This is so cool…
Pardon me for the dated use of “cool.” I don’t have a better way to express what I feel.
I live in upstate New York, USA. No, not skyscrapers and concrete…this is primarily farm country. Think apples and dairy cows. And I actually enjoy living on what many people would consider the frozen tundra. As my daughter says, “The cold does not seem to affect you the way it does most people.” Yes. This is one of the positive attributes of Swedish and German heritage.
Heritage aside, it is absolutely great that I receive images from all over the world. Since I am responsible for the support of our Vivid-Pix software programs, I often have the chance to receive imagery captured by people on dive expeditions all over the globe. I can’t tell you how great this is. Don’t stop.
Full disclosure…I don’t dive. I have paddled around and snorkeled a few times, and one of these adventures was the long-incubating partial genesis of Vivid-Pix. But regardless of my partner Rick’s continual gentle pressure to the contrary, scuba diving is not something I’ve ever done or am ever likely to do. “Ah,” you say, “you must!” I understand your passion and dismay at my disengagement, but a long story not told here supports my reticence. Your proper response is, “Whatever.”
No matter. I have become something of a voyeur. I absolutely love seeing the images of the wonders inhabiting the seas captured by others. I love sharing these dives vicariously and seeing incredible creatures I never knew existed.
Even better, some of the things I have learned along the way make it possible for me to improve the images you provide to be representative of what you remember seeing. Isn’t that a great thing to be able to do? I get to see all these great environments and animals and also help people make their images better. How cool is that?
An additional side benefit is that I get to converse with people in several languages I don’t understand. Though I know machine translations are never grammatically or culturally correct (Software robots rarely spend any time sipping wine at a table in a small town square in the south of France), they do allow some level of communication that can solve problems. I’ve been able to help people via German, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, and French. Asia and the rest of the world await.
So thanks. Thank you all for sharing a little bit of the wonder you see under the sea. And keep sending me images, both good and the bad, and particularly the difficult-to-fix, so that I can continue to work on improving our software and your images.
Danke!
Grazie!
Dank je wel!
Gracias!
Merci!