Math Sucks

Yesterday morning I was in Monmouth, Oregon, on the campus of Western Oregon University. It was the type of morning that deserves to be called gorgeous: dewdrops glinting on the lawns, quiet, sleepy streets, a couple out walking their dog, and it was Sunday…rest…no classes. All covered with buttery sunshine. All-in-all, the perfect day to burn Arnold Arms to the ground.

I'd expected an old wooden or brick building, in poor shape after many decades of hard living, but when I parked nearby I was surprised to see that the Arms didn't look too bad. Clean beige siding gave it a promising exterior. The shrubs flanking the main entrance were well-manicured. But inside it had one too many minuses (a poor foundation was just the start) and besides, there's always a need for more campus parking.

So, firefighters from Polk County, Dallas, Sheridan, Rickreall and West Valley drilled inside the Arms until the early afternoon, then pulled the hose lines out of the structure and let it go. Dallas Fire's Ladder 101 controlled the flames from the air while several hand lines were operated at the corners: neighboring exposures could easily have been damaged by radiant heat if the blaze burned unchecked (it is practice, after all).

As usual a crowd gathered to watch the fire, cheering whenever a portion of the building collapsed, and no one seemed the least bit sorry to see the end of Arnold Arms. I was finished shooting photos and talking with a couple who'd been students there when I learned part of the reason for the almost festive mood: apparently Arnold Arms had notoriously poor air-conditioning, and when the classroom subject is math, to boot, well…say no more. That's an equation even I can figure out.

Red Rock Dreamin'

It's April and daffodils are the Current Yellow, and I know my thoughts should be springlike, but…

Harbingers

Winter is like that self-centered teen in the comic strip ZITS: it always leaves a mess behind for someone else to clean up. The deer help where they can, browsing clumps of moss that have fallen from the oak trees, but we're on our own with the rest of it. This past weekend, being sunny and quiet, was perfect for tending to the debris of downed branches, leftover leaves and whatever else has blown into the yard since November. As I loaded the pickup I realized there was other work here, as well, and so took out my camera for a short spell. Fresh flowers and feathers not only define spring but are harbingers of another summer, just around the corner.

Depth of Feeling

Every year, as Spring flowers emerge, I amuse my wife with a routine involving the movement of folders, envelopes, boxes, and plastic containers, aka I’m cleaning my office.

So it is again, as I’ve now squeezed the contents of a squat three-drawer file cabinet into one drawer of a larger unit. That’s serious space saving, except the shorter drawers were filled haphazardly and don’t quite fill the longer one, and now there’s a box of folders containing 4000 slides on the floor under my desk. Huh? (They fit really well in a longer drawer. Maybe they’ll fit in that little cabinet, too.)

While doing this kind of work it’s important to pause frequently and inspect the papers and photos that have collected in the folders and envelopes. I call this quality control, and I’m amazed some of this stuff hasn’t been recalled. As I review long-forgotten materials (e.g. “High School Writing Class”) I replace dog-eared folders with new ones (after reading any notes scribbled along the margins in 1985).

None of this had anything to do with depth-of-field until I unearthed an article I’d written about it for Backpacker Magazine back in, oh, 1985. Titled From Near to Infinity, its illustrative photos wrapped around 1500 words on a very dry photographic subject. I didn’t break any new ground in my explanations of how DOF works, being content to show that it simply does. Getting one’s head around the numbers, or f/stops, where 16 is small and 2 is large, is at first confusing but becomes second nature after a short while.

The photo I’ve posted here, of a twisting walled lane in English farming country, is a reminder that every photo presents choices, and aperture can be the most important of those. Crouched between the stones, I felt a narrow DOF served its character, and so chose a moderate 135mm telephoto to isolate the rocks, focused selectively, and made the exposure shooting wide open at f/2. The result is exactly what I envisioned.

Two points here: first, a lens is always open to its maximum f/stop until you press the shutter release, when it stops down to the aperture you’ve set. When I looked through the viewfinder at this country scene I thus saw how it would appear at f/2, wide open. Secondly, a camera’s DOF preview button allows one to judge the depth in a scene (although the button’s sadly gone missing from some newer bodies). Shooting at f/2 I was confident my photo would be as seen, but if I’d chosen another aperture setting (like f/16, say, for increased DOF) I could preview it for effect.

When you understand how aperture affects a photo you can then choose a setting appropriate to your feelings about a subject, and that’s far superior to letting the camera do it for you (via the Auto setting). Used thoughtfully, and carefully, the letters DOF will soon translate into Depth of Feeling.