Getting Lost in the Tall Grass

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The Husband and I both love the grasses that grow in our fields. Including the period when we were looking for a place and before we moved here in August, we have now seen the fields in each of the seasons. I can’t decide which is my favorite time to admire them. We enjoy gazing at the meadow from the windows in the living room. (Yes, I know these rooms are now called “great rooms”. I don’t think I can ever get used to that phrase. Ours is destined to be down-graded to a good old-fashioned “living room”. Well, at least I am a little past calling it the parlor.) I love wading through the grass to head for the hiking trail, or the trees at the edge of our place, or just wandering about in it and getting down low to look into it, rather than over it. In some places, I don’t have to get down very low to accomplish that point of view.

While looking at the photo above, it struck me why I may be so captivated by the simple grasses. A memory flashed into my mind—a memory as sharp in intensity as if it were from yesterday, but made as deliciously hazy by time as some parts of the image.

When I was very young— probably about four years old, my father took a short-term job in northern Louisiana. We were new in the neighborhood and I was just beginning to develop a keen curiosity about my surroundings, a longing for independence, and a taste for adventure—a potentially dangerous cocktail of tastes for a four-year-old.

One day, while we were very new to the area, my mother and I walked a short distance to meet a neighbor. I remember I enjoyed immensely both the walk and the lady we met. I’m not certain why meeting the lady was so special, but I suspect she gave me a great deal of attention—possibly fed me cookies, who knows. I do recall that the walk was wonderful partly because it included a stretch down a narrow path through a field of grass so high that I, of course, could not see over it. The yellow grass swaying around me hid me from the rest of the world and made me feel that I was in a special, secret, and magical land made just for me and one where adventure waited around every curve.

It turns out that I enjoyed the visit and the journey so much, I decided the next day to repeat it—alone. I didn’t think it necessary to share my plans with anyone. I just struck out across our tiny yard and along the narrow path. Of course, my young mother was frightened within an inch of her life when she discovered that I had disappeared. But, up until the time she found me, I had a simply marvelous time (the getting caught part I don’t remember well—only that it was unpleasant) and I suppose I have never forgotten the enchantment of getting lost in the shimmering golden grasses, luminous in the afternoon light.

What a Difference a Print Makes

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I have just had the value of making prints brought home to me in a vivid fashion.

While I never completely lost interest in prints, I had become quite distracted by the web experience and had formed the habit of rushing from one photo outing to the next and skipping the printing step. There are, after all, only so many walls to fill; and paper, as well as ink, are expensive. In my situation—months of preparing to move, moving, and not being certain now whether we will be able to stay in this house—putting holes in walls to display prints and creating more things that may have to be packed and moved again didn’t seem like a smart plan.

Besides, there is plenty to be learned from viewing images only on a monitor. What I see on my screen is a harsh enough reminder that I continue to struggle mightily with all the technical elements of photography. Lately, I have been most frustrated over my weaknesses in composition. Furthermore, while I am getting far more consistent in the exposure department with fewer and fewer outright losers, I haven’t begun to master exposures that fully capture what I felt when I saw the image in my mind. Even though I am improving in my ability to control depth of field, I continue to come up short of my goals. I experiment more frequently now with point of view, but I haven’t come close to pushing boundaries.

On a regular basis, I ask myself how is it that I can feel so passionate about what I am doing, yet that passion is not fully translated into the images I make? How long will I face this the great chasm between my intent and the execution. When Paul Butzi wrote recently that he considers himself "a Photographer of Very Little Ability", I was floored. “Holy cow,” I thought. "If Paul Butzi has ‘very little ability’, where the heck does that put me!?”

To complicate matters, I added a bright, shiny, new monitor. Next, I added the Eye One Display 2 to my list of technological challenges. Having calibrated my previous monitors using the by-eye method, and being of almost zero ability when it comes to learning new software, I was destined for trouble from the beginning. Sure the software offers an “Easy Method”, but that would have been admitting defeat, wouldn’t it? Yes, I know that the intelligent thing to have done would have been to live with my limitations and opt for the easy path. No, not my style.

I dug into the “Advanced Method”, whimpered for help from The Husband and Paul Lester when I was completely stuck and plugged away at it. The Husband was there for me and helped even though he knows nothing about color management; Paul generously shared the benefit of his experience and both of them made a difference. To put my limitations with software into perspective, let’s just say that I could swear that divine intervention powered me through the experience of learning Photoshop. Since, I often compensate for lack of talent and smarts with determination—that’s old-fashioned stubbornness, if we are being blunt—my health and sanity were spared with a few key breakthroughs and I now enjoy using Adobe’s mind-bending program. So far, no such intervention with Eye One Display. I’m still not satisfied with my calibration. A couple of days ago, I was so discouraged that I began thinking I had probably never had anything vaguely resembling decent calibration and that meant that I couldn’t possibly ever have produced any decent photographs. Everything I had ever done was garbage and a person with so little intelligence should never, ever tackle color management. (A dental appointment and the beginnings of a cold didn’t help my frame of mind.) I was ready to raise the white flag.

But, that’s where prints come into the story. Before beginning one last ditch effort calibrating the new gorgeous, but virtually useless monitor, I searched for the calibration prints I had ordered from Smugmug—they had proven invaluable in my previous by-eye calibration. Early in the search, I ran across a few envelopes of prints made over the last couple of years. Some of those prints had hung on the walls and when I ran out of walls, some had been stuck on the insides of cabinet doors in our old house. The prints all around me inspired me, challenged me, and helped to keep me on track. Looking at my failures was just as important as viewing the successes. (The stinker were inside cabinets that no one else looked in—my ugly little secrets.) Next, I opened some of the framed prints that had hung on the walls in our old house, but have languished in boxes waiting for a certainty that these walls will be ours. Too many of the prints reminded me of how much I still have to learn, but there were a few that succeeded in capturing moments of consequence to me and some reminded me that others had been happy to purchase copies of those prints. Furthermore, the prints showed that, although it might once again have taken divine intervention, I had managed to get some of my impressions on paper.

Since that day of discovery, I have shot with enthusiasm and a confidence that eventually, I will get close to calibrating this monitor and once again making prints that please me. If only momentarily. I was reenergized. By the way, it hasn’t escaped my notice that I require reenergizing about two or three times per month. It’s a herky-jerky journey, but I can only move at my own pace.

Explorations

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I have resolved to buckle down and get some long-neglected work done; but, I steal a few minutes here and there to explore—camera in hand.

Waiting

Around 7:30 PM yesterday, The Husband left for business in Los Angeles and fully expected to be back in Bear Valley Springs in time for lunch today. A Santa Ana intervened.

The fire that had broken out in the Angeles National Forest, north of Los Angeles, Sunday morning burned 2000 acres and resulted in mandatory evacuations of canyon areas, before fire fighters got a fairly good handle on it. Then, the Santa Ana arrived.

Now, whipped by 65 mile-per-hour winds, the fire in the Kagel and Lopez Canyon areas has destroyed over 3200 acres and left some people homeless. The outlook at the moment isn’t great, but the worst threat is further west. Powered by 80 miles-per-hour gusts, that blaze jumped an eight-lane freeway to threaten homes in the community of Chatsworth.

The fire isn’t close enough to threaten the house we are selling in Los Angeles , but it’s too close for comfort and near enough to our neighbors in Lake View Terrace and the Hansen Dam area to produce some seriously frayed nerves there. Our friends in that neighborhood have already evacuated most of their horses (several of them have too many animals to take out in one trip) and some have headed for Chatsworth to help with animal evacuations. Others are staying in the Big Tujunga area to help out there.

The Husband didn’t make it back for lunch. I know he is wishing that he had taken the Suburban for this trip, along with the horse trailer, in case there are folks in trouble.

More wait and see.

A San Fernando Valley Gal in the Tehachapi Mountains

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I blithely left for Cub Lake this morning in my little knit hoodie under my lightweight Timberland fleece jacket, sans gloves and scarf confident that the attire was more than ample for a mid-October morning. I certainly wasn't cold in the garage getting into the car. Besides, I’m still in California, after all—only 120 miles from our house in the San Fernando Valley. Even before I stepped out of the car, I knew I had made a big mistake. For a second, I stared disbelieving at the sign in front of me. What are those things hanging off the bottom of the sign. Icicles? No. That can’t be possible. It’s October 10th. Sure enough, the trees, park benches, and playground equipment were all decorated with icicles. And we are talking substantial chunks of ice, not wimpy little things hinting at winter. The lake is a little lower than we are and there is a great deal of moisture down there, but this wasn't computing. I got out, still thinking I could tough my way through the cold, but I didn’t last long tromping around on the cruchy grass. A short walk and only a few frames later, I gave up and returned home for a late, hot breakfast.

Even though we are likely to have a couple more more warm weather spells, I have a lot of adjusting to do—not to mention the investment I have to make in that second battery (to keep in a pocket after it gets really cold here), heavier jackets, gloves, and a warm hat. I know all your folks up north are snickering at me, but ice in October is just not something I have ever had to cope with. The truth is, I haven't coped with much ice, period. I am about to get an education.

[The UPS truck just arrived a few minutes ago and I now have my Eye-One Display. Since I haven’t started to experiment with calibrating this monitor, the shot above is a shot in the dark, so to speak. I suppose it’s clear what I will be doing this afternoon.]

Coyotes Don’t Sing No Lullabies

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Yesterday, I was certain that my post for Wednesday would be about the excitement, questions, and frustrations presented by my brand new monitor. It’s not as if those things weren’t much on my mind when I went to bed last night—especially since I had dragged my feet and never made the final decision on a calibration device. That means I have this shiny new screen on my desk, yet now I wouldn’t dare nail down the processing on a color image. (Today’s shot was processed quite some time ago, then saved as a jpeg, this morning. I will risk putting this up and deal with the embarrassment later.) I must make a decision and commit to the further strain on budget before this day is done. (Yes, I have winged it all this time, spending hours of hair-pulling and calibrating to dozens upon dozens of test prints.) Being convinced that I don’t have it in me to go through that again, I will finally add a calibration device to the long list of equipment. Does better late than never count here?

When I could no longer hold my eyes open to stare at all that glorious real estate on my desk top, I fell in bed with hopes of slowing down my racing body and mind to get a good night’s sleep. (After all, the new goal is to get up before the sun does.) I was making a little progress in slowing my brain and, I think, drifting off, when several ear-splitting high-pitched screams split the air. It sounded as though a dog were being torn to shreds. “What’s that?!”, I cried as I jumped up. “It’s just coyotes,” The Husband calmly replied. I was stunned that he was unruffled. Wide awake now, I knew as he was right, but I couldn't clear my mind of stories about neighbors' cats and small dogs that had fallen prey to coyotes .

The singing persisted. The pack, and judging by the racket—it must have been a quite a large pack, was just outside our bedroom. Now, coyotes are common place in Los Angeles—especially in any foothills area. In Shadow Hills, I heard their singing on many occasions. But in the past, they have been further away, and if I ever heard this many of them, their distance from me muted the sound. It’s not a sound that is easy to ignore when it’s that loud and that close. It’s eerie and just a little disturbingly primal. I wasn’t frightened, but it is a sound that if loud enough and close enough does tend to set your teeth on edge. Within a few minutes, it even got to The Husband, who dealt with the situation in a quite straightforward manner. He stomped to the door nearest the bedroom, flung it open, stepped out on the porch, and yelled at the pack—telling them in no uncertain terms to “knock it off”.

Whatever the occassion for the friendly singalong in our field, it took the coyotes quite a while to wrap up and move on. Yes, while The Husband was forceful, he wasn’t altogether successful. I even had the impression that the pack stuck around for a time chewing over the unseemly outburst from the porch. I lost track of how long the racket continued. It frayed my nerves a bit. The sound coyotes make is called singing, but believe me when it’s outside your bedroom, it won’t lull you to sleep. Thank goodness they eventually moved on but they left behind them an air of uneasiness.

The experience convinced me that I prefer my coyotes one at a time, in broad daylight, at a comfortable distance, and definitely not yelping and howling.

(Note: If you are curious about the sound that I finally fell asleep with, I found a link for you at National Geographic. To prepare yourself for the full experience, scroll down to “hear a coyote”, turn up the volume on your speakers until the noise is ear-splitting, close your eyes, imagine that you’re in bed and that it’s quite dark outside, and listen for a while. Have a nice nap.)

Rosy Outlooks

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I am not able to view the world through rose-colored glasses with all the scary news today, but the sky outside my window really was that odd color this morning. Honest. That's not Photoshop stuff. I had no intention of stepping outside in my jammies before the sun warmed things up out there, but how could I say "No" to a rosy sky? I scorched the oatmeal a tad, but it was worth it.

You know, this getting-up-before-sunrise thing is not half bad.

(By the way, I was surprised to see that I have been breezing along, since the start obviously, with the clock in my still newish 40D set incorrectly. The EXIF shows that this was shot at 6:34 PM yesterday. Don't you believe it.)

Foggy Mornings and Brighter Days

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Whudda thunk that it would take fog to help clear the fog? That statement is a bit of an exaggeration, but it's true that a different type of challenge in shooting (photographing scenes shrouded in fog) has been a major contributor to helping me break free of my creative block—at least temporarily. Anyone who has been at this photography thing a long time knows, far better than I, that this is one of the accepted solutions for getting un-stuck.

I don't take credit for being smart enough to employ that technique. Rather, I can thank a splendid convergence of forces, namely unfamilar-to-me foggy mornings and a subject on the minds of the two Pauls (I linked to their posts a couple of days ago) and Amy Sakurai. The thoughts expressed and the images displayed spurred my curiousity and I began experimenting. Ultimately, a couple of the shots lured me into one of those digital darkroom sessions, where I became curious about split-toning, a technique I have played with on only rare occassions.

As enamored as I am with my possible relationship with fog (now that I live in a valley in the mountains, fog is unlikely to remain unfamiliar), there are other conditions where the haze may be lifing. It is looking more as if we may sell our house in Los Angeles and that means we have a possibility of being able to stay here.

I have already confessed that I do not take to a lifestyle that doesn't include roots. I went through that period early in life and found that it didn't suit me. I crave roots. These last few weeks have been a bit disorienting and not just because the scenery is new. Physically, this is a beautiful place to live. Whatever direction I turn, there are scenes that lift my spirit and speak directly to my dyed-in-the-wool western heart. Yet even while I drink in the wide open space, I have struggled to hold back and resist falling too much in love, in case we aren’t able to stay here. I fall in love easily, I like falling in love. But, this time I had too much of an investment, and I haven't had the courage to risk falling in love only to say another good-bye so soon.

Fog and Blogs

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[I have no idea why, but lately posting on Blogger seems to be a matter of playing chicken with a photo. Periodically, the shot that ends up on this site bears almost no resemlance whatever to the image at the main gallery. I thought I had a solution, at one point; but, today that didn't work, and I have officially given up on this one. Click on the link, please, and ignore the mess above.]

Since fog seems to be a theme in my corner of the blogosphere, I decided to join the fun. I don’t have much experience yet (note the optimism with that qualifier) shooting in fog and frankly, have never been a huge fan of fog—especially in long and large doses. (Once when I spent a few days in San Francisco, I made a note to never consider living there. I was certain that I would go stir-crazy with so little sunshine.) However, it seems there are a great number of changes afoot.

This morning started out busy, since The Husband was getting off to Los Angeles for chores down there. But, from the moment my feet hit the floor at 6:30, I had been admiring the fog hanging over the Tehachapis and wishing I could get out the camera and experiment instead. As soon as the oatmeal was done, I stole a moment to see what was going on at some of my favorite photoblogs, only to find both Paul Butzi and Paul Lester talking about fog! Well at that point, fog won the tug of war, and The Husband was on his own.

I was already too late to get to a point where I would find any interesting foreground for my shots as the fog was burning off fast, so I settled for shooting from the backyard. I wasn’t satisfied with any of my photographs (the shot above just shows I did get out and there really was fog here), but I had a wonderful time. Moreover, I have decided that fog may not be so bad after all.

Perhaps another fog is lifting.

Looking Up

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This last week I have been overwhelmed with how little I know about photography, On second thought, maybe I just need to substitute life at the end of that thought. To compound my discouragement, I am becoming uncomfortably certain that in the time I have left on this planet I will make only minuscule progress. Life is too damn short. And, why on earth do many of us waste so much time on what are essentially trivial matters? If only I could go back and buy some of those wasted hours.

Every day, I am humbled by the posts that I read and the images that I view. The names of the artists that I am referring to are familiar to anyone who stops by here even occasionally. I mention the contributors by name repeatedly, and if I linked each and every post here that has blown me away recently, this entire entry would be nothing but a long series of links. Just click on any of the links in the sidebar on the left, and work your way back through page upon page of inspiration and enlightenment.

No doubt about it, most of the time it’s invigorating to spend time listening to and watching the work of people who are far more talented and smarter than I will ever be. After all, looking up helps to keep me focused on my goals and be reminded that just because I can’t make many images that work, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. It only means that while I am mostly bored with everything I am producing recently and don’t feel I am seeing anything in an interesting way, the situation may not be hopeless. Perhaps it only means that I have a great deal to learn.

Still, sometimes it’s downright depressing. Now, I admit that my personal life offers more than enough reason to get depressed these days, but the deepest concern right now is frustration about how little I know. A couple of days ago, I ordered Photography for the Joy of It by Freeman Patterson. A quotation from Mr. Patterson, posted by David duChemin at http://www.pixelatedimage.com/blog/2008/09/for-the-joy-of-it/, got me thinking that I need to keep reconnecting again and again with why I am doing this in the first place.

Thus, I will look forward to the arrival of still more inspiration. Meanwhile, I will continue shooting and continue discarding. Thank goodness there is no Society for the Protection and Preservation of Pixels, since I make ‘em and destroy ‘em at an alarming rate.