I haven’t been here on Kos lately. But someone contacted me in the real world and told me that blueyedace2 — “Ace” — had died. I was a little late for the tribute diary, and my feelings were still raw, so I haven’t posted until now. Since he posted pictures of “Flower p0rn” , I went outside and tried to do the best I could.
Ace and I never met, but he was a friend of mine here on Kos. A buddy. We traded messages on photos and gear, on composition, on what we were trying to do in our photography. And of course, we shared some liberal politics and a love of Wisconsin progressivism, along with a sadness of what we’ve lost in this state.
We chatted a bit about getting together for a photo shoot together. He lived in the Fox River valley in Wisconsin, not far from where my daughters were going to college, and where my parents live. I thought it would be fun to photograph together, but it never happened. I was always too busy during my visits to look him up (a five hour drive each way will do that), and I stopped going to that area. And so it didn’t happen.
When he announced that he wasn’t going to be here anymore, I wished him well. I wish I had wished him more than that. We never know what contact we have with a person might be our last.
Ace liked to take photos of insects and birds. One of the photographic things he good-naturedly complained about was how hard it was to focus on birds an insects in flight…
Friday I was at Green Lake, Wisconsin, not far from where Ace lived. There were flies on the lake were buzzing by — fast — and I tried to photograph them. Autofocus doesn’t work, and neither does manual focus — you have to focus to a point and wait for the flies to come into view, then shoot. And hope that they were in the focused area.
I got a lot of pictures like the first one. Ace sometimes showed some of those.
One photo did turn out. That’s one creepy beast!
Ace also liked to take pictures of birds. The eagle was in the yard next to mine (and yeah, I live in a city, albeit a small one). What you can’t see is the crow on the next tree giving her the what-for, or her partner circling above. It was really nice of her to wait for me to go inside and get my big-a** telephoto lens.
As for the swans — I took that photo last week, going to a campaign event in the north. It was the first photo I’ve taken with my head (& camera) leaning out the window of a moving car. And hopefully the last one.
Ace, my friend, be well and be at rest. May you always have good light, may your autofocus always be fast and accurate, and may the birds and bugs always hold still just long enough. I’ll see you on the other side of the bridge, and we can share with each other what each of us has learned about photography. And other stuff.
For everyone reading this — Be nice to each other. There are lives behind those usernames and avatars, real people. Good people, whether they support Bernie or Hillary. Or neither. Or both.
And we’re here on this planet for such a short time together. Make the most of it.
And Ace? You were right. Trying to do photos in this version of DKos is a massive fail.