“Photography for me is not looking, it’s feeling. If you can’t feel what you’re looking at, then you’re never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures.” — Don McCullin

Thank you for all the new views and likes from last week, it helps keep me inspired.

Sunday, 02/02/2025: Posted photo — Bouquet.

A bouquet of flowers in a store today. With the dismal state of the world, higher gas and food prices, shortage of food in the stores, and many people losing their livelihood in the last few weeks, I wanted to start this week with something positive.

Monday, 02/03/2025: Posted photo — Summit Sights.

Today’s hike was messy. Not that it was rainy or anything, the snow was just like mashed potatoes, sticking to the bottom of my microspikes and balling up. I did not know what would be more dangerous, keeping the microspikes on or going bear boot. I decided to keep them on and clear the bottom of them often. As an editorial note: the temperature dropped on Tuesday and the Tuesday night group had not issues with the snow.

The trail I took passed the top of one of the ski trails. I have posted photos of this location in the past. I took this photo just to have one for today.

Also on the summit is a plaque paying tribute to the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division and its service in Italy during World War II. This plaque was covered in snow. Next time I am on the summit, and if the plaque is still covered, I will remove the snow. Honorary plaques should not be covered.

Tuesday, 02/04/2025: Posted photo — Succulent.

The word succulent comes from the Latin word sucus, meaning “juice” or “sap”. Succulent plants have thickened stems, or leaves. Succulents may store water in various structures, such as leaves and stems.

This was a succulent that I saw while shopping tonight. There were many items out for St. Valentine’s Day. I keep thinking to myself that if you purchased flowers or other items this week, or when the first arrived in the stores, they would die before St. Valentine’s Day arrived.

Wednesday, 02/05/2025: Posted photo — Sunflower.

There is no reason that I posted this photo of a sunflower that I took today. When I saw it, I wanted to practice making a HDR photos using only one photo in GIMP. I have made single photo HDRs in Paint Shop Pro, but I am moving away from that program and using GIMP more.

This is the results of my experiment. Enjoy.

Thursday, 02/06/2025: Posted photo — Tracks.

Snow fell this afternoon, so I took this opportunity to walk to and from work so that I did not have to drive home on bad roads. I have used my new shoeshoes only once. When I got them, I took a loop around our property. Every time that I was going to hike with them, the conditions were not correct. They were mostly conditions for the use of microspikes or crampons, too much ice and not enough snow.

These photos are from my walk home. There is a photo of one of my snowshoes (if I took a photo of both, my shadow would be in the photo), my snowshoe tracks, and the tracks of a wild rabbit. I have seen deer tracks, bear tracks, coyote tracks, and what I think were mountain lion tracks in the past. Today I only saw rabbit tracks.

It was good to finally test out my snowshoes. I may use them on Wachusett on Monday since there is a prediction of almost a foot of snow in this area on Sunday.

Friday, 02/07/2025: Post photo — Puddle.

For my photo challenge this week, I am to take a photo of a reflection in a puddle. The problem this week was that we did not have many puddles. Most of them were frozen over. Today there was a brief period of melt, but the wind was blowing. I was able to take this photo of clouds in a puddle. I am not happy with it. You just have to take with Mother Nature gives you. At least I have a photo that fits this week’s topic.

Saturday, 02/08/2025: Post photo — Competition.

Today I competed in a cubing event for the first time. The event took place at the school our son teaches so it was a great opportunity to do so. We have been to many comps over the years and our son’s friends keep asking us if we can solve. We say “yes”, and then they ask if we compete, we say “no”.

I took the plunge. I did not finish last, just next to last to someone that did not complete all their solves.

Today I competed in the 3x3x3 and the 2x2x2 events. I have posted my times below. For the 2x2x2, there were three solves when I thought I was solving the cube and it looked to me that nothing had happened. I gave up on one. Some of my son’s friends were laughing at me because they saw something that I should have done.

That is all for now. Until next week, be safe.

“Sumens imagines consolatur et inspirat me.”