"I'm Ready for My Close Up"

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I've been promising (probably more like threatening) @galenkp with some macro shots that I have taken over the last couple of months for a while now. I figure now is as good a time as any to finally share them with him and you. Technically, I am not sure you can call these "macro" shots as they were taken with my smart phone and honestly a couple of them aren't super close up.

That being said, my OnePlus 9 something actually does a decent job of taking macro photos. It has the lens and a special mode it switches to automatically when you get the phone close enough to something. Keeping in mind the fact that I don't have a DSLR or access to one, this is going to have to suffice.

The title to this post comes from the classic film Sunset Boulevard. Since it came out in 1950, I don't think I am giving anything away when I tell you the line comes from the end of the movie where the star in a delusional state thinks she is in a movie when really she is being arrested for murder and the cameras are from reporters.

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Skipping over the opening photo for a second, these first photos take us all the way back to Marquette, MI and our ascent up Sugarloaf Mountain. Along the path there were a large number of moss and lichen(?) covered rocks and I knew I had to get a shot of them. As usual, @mrsbozz asked what I was doing and I explained that I was getting macro shots for a post.

From that point forward she was looking for anything interesting that I might be able to take a close up shot of. She's quite the catch!

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As you can see, this one came out a little blurry, but you can see hints of the other growth that I was talking about above coming through here and there. I've always been fascinated by moss for some reason when I was a kid. While many see it as something that is undesired in their yard, I always wished our backyard was completely covered with it.

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This is that other growth I was talking about. I called it lichen, but I don't know if that is accurate. Since these are more pseudo macro shots, I guess it doesn't really matter if I am not 100% accurate. Perhaps it is just the beginning of moss growth and in several years this rock will be covered like the other ones.

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I also took this sort of close up shot of one of the rocks that were jutting out of the path up to the summit of the mountain. Given years of wear from people walking over it and the elements, it had some cool cracks and crevices in it. If you try really hard, you can almost see some patterns in the rock, but I know it's probably completely random and it is just my imagination.

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If you remember the post (from what seems like forever ago), after we left Sugarloaf, we headed to a local beach to check out Lake Superior and to dip our toes in the insanely cold water. It also gave us the opportunity to go rock hunting. I don't know if rock hunting is a big thing in other places, but seems to be one of the official past times of Michigan.

I'm not kidding either, head to any of the many beaches in the state and you will probably find people wandering around looking down with a bucket in their hand full of rocks.

I thought this one was kind of cool. It looks like it could have some metallic properties, so I decided to get a shot of it.

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This is just the same rock with a little bit more interesting background, some different light, and not zoomed in quite so much.

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Definitely not a macro shot, but I thought it was a cute selfie of @mrsbozz and I, so I decided to include it.

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The opening photo is one of a couple I took while we were on a walk in Grindstone City, MI. We were just about to the end of our loop and we passed by this ditch on the side of the road that had these wildflowers (more like weeds) growing out of it.

I thought the small pieces of color really popped against the green backdrop of the other weeds growing all around them.

Of the three photos I took, the one I shared in the opening is probably my favorite. It has multiple colors, but is still predominantly green. Looking back, I probably should have tried to zoom in a bit more, but I didn't want to step into the ditch to try it out. I guarantee there was at least one snake slithering around in there somewhere!

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I guess I shouldn't be complaining too much about people hunting for rocks on the beach, because here I am sharing my third photo of rocks. These are some pieces of grindstone that we rescued from the beach in Grindstone City. If you remember my post, I said that these things are strewn all about the place in this area. I wasn't kidding. These were just three of the dozens of pieces we found near our rental house.

I decided to keep these and put them in our camper to use as whetstones when I need to sharpen my knife or hatchet. You can see the one on the left I already tried to use to sharpen something, but I think I need to add some water (or oil) for them to work properly.

Either way, they are still some cool souvenirs.

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Finally, I have these gems. I probably should have led with this photo given the theme of this post, but oh well. I stopped by my parents house the other day and my dad brought this out to show me. According to him, it was the first camera that he ever used when he was a kid. It had recently been sent to him by my grandparents.

My dad went on to be a pretty decent freelance photographer. I remember him doing several weddings when I was growing up. We also had a black and white dark room in our house and we used to buy our film in bulk rolls of 100 exposures and make our own mini rolls. He went on to be a Nikon guy, but he also had an RB and Mamiya 645 medium format camera if that means anything to you.

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I'm actually a bit surprised he didn't ask why I was taking pictures of the camera. I would have been happy to tell him I planned on using it for a blog post at some point in the future. I had a heck of a time finding the shutter button. Turns out it was actually a slide. You were able to manually control the shutter yourself. Want a longer exposure, just hold the shutter open longer.

So crazy!

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As you can see, the back of the camera isn't all that interesting. I would like to point out the size of the viewfinder though. Looking at the massive screens of today on the back of cameras, we have certainly come a long way haven't we?

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This is the front of the camera with the lens shoved back in. It doesn't spring open quite as smoothly as it once did. In fact, I needed to use a knife to pry it back open after I closed it. My dad admitted they had to do the same thing to get it open after it was shipped to them.

I did a little research and it sounds like the Tower brand was produced for Sears Roebuck by brands such as Olympus back in the day, so there were likely a lot of them kicking around the United States back in the 50's and 60's.

A quick search on Ebay showed many Tower cameras for sale in the $25 range, so while I don't think this camera is unique, it holds extra special meaning given what my dad went on to achieve.

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Sports Talk Social - @bozz.sports

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All pictures/screenshots taken by myself or @mrsbozz unless otherwise sourced