Photography – Page 17 – Ink, Yarn & Beer

10 Years of Photography

Taken in 2003 at the Monterrey Bay Aquarium with an Olympus C3000Z

I have been digging through my archives of photography and am surprised to see I have been doing it for 10 years. I didn’t even think about this until I saw I had been on Flickr since 2007. That time has gone by so fast!

I picked up the photography habit with a friend, who later loaned me his Nikon D70 for nearly a year. Until then, I had simple point-and-shoot digital cameras, and complete fiascos with film cameras (back before digital) as I had no idea how to take pictures. I figured a good camera was all I needed. Not true! I have a lot of pictures of the backsides of deer which are evidence of my lack of knowledge on how to get a good picture. I like to think I have improved since then!

The only formal education I ever had – in a classroom, for a grade – was in 2003 when I was laid off from a job. I took a film photography class that summer, and it was an eye-opener. I used a film camera my husband had from high school, a 50mm lens, and access to a darkroom at the local community college to develop and print black and white film. I loved it – and hated it. Most important, it taught me a lot about photography, though I really didn’t grasp the relationship between iso-f/stop-exposure until I had the ability to do endless experiments with a good digital camera (the D70) which allowed for exploration into those factors. By exploring those, I have learned I prefer f/stops for my main image control, as DOF is, to me, an extremely important photography element. Only when the light shifts do I change time and iso as priorities.

Photography is an art, but it is still not my go-to preference. But, when I look back, I can see what I do enjoy about it. Memories of times past, seeing how people change over the years (like my husband!), and just how lucky I was to get some pictures, and how much I’ve learned. Because I am such a gotta-be-doing-something-with-my-hands person, the darkroom – the film darkroom – was a great place. The digital darkroom is not my favorite place because you sit and play at the computer. Still, I appreciate it – there is a lot which can be done easily in the digital darkroom (digital dungeon?) which is not so easily done in the physical darkroom.

The Peace of Flowers

The world is a busy place, sucking you dry. Newspapers are filled with news, from bombing Syria and worries about being bombed in return, to disgust that Congress has allowed the killing of hibernating bears and wolf cubs in their dens. It makes me wonder what the world is coming to . . . and what people think. Yes, I live in an isolated part of the world, one which is relatively safe, but it doesn’t keep me isolated unless I turn off the news. This is where the walk in the woods, in the fields, and exploring the natural world outside the artifice of man beckons. As California is now in the midst of a bloom unseen in years, I am out there nearly every day, taking in the blooms, the colors of the hillsides, and listening to the birdsong and buzz of bees. It brings a peace.

Pale

Clover? Buckwheat?

Curly

Heart

Rose-Tipped

Weed

Allium

As someone who is getting older, I frequently think of death. People – friends, colleagues, family – have died in the recent years. All my earliest childhood friends are gone. Death is something to be considered in this day and age of every baby must be born, regardless, and everyone must be put on life support, regardless. There is something disrespectful about the quality of life all this means. Keeping people alive by artificial means reaches a point, an ethical point, where it is ridiculous. Killing wolf cubs and hibernating bears for sport is equally unethical. Our destruction of the natural world boggles the mind, and the immediacy of pleasure or self-righteousness fails to address a longer viewpoint: what are we leaving behind? Plundered resources, extinct animals, and warehouses of people on life support. Equally, we kill others with impunity. In 40 to 50 years, the earth’s population will double, and we will be in even more dire straits than we are in now. Even within our own lifetimes we see the destruction, but deny it.

And so, flowers. One part of the natural world, fragrant, beautiful, evanescent. If they disappear? What next?

Friday Morning

Spring Break ends today. I go back to work tomorrow. Friday, a friend came over around sunrise, and we headed out to the local open space, Wildwood, which encircles the city where I live. It’s a wonderful place, especially in spring when the flowers bloom. As I have said before, California has had a drought for the past 6 years, but this year our rainy season was phenomenal (by desert standards). The result is that things are green and growing, instead of the dreary brown, brown, brown. The fields and hills are covered with a lot of wildflowers, in yellow and purples primarily, with so many different ones it is hard to remember all their names. Some, though, include wild morning glory, mountain sunflower, allium, fiddleneck, red stem filaree, lupine, lacey phacelia, and blue dicks.

First Day of Spring Break

Well, probably officially the second day of Spring Break! I spent Friday doing all the things I usually do on Friday mornings – cleaning, organizing, grocery shopping, and so on.

Today, I got up early, determined to finish up a couple of rolls of film. When I ran out of film, I was sort of cursing the fact I hadn’t another roll with me, or a decent digital camera. All I had was my phone, but it did an okay job. In general, I don’t really like the pictures from cell phones – mine is a Galaxy S5 – but you can get a decent shot or two. I think they tend to overdo the sharpening or whatever they do.

I headed out around 7:00 to a local open space, Wildwood. I took the Moonrise Trail, but veered to the right rather than the left as the path was crazy muddy. It was definitely a delight! Sunflowers, lupine, morning glory, mustard, allium, and others I recognize but don’t know the names. In particular, the image “Tiny Pink Flowers” was a bit of a favorite – these flowers are about 1/4 inch across – less than .5 cm, I am sure.

Mucking in the Muck

Here in the U.S., “mucking” means “to play about in something” and “muck” mostly means “mud.” I think it may mean other things in other parts of the world, such as all the debris in a barn. So, here I am referring to mud, glorious mud!

We have been in the midst of a 6-year drought in California; this year, with heavy precipitation, the snowpack in the northern mountains is more than it has been in 22 years, but with warmer weather, the snow may melt. Then what? We do not have good water storage in much of the state, as in cities like Los Angeles, the water is drained to the sea. Where I live, we don’t get snow (but can admire it on the distant mountains). We get rain (when we get it). It has been a regular rain for the season for the past two months, and this week promises another two or three storms.

Thus, our skies are dark and grey, and the roads are a mess. So are the trails everywhere. You can see footprints and paw prints and bike tracks. It’s not a good time to go along cliffs as the potential of a landslide is pretty serious. The ground becomes saturated and slips. Houses along the ocean cliffs have been known to tumble. Sadly, people are also killed because of the slippage, or seriously injured. Just a few weeks ago, a colleague slipped and fell, and though I do not know the details, I wonder if this is what happened. I’ve lost a couple of other friends the same way, on local trails. Another friend fell and was seriously injured, but has made a good recovery considering all the metal in his back.

But the lure of the outdoors is there – the smell in the air of new growth, the light, the rush of water in usually dry creeks, the songs of birds and croaking of ravens and the screeches of the hawks. It is all there to be savored and enjoyed, quietly, listening.

I took my old beat up Nikon FM2N with me, and a roll of Provia 100, and a 28mm lens from 1970 or so. It does close ups, too. I am looking forward to seeing what comes from the roll, as it was dreary outside, and the light in the late afternoon was not good. I also brought my phone with me, partly for a potential emergency – hiking alone – but also to capture an image or two that might be worthwhile. So, above, is a picture taken last night before I turned to go home. The rains bring new growth, the first of which is this lovely white-flowered wild cucumber.