Shooting From the Hip

While recently taking a reality break and visiting family in my old stomping grounds, I had a chance to tour the Farmer’s Museum in Cooperstown, NY.  Viewing museums like these is a lot of fun for both kids and adults – kids because of the activities, and adults because I think as you get older, you can start to appreciate with more awareness just how tough things were (or how easy they are now).

In keeping with just going to take it all in, I left all my camera gear at home, save my Motorola Droid, which I wasn’t really counting because that is my phone, and it’s serving multiple purposes.  Yet, (surprise surprise), I found myself compelled to take photos of some of my discoveries from the excursion, so, restricted to my camera phone, I was very much “shooting from the hip”.  While the images are certainly never going to make it into the Smithsonian, some were quite compelling for their historical reference (and to its credit, I was quite happy with the Droid performance given the range of conditions I put it through).

Here is a sampling of some of the more interesting shots of the day, including an old time Apothecary pill manufacturing device:

Making Pills of Ginger

A milker for the Bessies on the farm:

Milker for Bessie's (the cows)

A broom maker:

BRoom Maker

A loom:

Loom

and a boat:

The Boat

I’ve already put a few of these on Flickr, so for those of you seeing duplicates, my apologies…

Anyway, fun stuff, and always good (in my opinion) to take some time off to re-set.  You can still take photos even if they’re not works of art, and just knowing your purpose can always help to get the creative juices flowing again.

So, what helps you re-set?  Is it a break from routine?  Taking a trip?  Putting photography out of your mind?  Powering through it with a point and shoot?  Sound of with your strategies in the comments!  Happy shooting and we’ll see you back here soon with the announcement of the winner for the Lightroom 3 Giveaway!

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