The OLDER Photographers' thread...

Here's a picture to make you feel snug in your homes. Took this on the way to work last week. Moon set, -17C, and foggy.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …/43180760@N07/8​339375399/

And something to make you hold that coffee cup for warmth... moon rise 11 hours later. Was rather difficult to hold the camera steady as I was shivering.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …/43180760@N07/8​339420627/

Guess I won't complain about the 35F this morning

Terrific shots Melody! I can just feel the icicles forming on the end of my nose!

It gets hot here too. Our deck really heats up in the sun. Do not walk out there barefoot!

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …wershutterbug/5​967453635/

Just checking in.

HAPPY NEW YEAR OF THE SNAKE to all.

Just did a quick read of Roger's history lesson....such interesting stuff, which makes me also wish a pox on all bad history teachers.

We arrived home late, last night after a trip to see my wife's gran on Amakusa (interesting bit of history here, AMAKUSA and here, SHIMABARA REBELLION if you're interested).

Got some sorting out to do, but I took some snaps from the area which I'll post up.

Cheers to all, and good luck for a great 2013.

Simon & family

Cool and funny stories, thanks for posting them they were a good read.

Makes you wonder what kids are going to talk about in there good old days? (how they got the biggest blister the first time the played Xbox)

skygod44 wrote in post #15437156
Just checking in.

HAPPY NEW YEAR OF THE SNAKE to all.

Just did a quick read of Roger's history lesson....such interesting stuff, which makes me also wish a pox on all bad history teachers.

We arrived home late, last night after a trip to see my wife's gran on Amakusa (interesting bit of history here, AMAKUSA and here, SHIMABARA REBELLION if you're interested).

Got some sorting out to do, but I took some snaps from the area which I'll post up.

Cheers to all, and good luck for a great 2013.

Simon & family

Glad you were entertained.

Hmm, I'd say more but, well, hmm...

Here's something to dwell on folks.....

Shortly after I posted above, Missus Skygod had a call from another musician-chum (a harpist) whose close friends with another soprano (like my wife, but based in Tokyo).......

To cut a long story short, the Tokyo soprano's younger brother died on January 1st.

The open-casket funeral (as is the Japanese way) was tonight, which we popped along to. Yours truly cried a-plenty when talking to the father, staring at his dead son's face, tenderly stroking the wood of the casket.

The son was 28.
He'd committed suicide.

Why?
Seems he'd been down for more than 10 years........we don't know the details, but wow! To end your days at such a young age. Deliberately.

Since all of us here in the OLDER thread are well over 28, I'd like to make a clear statement to anyone younger who drops in:

Nothing is that bad. NOTHING!
All of us have suicidal thoughts (psychologically speaking, it's deemed "normal"), but NEVER try to act on it.

Regards for a positive, healthy, happy 2013.
Simon

That is so sad to hear Simon. My heart goes out to families that suffer the lost of a loved one so tragically. I know a lot of people get angry when they hear of a death by suicide but until you get an education on mental illness you will not appreciate that the person is not capable of asking for help and in their mind sees taking their life as the only way to end the suffering.
I know first hand...my brother is schizophrenic and he went off his medications over a year ago. He hallucinates and thinks the government is out to get him or that he is God. He has been jailed about six times for bothering people I went to court trying to get help for him, hell I even brought his doctors report for them to see that he was not a junkie but they did nothing but jail him over and over again. He lost his apartment and had been living on the street. Yes the system often fails people with mental health issues. He was on disability and was cut off because if you go to jail you lose your benefits. They sent him a letter stating that he had 30 days to respond to appeal the decision. Duh he is in no frame to respond. You can not talk rationally with him and he just starts babbling nonsense. I had to have him removed from my house several times because he scares me and I am not sure what he might do. No one has seen him in over a year now and I fear he may be dead.

That is a sad event Simon. I tried it myself when I was 20 y.o. and to this day I believe I was 100% successful at my attempt. I remember the life leaving me, physically being pushed out of me from my feet to my head. I remember just hoovering over myself for hours in an empty space. Not sure what all went on after that but woke up the next day as if nothing had happened. I tried a couple times again after that, but never succeeded. I was very depressed in my teens to late 20's but showed very little outward signs of my personal battle.

Today I am happy.

Alright, so I'm 33, but I've been into photography since 1999 when I began working at a specialized camera store (as opposed to Walmart or Best Buy), where I worked for over 2 years, and currently work at Black River Imaging as a graphic technician.

You still gonna make me wait 2 more years? LOL

Chet wrote in post #15438982
That is a sad event Simon. I tried it myself when I was 20 y.o. and to this day I believe I was 100% successful at my attempt. I remember the life leaving me, physically being pushed out of me from my feet to my head. I remember just hoovering over myself for hours in an empty space. Not sure what all went on after that but woke up the next day as if nothing had happened. I tried a couple times again after that, but never succeeded. I was very depressed in my teens to late 20's but showed very little outward signs of my personal battle.

Today I am happy.

Oh wow...you are the third person to have that happen to that I know.
When I was about 12 I had the same experience and thought upon wakening up the next morning that I had been dreaming because for a few months I would try real hard to do it again but couldn't so I chalked it up to a dream and didn't dare tell my mom for fear so would send me to the looney bin. A good friend of mine years later asked if I had ever heard of this sort of feeling.
I read this about lucid dreaming...have never tried to do it tho.
http://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/out-of-body-experiences.html

QueenChatty wrote in post #15439128
Oh wow...you are the third person to have that happen to that I know.
When I was about 12 I had the same experience and thought upon wakening up the next morning that I had been dreaming because for a few months I would try real hard to do it again but couldn't so I chalked it up to a dream and didn't dare tell my mom for fear so would send me to the looney bin. A good friend of mine years later asked if I had ever heard of this sort of feeling.
I read this about lucid dreaming...have never tried to do it tho.
http://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/out-of-body-experiences.html

Chatty, I read your previous post about your brother with great sadness. My nephew committed suicide in his mid twenties...and of course my sister has never truly gotten over it. It must be awful not knowing what happened to your brother.

Chet, man, what a strange experience that must have been.
I have heard of experiences like that, and have had one experience myself that I find hard to explain.

In my early 20s I worked for the NZ Forest Service as a deer hunter...a programme to thin the numbers of deer ruining our fragile native forests. I had 400 square miles of mountains and forest to myself and seldom saw another soul. There were some huts on the block that were supplied with food on a regular basis...tinned veges as well as all the things we needed to bake bread etc. So I lived on venison, potatoes and tinned peas or beans and homemade bread, an almost perfect life for a young fellow! There were also a few small bivouac huts in the heads of some valleys that had been supplied with tinned food by airdrop from a fixed wing aircraft.

Well, one time I got caught by bad weather in one of the bivvies with just a few dented cans of food. They seemed alright, but I got sick and spent a few days dragging myself in and out of the hut, then had to stagger and crawl several miles to a hut where there was better food.

I have a vivid memory from that time of sitting in a tree and watching myself lying on the ground. It was so clear I could conjure the vision up easily for a long time. An out-of-body experience? Who knows?

I recovered okay and went on hunting. Funny thing was though, I lost a day. I had filled in my day-book each day without fail...even when I was hardly able to lift a pencil through being so ill...but when I finally saw my Ranger it took him ages to convince me that it was Friday, not Thursday!

I've often wondered how close I came to dying, and the act of dying has never seemed quite so scary since!