Walking around in a crooked world

Crooked Sandpiper - Rotated Photo

Crooked Upland Sandpiper photo, rotated clockwise like most of my original shots.

I’m broken.  I’m talking a serious medical condition. That’s the only logical explanation.  Somewhere in the last 47 years, my internal gyroscope has broken, and I’m walking around crooked.  Or perhaps it’s just my head that’s walking around crooked.

The evidence? My photography.  I hate tripods with a passion, so pretty much every shot you see by me is taken by hand-holding my camera.  My Canon 70D does have a little sensor that can tell whether the image your framing is level.  There’s a little icon that shows up on the bottom when you look through the viewscreen, that shows whether you’re level, and what direction the camera may be tilted.  The problem is that in bird photography, it’s usually pretty fast action, and I rarely have time to pay much attention to whether the camera is level or not.

When I download my photos and start to process them, it’s obvious that I’m crooked, because most of my photos have a slight clock-wise rotation to them.  You can tell from this photo, where you have a tilted horizon and fence post, when both should be straight.

It’s no big deal from a photography standpoint, as I can simply rotate my photos a smidge once I start processing them.  What I’m really worried about is whether my crookedness is hereditary.  What if my poor son inherits my crooked gene?  Will this automatically disqualify him from many careers?  It’s hard to be an architect if you’re always crooked.  I don’t think I’d want a crooked surgeon operating on me…god knows what he/she may accidentally do.  I can only pray he chooses a career such as photography, where your inherent crookedness can be digitally fixed.

What are your thoughts? Comment here!

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