Her Evening Stroll

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She appeared to be aware of me on the other side of the glass, but certainly not in a panic. Instead, she stood calmly for a few seconds watching, listening, testing the wind and did all this with the fading evening light in the eye closest to me. I dared not move, standing there in the bedroom looking through the window. It was a sweet moment to savor. Yet, it was a brief one and she was long gone before I had had my fill of the visit.

We don't see many deer close to our house these days. I remember how ecstatic I was the first time a doe wandered almost onto our porch. But, that was in the days before we moved in and the house had sat empty while we stayed in Los Angeles trying to sell the property there. After moving in fences, horses, and even a dog with a bark that can split atoms, plus all the human smells with which we litter our little landscape, the deer mostly keep their distance as long as there is light. They still roam close to the house during the night. We know about their nocturnal visits by the look of the plants out front.

Libel and Innocent Creatures

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So, the truth comes out. False accusations flew and the local deer were impugned without sufficient evidence. Their very reputation as a species was sullied, and all due to hasty conclusions made in a pique of anger. Ladies and gentlemen, the deer are entitled to an apology.

Let us examine the evidence in the snapshots included here. Now, I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, did a deer dig that burrow in that planter box? Of course not. The day after the precious rosebuds disappeared—stolen in the night by a heartless villain, it appeared that some digging had taken place. Now, we have definitive evidence. Ladies and gentlemen, Exhibits A and B.

Clearly, one of the many burrowing creatures that reside here in Bear Valley Springs has illegally established residence in this planter. No. The records are clear. No permits were pulled for this occupancy. This is a straightforward case of unauthorized tenancy.

I ask you for a not guilty plea for the deer. We owe an apology to these innocent victims of circumstance. This was an embarrassing episode demonstrating the pitfalls associated with assumption of guilt.

Now, let us catch and punish the dastardly underground creatures that wreaked this devastation.

Anniversaries

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Today I am marking the second anniversary of my blog. And, I haven’t a thing to wear. Actually, the problem is that I don’t have much to say about it.

I suppose it is worth a sentence or two to say that when I began my blog on July 11, 2007, I had no real clue what I would write about and why I was starting a blog. It seemed as though it was worth trying—after all, it was free. Unfortunately, my posting is as erratic as it was in the beginning, and I certainly wish that I had chosen a more original name for the blog, but I wasn’t willing to invest much thought in the experiment when I began—I was that unsure of my intentions. A couple of days ago, Andreas Manessinger shared fascinating thoughts about blogging and celebrated post 1000 in two and a half years. In my two years, I haven’t posted one-third that number. I could work on being more consistent. Still, I can’t imagine now allowing the blog to wither and die. I am grateful that I decided to explore the blogosphere.

The photograph of the doe was taken mid-June when higher ISO was on my mind. (I had just gotten the 50D.) The Husband and I took a drive up on Deer Trail to enjoy the view and spotted this gal beside the road. The light was fading quickly and this was taken at ISO 1600. I couldn’t very well bracket shots (she wasn’t still long) which meant the exposure for the dark background was less than ideal and showed some moderately unattractive noise. I experimented with a small amount of selective noise reduction in CS3. A down and dirty mask thanks to the Quick Selection Tool made the selective part easy and fast.

After shooting with the 50D for a little over a month now, I am comfortable with the battery grip. I still shoot occasionally with the 40D, even the 20D, and I continue to have moments of mental paralysis when shifting from one body to another. I know that I could only solve that problem by taking hundreds of photographs every day and regularly changing bodies. Not likely, I am afraid—except in brief periods of intense activity.

Just Under the Wire

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I feel old and tired today—both in mind and spirit. After about four days of focusing almost exclusively on my SoFoBoMo book, I finished yesterday. Completing the book left me relieved, let down, lost, confused, discouraged, dissatisfied, inspired, proud—I need not go on. Yes, overall the enjoyment of the process overrides the negatives. Yet, this was once again an intense exercise during which I learned a great number of lessons. Clearly, some of those lessons will invigorate and inform my photography in the future and I am grateful for them. Nevertheless, I was regularly reminded of my weaknesses and limitations (spiritual, physical, and mental).

I will confess that near the end, I was tempted to ditch the project. As I became increasingly aware of how little progress I have made as a photographer in the past year, the entire exercise seemed more futile. Ultimately, I knew that I was in no mental state to judge merit and had no business making a decision that I would likely regret. So, I persisted.

I suspect that if the book project were the only thing on my mind today, I would be experiencing mostly relief. Certainly, I would also feel pride in just finishing and a new burning desire to be a better artist by this time next year. After all, there is nothing quite like the pressure of collecting and presenting thirty-five photographs to the world to motivate one to dig in. If an exercise like this one doesn’t push you to improve your craft, I don’t know what would.

My general sense of relief, however, is moderated by other events. Yes, regardless of how single-minded I was, life did go on outside that narrow space in our office where I lived for those last few days. My sister’s recovery is going well, and that is welcome news. Still, her life will dramatically change. As a recent widow, she now lives alone and she is feeling a new kind of vulnerability. Along with her children, she will be facing life-changing decisions. She is my little sister, and I am concerned about her.

All that would have been more than enough for me, today. However, The Husband got home late yesterday, found me still chained to my computer in the final stretch, and discovered that our cockatiel had died at some point during the afternoon. Certainly, the bond I had with Lady Bird was not as intense as those I have had with more than one dog and with my horse. Still, she had been with us for about eight years, and I will sorely miss her singing—even her fussing when she saw a hawk and was certain that she was certain to be eaten. Her loss leaves me with one more bruise on my heart, and I have noticed that as I grow older these bruises leave me feeling increasingly fragile.

All in all, I am a bit of a mess. Nothing serious—no one is more aware of that than I. All I need to do is return to counting my blessings to remind myself that I am rich beyond compare in all the things that matter in life. My policy at times such as this is to simply proceed one thing at a time—take care of business, don’t fight the feelings, but don’t give in to paralysis. Therefore, after a couple more reviews of my project to see what gremlins may have crept in overnight, I will post my book at the SoFoBoMo site. I have come in just under the wire. Today is the 31st day.

Slow to Change

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I don’t claim to be one who gets a new gadget and masters all the bells and whistles within twenty-four hours. I’m a bit of slow-poke. When I bought the 40D, I had my eye on a short list of key features. I had always found having to look at the top of the camera for ISO when everything else was in the viewfinder an absurd arrangement. Furthermore, I was elated to leave behind that annoying business of being forced to jump from ISO 400 to 800 when I needed just a little more light. The ability to adjust ISO in 1/3 stop increments rather than full stop ones was a major draw. Having schleped the 20D through traffic to Samy’s Cameras far too many times to have the sensor cleaned, I was elated over the notion of a sensor that would clean itself. As for the LCD screen, once I saw a three-inch screen, I knew there was no going back. Those, then, were the main features that had me reaching for the checkbook, and I immediately found that they more than fulfilled my expectations.

Of course there were other features being touted in the sales hype, but they had little impact on my decision. I never even remember how many pixels my camera shoots. That’s often a source of embarrassment because people will ask. You’d think I would learn the number to avoid that awkward moment, but it isn’t that critical to me. Live View wouldn’t have sold me, but I will end up using it occasionally and the improved viewfinder is a welcome change, but neither of those would have convinced me to spend the money. On the other hand, the capability for three combinations of camera settings available on the mode dial not only didn’t sell me, they sat there for months while I ignored the possibilities. I shoot mostly in Manual mode and I wasn’t looking or a change.

But then one day, I stepped outside a friend’s house near twilight, and while I stood mesmerized by the scene in front of me, I became aware that something or someone on my left was watching me. When I turned my head, I was eye to eye (well, he was probably thirty feet away) with a beautiful big buck. I had my usual walkabout lens (the 24-105mm 4f) on the camera—not exactly a wildlife setup—but I was determined to give it a stab. In my excitement, I fumbled frantically with my manual settings and meanwhile the space was made in my brain for a major change in shooting habits. I got a decent shot, but only because the buck was deeply curious and looked me over quite thoroughly before he sprang over the edge of the hill and out of sight.

That evening I got out the manual and investigated custom settings. I now have all three set up for different situations in which I might have little time to make decisions and change a number of camera settings. One of them is set for TV (shutter priority) 1/500, ISO 400 (to provide some leeway) and AI Servo. Already, they have come in handy, and I’m looking forward to the next wildlife encounter—so long as the encounter doesn’t involve one of the mountain lions that have been spotted up here. Canon doesn’t have a custom setting to cover that situation.

Safaris and Bedroom Slippers

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By the time we rolled into the driveway in Bear Valley, it was a little after 8:00 PM. The last thing I expected to see was a lovely doe grazing happily on the meadow grass in the field next to our driveway. She was in the field that stretches west to the far edge of our property and continues, interrupted only by a few trees, all the way past the fire station and down to Cub Lake. She was startled, but far from panicked and I had time to frantically wrest the camera from the bag at my feet, rip off the lens cap, and snap a couple of shots before she began to move away. With only the 70-200mm lens, I still couldn’t get anything resembling a prize winner type shot, still it was a pleasure to enjoy her wild beauty and get a least something with a somewhat decent exposure in the fading light. We were fascinated by the ease and composure of her exit. Even in my limited experience, I have learned the truth of the theory that a vehicle functions as a surprisingly effective blind with many wild animals. They are so accustomed to seeing vehicles by now that they will accept one in their domain with relative calm. This doe was an excellent example. She wandered off, but she was far from desperate for her life.

That was Tuesday. Wednesday morning, I slept in and was finally up and about around 7:00 AM. First thing, I shuffled into the kitchen and dutifully hit the switch on Mr. Coffee, so The Husband would have his cup of java when he rolled out. Before I could bring myself to start the oatmeal, I simply had to grab some shots of the latest wild flowers. Most of the poppies were already gone, but these latest additions were charming. I grabbed the camera with that same 200 lens because I knew the light was changing fast and headed out the west side of the house—lightweight knit pants, black fuzzy bedroom slippers and all. After simply drinking in the scene for a moment and relishing the delicious colors that stretched before me, I stepped out on the porch and began to fixate on the flowers that were the objective of this morning’s trek.

At first, I sat on the porch steps and that seemed like an ideal perch. I could brace the camera with elbows on thighs and that was a plus, since none of the muscles in my legs or arms were yet fully awake. Of course it turned out that for one reason or another, the flowers nearest the porch weren’t quite right. Somewhat reluctantly, I put the sleepy muscles to work and started out across the one hundred foot fire break The Husband had cut a couple of weeks before. I couldn’t resist wading a bit into the fast-growing grass and flowers and decided to ignore the army of fox tails I was collecting in those fuzzy slippers and socks. The article I had read just a couple of weeks before about rattlesnakes in the valley crossed my mind and I knew I had to keep an eye on the footing in front of me watching for the hundreds of gopher holes out there. Nevertheless, you know how it is: I had to find the wild flower that was waiting for me.

While I became more deeply absorbed in what was at my feet—gopher domiciles, suspicious noises or movement in the grass around me, and bright, sunny flowers right and left—I was aware of movement off to my right. I jerked my head up and found myself staring at a doe that looked back at me every bit as startled as I. I believe that the movement I had seen was her head as it popped up when she became aware of me. We stood there transfixed for a second staring at one another, neither of us wanting to be the first to move.

I finally came to life and slowly raised the camera, but of course every setting was wrong and I was terribly excited. Well what to expect? I am not exactly experienced at facing a deer at that hour of the morning. In the first shot, she was chewing and looked a bit annoyed. I thought I had botched my first chance and that that might be the end of it, but once again there was no panic on the animal’s part. I venture that my heart was pounding faster than hers was. Though alert all the time, she began to wander leisurely toward that stand of trees. Fearlessly, I plunged deeper into the treacherous bush. No, wait; I got carried aware there for a moment. I plodded awkwardly in my blasted bedroom slippers, for crying out loud, into the uncut and taller grass, which of course meant even more fox tails and almost completely invisible footing. I tried holding my breath to avoid further alarming the doe as I followed her further into the field.

After we both advanced a few yards out into the field keeping our distance from one another, she apparently became more certain that I was harmless (that’s an understatement). I could swear that at one point she yawned. Heck, she may even have chuckled. At any rate, she finally began to cross my path and walked some distance parallel to me. Pretty cocky, huh? Because our land is terraced to drop several feet in elevation (eventually the land beyond ours drops down to the level of the lake), she had no trouble staking out a spot where I could see only her face and a bit of neck above the grass. We watched each other for a bit and periodically I snapped the shutter, but mostly I enjoyed our “eye contact”. She was probably about fifty yards from me (according to The Husband’s calculations later) and thanks to the 200mm lens serving as my binoculars, I could see her face quite sharply.

Eventually, the doe became bored and then ambled off down toward the trees leaving me to trudge back through gopher territory to the house. As I sat on the porch steps plucking fox tails from the fuzzy slippers, as well as the socks and knit pants, I turned over and over in my mind the delicious surprise and vowed in the future to never set foot outside without boots. You just never know when you will find yourself on safari stalking wild creatures through dangerous terrain.

In the Bear Valley Gallery here and here, I posted cropped versions of two shots taken during Wednesday morning's safari. I purposely didn't crop the first shot above, so you can get a bit of an idea as to how close I was shooting at 200mm. I know some of you know telephoto lenses well enough to make a good guess as to how close I was with the uncropped version. I wish I did.

Way Down Yonder

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The last time we spent some time in Bear Valley, we were treated two evenings in a row to a visit by some of our four-legged neighbors. On both occasions, the deer hung around the little stand of trees at the far edge of our property about a quarter mile (according to The Husband) from the house. (This deer, "way down yonder" is actually just beyond our property line.) I don't have the lens to get a good shot, but I tried my new 70-200 f4 IS lens combined with a 1.4 teleconverter and, after a bit of cropping, I managed to get this teaser.

I don't know how I long I will be able to tolerate not having a good 300mm lens that will work with that converter what with deer, coyotes, and hawks tempting me on a regular basis. A person can only tolerate that sort of pressure for so long. Right? Heck, I have even found myself fantasizing about a blind of some sort out in that field. Too many temptations.