Columbia, the state capital of South Carolina, awaits as the destination for today’s journey. The trip offers more than just business outside the city itself—it presents an opportunity for a brief but enriching detour to Timmerman Trail. This is a nice paved trail that is good for walking or biking. I of course went equipped with my camera.
I used to play this game with my EX when we were together called Pokemon Go. I was never a huge fan of the game, but I did try my best to get into it. Overall it isn’t a bad gotcha game, but the amount of time my EX invested in it while not being willing to participate in a lot of other activities really started to make me dislike the game a lot. Anyway, I found this app called Birda and it reminds me of Pogo to some extent. The birda app turns bird photography into an interactive and thrilling hunt. With each new bird captured in a snapshot, the app helps me to identify and catalog the winged creatures, adding elements of learning and competition to the simple joy of nature observation.
Not only does this gamification enhance the experience, but it also creates a record of the day’s finds, providing tangible memories to look back on. Whether the goal is to capture the vibrant plumage of a cardinal, the elusive flight of a hawk, or the everyday charm of a sparrow, each photograph contributes to the day’s collection, making it a personal real-life version of Pokemon Go. I’d hoped that my EX would enjoy playing it with me, but she has made it abundantly clear that she’s not going to be a part of any of this anymore. It sucks but I guess Meepcow will be a solo effort from here on out.
Anyway, The quiet corners of nature in South Carolina called to me today. I am finding a lot of peace in spending time in nature and it always astonishes me. I’ve been really interested in learning about the captivating wildlife that calls this place home. Back when me and my EX were working on this project it was mostly focused on landscape and urban exploration. This is a much more relaxed and laid-back effort now with much more focus on my healing and an attempt to just be ok with everything that suddenly has happened to me. I think spending some time outside slowly walking down some trails and sitting around taking photographs will be a great way to get through this breakup and major letdown in my life. I was really glad to have a little time to get out and try to take some pictures today.
My day was already really busy since I had business way down in Columbia for a part of the day. That’s a pretty long drive down and back. This gave me a chance to stretch my legs a little since I was stuck sitting around for about an hour anyway. I thought I’d try to hit the trail and get a few more pictures in before my work week starts and I don’t have any more opportunities for a while.
Sadly I didn’t get to explore much of the trail before I had to turn back. So I don’t have a lot to report. I did see a red cardinal but it got away before I could take a good picture. I just snapped a few shots of the area and sat for a little while waiting for another chance to see that red-winged birdy come by again. I then had to head back and that was all that happened today. I do wish it would have been a bigger adventure for sure.
I had gotten excited that my EX might be coming back to participate and be a part of Meepcow so I got myself way too worked up trying to prepare. I got some stuff put together so that we could both start doing wildlife photography and did stuff like I said earlier with finding the app for us to use. All of that fell through in a very unspectacular way. But I’m still trying to get this personal website back up and running. I’m looking at getting a 150mm-500mm zoom lens, though I don’t want to throw too much money into this project until I know I can keep it up and running. It looks like I might be able to find a Sigma lens for around $400 if I buy it secondhand. The other reason I’m worried about getting one is at that level of zoom it’s only good for bird watching. So I’m a little worried I won’t be able to get good landscape shots when I go out walking. Maybe the zoom lens I have is the best for now. It is a 70mm to 150mm and while I can’t get birds way off in the trees I can get most stuff relatively close by.
There is just so much that goes into photography. I’m gonna need to get another hard drive for example. I like to keep a hard copy of everything that I shoot in both RAW and JPG. Which I know is probably kind of overkill but I dunno. I figure if you are gonna take pictures you might as well keep good copies. I also just got my Flickr account mostly updated. I put all of my pictures on there for the most part. At least all of my pictures come from my DSLR camera. The stuff from the past and the stuff on my phone end up in a Google photo account. Doing all of that makes sure I don’t lose any photos or memories. Trying to get 50k photos online though in HD is quite the headache. I hate how things went with my EX and I’m gonna strive to make sure I don’t lose this website or let any of my photos get lost. No matter what happens I’m gonna work hard to keep my diary going and keep taking pictures. It’s about having fun and that’s all that really matters.
Until the next adventure