Some people love collecting cloisonne pins. The pins tell a story about happiness and joy and excitement and adventure. Heck, there are people who collect Olympic cloisonne pins, some who collect sports team cloisonne pins. Me? I collect pins that chronicle my journey in life. For example – I have what may be a full…
Read MoreThree planets, two stars, one moon, and a plaza
Last night, I witnessed an amazing astrological event. And I have a photo to prove it. Background. A few months ago, I tried capturing a lunar eclipse from the overlook of a hotel in East Greenbush. I got through a portion of the eclipse, but just as the big show began, a series of thick…
Read MoreMy 2026 Big E photography (and other) entries
It’s Competition Season time, and in the past my entries for the Eastern States Exposition (the “Big E”) are usually submitted in late August. Apparently that has changed; there’s a new deadline of July 1 for this year’s show. So I gathered my images from the past year and made my submission list. Thankfully, the…
Read MoreProcessing those Big Boy photos
Because my copy of PhotoShop exists on my desktop back home – and I was over 300 miles away from home AND wouldn’t be back until Sunday night – I had to wait and WAIT and WAIT to see if the shots I took were truly Competition Season-worthy. I mean, I had a train chase,…
Read MoreThe Presentation
8:00 a.m. Yesterday was 45 years ago. I stared up at the drywall-painted walls of a building I knew as a fraternity house. And for an instant, I was 45 years younger and every single trauma of my teen years was about to hit me like a clavier of hammers. I’m back at Hamilton College.…
Read MoreThe Saturday Blogroll Recap, June 13 2026
Today is my presentation day. Today I discuss the 85th anniversary and history of my college radio station, WHCL-FM, in front of my classmates and alumni. For all intents and purposes, this is my 40-year-long senior thesis. And I’m about as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a rocking chair display room. But I have…
Read MoreThe Union Pacific 4014 “Big Boy” Train Chase
Thursday. 3:00 a.m. in the morning. No one should be up this early unless they have a newspaper route. But today is the day. Today is the chance to photograph the Union Pacific 4014 “Big Boy” train as it chugs through Western New York. And I live in Eastern New York … so if I…
Read MoreAmerican Zoo – a frightening documentary on the Catskill Game Farm
If you grew up in the Capital District, at one point in time you visited the Catskill Game Farm. You saw all the animals in the cages, you visited the petting zoo, and you had a great time doing so. In 2006, the Catskill Game Farm permanently closed. The animals were auctioned off (I think…
Read MoreAnd I just thought its pronouns were Union / Pacific.
I swear, people will get their boxers in a knot over the tiniest of slights. And the new slight happens to involve the Union Pacific 4014 “Big Boy” train that is currently traveling to the East Coast. Specifically – posts like this. That’s right. This snowflake is kvetching over the nomenclature of a railroad locomotive’s…
Read MoreNikon Athena + MD2 + MB1 + MS1(2) = WOW
My Nikon F2S camera, nicknamed “Nikon Athena,” is a damn fine 35mm shooter. But i want more for it. I want to turn this camera into a 35mm shooting BEAST. I want to enable burst shooting mode in this bad boy. In other words, I want to press the button and have this camera take…
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Chuck The Writer 
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