this the wallpaper to my laptop; I've been using the sunset wallpaper for almost a year now. If I ever share my desktop screen to classmates and friends, I'm sure to get a reaction. All the better.

I had more than five really cool photos lined up this week, but they all got corrupted while exporting from my editing software yesterday, so that threw me for a loop(!) I'll redo the edits; I kept a backup of the raw file, and it shouldn't take me too long to add them to the queue.

A few days ago, I said that I had a close-up shot from the Lancaster Market, but didn't want to share it because I wasn't happy with how it looked. But that leaves the three shot rule incomplete — and we can't have that! — so here's a completely different example of a close up shot. You can see the little furs on the robin, it's great.

The one time I went to a university garden, it was empty. The flowers were about to bloom, but it was cloudy and neither tourist nor local cares about thin branches and sprouts. Neither do I, so I was about to pass by, until a robin stopped on a branch near me.

I have about thirty photos of this same robin, each getting the tiniest bit closer; this is the closest I ever got before it flew away, and it's pretty dang close.

A peek behind the curtain: I have a text file on my computer labeled "Ideas Board" where I jot down interesting topics worth writing about, or interesting things on the Internet that I want to share. That text file has reached over 3,000 words and it's growing faster than I can pull ideas from it. This is a good thing! They're all extraordinary ideas and they make you feel good about human creativity.

With one exception. The Beatles have legendary and iconic status in pop culture, but I've listened to so many of their songs (it really was "just a phase") and I've come to the conclusion that a lot of it is bad. Not just subjectively bad, like the weird Wild Honey Pie that I can't believe belongs in the same album as the beautiful Blackbird, but the songs that no one should give any respect to, like Why Don't We Do It in the Road? (also from the same album and a track that my school principal played loud for a class, unintentionally, until I nudged him to switch the track) and Run For Your Life (where a narrator threatens their girlfriend with murder and domination if they think of leaving). Just listen to their compilation album and that's good enough.

Cheers,
David

2026-04-04

Hello!

Look, I promise I'm basically out of photos from early March. I've been posting a lot of photos from that time, specifically in the four counties of Adams, Lancaster, Montgomery, and York.

These images are just interesting to me! I almost always go outside with a camera, and I take photos of whatever sticks out to me. That's why I don't have a central style — the world is my oyster.

But if everything worked properly for April Fools 2026, the entire website should have sent you to this:

If it didn't, pity my terrible web skills. I tried, okay?

The change has been reverted, though some links from April Fools still redirect to a rickroll; maybe I'll be able to fool future readers who haven't installed that browser extension I recommended.

As for the photo: I looked back at my GPS logs (which takes up one of the very few apps on my phone) and tried to find where I took this photo. It's on the sidewalk somewhere in York, Pennsylvania, but it's not showing up on Google Street View, and by this point, I'm too far out to go back and check in-person.

But I think this is a creative use of reusing parts. Earth Day is coming up, and I have some stories to share about that, but I'd like to remind people that "Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle" is ordered that way for a reason. Reducing what you buy (and reducing the waste you create) is far more effective than trusting a recycling plant to take your plastic soda bottles.

But reusing is the creative one, and when I see people reusing parts for a different purpose, I can't help but smile. Sure, you could install a plain bench, or you could take old Ford truck parts that you don't need anymore (or that you found at the dump), give them some shine, and make a not-so-plain bench!

I tried reusing four plastic water bottles — all gallon-sized — to host small plants in my backyard garden. It didn't work, because I don't have a vertical surface sturdy enough to mount the bottles on (and despite my aspirations, I'm not the skilled crafter I'd like to be).

Walking around York, I had my camera with me, but I treat the first shot of the day as my worst, like a sacrificial shot just to warm up my insticts. This was supposed to be that sacrificial shot — no preparation, just eye-catching — but I ended up liking it enough to post it here.

Finally, I have both music recommendations and book recommendations! First: this huge album rearranges tracks from Pokemon Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum in the style of jazz. Buying music to download is expensive, but Bandcamp lets you listen to all the songs without restriction before you buy, and you can find Sinnohvation on YouTube and Spotify as well. I'm listening to the remix of Floaroma Town and it's beautiful — styled like a Disney orchestra.

Second: this huge book features more than half a century of legendary comics. I've owned The Comics: Since 1945 by Brian Walker for years as part of a local library sale, but I've never poured my attention into this until now. It's not only a beautiful book of art and inspiration, but it's quite an opinionated insight into a specific section of American pop culture; in the introduction, the author writes how other historians see post-WWII cartoon art as in decline, and this book serves to counter that belief. If you can pull it off the shelves at your nearest library (or email university librarians for access, if you have to), I'm sure you'll appreciate the golden treasure that is this compendium of comics.

Cheers,
David

2026-04-03

Hello!

This is a follow-up to yesterday's post, where I took a photo of the entire market at large. This time, I'm zooming into one booth, isolating an interaction between a single customer and a baker.

When I took the wide shot of Lancaster Central Market, I thought about the market as a whole. How it could change over time, on the scale of years or decades. Going to a more detailed shot focuses on the fleeting interactions that could change in seconds or minutes.

I haven't moved much. I'm still at the lookout point, but this time looking for a different kind of scene to capture. I could have chosen any one of the many booths in my line of sight, but I waited for one booth to do something exciting — not tapping a payment app or inspecting the raw meats.

As part of the three shot rule, there should be three images! But I'm not happy with the close-up, so it won't see the light of day. I have stored other images that are good examples of close up photos, but they're not from the market. Maybe I'll post about that this week.

Detail photos (and even mid shots like this one) can help transition an album, or even a film, between two scenes. In the video explaining the three shot rule, James claims that these photos can serve as a "bridge", if both scenes share a commonality present in the detail shot.

Cheers,
David

2026-04-02

Hello!

After watching James Popsys's video on the three shot rule, I thought I might give it a shot.

I tried to capture the same scene, but from three different perspectives: wide, middle, and close-up. This is that wide shot; the middle will be tomorrow, and I'm thinking the close-up should be thrown in the bin (it's a bit blurry and weird — not a shot I'm proud of). We'll see.

But what a location to try taking photos at! There's a lot going on, from families and tourists buying produce, to sellers preparing goods and chatting with coworkers.

The market is a historic building, and they highlight some of the historic photography shots of the market's past. It's always a bit inspiring to see the same area photographed over time. People's fashion changes, a building gets renovated, different shops are stationed at different spots (or, one booth stays for decades while everything around it changes!)

With my wide lens, I went up the stairs to the lookout point above, and captured as many booths and paths as I could in one go. I think the lookout point is intended to be for staff members eating during their lunch break, but I got up there just fine and no one stopped me. It's a bit of a theme, isn't it? So long as I'm not bothering anyone and I look like I know what I'm doing, I can go places that would be inaccessible if I was shy (or purposeless).

More details will be included in tomorrow's article. I'll be swapping lenses and trying to get a shot of multiple people talking at one booth. And, if I can clean up the third image: a photo of one cashier and an eye-catching sticker. Stay tuned.

Finally, some more odd currency. I checked — this street sticker doesn't actually exist as real currency, but it's a cool design! With the UK banknotes getting a new design soon, it's fun to imagine a paper currency without historical faces on it. Our US banknotes could take a lesson or two.

Cheers,
David

2026-04-01

Hello! As I predicted, I couldn't change anything for April Fools.

Although, a friend of mine has made a brilliant extension for Google Chrome (and Firefox) to detect rickroll links — any URL directing you to Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley will be flagged. Hope it helps; be suspicious of things too good to be true on the Internet today...

I wandered around in a nature conservation area the other day. I've been told that I've been here before, that a decade ago, a younger me watched birds fly in droves as they migrated. There's photographic proof, similar to the town garden last month.

I can't believe how much has changed in a decade. Sure, the earth is still rotating at more or less the same speed as before. Tech continues to amaze people. And I'm only being a little cheeky when I say the US president is still the same.

But I'm different. In ways that I could never talk about to friends, much less the open Internet. In ways that even I'm not fully conscious of.

But I get to keep my curiosity. The ideas I've had to go out in the wilderness to take 151 pictures of objects that remind me of certain Pokemon are absurd, but they keep me going sometimes.

This photo is an example of that absurdity. I was walking in the nature trail that day, and I passed by this bridge over a running creek. I was about to walk on by, but these strange garter snakes were just slithering there. It was very strange.

Finally, I saw this art piece magnifying the wings of a butterfly. It takes up an entire wall and shows microscopic detail. I've tried doing macro photography before, but I've only ever seen the details of a wing in a science lab or online. Maybe I should explore macro photography more...

Cheers,
David

2026-03-31

Hello! Tomorrow marks April Fools, but I'm busy; I don't have the time to set up something fun. Sorry in advance.

Today, after weeks of seeing bloody adverbs in my drafts, I'm going to try and eliminate all adverbs from my writing in this article. It can't be that hard, right? Creative challenges like this are novel and fun; I invite any other writers to try writing three hundred words without any bloody adverbs (use iwl.me and find Ooze Mode).

For a few hours, I was in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I neglected to look up the city's history or its touristy landmarks, but I make a point to visit certain civic institutions like city halls, museums, and parks. And libraries.

Taking this photo, I'm on the second floor of the library! The Lancaster Public Library has a balcony that looks over the public square in front of it. The balcony has chairs and tables, and I bet it'd be a novel place to study and read, if the wind isn't bad that day.

On this cloudy and cool day, no one (besides me) was on the balcony. The library was open — I got in, of course — but readers were sat in chairs and at desks right in front of windows to collect the natural daylight from inside.

Every time I take a photo from a ledge or a high spot, I'm worried that the camera will slip from my hands and shatter on the floor down below. I keep an extra firm grip on my camera for shots like these.

I use an accessory to make sure the camera doesn't fall out of my hands: a neck strap. Wrist straps are the trendy option these days, but I'm used to this neck strap that came with the camera, and I fear that my camera is heavier or bulkier than what a wrist strap can handle.

... Alright. That's 300 words, no adverbs. I did it.

While we're on the topic of words, I'm here to link the mind texture randomizer. I can't explain this one. That's it.

Cheers,
David

2026-03-30

Hello! I've been staring at my empty screen, thinking of what to write about. So, fair warning: today will be a lot more incoherent than usual. And I'm a pretty incoherent guy.

There's a bunch of photography ideas running around in my head. Before this website was even an idea, when I texted friends with the photo of the day with no accompanying text, I joked about making one photo related to every single generation I Pokemon. This was mostly an excuse to play with candlelight for Charmander (and make a bonfire for Charizard, maybe?), but I never got around to it.

I want to revisit that idea, though! It would take me half a year, and would get me out into nature reserves cataloguing insects, if I were to honor the original spirit of Pokemon. And I could absolutely collaborate with insufferable nerds on the Internet for some local tips.

Outside of Pokemon-related photography, there's the idea I've had of photographing something in each of the 3,244 counties of the US. I've already been to, like, ten of them, so it's obviously an achievable goal, right...?

Those projects are huge in scope, though, and there are a few other types of photography out there that remain more accessible.

From exploring counties of Pennsylvania to marking every animal photo I've published, I've done a lot. But my imagination, running wild as it often does, expects me to include photos from New York City, aerial photos, panorama photos, and underwater photos.

I think it would be really funny to book a New York City helicopter, take a panorama photo of the city skyline, and fill out three tags in one photo. And then I can wear a fishbowl as a helmet and tag it as underwater...! I've done weirder things. Like smelling a donkey.

Or I could sit back and take in yet another beautiful sunset. I'm overdue for a screen detox, anyways.

Now, I present a photo of a community parade today so that I can link to the powerful photos of the No Kings protests. Making their third round, the national protests took to the streets... and I missed all of it. If I had passed through any of the No Kings protests a few days ago, I would have taken some photos. Although, during a previous No Kings protest months ago, I was driving around the streets and it felt amazing to see a whole community come together for a cause.

Cheers,
David

2026-03-29

Hello! A friend gave me a camera rag and cleaning kit. Autastic.

I've taken a photo of an Apple headset before. In Toronto, Canada, I took a photo of it a few months after it was officially released, and before it became available to purchase in all countries.

I then uploaded the photo to Wikimedia Commons and licensed it appropriately. You can see my thoughts on Creative Commons and Wikipedia on a previous article where I submitted a different photo for a competition. The headset I photographed in Toronto now shows up on its Wikipedia page, if you scroll down a little.

This photo doesn't have anything to do with Wikipedia though, and doesn't have a special license. While killing time, I walked into a shopping mall that had loads of luxury brands, including automobile manufacturers, jewelry companies, and tech companies like Apple.

The science fiction idea of a headset that displays an alternate reality has probably been talked about loads (there are, after all, five lights), but right now, the only customers of these alternate reality headsets are rich and fringe.

To get this photo, I just walked in with my camera. The staff there are friendly, as always; as they tried to demonstrate new features to my family, I scanned the store to get candid moments of people trying various products. People were trying to put on the headset (including me), but the staff warned us that it was bolted on. You've got to book some time with the headset, and my lazy bum decided it wasn't worth the effort.

But so long as you're not being disruptive (and it doesn't look like you're taking commercial photos), the staff at Apple and Porsche don't mind.

By the way, companies like Apple have extensive style guides that mandate how you should be referring to their products and features, including this headset. I've read some of it for today's article, but it's bollocks and I can't be arsed to follow it to their exacting standards. They tell me to never call this a headset, but I exclusively refer to it as such. I found out about this silly style guide from a one-off game show on YouTube, of all places.

Finally, a music recommendation. I was looking for a specific genre of music, and I haven't found it yet. But I found this along the way! British singer Celeste's album Not Your Muse is sometimes smooth, sometimes energetic. I like the energetic songs more (especially Stop This Flame, with its release cut piano sound), but they're all worth a first listen.

Cheers,
David

2026-03-28

Hello!

No, I don't know what's at the end of the tunnel. Probably more light.

How different public spaces (especially shops) are designed tells you a lot about their intention. Compare this clean mall to the bright and colorful displays in the toy shop. I can almost imagine that the toy shop display was assembled by parents, or at least staff with prior experience to children. In contrast, this mall might have been constructed by a large company, who hired a local architect to bring in natural daylight.

It gives these spaces a different feel. When walking around this mall for photo opportunities, I looked for patterns and designs on the walls or in the windows. If not for the bird poop on windows and the fire systems on the walls, I would be able to capture clean angles, geometric panes of glass, and things that would highlight the designer's attention here.

Alright — fifty days of blogging is not a huge milestone (we can celebrate at each order of magnitude, instead), so while I'm immensely pleased with my newfound ability to keep a habit running, I'll move on.

Instead, I'm linking to a blog article on bees. I saw this come across my feed the other day and I instantly thought of someone who reads my newsletter and who would absolutely click and read anything related to bees, so go on — this one's for you.

Cheers,
David

2026-03-27

Hello!

I went to a railroad museum and saw the displays of many old trains. I got to see the impact of the steam train on the US economy and its history, which was more exciting than the inner workings of the trains themselves. I'm a history nerd.

So, with spring underway, with woodpeckers drumming through trees for food and other backyard animals rummaging through my garden, let's talk about trains and the titans of industry.

This fireless locomotive could work in areas too dangerous for other vehicles — whether the weather is hot, or whether the weather is cold, this type of locomotive could work cleaner and cheaper than the alternatives. Even today, they can transport goods within industrial sites where modern-day diesel locomotives might produce lots of exhaust fumes.

I'm not going to go into the technical numbers, because I can't give them appropriate context, but this vehicle operated for more than thirty years (and served as a backup for several more years). It can't go as far (its range is limited compared to the alternatives), but every tool has its purpose.

This flameless steam locomotive was used in the factories of Bethlehem Steel. The same Bethlehem Steel that I wrote an article about, two months ago. See how I'm tying all these bits together? It's almost like I'm competent at telling stories, or something.

Anyway, the locomotive wasn't always this bright orange. Other pictures on the Internet show what it used to look like before getting this fresh coat of paint: a dark machine with yellow text.

Finally, a bit of industry news. The Communications University of China used to have separate paths for photography students, but developments in AI have forced these majors, along with translation, drama, and comic arts, to take a more general path and merge with other departments.

Cheers,
David

2026-03-26

Hello!

Woah. I just realized that if you look back at yesterday's article, and really stare at the image, you start seeing dots. Put the image on fullscreen (or zoom in) and let me know if you also see grid illusions.

Anyway, I'd like to write up a short story today. I call it a story, not a dream journal. There are dreams that one doesn't remember at all — actually, that's most dreams — and then there are dreams that one remembers for years. This is one of the latter, but the memory has been obscured and distorted over time. I don't know which parts are original and which are invented after the fact, so consider it all fictional. All a result of my crazy imagination.

I assume this toolshed has sports equipment, dog toys, or maintenance tools for landscapers. Normal things. It could also be empty and boring, with some mold and spiders taking up the space. But to my memory, I have never seen the inside of this shed that I pass by every week.

My mind, young and curious, decided to dream up a world. I hadn't seen any version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (book, film, or play), but I knew of a magical world behind locked doors. So I dreamt of a Narnia, completely different to the book version, and only identical in name.

I hadn't seen any version of Mary Poppins, but I knew of the magical handbag. So I dreamt of a weird mix between a bank-vault's worth of treasures and a storage unit of trash. Both were of equal interest to me.

And loads and loads of dodgeballs! Or utility balls / playground balls. Whatever you call them.

So many possibilities in that locked toolshed. I once visited the shed past sunset. A powered lightbulb hung near it, as the only source of light around. It was eerie. The light didn't even hang from the shed, nor was it mounted on a street lamp. I'm not even sure if there was a lightbulb. There was just light surrounding the entrance to this shed.

I woke up, and went to watch Mary Poppins Returns. It remains a favorite of mine.

Finally, a total solar eclipse. I have never witnessed totality before (although I've gotten close), but it sounds like total chaos, according to Michael Gruen, who drove to Vermont to see the eclipse. The photos are big and beautiful.

Cheers,
David

2026-03-25

Hello!

I like lines. I like leading lines, whether they're leading you to a lamp or down a railroad. I like perpendicular lines, like that dine in restaurant that I obsessed about for a little too long (did that article make sense? I fear I might have lost everyone with that ramble).

I also like solar power. So this photo rocks.

This wall of solar panels was placed on a field in a university campus. It accompanies a bunch of solar panels on the roof of a building, and I wanted to know how much of their electricity could be supplied from solar panels. Pennsylvania is far from the sunniest state in the nation, but I've seen people with solar panels for their personal home, so it can't be that unreasonable to try calculating.

Now, I was going to pull out the calculator and get some tools to estimate how big the solar panels would be, how much energy you could collect for that size per hour of sun, how many hours of sun that area would get, and do a bunch of number crunching.

Or I could look it up (lol). The solar panels in the picture generate "11,000 kWh of electricity annually". A residential house uses more than that amount, but they also might have more ideal solar panel arrangements, so as long as you keep some batteries, I'd imagine you could live on solar entirely so long as you're careful about your energy usage.

Of course, the university campus isn't a residential house, so they have a bunch of solar panels on the roof and elsewhere, too. But this was an interesting thought experiment on solar panels and energy usage. When I took this photo, I was thinking of the YouTube arguments for and against rooftop solar. Regardless, the upfront costs are way too high for me, even if they would save in the long run.

But, as a technology, solar power is really interesting. My mate has these small solar-powered lights to illuminate sidewalks, which makes it way easier to plant in the ground. No wires to hook up to an outlet! Just stick 'em in the ground and they charge during the day, light during the night. As spring weather approaches, I'm remembering the solar-powered water fountains that I wanted to buy last year for my backyard garden, before I was reminded how little sunshine actually hits my garden during the day.

Finally, the sport of basketball has turned up something interesting. Bam Adebayo scored a historic 83 points in an NBA game this March, and while it's not part of the March Madness games, it's still basketball and it was still amazing to watch.

Cheers,
David

2026-03-24

Back on Bristol's Main Street...

Hello!

I've gotten off the soapbox after yesterday's diatribe.

Mostly. I've got one leg metaphorically hovering over it.

Because today, I wanted to include this shot of a Main Street antiques shop. It's old and outdated, and despite having an "Open" sign, it looks like it should have been closed years ago.

Maybe that's me overthinking it — I'm sure they've made a lot of sales from people wandering by and picking up some tat. But unless they're listing their wares on eBay or Amazon, those sales are coming from foot traffic. From the passersby who take a look and stroll in.

TikTok Shop and TEMU are not interesting, they're bleak and annoying. An antiques shop — particularly the shop that's closest to you — is interesting. You can go in and see stuff.

I didn't go inside the building, but these kinds of antique shops remind me of a certain bull in a china shop.

Finally, a hall of shame of deceptive designs. Look through the list, and you'll have a better awareness of the subtle tricks that are employed against you. Awareness is an important tool to combat these tricks.

Cheers,
David

2026-03-23

Hello!

I wonder what the beaches look like in the winter.

Anyway, there's this tourist destination that thrives during the holidays, and gets little attention any other day. I visited on a maintenance day, it seems. They were taking the Christmas lights off the trees and dismantling some of their attractions to be polished or washed for next year. Electrical wires and water hoses strewn all over the place.

But the shops were still open, and some tourists were still buying things. Because the holiday theming isn't the only draw to this little village. It's also a nice place to spend your day, in general.

There's about twenty colonial-styled buildings all facing into this hilly landscape, and from inside, you can't see the car parking lot. You park on a lawn a good distance away, cross the street, and enter through some gaps in the town square. None of it is historic — the place was built for tourism in the 1960s — but it feels historic because you're not hearing cars, you're hearing people chat and laugh (if you ignore the machinery and working crew on maintenance day).

This is a style of public square that draws people in, and it's because of the (lack of) cars. By hiding those cars away, and drawing people into a colorful and shaded landscape with small shops, the village makes a ton of money from tourism as people wander around and kill time.

These shops would not survive if they had to catch the attention of passengers driving by, but they thrive on foot traffic. The buildings are too small for the car — imagine trying to fit a car through one of them.

This is starting to be used in actual places (besides tourist traps); some Main Streets and downtowns are encouraging people to park in garages on the outside of town and walk in, or at least phasing out on-street parking. Some others are rebuilding their streets entirely, narrowing the car road and giving more space to sidewalks, to encourage walkers.

But this all requires conscious decision. It requires pushing in the right direction, and addressing concerns. It requires building at the human level.

Have you seen the size of US traffic lights up close? They're 12 inches (or 30cm) in diameter. And roadside billboard signs are 10 feet by 30 feet (or 3m by 9m). Building at the human level means printing text that's smaller, lighting more detailed displays, and planting flowers instead of brighter road paint.

Humans love the human-sized world. Bring it back.

Finally, I have more than twenty articles I'd like to spotlight. From web games and others' personal projects to educational resources and books that I've started reading, I'm doing very well on and off the internet, and I've truly unlocked a healthy relationship with technology. It's not perfect, but I'm sure it's in the top 1%. Extremely happy today. One example of that is this comprehensive article on light, from a photography perspective. It's useful to get a deep understanding of optics and physics, and I think it's worth a long read.

Cheers,
David

2026-03-22

Hello!

First, a technical note: I've added text to the home page. Took me too long to figure out how.

There's something pleasing about these kinds of shots. When you find perfectly straight vertical or horizontal lines outside of a controlled studio, it looks organized. In this case, you see one side of a building head-on, no imperfect angles.

I don't know the best term for this kind of image. Symmetry doesn't quite describe it — the image is weighted to the left with the tall, thick tree, and the brick road below doesn't match anything up top. My best guess is something related to "orthographic projection", as the building is presented head-on.

It looks like a plausible background that has just enough depth to stay interesting while being simple. Passersby would walk by left or right, without any reason to go forward or back.

Trying to find an accurate way to describe this scene and how it makes me feel has been an unsuccessful challenge. While trying to find the right term, I've stumbled down various rabbit holes of interesting landscape design and advanced photography composition.

If you can decipher the puzzle that I've laid out today, please get in touch! I'd love to add a correction at the top of tomorrow's article with the actual search term of this type of photography.

And while I have you thinking about composition and the angle of a shot, I'd like to note another aspect of this image that's pleasing to me. There are certain focal lengths that achieve certain feels and moods.

The focal length of a typical smartphone camera (for example, the iPhone's 1x camera — showing a field of view anywhere between 80° and 84° depending on the model) is too wide. It instantly gets associated with the look of smartphone photos, and because everyone uses their smartphone, the look feels overused.

The focal length used by professional wildlife photographers (showing a field of view anywhere between 3° and 8°) is really zoomed in! You can get detailed shots of an animal from a safe distance, but it's not realistic to what you could see with your human eye. Wildlife photographers might as well be carrying around a telescope with that super-narrow field of view.

For whatever reason, my favorite focal length by far is the one used today. It's natural to how you see things, minus some of your peripheral vision.

I have some technical numbers to back up my preference. To any photographers and mathematicians in the room who know where this is headed: I'm going to be simplifying a discussion of equivalency.

My camera has a rectangle sensor, and its diagonal works out to 28mm. If you look at the "technical info, for nerds" section below, you'll notice that this shot was achieved with a focal length of 35mm (or a field of view of 44°). Almost a perfect match: not too wide, a bit narrow. If my lens was at 28mm, it would be even closer to a natural field of view (of 53°), but cutting out some of that distracting peripheral vision is actually useful.

I mention this natural field of view because it's subjective. Because you have two eyes rather than one sensor, there's no simple number for the field of view you see. It's complicated. But the huge oversimplification is that this natural field of view corresponds to what you see.

The natural field of view is built into a camera called the Leica Q3 43. Although it has a different sensor size, the lens attached to that camera achieves that natural 53° field of view. So you can take a shot, and capture everything that you see. Sounds great!

Oh right, that camera costs $7,950 USD. It's the Porsche of cameras. You know what, my camera's fine.

Cheers,
David

2026-03-21

Limited permission was granted to use photos taken for these events on this site.

Hello!

Don't mind me, I'm getting lost in the biology of swans. Not for anything specific.

Anyway: on the same day as my basketball photography, I took photos of a different school event: a tertulia.

Families came to serve food and celebrate, students recited poems and speeches, and groups came in to dance and pay respect.

The event organizers connected with other schools in the area to come participate, and brought an Aztec dance troupe to perform.

It was welcoming and fun, as a relaxed celebration for the community. Compare this to the Lunar New Year celebration or the Garba dance that I photographed. It felt like there were more students there, because the organizers packed many events and performances for the celebration. This tertulia was, in contrast, simpler.

For events and sports photography, I've found my style. I pack my camera and two lenses — an ultrawide lens for action (the lens used in this shot), and a big zoom lens that isolates a single subject. Because this tertulia didn't have a detailed schedule for me to follow, I adapted to what was going on around me. I was swapping lenses back and forth.

This doesn't seem necessary at first — why not find one lens that can do both types? — and I've looked into alternative options a few times, but I've come up blank. A lens with a wide aperture lets more light onto the camera sensor than a lens with a narrow aperture, which is necessary to capture images in dim environments like this one.

A single lens that can keep a wide aperture across both the zoom ranges that would replace my two current lenses doesn't exist. It would be heavy and expensive, which would prohibit me from using it.

There are ways to work around the practical limitations of physics and optics, but they require complicated steps and would take away from my familiar style of event photography. Right now, I'm more than happy with the setup I know and love, and so I don't pay too much attention to new and shiny gear.

Finally, the food timeline. I went down various rabbit holes looking for interesting resources last week. Because I delete my web history every few weeks, I don't remember where I got this from. But now you have it!

I've gone back and returned Buyer Aware, a current-issues and economics book I completed a few days ago. Before doing so, I spent a short time in the library and skimmed through a few pages again. It's clear that this will be a go-to resource that I point to for others who want help enacting social change, or who need immediate help in this confusing digital world — I've already nicknamed it as "the green book".

Cheers,
David