I have been a photographer longer than a programmer–if I really ever was that. I took my first pictures before the age of 8. So I have a similar experience of adapting to new ways in both technical fields in my terza eta.
Last month I attended the Nightscaper Photo Conference in Farmington, New Mexico. I had discovered this group of avid night sky photographers five years ago and attended their 2021 conference. Attendance back then was diminished by the impact of Covid, but the enthusiasm of the presenters was not. Now, in 2026, I was pleased to be among the over 200 attendees, and to learn from presenters with even greater enthusiasm for this odd activity.
It was an inspiring experience, but as I listened to the techniques and tools described by these intrepid photographers, I realized that this specialized hobby that I have pursued since before the turn of the century had completely changed. I am partly responsible, having contributed to the transition from film to digital photography, but I did not anticipate the dramatic flourishing of creative work that has resulted.
Modern photographers use methods that were unavailable or extremely difficult before the advent of digital cameras. Among them is the ability to seamlessly combine multiple images into a single photograph. The term composite is used to describe the picture that results from combining any two or more images in some creative way. There are no rules; it can be any mashup of scenes to meet any artistic goal.
Cutting and pasting a subject into a lunar landscape is an example of a composite. An early tool to do this was Adobe Photoshop. With our common linguistic practice of verbizing nouns, we now have the term “Photoshopping” to describe the making of fictitious or synthetic scenes.
Because digital compositing can easily create any such pictures, it is often used to deceive the viewer. But there is a special case of compositing that has a different goal. When the individual images are taken by the same camera through the same lens, looking at the same subject, it is called a “blend”. The purpose is not to deceive, but to better represent the appearance and feeling of the scene by combining pictures taken at different moments.
Barrientos in the South Shetland Islands was a bonus stop, one which was possible because of our smooth transit of the Drake Passage. And if the weather was favorable now, but uncertain later, the expedition crew wanted to make sure that their passengers would have at least one landing experience on this tour.
The good weather held, and our next stop was to the actual Antarctic Peninsula at Foyn Harbor and Portal Point. We could finally say that we had set foot on the seventh continent.
Tenaya Lake, Mount Conness, Yosemite National Park, by Ansel Adams.
My dad’s younger brothers were favored uncles; they were grown-ups, yes, but they were fun. Bob, the youngest, was only a half-generation away from me. After spending a year in Viet Nam with the Navy, Bob had returned to Alameda California in 1972 to complete his service. He arranged for my brother Eric and me to spend time visiting him there during our spring break. The week with him was quite an adventure for us teenagers. It left a strong impression of California culture and provided an intimate look into the life of a highly regarded adult. We met the wonderful woman who would become our Aunt Karen. They planned to wed in June later that year.
Their wedding became a focus for the summer, and my dad arranged a complex family summer vacation to attend this event. We numbered seven, and were no longer small enough to all fit into our Volkswagen bug as we once had. Nor could we fit in the large Pontiac Bonneville, later known as the Great White Whale, especially since we were bringing camping gear for Dad’s planned post-wedding vacation activity: backpacking through Yosemite Park. So both vehicles were recruited for the cause. We had four licensed drivers in our clan and could tag-team the drive to California and back.
I described this backpacking adventure in a previous post. After that memorable experience, we continued by exploring Yosemite Valley. In addition to the famous views of Half Dome and El Capitan, there were art galleries! Yosemite was the adopted home of a number of artists, including photographer Ansel Adams, who had a studio and school here. Many of his images were on display and available for sale.
Mario and Rossella are collectors of antiques, especially antique tools, essential devices in the time before the invention and use of engines and motors. In this last album of the series, here are some of their treasures. Maybe you can help identify some of them!
When traveling in Italy, I am aware of the cultural differences in subtle ways. I notice that the urban landscape is not littered with franchise restaurants. Yes, McDonald’s has a presence, but it is a small one. There do not appear to be nationwide Starbucks or Dairy Queen-equivalent chains; instead, local proprietors set up espresso bars and gelato shops. When Italians go out to eat, they don’t ask what ethnic cuisine to seek. There are few non-Italian options (mostly Asian), because Italians just can’t find anything better than their own. And they have good reason to think so.
Here is a sampling of the food we enjoyed during this trip.
Entry to the park, and the trail to the top, involves an elaborate set of online transactions. It took us 30 minutes, and repeated appeals to the park staff for help, to navigate and procure the right credentials. These guys probably had it in minutes.
On learning that Vesuvius is overdue for its next eruption, we decided to go visit the famous volcano. Who knows, it may be only weeks before it next erupts!
Getting to Vesuvius is a multi-step process. You drive to a “parking area” (which is really one lane of a two lane road allocated to parking) at 800m elevation. You pay for the parking.
Then you pay for a shuttle to take you to a foot trail entrance gate at 1000m.
Then it becomes challenging. Entry is by pre-sold tickets available online only. This is a popular trail in a national park, and the park limits the number of hikers on the trail. The tickets are sold out weeks in advance, but there is a “last minute” ticket mechanism, limited by the number of people on the trail at the moment. They release ten tickets every half-hour or so, and to get one you must request, be approved, and purchase them on-site.
But there is no ticket agent at the gate to do this. It is done online only. We are near the summit of the volcano in a mountain wilderness area with limited cell phone connections and we need to go online somehow to do this.
Recognizing this situation, the park set up a local wifi. There is a poster at the entry gate (in Italian) that helps to connect to it. Fortunately, I have my personal translator available. This is the beginning of a lengthy process that included the following steps, nearly all of which required entering and re-entering your name, address, and email:
Register to gain wifi access.
Register to the national park system. After doing so, confirm by responding to the email they send.
Register to the ticket vendor. This is a separate third party from the national parks. Create a password and respond to another email to confirm.
Register for tickets. Request a date and time. This page was very confusing; it was unclear how to do this.
Provide payment- credit card credentials.
Tickets are then issued. But the web page does not display them. Some other web page or background email contained links to them.
We needed assistance three or four times to get through these gauntlets, with Poldi speaking Italian with the park entry attendants and playing the “we’re old and don’t understand” card.
Eventually, we got it, and the ticket image with its barcode appeared on my phone, but then, presenting it at the gate turnstile, with its scanner, I could not place the phone in the correct position. Once again, the attendant had to hold my phone in the right spot for me. Sometimes it’s embarrassing to be a retired computer pioneer.
Our rented Fiat 500. I could fit in ok, but could not drive it.
On narrow European streets, smaller is better, so Poldi rented a Fiat 500 for our visit to Naples. She paid extra so that we could both be drivers. I was pleased that the seat could accommodate my long legs, and I looked forward to driving a manual transmission again. Normally, I drive, she navigates, but as I attempted to pull out of the rental car lot, it became apparent that something was wrong. I could not feather the clutch, and hitting the brake pedal caused the engine to rev. My feet were too big to fit in the well, and my shoes were interfering with the side wall and the other pedals. I could not drive this car!
Poldi came to the rescue. Her dainty size-9 feet were compatible with the assumptions made by Fiat’s engineers, and she was able to drive to our accommodations. I don’t measure up to her navigator skills, so I’m wondering if maybe all I need is a pair of fine Italian shoes to drive this car.
Driving the city streets in Italian traffic is harrowing. Poldi is still getting accustomed to the Fiat’s clutch and gearbox, and I am on my learning curve as a navigator. I am constantly annoyed at the “forward is up” dynamic orientation used by Apple Maps on my phone GPS display (why can’t I just set a preference for “north is up?”). Somehow, we got through the Napoli traffic without incident, despite the best efforts of motorcycles weaving around cars and pedestrians. I don’t see why there aren’t more collisions.
When we get past the city traffic and narrow winding streets, the roads remain narrow and winding, and in mountainous terrain sometimes with curves so tight they place large mirrors to provide a glimpse of approaching cars, uphill or downhill.
We marvel at the busses that require both lanes to make the turn. Poldi encountered one. The bus stopped. Poldi stopped. It was up to her to reverse and go up the road she was descending to provide clearance for the bus. Unfortunately, the car slipped out of gear as she tried. After several such false efforts and repeated slips, she had finally backed up enough for the bus to pass.
This album includes a photo of the little Fiat, and some pictures of the funky hostel where we stayed for a week. It was as you might envision: young people finding the most economical way to travel through foreign lands, engaging with each other as they prepare meals in the communal kitchen and philosophising over beer at night. We were the old hippies in the group, enjoying the virtual trip back to the sixties.
At the top of a mountain pass where the wind was strongest, they powered millstones for grinding wheat.
In the history of humans before engines and motors, which is pretty much all of civilization, everything had to be done by muscle, either human or animal, with the exception of a few locations where wind and water energy could be harnessed. On Crete, in the fertile lands of the Lasithi Plateau, windmills were built to power millstones for grinding grain, and to pump water into irrigation canals (which of course were dug by hand).
We saw the remnants of old windmills, stone structures built where the wind was strongest, and windmills in fields, most of them no longer working, replaced by motor-driven pumps when electric power became available.
Our travels take us to another beach, Elafonisi, famous for its pink sand beaches. It is very popular and we spent another afternoon in the sun. There is no pink sand however, except for a small patch we discovered at the far side of the lagoon.
It is my suspicion that the famous labyrinth at the Palace of Knossos (which held the Minotaur), was really just an adjective applied to the whole complex. Here is a reconstruction of it. What do you think?
As a young grade school student who had recently learned to read, I felt like the world had just opened up to me. There was so much to know, and now that I could read books, it was all accessible. I had a tightly specified and enforced bedtime, but my parents allowed a loophole around that rule: I could stay up for a half-hour beyond, but only if I was reading.
I consumed many books during this grace period, and among my favorites were stories of ancient Greek and Roman mythology. At one time I could recite the Greek gods, their Roman equivalents, and knew their histories and backgrounds. I knew the important venues for the stories as well: the Oracle of Delphi, Hercules and the Augean stables, and the Labyrinth of Knossos, where the Minotaur was held captive.
This is my knowledge of Crete as we arrived: this is where the Minotaur lived! And where Theseus ultimately slew it.
We visited the excavated remnants of the palace of Knossos. It was a dominating center of influence for centuries, but after millennia, it is now rubble. Archeologists have recovered amazing artifacts from it and other influential sites, which are beautifully displayed in the Archaeological Museum in Heraklion. Check out the photos contained in this album.
After visiting the museum, we took a day trip to Matala, a beautiful seaside town in the south of Crete. It had been discovered in the 60s by popular musicians, who would come here to escape their lives of celebrity, and do the things that rock and roll musicians liked to do. Which also included writing music. This is the place where Joni Mitchell crafted much of her famous “Blue” album, and she is still celebrated and honored. The hippie vibe still lives here.
We had no intent of spending an entire afternoon at the beach, but that is what happened. We can see why this place is so appealing. You can see a few photos in this album as well.
