July 16, 2026 a thought for today, For a sackful of learning a cartful of wisdom is needed. Romanian Proverb

Photos in my life yesterday

The first challenge for yesterday was “jewelry”. This is a “flat lay” image of some of my very old collection of jewelry which never wear anymore. 

The next assignment was “a pantry staple”. This is one small section of my
“pantry”, I just call them cupboard shelves. 

The last upload was “my choice” and one of my “weeds” series. This one as you can see was a weed growing up between bricks. 

Life today. I had a welcome and fun visit with Tami and Andy and my new furry grand daughter. She is a jewel, so loving and gentle. She had a bad year but doesn’t seem damaged by it or isn’t going to let it ruin the rest of her life. She was adopted once and then returned to the humane society. I can’t see a reason for that in the temperament I observed. She is precious and wants to be loved. She truly has a forever home now. 

We all have dreams some or them don’t go anywhere others do. Part of the fun and relief is going for it. That is the way with mine and my photo project at my church. Tami and Andy have helped me with that dream. I can’t thank them enough. I have been afraid it wouldn’t get finished or I would run out of steam. Andy helped me put that to rest today. It is finished. I may want to expand on it depending on how this one goes and when the weather is better. But the beginning and the effort to try has been done. It’s a big boost to the psyche, especially when a well along senior citizen is beginning to feel twilight twinges of feelings of becoming a bother, an interruption, an afterthought. 

I got to church early so that I could have the printing done and distributed. Andy got there earlier than we had planned so I folded the bulletins while watching him finish the hanging. Once he was done and had left the church I distributed the bulletins and finished up. 

I had to stop at Kroger for meds and a couple of other things. That is where I drop off the mail every week with a good timing pick up too. There is a postal pick up box right outside their door. 

Now I have the laundry in and just finished the photos in Photoshop so I am ready for the uploads. 

The word to ponder for today is better.  'Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt. Abraham Lincoln. Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time. Thomas Carlyle. One must know oneself, if this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life and there is nothing better. Blaise Pascal. Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one. George Washington. Do thou restrain the haughty spirit in thy breast, for better far is gentle courtesy. Homer. Better fare hard with good men than feast it with bad. Thomas Paine. You better live your best and act your best and think your best today, for today is the sure preparation for tomorrow and all the other tomorrows that follow. Harriet Martineau. Worries go down better with soup than without. Jewish Proverb. Better shun the bait, than struggle in the snare. John Dryden. Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Better by far you should forget and smile than you should remember and be sad. Christina Rossett. Well done is better than well said. Benjamin Franklin. To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive. Robert Louis Stevenson. A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety. Aesop. There are occasions when it is undoubtedly better to incur loss than to make gain. Titus Maccius Plautus. What is defeat? Nothing but education; nothing but the first step to something better. Wendell Phillips. Better the foot slip than the tongue. French Proverb. Divide and rule, a sound motto. Unite and lead, a better one. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.  Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all. Hypatia of Alexandria. There is no better deliverance from the world than through art; and a man can form no surer bond with it than through art. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Article summary. As a photographer I am interested in this article however since it is talking about smartphone photography it may be of interest to everyone since smartphones are a fixture in this age in history, the digital age is another of those times of historical growth. The title is How to take better photos with your smartphone, thanks to computational photography. Rob Layton, Senior Teaching Fellow (Journalism), Bond University. At theconversation.com. It starts by telling what computational photography is it means “that image capture is via a series of digital processes rather than purely optical ones”. Different models of the smartphone family can apply different operations such as auto focus and exposure, or can “stack” multiple frames to smooth out brightness and darkness and can “artificially blur the background”. Some of the complicated set ups of standard cameras are now done automatically in real time inside the “camera” like capture, editing and delivery. It looks like AI is here, maybe one of the good parts of it. The author mentioned much like my own experiences of starting in photography all those many years ago with a “bag full of cameras and lens”, and a darkroom (mine, a gift from my dad). He says he now used his iPhone exclusively. It is cheaper and “always with me” (the author and me too). He says the “phone producers” are “pulling the rug from beneath traditional camera manufacturers”. He goes on to compare it to “hard copy” newspapers becoming obsolete to a digital form that is better and faster. On smartphones there is a low light and long exposure quality. There is a portrait mode naturally allowing for objects in the background to be blurred, some of the cameras allow for “fine tuning” the captures. There are adjustments on smartphones to offer controls to meet choices of outcomes. Even with smartphones there can be times when a tripod is necessary to get the perfect shot. In coming to an end the article mentions to be successful even with smartphone photography you should understand there are limitations to be aware of, they are a tool “and computational photography the technology that powers the tool”. To be remembered “it is the photographer who takes the picture, not the camera”. The article ends with “Happy snapping”.

Photos in my life today

My first upload for today is “a jar”. It looked a little lonesome when I took the first shot so I added a filter to give it some character. 

The next challenge was “broken”. I made tuna salad with a hard boiled (air fried actually) for lunch. I decided to use the broken egg shell for this image.

The last assignment is another “my choice and another of the “weed” series. I
found this in the alley behind one of my neighbors houses.

I haven’t had the Welsh Rarebit I have been hankering for so I think I will have it tonight. 

Joy

this was a petunia shot I had taken a while back I separated it from it’s original background to replace it with another shade of red for a contest  at Fine Art America

want to shop? Visit: fineartamerica.com search for joy rector click on “view shop”  and redbubble.com search for jarector (and take a look at flickr.com search for rectorjoyce