Lavender Bee

Those Nice Bright Colors

I can't agree with Paul Simon's sentiment in Kodachrome that "everything looks worse in black and white," but in the week when Kodak announced the end of the line for its venerable color film it somehow seems fitting to drain the colors from Oregon's Painted Hills.

Although I haven't shot Kodachrome in nearly twenty years, it was the first serious film I used, and I will always remember, and be grateful for, those nice bright colors.

Today's The Day

For several years, whenever I drove north out of town on Highway 99N, I passed an old double-wide mobile home that had a colorful mountain scene painted across its backside. There was a gravel parking area next to it, and I always told myself that one of these days I'd stop and shoot a panorama of it. And of course I waited too long, and it's gone.

I'd guess most of us have similar stories, of some thing or someone we were going to photograph next time, and for whatever reason that never happened. If you needed an argument for carrying a camera at all times, that would be it.

So, the Morning Glory, courtesy of my wife's lovely garden, was shot today, in full, unblemished bloom. By tomorrow, after a day bouncing in gusty winds, I suspect the petals will be frayed like a well-thumbed paperback.

And although our new kitten, Poco, will remain cute for quite awhile…nearly imperceptible changes seem to occur overnight, and after the laundry…er, bed…is put away, that photograph likely won't come around again.

These are two simple examples, surely, but they're not going to be nagging what-if regrets when I get up in the morning.

Lighten Up

We didn't think the big rose bush fronting our garden would bloom this year…until a week ago. Now, each day sees it brightening and flourishing, a combination I'm suddenly unable to ignore.

Because, while the rose was hemming and hawing over its annual obligation I was decisive: I loaded the car up Friday morning with stuff I wasn't using, drove to a camera store, and with little regret traded it all for a lightweight camera body.

Sure, there are trade-offs: my full-frame body has (present tense: I'm not selling it) a larger, brighter viewfinder, focuses a bit quicker, and it feels profession…substantial in hand. At 56 ounces without lens, it should. I have to admit, that robustness sometimes deters me from taking it out of the bag. The smaller 40D complements it by simply making shooting physically easier: it's worth it to me for that alone.

Oh, and I changed bags, too. There's a theory that you can never have too many camera bags and at least one should be smaller than the others, so I picked up a used Lowepro Compact AW yesterday. The new camera body and four lenses nest snugly in it and there's room for little else…that's the point.

If I didn't feel so good about all this I'd feel guilty.

Stop & Eat The Flowers

I was surprised yesterday, not by the deer browsing the yard but by the twin fawns among them: normally we wouldn't see youngsters until after July 4th. I suppose it goes with the other abnormalities marking this year (we had a brief tornado warning in the area last week), and gives me a reason to set up my blind close to the taller grasses and be stealthy.

Nothing Special, Except…

I've used a 70-200 2.8 L lens on my Canon's over the past ten years, and have appreciated the sharp results it renders when I do everything right. And there's the rub: I'm not doing everything as well as I did a decade ago.

Hand-holding a camera has become a particular problem. I've never been especially loyal to tripods, although I've owned several: even when I'm not in a hurry they tend to get in the way. So I spend most of my shooting time untethered. Now, my hands aren't shaking so you'd notice…I'm not spilling coffee yet…but when I enlarge shots taken below 1/250 of a second at any focal length to a 100% view on the monitor my keepers rate is waaay down. That's frustrating, and when you're shooting for stock also expensive.

So, when I went to get the paper this morning I was toting a new lens, Canon's diminutive 70-200 4 L with Image Stabilization, or IS. I knew this technology works from an early model zoom I'd shot with briefly, but wasn't aware how much it's improved. I think there are lots of little techie things we overlook that just seem to evolve on their own, and IS is one of them. For the picture above I pushed it past its advertised four-stop improvement, shooting at 150mm at f11 and 1/10 second. 1/10!

In the afternoon, pleased but still slightly suspicious (good things always have a catch, right?) I shot a series with each of the two zooms using an old shed as a subject. I'm mercifully omitting them here (they're on a par with the many brick walls photographed for this same purpose) but take my word: the smaller IS zoom handily spanked the heavy 2.8 lens without stabilization. I also compared the IS at 135mm versus my sharp 135 2L, both at f4. The prime would normally enjoy a visible advantage since it would be stopped-down two full stops while the little zoom was wide open, but…not hand-held by me.

In the evening, as the light was draining from the day, a whitetailed deer appeared across from the house. At this time of year I leave a section of yard unmowed, aka The Salad Bar: the light flattered the deer's coat and contrasted nicely with the surrounding dense greens and browns. I upped the camera's ISO to 200 (the mailbox was at my normal setting of 100) and shot with the lens fully extended to 200mm, at f4…and 1/15 second. It's been well-said by many photographers that IS does not stop a subject's motion: it merely steadies the photographer. And so it is: out of 30 or so shots I had three I was pleased with. But at 1/15 second…and 200mm…how many could I rightfully expect?

I think this little zoom will be in my bag for a long time to come.

Roads

Sunrise across a deserted B6255 roadway, England
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Roads have been rich fodder for artists over the centuries. Metaphorically or compositionally nothing can beat them. Their beds are set deep in our literature and our languages, where a shouted “Road trip!” is to some a sacred calling.

Appropriately, an empty stretch of highway illustrates the jacket of Larry McMurtry’s book Roads: Driving America’s Great Highways, which I recently finished. The reader who rides with McMurtry becomes passenger as he retraces the humbling expanses of the Great Plains and Texas or samples California’s thick urban traffic. McMurtry admits he likes to drive, and drive fast (pointing out that the mileage he covers is frequently flat), and he covered nearly a thousand during one day. Interstates are built for such head-down distances.

Other, slower travelers make their destinations over secondary roads, the wiggly blue highways in William Least Heat Moon’s book of the same name, where it’s still possible to drive through small towns, or what’s left of them. Many of these routes began as primitive tracks carved out by explorers and settlers, and McMurtry, too, felt their history and exhilaration when he crossed the top of the country on Highway 2.

Here in Oregon, my favorite road is Highway 31. It’s short (barely 120 miles), so there isn’t time to become bored. It’s scenic (whether Rand McNally says so or not). And it speaks to me, in sudden, unexpected whispers from a past that’s becoming harder to recall accurately with each passing year.

So I gladly ignore gentle ruts and errant potholes to have the company of ponderosa pines, so perfect in their placements, and the legions of finely-perfumed and under-appreciated sagebrush.

Sitting at this desk tonight, all I need do is close my eyes for a moment or two…