Mini miracles

As if it isn't miraculous enough to be able to fit 1,000 pictures on a little one-by-one memory card and put them on your computer in seconds and have little tiny pictures of each photo for you to pick from and tweak if you're a tweaker and send out to friends and print for mementos -- but then you can get word that someone on the other side of the world is enjoying them too.

This is a miracle beyond words.

It's a new miracle. One that wasn't around 20 years ago and that makes those of us who were around 20 years ago drop our jaws at the wonder of it all.

So to celebrate I'm putting more pictures from my little one-by-one memory card that are now one of thousands and thousands on my little-bit-bigger-but-still-surprisingly small computer, and I'm disseminating them to the other side of the world.

These are pictures that I took on the other side of the world. In greeting and as thanks.

Good to the last shot

My faithful friend finally gave out on me. We've been together for exactly four years. It was in August of 2006 that I took the first shots with my digital SLR Canon, after trying out a digital point-and-shoot Kodak for eight months and after being one of the last to admit I had to switch over from film.

The life expectancy of these early SLRs is 40,000 to 50,000 shots and we made it to 58,464, the last 10,000 without autofocus, but still making great automatic exposures of everything from flowers to oceanscapes, from people to fireworks.

I'm fiercely loyal to something that's served me so well, and it still sits on my desk with the black finish worn in spots and the dust showing in a few corners. Though it won't turn on anymore, it never let me down. Even the last shots before the error message came up and the LCD blanked out for the last time, were keepers. Shown above, a few of my last thousand-or-so pictures. Below, just out my bedroom window on an August morning, picture number 58,452.

Walking at night

It's just about impossible to get a good picture of people walking at night. Even my fellow gallery photographer who just bought a many-thousand-dollar camera that can reach ISO (sensitivity to light) numbers of 100,000 or something astronomical says so.

Still, I had to try.

I tried with a flash, without a flash, with a tripod, without a tripod, with a high shutter speed, on automatic, with close-ups, with distance shots, with a Nikon and with a Canon.

But the most important thing wasn't getting the picture. The most important thing was the walking at night. They were doing it, as others around the country have been doing it, to raise money to fight cancer. Many of them had friends with cancer, many of them had family members, some of them had survived the devastating disease themselves. The little votive candles in bags along the way honored those who couldn't be there and wouldn't.

But spirits were high and determination was evident as they walked and walked, doing something -- anything, to try and help win a war that's seen some victories and wants to see more.

I honor those who are fighting the fight. Those who raise money for it and those who fight it with everything medicine has to offer and every hope faith can bring.

Keep walking.