November 14, 2023

It was early afternoon when we three founding members of Fotoposa—Marilyn, Peggy and I, the only three who are left—met in town. We began a loop walk from the Mariposa Creek Trail that runs parallel to the town’s main street.

A beautiful piece of art showing a map of our loop walk.

Peggy really wanted to photograph the new murals in town. Marilyn was open to anything. As we walked, I chose to focus my camera on the town’s signage hoping, in a small way, to capture the flavor of Mariposa.

I’m so excited about finally shooting in RAW. Marilyn always encouraged me to do so, but RAW is a much bigger file than jpeg, so I hesitated for a long time. Shooting in RAW means the camera captures exactly what you’re photographing and, in my opinion—now that I’m finally doing it—allows for better post-processing. Shooting in jpeg means the image you photograph is a processed version of what you shot.

The artwork hanging on Pizza Factory’s wall is in dire need of a touch up.

We walked from the creek through the Art Park where the leaves were ablaze with color.

Chocolate Soup, a cute gift shop nestled under the trees.

Getting ready for Christmas.

I shot in manual mode but still not really understanding f-stops and how best to use them. I know f-stop is a setting for the aperture, the amount of light-gathering ability, but I’m not certain how best to use it. I kept mine set at f-8 throughout the shoot. When we were outside, I kept the ISO set at 400.

What I’ve decided about manual versus automatic mode is, on a shoot like this where I have time to fiddle with my camera, I will shoot in manual mode. When I’m trying to photograph family, especially our grandchildren, there’s not much time to get the best shot. Sometimes it’s only seconds before the kids lose focus (no pun intended). In those situations, I can use automatic mode.

We continued walking down main street coming to one of two newly painted murals on the wall of the Mountain Fitness building. The second mural was still under construction a block away.

Uuchum, the Southern Sierra Miwuk word for “Home.”

Unfortunately, this is not a martini bar.

I find it interesting that I drive through town several times a week not paying attention to my surroundings. Viewing town from a different perspective, I saw much more than I do from the car. There were shops I hadn’t been in that we walked through, and others that I didn’t even know existed. But what I really noticed on our walk, was how many signs there are.

I hope the photos in this post showed a bit of the country charm and hometown pride of Mariposa.

I’ll keep practicing, and until next time…happy shooting.