Take A Second Look Before Deleting

I've poured myself a second cup of coffee, more as a hand-warmer than anything else. Two of my cats sit poised in a window, watching (contemplating?) the slushy snow that continues to fall in spite of all protestations. The sky is dark one moment, stormy the next. It's an all-around fine day to be inside, close to the pellet stove.

And, working on old images. Right now I'm editing a batch for Horse Creek Farms, my neighbor up the road in Linn County, looking for filler shots for their Web site.

The photo (above) is a JPEG, taken straight from my camera without any adjustments in Camera Raw, Photoshops' RAW converter. Notice how flat it appears. That's why they're often called digital negatives—the photographer must process the file to create a desired reality. The shot also suffers from other imperfections, notably the out-of-focus hummingbird which is also facing the wrong way for this composition. I'll blame the little bird for that—my reflexes weren't able to capture her in that split second when she whirled about and moved out of focus.

It would be as easy as tossing out cold coffee to delete this file and move on to another. But if I can microwave coffee—maybe there's a bit of flavor left in the picture, too. Here's what I came up with.

First, I processed the shot, with tweaks in ACR and Photoshop, making it as realistic to memory as I cared. At 100% it didn't gain any sharpness, but I did see a little potential there. The surrounding flowers made a nice background, and by cropping out most of the image the hummer seemed to be flying in the right direction. Next up: a visit to one of the Photoshop plug-ins I favor, Topaz Adjust. I normally use this type of effect with a subtle hand (I know, that's a subjective call), but in this instance I went a bit farther, imparting a somewhat sand-blasted treatment. After dodging the highlight areas on the feathers I was done—this can now be used as a small image on the Web and, perhaps, as a 4x6 on card stock. Absent the absolute sharpness we're instructed is essential to a good photo, the impression is still strong—summer, and warmth, and life.

Like Kryptonite to Winter

As our landscape lightens this morning there's a skiff of wet snow covering the yard—winter's turned out to be that annoying kid who bushwhacks you with a snowball when you least expect it. What gets your attention better than icy water running down your neck? And because the best reply is to toss one right back at 'em—surprise!—I'll offer this image of a sunflower, taken last year.

Blankets & Bricks

When my wife and I drove south to Oakland, Oregon, this morning the sky was packed with raw, wild weather. Snow, hail, sleet, rain, steam rising from metal barn roofs and collected waters on the roadways, watery veils moving rapidly across the forests…if I'd stopped for every photo op we would never have arrived at the Duchess Sanctuary, an 1,120-acre home for formerly abused and homeless horses that's a short distance from Oakland. Once a month they give an introductory overview to prospective volunteers, like us, and today was the day.

Jennifer, the sanctuary's manager, met us as we arrived and told us about the program while we walked around the grounds. A sudden squall of wet snow followed us, turning hats, coats, and the occasional horse blanket white. For their part, the horses were mostly interested in flakes of hay.

Almost as quickly the bright winter sun reappeared, setting off steamy plumes from the surrounding snow-covered hills. When we returned to the main house we met Simon, one of Jennifer's robust cats, who wasn't shy about asking for demanding attention (her other cat, Garfunkel, watched intently from an inside window). Then we retraced our route back to Oakland and a late breakfast. That's where I noticed the bricks.

Tolly's restaurant is a legend in town, and will celebrate its grand re-opening next week with new (and local) ownership. I have vague memories of eating there twenty or so years ago, and I'll try the upgrade when we return next month. Today, though, I was pleased with a delicious omelette served across the street from Tolly's at the Grist Mill Café. We enjoyed a leisurely meal, watching the rains turn to snow and back again, and that gave me time to consider the brick wall on the alley side of Tolly's.

I don't know what it is that draws photographers to old brick walls. Textures, abstract details, a sense of history…whatever it is, it's practically mandatory to take a few shots.

Grunge

Photographers sometimes pursue the grunge look, using contrasty lighting and software like spices. Call it hyper-reality. I've introduced a dash of that here, in a photo taken last weekend during a live-fire drill. Although, the firefighter was readily capable of creating real grunge, no software needed.

Old Paint

Detail on an old pickup truck, currently in its red phase.

Igneous* Is Bliss

*Igneous is one of the three main rock types—sedimentary and metamorphic are the others.

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In 2007, during my second visit to photograph the rocky landscapes in Arizona and Utah, I met a man from Canada who'd traveled there for the same purpose. I was standing in the rough road near Kodachrome Basin State Park when Stan pulled up beside me in his van. Prior to that, as I'd zigged and zagged around sharp rocks in my rental car, we'd played slow-motion hop-scotch, passing each other several times. A time or two I saw an arm thrust out the driver's side window, camera in hand.

Our conversation hadn't gone a minute when I learned why Stan hadn't been out of the van—he was hampered by MS. A custom rail ran along both sides and the rear, to allow limited movement outside, but he couldn't venture far (and certainly not in the uneven terrain we were in). What he could do was park at odd angles and shoot rocks. And talk about them, too. He said he drove south nearly every year (promising to continue, as he said it, until I'm done), both for photography and a love of learning about geology. I wasn't surprised that he'd been a teacher (lucky kids) but was astounded by the size of his on-board library—dozens of books on geology and photography, all within arm's reach.

I was still taking in the scope of this when he selected one of the books and began expertly explaining what we were surrounded by (if he saw a layman's glaze cover my eyes he was kind not to mention it). Since my closest brush with geology had come years before when I listened to Tangerine Dream's Thru Metamorphic Rocks, this was all too much under a hot sun. One thing he said did stick, however—that was his assertion that we'd enjoy photography more when we knew everything about our subjects—even all those rocks.

I didn't argue that point, and a few minutes later Stan moved up the road to locate a campsite, and I went back to the car. In the buzzing heat of mid-afternoon I let his words circle my mind a time or two, and felt obliged to disagree, however slightly. For him, the important aspects of the landscape boiled down to function, while my attentions were solely on form.

I'll probably never remember their scientific names, and just be satisfied to call them beautiful.

A Good Day For Digging

Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather. - John Ruskin

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Today was definitely refreshing, as downpours passed through in the afternoon. Worms and photographers alike rejoiced, each digging heartily into old, softened ground. I unearthed two images from 2007 that had been ignored overlooked until today. Appropriately, both are of rocks, taken in Arizona's White Pocket area.

Wetland In Winter

I traversed the wooden boardwalk at the Jackson-Frazier Wetland on an early January morning, moving like a tortoise (three hours for two-thirds of a mile). My wife lapped me several times, smiling, as I encountered new photographs at every turn.

A complete gallery of photos from the wetland may be found here.

Gyrating

Over several days during autumn in 2005 I drove a loose semi-circle from Gatwick Airport, outside of London, to Edinburgh, Scotland, going first southwest towards Stonehenge, thence north into Wales with its indescribable green hues, before zigzagging towards Manchester through an ancient weave of rural countryside and on, into a secretive Scottish landscape.

I did all of that without any preparation for driving on the wrong Yankee side of the road. None whatsoever. I simply decided to do as the locals did, try not to stand out, and keep Excedrin in the glove box. Foolhardy or brave, the trip lasted nearly a thousand miles and was, gratefully, uneventful. Finding a driveway hidden by hedgerows along a narrow road, on a black night in the rain, under a tailgater's high beams, was the only truly hairy moment. Bumping a few curbs, as I did upon entering a town or two, was to be expected.

The only dread I came to know along the route was the British roundabout. These intersections offer a visiting traveler opportunities to scream loudly and swear vigorously, simultaneously. If you've been in an unfamiliar area, driving twenty miles below the posted speed limit while looking for your destination, all the while feeling the angry glares of other motorists on your neck—magnify that sensation by ten and you begin to understand the nervous adventure awaiting you in a roundabout.

Like their pastries, Great Britain's roundabouts are served in many different sizes. Gluttons will prefer a Magic Roundabout to, say, a trunk road version. More lorries (big trucks) to choose from there. My favorite is the mini-roundabout, comprised of arrows that circle a small powdered painted doughnut hole. Simple, and perfect for narrow streets and small vehicles.

At the conclusion of my British motoring I turned the rental car into the agency, happy to once again be a simple pedestrian loose on the pavement (that's English for sidewalk). As my wife and I trained back to London the following afternoon we enjoyed the passing scenery over lunch (take note Amtrak—linen and silver), and when a busy roadway came into view at one point we saw our last roundabout, choked with gyrating autos, and that was worthy of a bubbly toast.

Connected

The mill cannot grind with the water that is past. ~Daniel D. Palmer
These impressive gears are part of a head gate at Thompson's Mills, the historic flouring mill I've been photographing since last summer, and the photo proves how a simple image can lead to unexpected knowledge information.

I wanted a quote to accompany it, so I tossed my request into Google and found a seemingly appropriate line to use, from Daniel D. Palmer. Who? That's what I wondered, and how I learned he founded chiropractic in the 1890s. That was also during the time Martin Thompson assumed full ownership of Boston Mills, renaming the facility Boston Rolling Mills. In 1910, after his death, his wife Sophia changed the name again, to Thompson's Flouring Mills.

Tiny Oscillating Bundles of Electromagnetic Energy

The Morning Run

Sedburgh, England, at the base of the Howgill Fells in Yorkshire, is…well, let them tell their story. I've lifted the following verbatim from the town's official Web site:

Sedbergh is a town of about 3,000 people in the Yorkshire Dales National Park in north-west England. An ancient market town, Sedbergh has a famous public school, Sedbergh School, it has a thriving main street of shops, ancient buildings, and is surrounded by moorland hills. Sedbergh is England’s book town.

Smart dogs know it's also a fine place for a morning run.

Still Standing

A stone barn along England's Dales Way footpath, between Dent and Sedburgh.

Lost In The Fog

I went out for a short drive this morning, nothing to do with photography, and there they were—all the sizes and shapes of tattered cloud you'd ever wish for inside a viewfinder, drifting across the rural landscape and mingling with thick fog. Everything appeared to be in motion, the clouds in a fair hurry while the fog crept doggedly over hillsides and woodlots. Passing a familiar barn, its massive roof resembled a black stone perched atop the mists, while the bulky outline of a farm tractor flashed by in a second through the open door. A bit farther along the sun emerged and for a bright minute burned like a soft yellow bulb through white curtains, before it was swallowed again. Everywhere, oak trees became more stately, and mysterious.

I certainly enjoyed those mental pictures, but I can't include them here because I didn't take my camera along. As we said when I was a kid, No Biggie (that's the predecessor of the fatuous No Problem). I'm able to walk and chew gum simultaneously, but sometimes you want to concentrate on a single thing, and that device can get in the way of inspiration. Besides, in the black hole of online images anything I shot would be appreciated for a nanosecond, then disappear as surely as that tractor.

And this morning, it was inspiration I needed. A double-shot of beautiful light to rouse me from the wintertime blues. A reason to keep looking, sans camera, in a world that's shrinking ever faster, sucking up subjects until there's nothing new, nothing worthy of photographing that hasn't already been seen dozens of times.

Mental landscapes, too, become veiled in fog, without familiar landmarks to suggest the right direction (men aren't supposed to ask for those, so we just continue stumbling along). Lucky are those who do stop to ask for assistance, or simply pause to read a sign. These are more numerous than you might imagine, so I'm leaving you with a quartet to contemplate the next time you're caught in a photographic whiteout. Perhaps they'll lead you to explore new and satisfying locations.

—On The Luminous Landscape, Mark Dubovoy's essay Everything Matters explores the small details in photography;
—on The Online Photographer, photographer Ken Tanaka offers his thoughts on photographic self-assessment in Ah, January, good reading in any month;
—on Strobist, David Hobby serves up different ways to use your photography in Giving Back With Your Camera;
—finally, also on The Luminous Landscape, fine art photographer Alain Briot discusses the subject of finding inspiration, in a series of essays called Reflections on Photography & Art.