Later. Took the bus to BART and BART to the City Hall station and walked over to see the area in front of City Hall populated by the Earth Day folks: tents, more tents, stages, exhibits and stuff. And, of course, the people starting to arrive in costume for the anime contest. I asked a woman whom I've photographed there in the past what they called the thing and she said, well, the Cherry Blossom Parade. Yes, it's an anime contest that's supported by a local shop, but they refer to it as the Cherry Blossom Parade among themselves and so, I guess, shall I.

I'm pretty sure I got enough pictures for two full sections, which is good, I'd have felt a certain amount of failure if I hadn't. The D3s stopped focusing after about ten minutes into the shooting and I moved the 70-200mm lens to the D3 and kept right on with little or no break. The D3s has done this at odd times in the past, but recovered after a little futzing and I've been assuming it's the electrical contacts between the lens and the camera, which I've now cleaned more than once, although not in the last couple of months.

I was able to get it focusing again later on the train while heading home, but I can't say why or how after fiddling with this and that, so I'm still pretty sure I haven't found the problem. It's been cleaned and checked by Nikon in the last two months along with two of its brothers, but whatever they found to fix, they didn't fix this. So good, camera failure is one of the reasons you bring two cameras to an event, we're not complaining. We persevere. Mostly.

Anyway, felt good, no symptoms at all: double vision, foggy head, energy nowhere to be found. We'll spend our time working on this mornings photographs and try to get a bit of guitar practice in between sessions. I get into the photographs and my guitar pays the price. But hup! Too much selling going on here, too much hype to get me started. I'm cool. I'm not going to have any trouble getting started (on the photographs).

Later still. I was wondering why the parade itself hadn't started up by the time I'd left and realized, when I got home, it was scheduled for one in the afternoon, not ten-thirty in the morning. I'm glad the anime participants and contest were kicking off when I arrived or I'd have, well, I take what I was about to say back. There was an interesting Earth Day fair going on at the same time, I'd simply have photographed it until the start time arrived.

Anyway, some time on the pictures before walking to the morning café for lunch (two scoops of ice cream and a cup of coffee). Where the head and the eyes and the other symptoms were gone this morning, I found my double vision flitting in and out (mostly in) while walking. But not walking back. I was straight-arrow on the mark coming back. So what was that? A session on the computer manipulating photographs before setting out? Double vision? A cup of coffee before returning, zaps the head back into place? Probably not, but these thoughts occur. With many another.

Evening. So, we have two full sections for artandlife, although I'm wondering if I don't want to open up my shooting a little bit, add something more to all the closely cropped portraits. That's what got me started, although it took some time to figure out, shooting candid portraits, but who knows, maybe we need to widen the scope a bit? Try for two people in a picture, the occasional irrational fling into three. Hell, five! We're thinking about this, anyway.

Not enough time on the guitar, but we'll take care of that. No more parades to photograph between now and my Thursday lesson unless I go over to San Francisco to photograph the Wells Fargo Bank demonstration. Well, it's not a parade and I have no doubt I'll find a way to cop out. Unless I don't.

So, a good day, some decent pictures, although I'd have liked to have gotten some of the parade participants too, having left just as they'd begun to form up. Dumb. But these things happen.