If you were among those who have visited our blog in the past few days, you will have found that it was ‘red flagged’  for distributing ‘malware’.  Rather than attempting to rail against the folks at Google for marking our site ‘unsafe’, we should instead be grateful that such [...]]]> Hi Folks:

If you were among those who have visited our blog in the past few days, you will have found that it was ‘red flagged’  for distributing ‘malware’.  Rather than attempting to rail against the folks at Google for marking our site ‘unsafe’, we should instead be grateful that such action alerted us to the code that had been installed on our blog.  There is a saying in the corporate world that there are two kinds of companies – those who know they have been hacked and those who don’t.  However, when it comes to a site where one invests as much of one’s self as Marcia and I do here, having someone hack into it is equivalent to having someone break into one’s home.  There is a certain senselessness to it.  It may be more benign to talk of ‘spamming robots’ as autonomic devices, but the truth is that there is a person behind all such actions.  We can’t begin to understand their motivations, but we can imagine that it stems from a search for ‘power’ based on a perceived feeling of inadequacy.  Our wish is for that person to come to see and celebrate his/ her own magnificence instead.

So, Dear Reader, if you’ve come by our blog recently and been put off by the ‘red flag’ status, we apologize.  It’s not the first time this has happened, and may or may not be the last.  We trust you’ve found something of benefit here, and we invite you to return.  And to whomever has been adding malicious code to our site, we offer you only love.  May you come to see yourself as we do – a truly wonderful Being!  We don’t invite or encourage such attacks, but we don’t do much to defend against them either.  Doing so only escalates the feelings of negativity, and there is already far too much of that in the world.  We wish you peace.

Love,
Marcia and Mike.

P.S. Special thanks to our son Nick for all you do every day to keep our site running so beautifully!

In a world where possibility and probability have become buzz words, where potential is highly praised yet expectation remains in question, where receiving product just on time rather than ahead of schedule is the norm ~ wouldn’t it be delicious to make room for: Most Definitely! Why Certainly! [...]]]> Hello Dear Ones!

In a world where possibility and probability have become buzz words, where potential is highly praised yet expectation remains in question, where receiving product just on time rather than ahead of schedule is the norm ~ wouldn’t it be delicious to make room for: Most Definitely! Why Certainly! Absolutely!

Rather than building in contingencies for problems, limitations, setbacks and just-in-case scenarios ~ resulting in a greater probability of encountering them by the very matching of that same energy ~ how be we grow, develop and come to expect the very best of everyone, the power of teamwork, and the perfection of an idea, a dream ~ and live into its fulfillment by choice and by design!

In Light and Laughter,

Marcia

Well, my first photo of the month post for 2012, and also my first image posted here that was processed with Lightroom 4 Beta.  Marcia and I were ‘up island’ briefly in Campbell River this past month, and took the opportunity to go for a short walk along the [...]]]> Hi Folks:

Well, my first photo of the month post for 2012, and also my first image posted here that was processed with Lightroom 4 Beta.  Marcia and I were ‘up island’ briefly in Campbell River this past month, and took the opportunity to go for a short walk along the shore at Willow Point.  The tide was out and some of the rocks that were revealed were incredible.  I liked this one in particular.  This is an HDR image, 3 exposures at -1/0/+1, shot hand-held and joined together with Autopano Pro then finished off in Lightroom.  I trust you like it!!

Now go out and make some photographs!

Mike.

This has been covered before on other sites (and to some extent on ours), but since I recently explained all of this to someone on Twitter I thought I’d take what I wrote then and massage it into some form of post for our blog.

To begin [...]]]> Hi Folks:

This has been covered before on other sites (and to some extent on ours), but since I recently explained all of this to someone on Twitter I thought I’d take what I wrote then and massage it into some form of post for our blog.

To begin with we need to cover a few terms. One is that, as I mentioned in our Should I Get Lightroom or Photoshop or…? post, a digital image isn’t really an ‘image’ in the traditional sense. It starts as light, gets converted into electrical impulses by the camera’s sensor, and is then translated into binary code – 1s and 0s – as a digital file. Be that as it may, there are two aspects to each digital image. One is the image information itself – the code that is assembled to create the image on your computer screen or as a print, and the other is information about the image. This starts in the camera and can include the camera make/model/serial number, the exposure information, date and time of the image capture, the lens, focal length (for zoom lenses), GPS information and more. When the image is transferred to the computer one can add copyright information, keywords, owner contact information… All of this is collectively called ‘metadata’. This metadata is stored in one of two ways, depending on the type of digital image you’re working with. For .TIF, .PSD, .JPG and .DNG files, the metadata is stored within the image file itself. For raw images, a second file, often called a ‘sidecar’ file is generated. Sidecar files have an .XMP extension. Therefore, for a Canon raw file for example, one would have IMG0001.cr2 for the image data, and IMG0001.xmp for the metadata information.

The second thing to understand is that while programs like Lightroom will do raw file conversion, printing, slideshows, web galleries and more, Lightroom is primarily a database management system (DBMS). A database is an organized collection of information, and a DBMS is a program that allows someone to work with and manipulate this information. To me, this is the most important part of the Lightroom program, because it doesn’t matter whether you have 1000 images or 100,000 images, eventually you’re going to be looking for one specific image. How easy (or not) it is to find depends on how well you’ve managed your data. In general terms this is called digital asset management (DAM) (with thanks to Wikipedia!)

The Lightroom Catalog(s) that you have are the database system. There are pros and cons to using one or more than one Lightroom catalog; Julieanne Kost discusses some of them here. For most people, having all of your images in one catalog offers a lot of advantages but the choice is ultimately yours.

Good file structure is also important; how you organize your files is up to you, as long as you make it consistent. If you’re interested you can read about My Lightroom Workflow. Just to be clear, we’re now dealing with 3 separate entities – the image file, the metadata (which may be contained within the image file or in a separate ‘sidecar’ file), and the database system (the Lightroom catalog).

The first step in working with Lightroom is to ‘Import’ one’s images into the Catalog. ‘Import’ is a bit of a misnomer because Lightroom does not store your images in the catalog. What it does is create a line (record) in the catalog for each image that says, ‘This image is located at this location on the hard drive’. That location may be on an internal hard drive, on an external hard drive, or even at an online location. Lightroom doesn’t really care where you store your images, although there are certain advantages to having all of the images stored within one parent folder. When you ‘import’ an image or series of images into Lightroom, the program does several things:

1. It will move/copy the image(s) to the specified location, or add a link to them at their current location. In so doing it creates a pointer so that it knows where the image is located.
2. It will read the metadata information associated with the image(s) and add that information to its database of information for each image.
3. It will create a preview of each image, based on the specifications you set in the Preferences. NB: for raw files, Lightroom will initially display the .jpg image embedded in the raw file until it builds its own previews.

Now that Lightroom knows where the images are located, one should always move images and folders from within Lightroom’s Library module. Doing so ensures that Lightroom will update its pointers as to where the images are located on the drive. If you move an associated image outside of Lightroom, this connection gets broken and you end up with a ? in the top right of each image in the Library module. What that means is that as far as Lightroom is concerned, the image is ‘missing’. If you end up with ‘missing’ images, you can do the following:

1) Open Lightroom and go to the Library module.
2) Click the Library menu in the top toolbar and make sure ‘Show photos in subfolders’ is checked.
3) If the parent folder isn’t showing in the left panel of the Library module/folders panel, right-click on one of the top-most folders showing and select ‘Add Parent Folder’.
4) Once you have the topmost folder showing, click on it and all of your images should be present. Click on the ? mark of one image and select ‘Locate’. Navigate to the new location of that image and click on the image, creating a new file association. Lightroom should now update the locations of all of the missing files within that folder and subfolders.
5) Remember: Once images have been ‘imported’ (associated) with Lightroom, always move them within Lightroom.

The next thing to understand is that in Photoshop for example when you edit an image you’re actually editing the image part of the file – you’re changing pixels – and that’s why it’s important to work with layers to avoid damaging the base layer. Lightroom on the other hand uses a completely non-destructive workflow – called ‘parametric editing’. Rather than altering the pixel information of the image, what it does is write a history of the steps taken in the Develop, Print or other modules. When you ‘Export’ an image from Lightroom it takes the image information from the original file, modifies it according to the history steps and creates a new image file according to the parameters you set.

Now: by default any changes made in Lightroom to either the metadata (adding keywords, copyright information, etc.) or the image (the history steps) are stored only in the Lightroom catalog. That’s why it’s important not to move images outside of Lightroom; it loses track of what information pertains to which image. That’s what the ? means. You can also instruct Lightroom to output that metadata information (including copyright info, keywords, etc. as well as the history steps) to the image metadata (the sidecar file in the case of raw files). You can either set Lightroom to do this automatically or you can do it by selecting one ore more images and pressing Cmd/Ctrl-S. The advantage of doing this automatically is that you have a continual backup of this information. The disadvantage is that it takes computer resources to do this and you may suffer a slowdown in performance. At the risk of being redundant, if you don’t save out this information, then all of the metadata information is stored only within the LR catalog and not with the image itself. This is fine as long as you use Lightroom exclusively as a file manager and you back up regularly.

When you import an image into Lightroom it reads the metadata stored with the image file. However, if you didn’t save the metadata out to the files and you re-import the image as a ‘new’ file, Lightroom won’t know that any changes have been made to it and will treat it as an unedited file.

Let’s construct a hypothetical scenario. Take Image 1, import it into Lightroom, and upon import Lightroom will read the metadata and gain whatever information is in there about the camera, lens, exposure, etc. Make some changes to the image in Lightroom, which are stored in the catalog (database). Now, move that file outside of Lightroom and you get a ? beside the image. When you relink the image at its new location back to the catalog Lightroom lines up all of the changes made in Lightroom with that image at its new location.

Take Image 2, import it into Lightroom and Lightroom will read the metadata, etc. Make some changes in Lightroom and once you’ve finished in the Develop module, write those changes to the image metadata. Now the information is stored in both the Lightroom catalog and the image metadata. Now, remove the image from the Lightroom catalog (but don’t delete it from the hard drive). Move that file to a new location outside of Lightroom. Import that file into Lightroom again and when Lightroom reads the metadata it will say, “Oh, I’ve already created a history file for this image” and show the image with the changes made in Lightroom. NB: Some things like Pick Flags, Collections and Virtual Copies are stored only in the Lightroom catalog no matter what.

Take Image 3, import it into Lightroom… Make some changes to the image, which Lightroom stores in its catalog. Do NOT write the changes to the image metadata. Remove the file from the Lightroom catalog (but don’t delete it from the hard drive). Move the image outside of Lightroom, or leave it where it is, doesn’t matter (because when you remove the image from the catalog Lightroom deletes the association it had with that file). Re-import that image into Lightroom and because all of the Develop settings, history, etc. were only stored in the catalog and not written to the image, when Lightrom imports the image it will read the camera, lens, exposure information, etc. from the image metadata but all of the keywords, edit changes, etc. made in Lightroom will be gone and it will treat it as a new file.

See the difference? If you store the metadata added by Lightroom to the image file before removing a file or folder from the catalog, when you re-import them Lightroom will read the edit information from the image metadata. If those images were removed from Lightroom where the edits, keywords, etc. were stored only in Lightroom, then you’ll still be able to re-import the original files but all of the changes you made in Lightroom will be gone.

In that event you may be able to get the information back, depending on whether or not you backed up the Lightroom catalog. If you did back up the catalog before you removed the images, go to the folder where your Lightroom catalog is stored there will be a Backups folder. Within that folder will be a number of folders, each with a backup date. Pick the most recent folder before the images were removed from Lightrom and within that folder will be a Lightroom catalog. Hold down the Alt/Opt key and click on the catalog to open Lightroom with that catalog. The metadata/history information should be there, although if the files/folders have been moved the images may have question marks. Relink them if necessary. Now, go to File/ Export as Catalog and export the catalog somewhere like the Desktop. Go to File/Open Catalog, open your default Lightroom catalog, then go to File/ Import from Catalog and select the catalog you just saved to your Desktop. If you cross your fingers and hold your tongue just right, it will add the files/folders that are not currently in the Lightroom catalog along with the Develop changes, etc.

I trust that makes some kind of sense! If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment below. Now go out and make some pictures!

Mike.

P.S. You can find more of our posts on photography and Lightroom tutorials here, and you can find links to over 200 other sites that have Lightroom tips, tutorials and videos here.

]]> http://www.wolfnowl.com/2012/01/lightroom-file-management-and-metadata/feed/ 2 http://www.wolfnowl.com/2012/01/new-beginnings-and-old-memories/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=new-beginnings-and-old-memories http://www.wolfnowl.com/2012/01/new-beginnings-and-old-memories/#comments Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:04:17 +0000 Mike Nelson Pedde http://www.wolfnowl.com/?p=5669 Hi Folks:

It’s now closing in on the end of January, so if you’re still maintaining your New Year’s resolutions, my congratulations to you!  It may be sheer coincidence that Remembrance Day and New Year’s Day fall so closely together on the calendar but our memories of the past and our [...]]]> Hi Folks:

It’s now closing in on the end of January, so if you’re still maintaining your New Year’s resolutions, my congratulations to you!  It may be sheer coincidence that Remembrance Day and New Year’s Day fall so closely together on the calendar but our memories of the past and our dreams of the future always seem bound together.  It may be true that (as espoused by George Santayana), “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  It’s also true that much of how we see ourselves today is based on and built out of who we have believed ourselves to be and that person no longer exists.  It’s not just that your body is continuously refreshing itself – building new cells and removing old ones.  Our thoughts, ideas, understandings – in some ways the essence of who we are – is also different… unless of course we hang on tight to the past memories of who we used to be.  Memories can be pleasant or painful and there are varying degrees of both, but there’s one thing memories rarely are, and that’s an accurate recollection of the past as it happened.  My grandmother was a very wise woman with a Grade 5 education, and one of her sayings was, “No matter how thin the paper, there are two sides to every page.”  In some cases there are many more than two sides to an issue, more than two sides to a memory, but the point is made.

Memories can also be extremely powerful. Seth once said:

“… the first important step is to realize that your beliefs about reality are just that – beliefs about reality and not necessarily attributes of reality. You must make a clear distinction between you and your beliefs. You must then realize that your beliefs are physically materialized. What you believe to be true in your experience is true.” ~ The Nature of Personal Reality, session 621.

I’ve invested a lot of time over the past several decades looking at my beliefs in every way I could conceive, and each of them has taught me more about myself.  They’ve also taught me, as quoted above, that my beliefs are not ‘me’ but are tools that I use to express my understandings of myself.  In my continuing search to understand my own Being and my continuing expansion of my awareness of my self, I’ve also come to terms with aspects of ‘me’ that no longer fit.  I’ve been reminded (often) of the scene in the movie ‘The Mission‘ where Robert De Niro (as Rodrigo Mendoza, a former mercenary and slave trader) struggles to carry/drag (as penance) a huge bag of his weapons and armour all the way from the city near the sea up the cliffs and through the jungle to the remote Native village the Jesuits are seeking to visit.  When one of his companions cuts the rope attaching him to the bag, Mendoza goes back down the cliff, knots the rope and continues.  Only when he reaches the top does he find forgiveness and allows the rope to be cut.  How many of us continue to carry such a huge burden ourselves? Regrets, ‘if-only’ moments, guilt and more.  And if someone was to release us from the bonds of those ropes, how many would, as Mendoza did, retrieve the bag, retie the ropes and struggle on?  I know I did, for a very long time.

I came across a Tut quote recently that read:

“Often, having what you want is a function of letting go of what you have.

If you know what I mean.

    The Universe

Odd, huh, the stuff people cling to?”

It can be a challenging decision to make, to put down that bag and walk away from it.  For me much of that challenge was in letting go of what it said about me and who I believed I was.  In letting go, even of ‘myself’, what would I have left? Who would I be?  Freedom, complete freedom can have a wonderful taste; it can also be daunting.  We each have our own ways and our own reasons for continuing to hang on to the past, but I have received a couple of interesting thoughts regarding this from those who guide me.  One was, “You don’t have to forget the past. Knowing that, can you let it go?” Coupled with that was something seemingly innocuous.  I do all of my personal writing in a notebook with a fountain pen, and as such I have to clean the pen nib periodically. As I was standing over the sink flushing the ink from my pen I watched the tendrils of ink wash out of the nib and disappear into the stream of water coming from the tap.  As I’ve often seen the movement of time as being like a flowing stream, I saw for the first time how it wasn’t necessary for me to release these old ideas, beliefs and aspects of myself as much as to release them into the past.  There was a time in my life when they did have relevance, and as such they helped to form who I am today.  As Richard Bach wrote in the book ‘Illusions: Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah‘, “I gave my life to become the person I am right now. Was it worth it?”  For me, it is.

So, bold adventurer, as we move forward into this new day, into this new year, are you willing to surrender the past to the past? To honour what you have been and celebrate who you are today?  Every moment is a new beginning, complete within itself, borrowing nothing from the future and owing nothing to the past. Live Now.

Hugs,
Mike.

P.S. In my most recent interchange with those who guide me, the strongest message I remember is that in continuing to heal myself it’s important for me to heal not what I think as much as how I think.  In healing how I think I change my patterns of perception, how I see myself and the world around me.  What we think is important, but perhaps more important is what we think about what we think, and how we feel about what we think. “Discover the feeling of ‘New Beginnings’ rather than ‘starting over’.  To an explorer, every step is a new beginning.” ~ MNP

So far as I know, Facebook was the first to introduce the concept of the ‘Like’ button to user posts and comments, and it’s such a good idea that it’s been adopted by others as well.  Google+ uses the ‘+1′ button instead, but it’s the same idea.  The folks [...]]]> Hi Folks:

So far as I know, Facebook was the first to introduce the concept of the ‘Like’ button to user posts and comments, and it’s such a good idea that it’s been adopted by others as well.  Google+ uses the ‘+1′ button instead, but it’s the same idea.  The folks at TED.com used to give users the ability to up vote or down vote another user’s comments, but they changed that policy so that only up votes are possible.  The people at 50opx.com have both ‘Like’ and ‘Dislike’ buttons on the images displayed there; I suggested to them that they remove the ‘Dislike’ button but the choice is of course theirs.

Why is this so important?  Well, in a pre-internet world (yes, I’m old enough to remember such a time), personal interactions were less frequent and more intimate.  People waited days, weeks, even months sometimes to hear from a friend or loved one, and as such contacts were treasured.  People exchanged long notes, thank you cards and more. Today we live in a much different world. Long letters are hardly ever written, thank you cards are almost forgotten, and even e-mail has become passé, especially among the younger generation.  We’re swamped with ever more information, almost all of it short and almost all of it impersonal.  The internet is largely considered anonymous and while on one hand that gives people the freedom to express their ‘true’ feelings behind that mask of anonymity it also distances the connections we have with those who are close to us in different ways.  Internet friendships can be as strong as any ‘personal’ relationship, but without being face to face we lack inflection, touch and more.  Apparently studies have shown that people are more likely to ‘trust’ links that their friends have ‘liked’, but I think it’s much more than that.

As bloggers, Marcia and I face this anonymity every day.  Every comment on our posts is appreciated; in addition we check our page statistics every day or two.  While we don’t know 99.9% of the individuals who come to our site, we can see trends in terms of someone from a place in India or the Czech Republic or _____ who visits frequently.  We see (sometimes) whether they’ve come from another site, and what pages/posts of ours they’ve viewed.  We feel connected to them in some way.

On one of the spiritual forums of which I am a member there’s a facility to ‘Like’ people’s posts and comments.  I use the feature ubiquitously.  Frequently.  Even often.  I do the same on Google+ and other sites, although I’m there less frequently.  I only ‘Like’ posts I truly appreciate, but I cast a pretty wide net with that.  And in return I’ve received a number of messages from people thanking me for ‘Liking’ their posts.  They feel connected, supported, appreciated… and more.  To me, that’s what it’s really all about.  So, the next time you’re scrolling through your favourite sites, take a second with the mouse to offer an up vote, a +1, a Like.  It’ll make you feel better, and you’ll never know how much such a small action will be appreciated by others.  We might even start a new trend!!

Hugs,
Mike.

Happy Holidays, Everyone! There are a lot of different celebrations this time of year, but they all share the same general ideas… so whether you prefer Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Saturnalia, Solstice or something more personal (the Muslim celebration of Eid al-Fitr is on a different, lunar calendar), we wanted to [...]]]>

Happy Holidays, Everyone! There are a lot of different celebrations this time of year, but they all share the same general ideas… so whether you prefer Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Saturnalia, Solstice or something more personal (the Muslim celebration of Eid al-Fitr is on a different, lunar calendar), we wanted to wish you a safe and happy Holiday Season and a New Year filled with as much love, joy, peace, adventure, contentment, prosperity and excitement as you can handle!

As a gift, we’d love to share this with you: TEDxSF – Louie Schwartzberg – Gratitude

Thanks so much for dropping by our little corner of the ‘net!

Hugs,
M&M

(P.S.  Thanks to John for the idea for the image at the top!)

]]> http://www.wolfnowl.com/2011/12/happy-holidays/feed/ 0 http://www.wolfnowl.com/2011/12/2012-photo-calendars/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=2012-photo-calendars http://www.wolfnowl.com/2011/12/2012-photo-calendars/#comments Wed, 07 Dec 2011 22:52:58 +0000 Mike Nelson Pedde http://www.wolfnowl.com/?p=5607 Hi Folks:

While there are usually several templates made every year to make photo calendars in Lightroom, (with many thanks to their respective providers, you can find one here, one here, one here, one here, a Photoshop script here, and while not a template, Matt Kloskowski has a video on using [...]]]> Hi Folks:

While there are usually several templates made every year to make photo calendars in Lightroom, (with many thanks to their respective providers, you can find one here, one here, one here, one here, a Photoshop script here, and while not a template, Matt Kloskowski has a video on using downloaded calendar images in Lightroom here (corrected the link, December 20).  NB: He begins in Photoshop, but you can do most of what he does straight in Lightroom.  I’ll add more links as I come across them)  last year I created a template in MS Word that allowed people who don’t have Photoshop, Lightroom or the equivalent to make their own photo calendars.  Thought I’d do the same again this year.  I used MS Word 2007 to make the template, but saved it as both a Word 2007 file and a Word 97-2003 compatible file.  Basically it’s a series of tables, one for each month, that look something like this:

The large square at the top is a blank picture file.  If you click on it and go to Insert/Picture, you can replace the existing (blank) picture with one of your own.  The easiest way is to select 12 images that all have the same size/shape; otherwise you may have to fiddle with the cell heights to make the calendar line up from month to month.  Where it says ‘Caption’, you can highlight and type in your own caption for each image, or you can simply highlight and delete the text if you don’t want a caption.  Here are the template files:

2012 Calendar template – Word 2007
2012 Calendar template – Word 97-2003

Last year I also made my own photo calendar available, and some people seemed to appreciate that so I did it again this year.  It looks like this:

As before, all of the images were made on Vancouver Island.  The image for March was made at Botany Bay in Juan de Fuca Provincial Park, and the others were all made in the Victoria area; all were made in the month they represent (i.e. the image for January 2012 was made in January 2011, etc.)  I saved it as a .pdf file, then zipped it to save a little space.  Clicking on the picture will enable you to download the zip file.

BTW, all of the images in the calendar are covered by a Creative Commons license, non-commercial, non-dervis.  That means you can use them for personal use but not for business, you can’t modify or change them in any way, and if you do use them you’ll give me credit for them by adding my name and linking back to this site or our Flickr site.  Thanks!!

Our best wishes to you and those close to you for a new year full of as much love, excitement, joy, peace and harmony as you can handle!

Hugs,
M&M

P.S. Ed Weaver kindly provided one of the Lightroom template sets linked above.  He also passed along this advice:

“By the way. I do them in gray scale so I can color them in LR.

If you go to Split Toning in the develop module, you can set the balance to -100, (more shadow). Turn up the saturation slider up to 100, (max color in shadows), using the shadow hue slider you can change the color of the grays. Play with the hue and saturation and balance sliders until you get what you like. To match your pictures.”

P.S. II, the sequel You can find more of our posts on photography and Lightroom tutorials here, and you can find links to over 200 other sites that have Lightroom tips, tutorials and videos here.

This is going to be a very short (for me) post, and is really just a pointer to some excellent articles written by someone else.  Photographer Alain Briot recently wrote a series of three articles for the Luminous Landscape , and while they’re primarily written for the understanding of [...]]]> Hi Folks:

This is going to be a very short (for me) post, and is really just a pointer to some excellent articles written by someone else.  Photographer Alain Briot recently wrote a series of three articles for the Luminous Landscape , and while they’re primarily written for the understanding of photographers, I think the points Alain makes have a broader reference to the criticisms we all deal with in our daily life.

You can find them here:

Understanding Criticism, Part 1: The Many Faces of Criticism
Understanding Criticism, Part 2: Responding to Criticism
Understanding Criticism, Part 3: A few words on perseverance

Okay, that’s it for now!

Hugs,
Mike.

(See, I told you it was going to be short… )

Well, last Saturday was Marcia’s birthday and since she was off on both Friday and Saturday we (I) expanded her birthday celebration into a two-day event.  Fortunately Marcia was willing to go along with my schemes!  Before I continue, I should add a little backstory…

Back in [...]]]> Hi Folks:

Well, last Saturday was Marcia’s birthday and since she was off on both Friday and Saturday we (I) expanded her birthday celebration into a two-day event.  Fortunately Marcia was willing to go along with my schemes!  Before I continue, I should add a little backstory…

Back in 1995 we shared our first two-bedroom apartment together.  For Marcia’s birthday I invited a ‘few’ friends for a pot-luck surprise party and we managed to pack 37 people into our little apartment!  Everyone had a great time, including Marcia, but she also casually mentioned that she’d kill me if I ever did it again.  Well, since we no longer live there, and keeping to the ‘letter of the law’ so to speak, here’s a quick summary of some of the things we undertook over our weekend.  It also highlights some of the reasons we love living here in Victoria!

1. We went to the Dales Gallery on Fisgard St. to take in their ‘Big Trees’ photo exhibit.  Some amazing work there.
2. We took in the 14th Annual Gallery Walk, which includes visiting the Legacy Gallery, the Madrona Gallery, the West End Gallery, the View Gallery, the Alcheringa Gallery (our thanks to the woman there who took the time to highlight and explain so many of the pieces!) and the Winchester Modern and Winchester Contemporary Galleries.  The official walk started Thursday afternoon, but fortunately for us it was extended into the weekend as we did the tour over two days.  There was so much to see and we didn’t want to rush!
3. We went to the Out of Hand Artisan Christmas Fair at the Crystal Garden (twice!)
4. We met with local author Kate Noble at Jade Victoria and purchased a signed copy of ‘Duffy the Christmassy Dragon‘ for our great-nephew.  Fifty percent of the proceeds from each book goes to C-FAX Santas Anonymous.
5. We met with (Victoria’s former poet laureate) Wendy Morton in Esquimalt, had an opportunity to have her read two of her poems for us… AND, since Wendy’s book ‘Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast‘ was the inspiration for Marcia writing her own book, Marcia gifted a signed copy of her book ‘A Year in the Life of a Bus-Traveling Poet‘ to Wendy.
6. We went to Floyd’s Diner for lunch.  Floyd’s was the subject of our first food post and remains one of our favourite breakfast/lunch locations.  The place was as rockin’ and riotous as ever, but the food’s always great and the staff are wonderful.  Everyone on duty signed Marcia’s birthday card, and not only did the ENTIRE restaurant sing her Happy Birthday, but the staff even provided her with a birthday cake as a surprise!
7. We took a horse-drawn trolley tour around the downtown core, and learned a few new things about the city.  For example, we didn’t know that the Swan’s Hotel was once an ‘ugly duckling’ of a grain warehouse.
8. We stopped in quickly at Armeni Jewelers so that Hratch and Brenda could sign Marcia’s birthday card too.
9. We met with about 15 or so members of the Victoria Photo Meetup group (they all signed Marcia’s birthday card too) at Centennial Square for the Tree Lighting, and while we were there had a chance to see the ice carving demonstration (reindeer and sleigh), the music and caroling and the big moment where the entire square is lit up with colourful lights.
10. Following the tree lighting we moved over to Government Street for the annual Island Farms Santa Claus Parade.  The dinosaur float from the Royal BC Museum was certainly unexpected!

And finally, we decamped with 13 friends and members of the Photo Meetup group to the Bard and Banker for a little Christmas cheer and birthday celebration.  Located at the corner of Fort and Government Streets, although we’d walked past it numerous times, neither Marcia nor I had yet been there.  I had made an initial reservation for 16 people, and followed that with an e-mail to general manager Mike Boyle, letting him know that I wasn’t sure exactly how many people would be coming, and while the reservation was for a set time, we’d be coming in after the parade was over.  The following week I went in and spoke with the hostess on duty, and she was kind enough to show me the space they had set aside for us and discuss seating arrangements.  As it happened, the restaurant was completely booked for that night, so there was no possibility of increasing the number of seats.  In the end it all worked out perfectly.  The staff were most accomodating in their allowance for people coming in small groups as the parade passed by and cameras, etc. were stored away; our server handled herself with great aplomb!

Since neither Marcia nor I drink, we’re not able to comment personally on the wide selections of local beers available, but others in our group held them in high esteem.  The food menu is definitely a step above what might be called ‘pub food’, very tasty and well presented.  I began with the soup of the day (spicy yam), and then moved on to a main course of chicken pot pie.  Comfort food, but the pot pie was served with a topping of puff pastry, which was deliciously unexpected.  Marcia had the shepherd’s pie and from the bite she gave me I can confirm that it was also very tasty.  Others at our table feasted on fish and chips, chicken wings and green salad, but other selections run the gamut from oysters and arctic char to pizza, burgers and sirloin steak.  Based on the lack of conversation during the meal I’d say everyone shared our opinion on the food and were happily digging in!

For dessert Marcia and I shared the flourless chocolate cake, and our server was kind enough to add a candle to it!  It was very tasty, with a topping of a light orange sorbet – a most unusual but wonderful accompaniment to the chocolate.  Our friends J&K tried the sticky toffee pudding and announced it equally delicious.

In keeping with our policy of only writing about restaurant experiences we’ve enjoyed, we happily add the Bard and Banker to the list!

Many thanks to everyone for making us a part of your day and for joining in our celebration!

Hugs,
M&M

P.S.  Next weekend we’re on for the Festival of Trees at the Empress Hotel, BearWear at the Hotel Grand Pacific, the Gingerbread showcase at the Inn at Laurel Point, the Saltspring Island craft show at the Panorama Rec Centre, the Winter Market and the Tuba Christmas at Market Square, possibly one of the Chinatown walks, the IEOA Lighted Truck Parade and the Lighted Ships Parade…

P.S. II, the sequel – special thanks also to Tourism Vancouver Island as we won 3rd prize in their photo contest, including 2 nights in a cabin at Heriot Bay Inn on Quadra Island as well as 2 tickets to the Tidemark Theatre presentation of ‘Laila Biali Trio’!  It was a wonderful birthday present for Marcia and we’re really looking forward to it!!