Ruminator

Photo by: Tim Bindner Photography As the Covid-19 pandemic continues and we remained in lockdown I am planning on a trip once the restraints are lifted.  I have also relieved so much of my anxiety with some recent news. I had mentioned before that I had a trip planned for July of this year wherein I would be attempting my first cruise.  This trip was, in my case, fortunately, canceled.  I am however sad for my wife and son who were looking forward to this cruise.  My anxiety was building more and more each day as the trap was growing closer, but now that it is canceled I have so much relief.  There are talks amongst the family of trying another trip to the same area next June or July, but this time I will respectfully decline to go. Throughout the process of editing, deleting, and organizing my pictures recently, I began reflecting on my recent trip to Tennessee and North Carolina.  This naturally led me to YouTube where I found some videos of one man’s adventure to hike the Appalachia...

As the Coronavirus has taken a grip on the world, it has allowed me more time to get to those things I have always been wanting to do. I completed one of those ‘to-do list’ tasks today. I did a purge. One challenge or task I have wanted to do for a long time is to go back through all my pictures and delete those I feel are not any good. I have completed one aspect of that project. I house my picture in Lightroom, on a file on my computer, on an external hard drive (backed up once a month) and finally in Google photos. This week I tackled the first purge of my Lightroom catalog. Purge simply means to purify or rid of unwanted quality. As I have progressed in my photography I look back a few years and see many of my older photos do not live up to what I determine as “good enough”. I asked myself two simple questions. Does this picture tell a story, and what was I trying to display? If I could not answer either one I deleted the photo. So here are some numbers to put this into ...

Twice in one week, I received a follow-up response for a virtual interview request. I have sent four responses out, so far two have been returned. The earlier response was Thomas Heaton and this time I will be introducing you to Joe Allam. Upon reaching out to Joe I explained the reason for the interview request, and how I have found photography so therapeutic.  My mind races daily.  Sometimes less, sometimes more, but always racing.  I mentioned to Joe in my email that when I raise the camera to my eye, my brain calms down, at least for a moment.  At that moment all distractions are gone and, yes pun intended, I can focus.  He too seems to identify with this aspect as he responded to me “ I know exactly how you feel with photography helping you to focus. To me, it can be a bit of an addiction. I absolutely love the process of holding and using a camera, clicking the shutter and making images. Whether they’re even of anything or if the lens cap is still on, the...

  I took a stab in the dark yesterday and reached out, via email, to whom ultimately has become my favorite ‘famous’ photographer Thomas Heaton and requested a virtual interview.  To my amazement, he replied the next day with the answers below. Before I get to the questions and answers he provided I want to tell you a bit about Thomas (you can read about him here ) and why he is my favourite (spelled that way as he is from the United Kingdom).  Like most of the photographers I have discovered virtually, I simply found him by accident.  I am so glad I did.  I had recently purchased a Fuji XT-2 (my second Fuji X camera) and was researching camera settings on YouTube which lead me to one of Thomas’ videos.  I got what I needed from the video, and ended up watching another, then another, then another of his.  I soon found myself drawn to his style of vlogs and began going back and watching older ones he created as well as waited with anticipation for his n...

Photo by: Tim Bindner Photography I got recognized for my work.  I was totally surprised but humbled at the same time. My friend Mark reached out to me Sunday mid-day and stated: “hey have you listened to the latest PetaPixel Photography Podcast?  They mentioned one of your pictures.”  It is not a Podcast I currently follow, until now. Their recent episode (#334) called Exposure Bucks Don’t Buy Toilet Paper – and more the host mentioned one of my photos, so I was interested to hear what was said.  Especially with the title of the podcast having toilet paper in it, I was not sure what to expect.  As I listened to the podcast, I eventually reached the 12:11 minute mark and heard my Instagram name TIMOTHYBME , and that he had chosen one of my shots to talk about.  The shot above is that shot he is speaking of. As he spoke he mentioned it was taken at Charlestown State Park (not Charleston as he states).  It is a black and white shot (my personal fav).  In the image, I composed...

Photo by: Tim Bindner Photography Sunday March 29, 2020 @ 8:29am ET I pulled into the campground area at O’ Bannon Woods State Park.  There were not many campers to be seen and even fewer people, but I could spot Mark’s mustard yellow Jeep from a distance.  I pulled up, backed in next to his Jeep and hopped out of my Subaru. Ironically, Don’t Stand So Close to Me by The Police was on the radio when I shut my engine off. It brought a smile to my face. I immediately grabbed my hiking stick, backpack, started my Garmin watch and off we went.  The temperature was 65 degrees perfect for this hiker. I walked under the Rocky Ridge sign and onto the sloshy trail.  The wind was picking up and the forecast was for “wind gusts over 30 mph”.  Mark and I planned on finishing a trail neither of us had seen or completed before.  A few weekends ago we went roughly 2 miles on the Breeden Ridge trail, turned around and came back the way we came.  Today we planned on finishing the loop...