The End of an Era

I have finally decided to end an era of my life in photography, and of so many years of viewing the world through viewfinders. The fototaker name I had used on and offline, had been created while I still lived permanently in España. Since then, fototaker.net has been my virtual store, name, and my couch. Now for the first time since the last century [I've always wanted to say that!], I am no longer using my domain of fototaker.net! 

A very sad decision for me....  

Since May, I've been announcing online that my web domain of "fototaker.net" is no longer, and I've been using "fototaker Tony" instead, all the while trying to quit Network Solutions where my domain name is registered, and remains under my control till 2028. 

The agent at NetSol actually suggested I could personally sell my domain! WoW!! 

With that in mind, would anyone be interested in taking over my domain? It consists of the entire "fototaker.net", and though a fotograf in Germany is using something similar, it's not the exact same. 

Are you a creative soul who loves photography as I once did? YOU can carry on my domain of fototaker net, and once it expires, take it over completely! 

Will YOU be the next fototaker.net?

Serious photographers and inquiries only please por favor, bitte!

A little bit of this, a little bit of that (again)

Though this winter started late in western New York (WNY), I am thinking Mother Nature has fooled a lot of people who thought we'd get a little bit of snow this winter, and not anything like that big mess that fell back in 2014/15 or even the six months of winter snow back in 2017/18 when winter stuck it out till Spring! Even worst was the Buffalo snowstorm of 1977, when this whole area was paralyzed and cars were buried under the snow! Here's an article about that 1977 blizzard 
https://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/blizzard-of-1977-meteorological-analysis-canada-niagara/78699

Glass of a frozen front screen door!
I love the trees in the frozen "tundra"

Since I last posted, it's snowed three times more, but the in-between times were the warmest yet to date, getting up to the mid- and higher 40s. Those higher temps and a little rain melted all but the biggest piles of plowed snow in parking lots and roadside. 

As I write, it's snowed a few hours and everything is again white, but now it appears to be freezing rain. How fun!! As I have reported previously, WE aren't scared of weather extremes, and this winter we've been out in -17 temps and with gusting howling winds!

This tiny waterfall is cute in summer
BUT in winter, it is truly gorgeous!!!
This is the first time I've ever seen it completely frozen!

The last time we had to clear off the vehicle, it took over an hour after an evening and all-night session of freezing rain. It left about an quarter of an inch to - in some spots - a half-inch of frozen hard clear ice on the windshield and most parts of the vehicle! I haven't had to deal with ice like this since the mid-90s when I lived in Norfolk, Virginia! 

I know...  YOU can't even find your car.
Our car was luckily sheltered from the snow/wind

Just an example to show the depth.
This is probably about four inches or sooo

Not cracked windshield but cracked frozen ice, as I attempt
removing the ice and not crack the windshield in the process!!

Icicles hanging off the backside of our camping minivan 

Icicles everywhere, including from the front end!!

Thank goodness the windshield didn't crack!!

Frozen ice on passenger side of the car. Some of the
ice covering the rear view mirror was removed already

On the other hand, the amazingly gorgeous ice sculptures and abstract snowy drifts that look like someone's hairdo, always takes my breath away! 

Snapped through the window, these icicles were fabulous!

Even the trash can lid sprouted icicles!!

If you live in a icy cold area, have you been outside to admire what Nature has given us? Share your experiences, BUT be careful driving or walking around in the white stuff!!!

Are you seeing and hearing the strong winds too? It started yesterday and will continue all day till tonight Wednesday, but we have been experiencing strong winds about once a week for some time. Last night the winds were howling all night, and was louder than a steam train! Several times its direction shifted, but it still howled, just from a different direction!

Remember you can click on any image to see it bigger. Most of these pictures were snapped with my Samsung S5, which now needs to have its cache cleared about four times daily. The apps don't function correctly and often freeze or just close unexpectedly. Same with the bluetooth, and it's just being a pain. If you buy a samsung phone, be sure its update will continue or else you too will end up with a very annoying and non-functioning dumb phone, like I have right now!

Down on the river named Niagara, there's LESS ice than last year
at this same period of February. BUT, that's a lot of ice cubes!!!

Looking north to Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada 

UPDATE 4:35pm Wednesday: Almost whiteout conditions with over 25mph winds blowing snow 

If you can't see and you need to use your wipers, your lights
 should be ON to improve visibility. Be careful while outside!

Not to forget all those little piggies enjoying a
birthday during this year's Chinese New Year,
Happy Chinese New Year! 

it's just another day...

as forecast, it did rain almost all day Tuesday and again on Thursday. Both days brought out some fantastic storm clouds - the type seen in documentaries or movies that make your heart rate increase. I took a break Thursday night to get to the beach as the little sky I could see form my windows hinted of sunbeams - later there weren't but I wasn't worried too much.

So, I went out to shoot the sunset and I saw this huge rain cloud - actually two of them. One floated over the Atlantic and was huge.... another was to the north and slightly off the coast. I knew that I would get hit by this cloud as the wind comes from off the shoreline, and eventually

as I snapped pixs of the sand designs and sand-trees

I got completely and totally POURED on!! The storm clouds were however great and when the rain came down continually harder, and the wind picked up even more, that's when I decided I wasn't waterproof and walked slowly towards a sun tarp set up on the boardwalk for a cafeteria. I was eventually content I got myself out of the rain as it lasted a good 10 - 15minutes!! As the rain subsided I returned to the water's edge, and as I turned to the south - from where I walked originally, I saw a huge complete rainbow starting over Rota and ending in the Atlantic!

By this time my shoes and socks were completely drenched along with fototaker, but he was at least happy he saw a Rota rainbow!!More pictures are on my foto site.

moving again - the story of my Life

okay, I know I've been AWoL frome here but you wouldn't believe my life these past few weeks.

It seems I was infected by a virus some months ago but it sat quiet. My sister let me buy a new faster motherboard, CPU and memory.... when that arrived I installed everything, then loaded my old hard drives from the old box into my new faster setup! After testing and revalidating my windows (wot a pain), I finally got it working - and it was fast but still not as fast as my laptop.... something seemed wrong. I ran tests and it was during the testing phase of the new system that I discovered I was infected by the bug Trojan.vundo. It finally reared its ugly head and made my life miserable for three whole weeks before I decided to wipe it and my hard drives clean. I didn't want to do that but now that I look back, it seems logical. I just didn't want to reinstall everything but ended up doing it anyway... I could have saved myself three weeks of hell and misery: sleeping maybe three hours a night, testing, scanning and finding those critters.

Fortunately they affected only system files.....

So, now my system is up and running (again) and the tests are good, being the fast system it's supposed to be, much faster than my older system I picked up while in Oregon and lightspeed faster than my old dinosaur in my apartment in Spain... hopefully within a week I'll be able to box this desktop up and take it on the plane in April when I return and start my waiting game for a cargo plane to Spain.... not looking forward to that at all!!

So, for the last seven months I've been packing up slowly, and now even more than before. My biggest job was to box up my folding bicycle and now that I know how to FOLD it (so simple yet so difficult for dumb non-bike owners like me), that is finally done and out of the way. This will be flying with me on my initial British Airways flight to Spain as excess baggage and I'll be paying for that to go with me. I have never carried so much on a plane before!! I'm already dreading it when I have to take this up into my apartment on the second floor, but at least there I have an elevator!

So, my life continues: I'm living in boxes yet again, and am hoping this will be the very last time till my death. During the day while sis is at her 7am to 5pm job, I pack and clean and during the afternoons/nights, I am on this desktop trying to move everything off onto my ext hard drives (eHDs) so I can access it later through my laptop.

I do not expect to have home net access for many months when I return to Spain. So often a person who has moved gets ISP service to later discover it's not what they want. This is due to not knowing what is available, what is better than others, and just wanting something quick. I hope to resolve that possible situation by NOT contracting net service until I am truly ready and not the reliability and quality of the service I'll be paying for! There's a lot of cybercafes in Rota, plus I hear there's a free wifi spot now downtown!

In the meanwhile I continue to search for my lost boxes from Spain and Oregon (two remain hidden ~ where I have no idea), and separating stuff into three groups: take with me, take in April with me, and shipped to friends' in VA and I won't take to Spain with me until later this winter.
So, if you don't hear from me, you know what I am doing: packing and I've probably packed my brains by accident!

Less than a month togooooo before I fly out!!!

On the weekends I've been gone on small foto trips to destress from all of my hectic schedule and activities..... pray for me I don't pack my eyes too!!!

views from Pinnacle National Monument

aaaaah, the FOG

...was so very gorgeous... and I love fog and rain!! I cannot believe the number of times I stopped by the roadside while seeing a foggy scene, then slamming on the brakes. As usual I departed Eugene at 6:05 with thick fog everywhere and I needed to use the GPS to find my way to the interstate 5 on-ramp.
Visibility was reduced to about 100feet from my front car car seats but by the time I passed Cottage Grove (35mins later) it was already thinning out. The rest of the three-hour trip to Medford was just a beautiful and moody nature painting, highlighted by brushed color and gray/white dense strips fog that wrapped around the trees and smooth tree-covered slopes bordering the interstate. Can't recall the many times I stopped to grab the magic-box but eventually I did get to my destination though almost an hour late!!!
I won't even mention the times I used the camera again and zoomed in while driving ~ hahahahaahaaa

Again I had a slight problem, other than a very leaky and steamy radiator.... the camera lens decided yet another to jump when I opened the car door resulting in a HUGE dent from the last Eugene trip in August, and now has a whitish dent just as big. I was very fortunate enough as on both times the lens or camera impacted upon the lens filter and not the heavy camera body. With these two dents on the lense, though the camera itself isn't damaged, the filter glass piece is about to fall out now, spinning freely within the filter case ~ another great reason to buy a filter for your lens!!! Protect it! The foto book of Capture Lane County looks gorgeous and you should check it out at Borders.... though none of my images selected were included in the book, the book is a sweet memory of a fantastic place where I lived for almost a year upon my first return to live in the states after being away for over 20 years!! These fond memories of Eugene add to the superb imagery within the book pages.

With time quickly running away from me, I hardly had any time to do a lot of things ~ not even eat. If a three-meal day were part of my daily routine ~ it's not ~ then this weekend was an example of my normal eating habits, eating just enough to just barely satisfy the hunger of a tiny mouse. The weekend trip of three days started Friday at 6:15am with the trip starting at 7:32am, and finally ending in SF at about 1:25am Monday morning after driving half-blind with my corrected eyes (still healing from the PRK wavefront procedure) all night Sunday upon finishing shooting with a lovely model in Medford, OR. I have determined that with all the driving on scenic highways, lovely interstates and tree-lined streets, my time on all of these throrough-ways to be approximately 23 non-continuous hours within these three days. Actually, I enjoy "dieting" while in Eugene to burn off all the fat and mass accumulated in SF!!

I'm continuing to download my images, the normal amount of resulting images whenever on the road to Oregon, with the total being over 1500 image files and about 4,6GIGs of photography! Unfortunately for me this means I'll be spending more time of the computer to download everything which of course this means I have a LOT of additional DVDs to burn!!

day three test with the new eyes

Well, things are progressing well. If you see any typos, it may be due to my hunt & peck with two fingers (or it could be toes now), my inability to see very close, or my new eyes not focusing well still, or a combination of all the above.

During day two, I had really red and swollen eyes; so bad were my eyes that I thought: booooy, you look more asian now than you ever did in your life! Now, that's having really really swollen eyes! This would happen everytime I applied the lubricating eye drops, which had me thinking: I must be allergic to these eye drops. But I was assured that was virtually impossible.

Due to the clear protective contact lenses, I can't keep my eyes open, which I was told is a normal reaction. I had scheduled my mandatory first follow-up appointment on Friday, two days after the surgery because I wanted the eyes to heal as much as possible so I could drive myself the one hour, 15 minute trip one way to the San Jose clinic.

Imagine this during day three and day of this follow-up: Driving down the freeway toward San Jose, unable to keep my eye lids open, and following any bright big vehicle in front. This worked for a while until that vehicle took an exit... then I had to find some other target to guide me well. The freeway signs passed overhead but I couldn't read them till they were well-past and too late. So, I used the GPS to warn me and that worked great. I arrived at the clinic ahead of time even and there were a LOT of people in the waiting area.... I jad left the apt wearing dark glasses found inside the apt and glad I used them; the bright sunlight was very annoying! I was comforted in seeing all these people waiting were also wearing dark glasses!

For my vision measurement I flunked that right off; I couldn't see anything with either eye but nobody seemed worried. I explained the problem with the tear drops and they said to continue using them. Then I was seen by the doctor and was informed the cuts were healing well, and that was comforting to hear.

The drive home was the same, fighting the traffic with my eyes half-way open. Then the boredom of being at home and resting my eyes ~ trying to keep them shut as much as possible... I never realized how boring it is to sit in bed and listen to CSI reruns instead of watching, but I had to keep my eyes closed. I also lost six pounds so I'm really content at this unrelated change of "lifestyle". hahahaha

As I type this it's a cloudy gray day in San Francisco and I just returned from a short walk of about half a mile. With dark glasses again, I wanted to see how well my eye lids would be while I tried to see in a normal situation. It's been three days since the surgery and I wanted to exercise those eye lids and see how long they would stay open ~ I didn't want to repeat that nightmare half-blind drive to San Jose again! My eyes were okay... the left eye is cut to be far-sighted and would be the eye I've used for viewing through the viewfinder, and the right eye would be for seeing close. But when I closed the right eye, the left eye couldn't focus on anything... while the right eye saw very well. That said and typed, I just turned around and picked up a camera and though the diopter had to be adjusted, I could see well through the viewfinder with my camera eye: the left eye. Now that is a big relief!!

At this rate, I should be able to drive to San Jose to my next appt on Monday without problems and get my new vision into shape soon. I won't take a chance shooting a sunset as that involves looking toward a very bright object, but next week I'll go out and start shooting as a test.

On the other hand, I purchased a copy of the book of Oregon's Lane County because, even if none of my images are featured, it's still a great area that I enjoyed living in, and want a memory other than my many images. I'm also planning to attend the pre-publishing party they are scheduling at a well-known bookstore in November in Eugene... I'd love to meet the other people who contributed ~ there are a lot of gorgeous images displayed at the site and which we all hope will be included in the book!

Months ago I described the opening night of a fitness center where a few of my San Francisco images are framed and displayed there; I just got an email from the owner stating one might be sold soon and to start thinking of bringing by a subsitute. Selling any of my images is good news for me!

One of the greatest things I love about the internet is not only the means of realtime communications between people and the ability to be inside the world's largest library, but for me to listen in realtime the soccer games of the Spanish league, which I am doing now. I don't need eyes to listen to this and it's great to keep in touch with my spanish side... the game is just starting in a few more minutes so.... I and my new eyes bid you adios for now!

UPDATE 2pm: WoW!! I'm looking out the window at some guy illegally parked in my driveway, and I can see he has papers in his hands, and while I cannot read the text in his papers held in his hands, I can SEE the lines of text on those papers from three stories up, and my vision is still blurry!

FOUND!!!!

my beloved safari hat with its ornaments

from many trips! found once again!

After many months of searching without success, and many months of poking around here and there in my unsettling life anew in the Bay Area, where I live among boxes and bags of my stuff... some from Spain two years ago... others from Eugene... almost a year ago... I have finally rediscovered my floppy safari hat!

Yeaaaa, you're wondering: what a big deal for nothing! It seems that way until you realize that we all have some piece of whatever that we really identify with. It may be something soft like a piece of clothing, or a treasured gift given to us by friends, family or the such. In my case, this is a soft khaki-type safari bucket-type hat that I purchased while in Morocco which I simply could not find anywhere in my part of Spain. So, I wore this on hiking trips, on foto excursions and of course, anytime I thought the sun would be beating down on my aging skin.

My hat and I have been a lot of places... We have seen clouds and miles of flying bugs in southern Germany, worn for a few brief days of ~ unbelievably ~ sun in southern Sweden. I've of course worn it often in and throughout Andalucia, and in my few trips with groups and friends in Morocco. I've taken it with me to Vietnam and Phuket, Hong Kong and Bangkok, and on several foto trips through the USA. When I moved from Spain to Eugene, I wore it a few days but the northwest weather just didn't support use of such a hat. Being a soft-brim hat and not rigid, I can wear the hat not only to protect my head and skin BUT have the capability to still use my camera without having to remove the hat, or flip it around as in the use of baseball caps!

When I moved to San Francisco, summer was just ending and I last saw it in the back of my car.... I always suspected where it had crawled by itself to hide from me all these months, but I just couldn't figure out its whereabouts.... my things from Spain and Eugene just filled every nook and cranny. If I searched, I would have to lift and look through layers and boxes of stuff!

With summer's last roar upon us these past days, I intensified my search for this beloved partner in crime, and today, told to me by a passing pelican, I decided again to search a spot after all, there I saw my "lost" Real Madrid scarf all comfortable and waiting for its discovery too.

So as I type this in the chill the fog has slipped into my little room, but I don't care because I finally have my treasured hat again!!! yaaaaaay!!!

Now the hot sol will probably disappear for the next few months!!! During the last few wekeends when I needed it, it was intense at the street festivals visited throughout the Bay Area. One weekend Palo Alto, the next Mountain View. The other day in Millbrae and what about that one in Los Altos? Oftentimes the very same exhibitors as in others, but a few ones I haven't seen before. I enjoy talking to the artists and photographers.... to get their insight on photography, the chore of setting up, etc.

So, what's your favorite item that you cannot live without?

I just had to add this glorious scene of sunbeams and clouds from last night, seen from I-80 westbound before reaching the toll plaza of the Bay Bridge. Enjoy!

new SF fitness center

I attended the grand opening of the Raise the Bar Fitness Center last night - what a drive! There was a baseball game downtown - avoid that area - and a music concert in Golden Gate Park - avoid that area too! As a result of these two unrelated events, traffic in all the City - it seemed - was at its limits. To make it worst, it coincided with the normal late afternoon rush hour!

I had never seen so many people on corners trying to flag down a taxi-cab! Actually, I used my GPS to avoid the hot spots, and enroute the fitness center, encountered such bad traffic that I even went "my own way". At one corner close to downtown, I encountered three persons talking out loud trying to flag down a taxi which was filled, and I just let them hop into my car and drove them toward the park, where they were trying to go to get to the concert.

Once in the Sunset district, there were long lines everywhere. Everyone going to that concert was parking every and anywhere, which made it bad for me and as I reached my destination, as there were NO places to park. I drove around quite a few times inside a 4-block area, and there was nothing in this residencial area till I found quite amazingly a tight piece of concrete into which my car fit exactly!
The fitness center was packed with people and its beautiful wood floors were glowing!! There was a huge food table set out and decorated quite nicely! The owners' families were there and the only thing I could think of was "where did all these people park"?

Four of my San Francisco prints are on the walls near the entrance, along with some paintings at the back of the fitness center.

If you want to see or go to the fitness center, it's located at 2535 Judah Street in San Francisco, between 30th and 31st Avenues, and is a beautiful location.

an angel for a foto shoot today

After many weeks of inactivity in the field of "professional" photography, I had the great luck to finally meet a young model from Sacramento who I've been talking with for the past several months, and off we drove into the sunset... literally!

So-called models living in San Francisco have proven to be very unprofessional.... in conversations with about five since my arrival over six months ago, all of these amateur individuals turned out to be as flaky as an over-filled balloon: when it came to the moment of truth, SF models are just hot air.... and in my opinion do not exist in the City, and their empty words just crumble into false promises after even a few initial correspondence.

On the other hand, since my return to the City I've had the pleasure and honor of shooting with models from Chico, Sacramento (twice) and even Los Angeles. Too bad models in SF are not as responsible or reliable!

My angel of a model and I met at the Marina (free parking and "easy" to find) then started shooting around the little marina there and moved on to the beach at Crissy Field. It was a breezy day but she looked good anyway. From there we went to just west of the toll plaza of the Golden Gate Bridge, and from there down to Baker beach where the shoot ended as the sun set.

This young model has a gorgeous profile and a great laugh... we both trekked a lot today and though the sun was out, I really wished we had the fog and clouds that were present for the past few days instead. I don't enjoy shooting in the stark bright harsh sunlight but when forced to, I will do it as I have previously in Spain.

She is also the first one to be captured with a new lens I have during a sunset, and of course everyone knows I just looove capturing sunsets.

this is the sunset seconds after we finished

another gallery showing finished....

well, I just returned home from picking up my framed images from the group show in Berkeley. What can I say? It was my first actual gallery showing in the United States, first time showing in the Bay Area, and the first-ever display in my life as a photographer to be attended by any of my family, since I have only exhibited previously outside of the United States; my sister and one of my three brothers attended the opening night.

While I didn't sell anything, I was present to see, hear and read many fantastic comments about my work, especially the four Kat Love images that I had framed two images each vertically matted within a single black frame. It was hung on the wall behind the gallery's front room high on the wall behind the workspace counter, and on opening night there were several people who just stood there, motionless in the bustle of an opening night in a small crowded gallery, just staring at my fotos. It was a great pleasure for me to see such reactions, and it moved me deeply. I always have thought I have an immense talent for photography, and to see it recognized in one way or another is always good for the general morale of an artist - and I do consider myself an artist. I also needed that morale boost a lot!!

I was hoping one of the Kat Love images would be sold; they were priced quite inexpensively so I could recoup at least the framing costs, but that didn't happen. Of course, I couldn't afford to frame my images so my sister graciously paid for the framing. Oh well.... now I start looking for another location where I can hang and show my art.

I continue my occasional breaks from boxing, cleaning and moving boxes of stuff down six flights of stairs, these breaks for my photography being my sole source of relaxation and diversion from the cleaning and organizing. This weekend I'm hoping to get some pictures of the triathlon starting from the Marina, plus later the same day, to tour the interior of San Francisco's City Hall which I have heard is very ornate and beautiful; I've been wanting to see it but because of my hectic crazy schedule haven't found the time to do it. It'll be an eye-opener I'm sure!

As always, I have many images displayed at my website plus some samples of my second-ever session with a mature male nude model.

Here are some images I've created in the past few weeks/months:

Raelyn Mouse in Oakland (I think that was the location)


FitnFifty helps me find the light



Union Street Fair offers some great "still-life"



the Bay Area is a cup of light and shadows no matter when one looks