Five From Fifteen

The weekend didn't go exactly as we planned.

I'll tell you more about it, tomorrow. You see, it's late on Sunday as I write this and I'm so tired that I feel almost drunk. I want to write a full account of the weekend when my head is rested.

But I'll give you this much: we were camping. Likely, for my last time.

The wind was far too strong to take the kayaks on the lake so we were confined to our campsite. DW was looking for something to do and came up with an idea.

"Show me five good pictures from the site," she said, reaching for her mirrorless camera. "We have a half hour to take no more than 15 pictures."

I had brought one of my D-SLRs and only one lens: my 70–300mm telephoto.

"Do I have to use only my D-SLR or can I also use my smartphone?"

"You can use any camera you like but you can't capture more than 15 images. We'll meet back at our bug tent in a half hour, when we'll spend no more than another half an hour to touch up and choose the best five."

We were expecting some friends to join us at our site, sometime after lunch, and DW said we'd let them look at our top five and choose the best one from the bunch.

It was a sizable camp site but I didn't need a half an hour to take my 15 shots. Neither did DW, though she used close to 20 minutes.

Back at the bug shelter, we sat in our folding chairs and got to work. DW doesn't use her phone or tablet to do a lot of photo editing so she needed the full half hour. I was done in less than 10 minutes.

I haven't been given permission to share DW's photos but I can share mine.

Our friends never made it to our camp: the wind was far too strong and one of them isn't as experienced a kayaker. As soon as they got on the lake, they knew they'd never make it.

We had no judges for our final five.

Stay tuned for our weekend story.