Many years ago, I retired from military service.  My last assignment was on the Plans and Programs staff at State Headquarters.  While my efforts focused on emergency preparedness and response planning, I assisted others on our small staff with strategic planning and process improvement.  I’m comfortable with goal setting and brainstorming new ideas (imagine rooms full of important people with a facilitator guiding the participants through a long and sometimes interesting discussion on making the organization better).  These days, my process improvement thoughts and actions are a lot more personal – mostly making higher quality images and developing my creative side.

Well, not all my improvement processes are about making images.  For the last couple months, I’ve noticed that available space on my computer’s internal hard drive is continually decreasing, and some software seems to be running more and more slowly.  I didn’t break out the marker boards and markers to evaluate the problem and formulate plans to mitigate the problem, though I was tempted.  Instead, I decided to install more memory in my computer and move all the pictures to a dedicated internal drive.

I ordered the drive and had one of my smart neighbors do the install and setup (it’s not true that all engineers can remove the covers from their computers and not do harm).  Then I sat down to move the pictures and the light bulb came on – I could fix all the frustrating and wasteful file organization issues I had been thinking about since I started this Journey in Creative Photography!  I spent much of a day re-organizing my folders and moving the images around on my computer.  I’m pretty sure that my image storage system is more efficient now, and will probably feel that way until I do my monthly backup to external hard drives in a few weeks.  If you’re having a hard time with your image storage system, make time to make it better.  You’ll be much happier.

And remember, the bad part of process improvement is that it’s continuous, but that’s also a good thing.  We’ll revisit my reorganization at the end of the month.

It’s been a great shooting week.  I found Eagles, Quail, a Cooper’s Hawk and, just today, I finally got that elusive Bobcat shot.  Eagles & Agriculture is only a couple weeks away, and I’ll be spending a lot of time prepping for the show.  I have several new images to print, mat, and frame.  Of course, the weather is supposed to be really good, which means that I’ll be out shooting, too.  It could be a problem, but it could be a fun challenge, too.  Here’s the fun stuff from this week!

This Cooper’s Hawk was out in the snow, hunting from this gnarly tree stump just outside Genoa, Nevada’s oldest town (but don’t ask Dayton).

This Red-Shouldered Hawk was also south of Genoa, a little closer to David Walley’s Hot Springs. He posed, but wouldn’t make eye contact.

I was on a local ranch looking for Owls and a covey of Quail came by. This one posed on an old ranch wagon.

These Quail were marching in a parade, except for the guy on the lower fence rail. We’re not sure what he’s up to.

We are blessed with a nesting pair of Bald Eagles in the Carson Valley, and I made this very long range image earlier this week.

I was watching a Bald Eagle in a field a couple days ago, and this Bald Eagle flew in to crash the party. He was only 100′ or so away, and looking very regal!  This image will be on sale at Eagles & Agriculture, with other images from my collection.

This is my prize capture this week. I’ve been looking for this cat for a couple months. He was in this tree laying down, and would have stayed hidden if he hadn’t sat up and revealed himself.

That’s it for this week!  Enjoy – PHOTOROGR