I am finally reviewing some of the pictures from our recent vacation to Spain that were shot on our Sony NER 5X instead of my iPhone XS.

A few observations on photography.

• The Sony photos still look better, mostly because they seem to do a far better job with dynamic range and noise.
• I take worse photos with the Sony camera, I think because the screen for previews is less good and difficult to see in bright lights. Additionally, the larger body means that I feel more awkward doing the work of physically moving to better frame my photos.
• It’s so freeing to take lots of pictures and delete many.
• It’s amazing what a small amount of cropping, color and light adjustments, and retouching can do for a photo. Spending 60-90s per photo makes a world of difference, and I don’t know what I’m doing at all.
• I really enjoy having true optical zoom, even with the kit lens. I think I’m going to end up either buying more lenses for the Sony or picking up a new camera soon to step up my game.

Here’s two pictures… can you tell which is which, even after processing and being resized?

In one picture, the beauty of great parenting in a world with sane transit architecture and a sign that even in a world with sane transit, people are jerks.

A triptych of seafood referencing famous works in San Sebastián

Mercado de la Ribera is gorgeous public art masquerading as a market.

The Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain.

Michelin Star pintxos for like $30.

Been using a “real” camera most of this trip without an SD card reader or laptop handy so it feels like the “old” days where I don’t actually know if these will come out well. Here’s one shot on my iPhone.

Steps from our hotel for the next couple of days.

This lamb was incredible.

After a few days of mostly pork, seafood, and salt, @westminsterfox was ready for comfort food.

Elsa’s happy place — caldo de pollo at a Mexican restaurant with some good (re crazy spicy) salsa.

I would like to have more botanical-ruin porn in my parks.

Slow mo fire.

It took some time (ok, like 18 months), but we finally got some plants for the outside of our house.

New bookshelves ❤️. @westminsterfox and I have always thought built-ins belonged on this wall and now we have them. Our books are out of boxes for the first time in years and it’s clear we need to buy more.

New project— buy nicely printed editions of everything I’ve read that’s 4 stars and up on Goodreads I’ve only got on Kindle. Also, time to buy the rest of Absolute Sandman, I think.

Last morning here. Can’t wait to come back with @westminsterfox once Southwest announces flights.