How I spent my Sunday

Long-time followers know that I photographed the first ever Medical Outreach Response Event (MORE) last year as my final project for my lighting class.   They held the event again this past weekend and I volunteered to shoot the event. They already had a photographer for Saturday so I showed up yesterday.  Sunday wasn’t as busy as Saturday, but there was still plenty of need.   There are no medical services to speak of in our town. Many of these people are working poor, or disabled, and there are so many hurdles for them to jump over and so many cracks for them to fall through, that the problem feels insurmountable.

Here are just a few shots.

Attendees starting the process at intake.  The clients were screened here and directed to the various areas, depending on their need.

They might need dental work, vision care, help with obtaining affordable insurance or low-cost prescription assistance.  Or all of the above. There was also an immunization clinic to get people up-to-date on their shots, mental health screening, three dental vans, and the Mammovan was there to provide breast cancer screening.

 People shouldn’t have to get their health care in the middle of a high school gymnasium or get their teeth fixed in the parking lot. My country has its priorities all screwed up.

They shouldn’t have to wonder if there is something . . .  anything . . .  they can afford.

A young boy attempts to read the eye chart as the Lions Club volunteer looks on.

Immunization clinic.

She’s a bit nervous.

But she came through with flying colors.

More to come.

Old Beauty in the Dead of Winter

It was a beautiful day today, so about 9:30 this morning I grabbed my camera and tripod to see what I could find.  I took a left on Hwy 95 and headed south toward Fort Churchill State Park. Some of you may remember my  Day 43 photo from Fort Churchill.  Just a bit further from the entrance to the main park area is  “The Orchard,”  just across the highway from Buckland Station,  the picnic and hiking area at Fort Churchill State Park.

The area is full of decaying farm buildings with signs all over them NOT to enter (drat!), as well as rusting farm equipment and old wagons.  Here are a few of my shots. I’ll be posting more over the coming days.

You can see some of the adobe buildings of Fort Churchill in the background in this first one.

I am the Lizard Whisperer

Another Great Basin Whiptail made an appearance today, this time in my front yard.  These guys are extremely skittish (and fast!), so I had to go very slowly. Still, he let me get in pretty close!  As a reminder, clicking on any photo will bring up a larger version. You may want to do that with this series.

He skittered under a shrub, so I slowly made my way around.

He kept an eye on me as I moved in . . .

Here’s a shot of him blinking his eye. Their eyelids are transparent and close from bottom to top.  I highly recommend clicking on the photo to get a closer look. Better yet, click over to my Desert Creatures SmugMug gallery to see the original in all it’s reptilian glory.

Here’s a view of his full length. As I mentioned yesterday, their tails can be as long as 2/3 of their entire length.  His tail is nearly complete, but it appears there is some new growth at the end.  For scale, the leaf right behind his tail is nearly one inch long. This guy was about 7 inches or so.  Other scale info: the rabbit pellet just to the right of his forearm is about a quarter of an inch or so across.

One last close-up.

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Day 167 – Crescent Moon at Dawn

I shot this at about 5:15 this morning. The sun had not yet peeped over the horizon.  I chose not include any horizon because I was so taken with the moon and the colors of the sky.

Day 148 – Birthday Present!

Yes, I’m spoiled rotten. I know it. Canon EOS 7D 18 MP CMOS Digital SLR Camera with 3-inch LCD

Sweetie gave me a Canon EOS 7D  EF-28-135 IS USM kit for my birthday. I’ve had my eye on one for a while and I’m really, really happy with it.  It’s much heftier that my Rebel T1i, and has a wider range of capabilities.  ISO starts at 100 and increases at 1/3 stop intervals up to 6400.  Very, very little noise at the highest ISO (one of the comments I read over and over and over again about this model).  Also, 100% field of view means the photo I compose in my viewfinder will be the photo the camera will produce. No unknown stuff around the edges.  I took it out for a whirl today.  Here are just a few of my shots.  Very little processing done to these, just a bit of sharpening of the RAW files.

Close-up of  a buckle on my leather jacket.

Rose in the backyard.

Nina on a walk-about in the backyard.

Jezebel by the light of the living room window.

This was my only flash photo…Maya by the front door. Exposed for outdoors with flash used to equalize the indoor lighting.