The Gilded Couple (The Gilded Lens) - A golden journey.

Got the itch again today and went outside to the little seasonal brook. One of the huge boulders had moved in the last heavy rain we got. Decided to take my pan and scoop around some spots and see what I could find. Had my first encounter with clay! Our area has a lot of red dirt and some areas are very clayish, but this was nuts and there was even some blue clays. Annoying sticky little stuff!

Here's one spot I tried.
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Here's the rest of the pics, silly Internet troubles.


So much black sand and so disappointing!!! The middle pic is all of the annoying mica-ish flake things that are golden but not gold. They're floaty and pretty and smear when you smudge them.

That huge boulder moved! Slide off the bank in the last rain. That's where I got my speck of gold.

The other pic is of the weird clay and rock mixture (anyone have a name for this stuff?) that was between the other two boulders in the previous pic.
 

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The speck of gold I was rewarded with.
 

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Thanks for also showing us the famous scar. You know miners like scars.
 

Thanks for also showing us the famous scar. You know miners like scars.

LOL, your welcome. Wasn't worth it though. Very expensive scar. Lots of pain. I don't recommend completely shutting the door of a 1990 Ford 250 diesel on any part of your body. Had to ask the hubby to open the door from the inside. Miracle it wasn't broken, although there's a really rude x-ray of my finger floating around now. Waited two hours through on and off shock to be seen, two shots of numbing agent, three stitches and what I though was just a tetanus shot, but turned out to be a 3-in-1 shot that I later had a bad reaction to.... on my birthday. :dontknow: How you ask? Because I had just turned around a mile away from home after clipping a full sized garbage can that waste management set almost in the middle of the lane on a blind corner going downhill to assess the damage. Gave me a mini heart attack and ripped the mirror (hard to do off a big metal truck) off the door. Waste management told me it was my job not to hit their cans that jaywalk and that there is nothing they could do to prevent it after waiting three weeks for a reply. So, I killed someone's can and accidentally smashed my finger, that's my manly scar story. LOL. :BangHead: Took a couple months to heal and for the nerves to come back and was super bruised.
 

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So, I killed someone's can and accidentally smashed my finger, that's
my manly scar story. LOL. Took a couple months to heal and for the nerves to come back and
was super bruised.

OUCH!
sSig_aaarggh.gif~original
 

That's a great story. I think I would change it to something like my spiral gold concentrator went berzerk and started spewing my gold everywhere so I had to stop it by grabbing the wheel or I saved a family of inexperienced campers out of the bay area from a vicious skunk attack. Obviously waste management doesn't appreciate that you took one for the team.
 

it's amazing how those companies never admit they or one of their workers screwed up. Saying that YOU were at fault is flat out nuts! If their employee(s) had placed the can back where they were supposed to it wouldn't have happened in the first place.

You guys keep posting shots like that and I'm going to have to start digging through my archives and see what I can dig up. Main problem is that over 90% of my stuff is on slides and no slide scanner. Back in the day if I wanted a print from one I'd send it off to Fuji labs and have them do a "Type R-Gold" print. I don't even know if they still offer that process or not. Made a print look like a projected slide. Now days I do a lot of nature/storm shots.

lightning3.webp

70-210mm shooting 100ASA hand held on bulb setting. Basically right outside my front door
I have yet to identify the object flying in the frame. Since it was 9PM or so I doubt it was a bird.
 

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Anyone know what that type or crumbly dirty quartz clay looking stuff is and if it's a good gold indicator or just a soppy mess to avoid? With that much black sand should I keep looking? The boulder brook is in the yard.
 

That's a great story. I think I would change it to something like my spiral gold concentrator went berzerk and started spewing my gold everywhere so I had to stop it by grabbing the wheel or I saved a family of inexperienced campers out of the bay area from a vicious skunk attack. Obviously waste management doesn't appreciate that you took one for the team.


LOL!!! I wish I had enough gold to run through a spiral! :goldbar:

it's amazing how those companies never admit they or one of their workers screwed up. Saying that YOU were at fault is flat out nuts! If their employee(s) had placed the can back where they were supposed to it wouldn't have happened in the first place.

You guys keep posting shots like that and I'm going to have to start digging through my archives and see what I can dig up. Main problem is that over 90% of my stuff is on slides and no slide scanner. Back in the day if I wanted a print from one I'd send it off to Fuji labs and have them do a "Type R-Gold" print. I don't even know if they still offer that process or not. Made a print look like a projected slide. Now days I do a lot of nature/storm shots.

View attachment 1089918

70-210mm shooting 100ASA hand held on bulb setting. Basically right outside my front door
I have yet to identify the object flying in the frame. Since it was 9PM or so I doubt it was a bird.


I know right! I basically emailed the woman back and told her I didn't expect them to be accountable since they never called me as promised and I had to wait three weeks for an email reply. So that if it ever happened again I would just pull over, and kindly wait for highway patrol to come to the scene. Never got a reply to that either. :laughing7:

Ah bummer, get thee a slide scanner! Awesome lightning shot! It's a flying cow! :tongue3:

LOL what kind of photos do you wanna see? Still live, abstract, portrait, mountains, sunsets....
 

-- /\ --
Souls after my own heart
 

Well I live in sunset/sunrise central though due to the hill behind us to the west the sunrises are usually better.

A COW????? I'm thinking it's one of those legendary "Thunder Birds". If it had been much closer to that strike it would have been Kentucky Fried Chicken!

I used to do a lot of miniature photography for gaming mags. I'll see if I can scrounge up some of those shots as they're very different.

Also thinking maybe we should set up a thread in the photography section for this instead of using your journal thread.
 

I have yet to identify the object flying in the frame. Since it was 9PM or so I doubt it was a bird.

If you zoom in real close it is clear. Its a cow:icon_thumright:
 

LOL what kind of photos do you wanna see? Still live, abstract, portrait, mountains, sunsets....


Gold!
 

LOL, what's a thunderbird? Is it related to the barking spider?

Southwest Indian legend. Supposed to be like a huge eagle that brings the thunder with it's wings. Also supposed to be able to pick up a horse and fly off with it come snack time.
 

LOL what kind of photos do you wanna see? Still live, abstract, portrait, mountains, sunsets....


Gold!

Deal! Bring over you gold and I will professionally photograph it. :laughing7: LOL!
 

Hey Gl.... Do you know the old reversed wide angle lens in front of a telephoto trick? You can make that small stuff look like 2-3 oz nuggets! Length of telephoto divided by the length of the wide angle gives you the magnification factor. Say a 210mm lens with a 28mm is used. Gives you a magnification of 7.5X Keep the aperture on the wide angle open all the way and close down the one in the telephoto to help with the depth of field. Lots of light and long exposure times.
 

Found an old nickel today!
 

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