fototaker News and other Events

CBS is again airing the Champions League games so, as you can imagine as I type, I am enjoying watching the Liverpool vs Real Madrid game - and Liverpool has a first goal of the match already - BUT am so happy that CBS is airing these matches! They'll make gobs of dinero in viewers and establishments allowing their patrons to watch also. 

A decades long personal tradition is about to end. I've already shut down my various sites where I exhibit and sell my imagery; the attention I'm getting just does NOT warrant my spending hours sweating in summer, freezing in Winter, running after thieves who have my tripod and camera, etc. and standing many hours in one spot for that perfect sun angle, waiting for that great cloud cover, or that fabulous moment to finally arrive, creating the imagery I love snapping of many creative and natural scenes, plus the time spent in uploading it for your viewing pleasure. I appreciate all the views and viewers over the years via the many websites I've established.

I've also decided to hang up the rights to my digital age storefront name: fototaker.net. It's been my stage name for many years and decades. I thought of the name while living permanently in Spain, thence the "foto" and though a lot of americanos think "photo", it's never been and will never be, as my real love for capturing images got serious while I lived in Spain in the mid-70s and I had my Black and White darkroom, using the small but very capable and efficient Lucky enlarger that was lost in Lenoir, North Carolina last year or earlier, as I have NO idea exactly when Zach Kunkle abandoned my personal stuff he agreed to hold for me years ago. I'd just contacted him less than a year previous and he said then it was still NO problem; I just wish he would have mentioned any hardship he was having instead of just abandoning my stuff, but that's now history.

Liverpool is now 2-0 in the Champions League match!

So, my many current photo websites are gone at 500px, Fine Art America, and I am no longer active at Twitter nor LinkedIN. I just now just maintain a simple gallery for viewing, to remain my only remaining site. What am I doing with all my free time now? Just doing the same thing I've been doing since the late-90s: reviewing big old hard drives, too many other external hard drives and everything else containing my too many image files, in an effort to properly archive all my image files in an effective manner so that I can find an image quickly and effortlessly if needed. 

First Real Madrid goal! Hala Madrid! 2 - 1

If you'd like to view my sole remaining web gallery/portfolio, it's at https://fototakerrota.weebly.com. It's been updated a few times in the past months, revised with either photos or necessary information, so you can rest assured you're not looking at something archived or untouched since the last century. The stormpage website of my artistic nudes that helped put me in contact to find quite a few models who understood my camera's eye and vision while I lived in Spain, to continue my dream of the perfect artnude during my move back to the States at the end of 2006.

So, my fototaker.net remains for a few more months before it will end. I've had this domain for some decades and loved having this unique online name, being very sure someone else will quickly take it into their own use as I thought fototaker was unique, but have seen fototaker in use over the decades, and not under my name!! 

Otherwise, we are waiting for a Winter Ice Storm to arrive within a day, but it won't be anything like before. I still am however, waiting for a BiG WNY snow storm before April! 

I am so grateful, and sending out so many thanks to everyone who has visited my various websites over the years, and hoping you'll continue to enjoy my digital memories now and into the future as I continue to modify and hone my imagery, and how I display my art. 

I'm selling my EOS R5s with various short to long lenses, so if you're interested, just email me!

Real Madrid just scored another gol and eventually went on to win the match! Hala Madrid! 

Seeing YOU while seeing Me

Just a side-note about two photographers, with two different brands of cameras, but one passion: getting that image!

That is US in a heartbeat!

In general, photographers are difficult to capture on film, mainly because they are behind the camera often. Usually others won't think to photograph a photographer while working simply because, they work in photography and they "probably" should have a few pixs of themselves already.

How farther from the truth that can be sometimes!!

I hate how I look in any picture, and have avoided being in images for as long as I have carried a camera, and my first camera was a SLR when I was in my mid-teens. I have managed to stay out of pictures till I left Spain in 2006, when I then wanted to share my "life" behind cameras in so many different places, with my Spanish amigos, so I sort of have given consent to have my image captured on virtual film, and sometimes with strikingly good results! 

HA!!

Now married to a photographer, I have been photographing her daily, especially since she is so lovely and unknowing of my intents! I love having snapped her in Spain, in San Francisco, along the Delaware coast, in rain and in fog, on frozen lake/river ice and freezing cold snowy areas, as I have seen my love with camera in hand, and love how intent she is in seeing the World through her lens.

It's a sight to behold!

Here are two images of us, as I snapped her, and unknowingly, she snapped me too. 

hahahahaaaa ~ enjoy!

First she gets me in a scene by the Upper Niagara River

I see her later and snap her as the sun drops lower
 as the golden hour arrives to surround her in liquid gold.
That's my Sheila!

the wind never arrived....

Big storms were forecast to hit the Bay Area over the weekend with heavy rains and even high winds last night. The winds did pick up... then died weakly. I was happy. I rather have wet stuff on my face dripping down rather than wet stuff blown into my face.

Saturday I attended the exhibit closing party of a friend's gorgeous display of flora images. Held at the Collectively GRASP environmental art gallery in North Beach just a few meters from me, I've attended quite a few of the exhibits in my short year and a half in the City, though I have no hopes of ever showing there.
Even the previous owner promised me a gallery show there, then prompted closed the gallery and moved away. This owner seems to be following the same path of not showing my work..... I don't care either way.... it's no use worrying about something beyond my control.... but still: it hurts when I see others' work hanging there and seems so easy for them, but so difficult for me. Still I am always happy when a fellow photographer has the good fortune to exhibit and even to sell some work; of course there is nobody who wishes the same good luck for me, but I am used to that.....

Now it's Sunday and I've been lazying around the house all day..... okay, I keep forgetting I am not in my house, and I actually have just one room that I live in, work in, etc. It's sad and gets me miserable, so I have been trying to stay out of the place as much as possible..... spending as much time possible on the street weather permitting when not spending my usual 29 hours on the computer working on fotos. I still cannot believe I have been living over a year in a tiny filled room instead of my roomy clean apartment back in southern Spain.

sigh....

Right now as I look out the window, it's been raining all day and in the last 45mins, has increased to a steady downpour. If the rain continues I probably won't go out at 6am tomorrow to see if I can snap Lance Armstrong zipping across the Golden Gate Bridge, with many other riders who have paid $500 each for the "honor" of riding with him..... geeesh.....

Tuesday starts my first day of jury duty - my first ever as I have been out of the country for so many decades!! I have a book I carried with me from my spanish apartment that I'll bring with me, and hopefully I won't finish it on the very first day of jury duty! I have mixed feelings about the US court system.... sometimes I don't think it first or just, and other times I think it's downright stupid. Of course, my opinions won't count as I have no experience in this area.

It's still raining..... but I can also see it's been in the high 60s or low 70s back at my apartment location.... but I know it'll be actually warmer than that.....

a running fool's life

... imagine seeing someone running through the streets... obviously not dressed to be a jogger since he's wearing street clothes. Another indication he's not a jogger could be he's holding in his hand a very big camera with a long lens.

Not a jogger!!!

Well, if you thought that scene to be out of a flick, think not! That would be me, running about two miles Tuesday night as this idiot wanted to catch the almost full moon rising over the East Bay hills.... then after waiting 20mins realized that the moon's angle is wrong and want it "lower" in the sky, so now I decided to run from about Union Street and Vallejo to the Embarcadero and Pier 14. Gasping for air, snaps a bunch of the Bay Bridge with the moon above, then decides to run back toward Broadway and ~ seeing the Transamerica Building ~ stop to capture that in the darkening night sky, then on a sidestep, spies that green Sentinel Building and now distracted, spend twenty minutes snapping that too..... after all, it's not often this lad with a camera gets out at night to discover the night! And all this without a tripod!!

Pooped to hell and back, he rests till today when he spies a great cloudy sky as sunset nears, and decides on a whim to get the sunset from a different spot, so he runs up Greenwich Street to Telegraph Hill, where ~ out of breath again ~ encounters a tourist couple whose boyfriend is busying "watering" the green bushes by the walkway leading to the top of the hill... I detected a spanish-sounding accent and in Spain it's commonplace for males to look for any place to urinate.... I was going to ask if he was from Spain but thought better of it as I was in a hurry to get the sunset which was minutes away.... gasp, pant, gasp....

Near to the top, I see a spot not blocked by tree limbs or bushes. I stood there for about ten minutes while not even two feet away a man dressed in dark clothing burned a small stove in the bushes, crouched below the bush-level. As I started to capture the setting sun, he started banging a spoon on metal chant-style, and I wondered if what he was doing was a spell to shoo me away from his camp location for the night. I left in a few minutes, running again to the top of the hill, only to see trees and even taller bushes blocking any possible view, but I did see the statue of Columbus there backlit by the setting sun's golden glow upon the clouds.

I looked skyward; a BIG mistake and decided (I'm really crazy when I go snapping away and I've had an otherwise boring few days standing for hours for four days shooting the roaring jets) to go DOWN the backside of Telegraph Hill to the Embarcadero (ooooh no, not again!) and snap Coit Tower against the red flaming clouds above...... so I ran down the 300+ steps and was shocked I didn't fall not once - usually I fall when I have camera in hand) and started snapping away yet again at street level....
....then I see a lighted water fountain and those glimmering lights and that dark and shiny reflections of light caught my eye...... if you're a technie type, the data on the fountain pix is about a four-second exposure without a tripod, the camera on the ground, me lying next to it and keys and whatever else I had in my pockets to level the camera and angle the lense down to my subject.... wot fun!!

An hour and a half later I got home..... I think I'll stay away from my camera for a few days. Maybe if I moved everything around again, I'll lose my camera and I won't have to run anytime soon.....

yea right!
This is a picture captured with my cell phone camera, showing my camera on the ground (without me) as I snapped away at the fountain to get the picture above.... neatoooo tripod, huh? hahahahaaa

I saw an interesting scene during that chase for the full moon: I am walking ~ slow for once ~ down the street and notice a man loudly talking in chinese but holding at shoulder-height a square object in his hands. As I near, I can see that object is a laptop, and instantly, I know what he is doing... I've done it myself! He is holding the laptop equipped with a webcam toward Russian Hill and the dying golden glow of that night's sunset. Through this modern technology that we so take for granted these days, this man is probably talking to friends or family in China and using his wireless net access, walk outside with his laptop and share that sunset with his friends a world away.....

Then, on the other hand, why can't people direct their thoughts in one precise direction? Why does someone have to talk using this same technology but act in such a confusing matter that it's a headache foir both that individual and myself? To make matters worst, this individual acts as if they are talking to someone else. Nooooo, this person doesn't say my name, but refers to other named persons. Not only is this insulting that they cannot say my name, but it's confusing.

I don't get headaches often.... maybe once every two years, and this is the first one in probably that period.... and I don't like having a headache caused by someone's tactlessness.

grrrrrrrr

.... and still, as in every country I've lived in... why am I still watching sunsets alone? I hate being in this place and wish I were elsewhere. Anywhere but here.....