Daily Archives: June 30, 2019

The Generous Eye: Exercise or photoprowl? Happy Sunday!

“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus

I have decided that my bike riding this year will be different. Last year it seemed to be all about the miles and the exercise. I rode over 3000 miles between April and October and burned an average of 1500 active calories a day. This year the miles and the calories are not going to matter as much as the photo ops. After all, I bought the ebike to take me places I could not go on foot, and did not want to drive, so that I could photograph the local area without feeling guilty about my environmental impact. The ebike was supposed to extend my photoprowls, not to replace them. The fact that it is good exercise is supposed to be a bonus, not the “reason.” It has been a liberating decision, and, while I enjoyed every moment on the bike last year, I am pretty sure I am enjoying it even more this year. And I am still averaging 12 miles a day or more, and closing my activity ring most days. So, win win. I am even going to get a slightly fatter set of tires to take me deeper off-road (and cushion my ride on our deteriorating Maine pavement) since I don’t have go as fast and far to be happy.

When I catch myself head down, mindlessly mashing the pedals now, I remind myself that I am not doing that this year…and I slow down and raise my head and look around. You never know what you will see…what photo op (or just what enriching experience) you would otherwise blow by.

Life is not exercise…unless it is an exercise in awareness…an exercise in love…an exercise in being open and ready for whatever comes. You can not live life head down, mashing the pedals. You need to raise your generous eye and take life in. It is too easy to forget that. I am happy I have my ebike to remind me. Happy Sunday!

Sky over the Kennebunk Plains

Yesterday they promised heavy thunderstorms with big hail in the afternoon, and when it did not materialize I headed out on my ebike to look for sky. In the coastal plain of York County, that means either the beach or the Kennebunk Plains. The Kennebunk Plains, as I have mentioned in the past, is a sand plain…one of the few undeveloped habitats of its kind in New England. It was kept open in the past by wildfire…and is now maintained by controlled burns. The Nature Conservancy owns part of it and the whole of it is managed as a Wildlife Management Area by the state…to protect several endangered birds, reptiles, and flowers. And because it is open, you get to see the sky in all its glory. This is a “sweep panorama” from the Sony a6500 with my ultra wide lens set up. Sweep panorama is a mode that allows you to swing the camera around the horizon and take one long continuous photo…the camera actually takes dozens of individual photos and stitches them together in-camera. This is about 180 degrees of land and sky. I held the camera in portrait mode, vertically, to take in more sky. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos for an HDR effect.