I’m puzzled by the concept that, if a church thinks something is a good idea, it automatically gives that thing a “religious component.”  Our church is particularly fond of Pizza Hut.  We buy their stuff, and serve it openly at staff meetings, etc.  Accordingly, one should attribute some hidden religious component to Pizza Hut, their advertising and product—or not.  The secular world seems to have lost sight of the fact that all religious groups are composed of ordinary humans.  God knows, we are not a monolithic hive without an opinion not based in dogma.  We can hardly agree on what day of the week it is.

The problem with this is based on the classic fallacy typified by, “All dogs have hair.  My cat has hair therefore my cat is a dog.”  The current version is, “The Bible is false.  (Pick your concept) appears in the Bible therefore (Pick your concept) is false.”  My point is this; religious individuals and organizations should be able to “like” a concept (sorry Facebook) without dragging it into the war between the pro and anti-religion camps.  If it be possible…live peaceably with all men.  Oh, wait, that can’t be right, that’s a quote from the Bible.

This morning we drove south of where we live to visit a friend who is doing a Mountain Man Rendezvous out in the cedar-covered high desert.  The road was…challenging, but the Durango never slipped.  Having gotten a taste of driving where automobiles fear to tread, we decided to explore the Dominguez-Escalante National Conservation Area on the way (more or less) back.  We started on the Rim Road, and worked our way down into the canyon over a distance of several miles.  To describe the last mile or two as a road is generous in the extreme.  After creeping down a particularly steep and rocky stretch, my GPS said we had .8 miles to go to reach the river.  I noticed a particularly interesting rock formation, and stopped to photograph it.  When I got out, I could see that both passenger-side tires were essentially flat.  As I watched they went all the way flat.  If I stood on one small, rocky spot, I could get one bar on my cell phone—I reached AAA.  After three dropped calls, they dispatched a tow truck—who never found us.  Amazing how beauty can be changed into desolation by two flat tires.  And now for that promised grace of God.  

After about an hour, a group came by on ATV’s—two men, a woman, a child, and two dogs all on three machines.  They waved, and started to pass when one noticed the flat tires.  There are few resources on small ATV’s, but they came up with a 12-volt air compressor and a tire repair kit.  The tires proved to have exactly one leak each, which they fixed nicely and refused to take anything for their time, effort, and parts.  We drove on.  The road along the river was much improved, but had frequent fords of about 2-foot depth.  The plugs held.  We fed the kids, washed the Durango, and drove on home thanking God for an ATV group, all, no doubt Samaritans, who loved their neighbors as themselves.

In Sanford, Florida, recently, George Zimmerman fatally shot Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old black man.  There is intense media focus on the situation, and the justice system, as one might expect, is handling it by the precise letter of the law.    There is no chance whatsoever that this will be swept under the carpet because of race prejudice, or for any other reason.

The bad news is that we often have opinions about how the justice system should operate that are simply in opposition to the law.

In this case, a wave of social media outrage has swept the world because George Zimmerman is not under arrest.  The law is quite clear in this case—law enforcement is prohibited from arresting him until certain things have transpired.  All of these things are moving forward apace, but no one cares.  They just want blood; if the police chief won’t order his arrest, fire the police chief, and bring in the federal authorities (remember it is a street shooting—not really a federal matter.)

If the shoe happened to be on the other foot, and it was your blood the coliseum screamed for, you would instantly become the world’s firmest believer in the rule of law.  Remember, “…all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law…” was written when Florida was known only to a few Native Americans, and had no law of its own.

John Lennon famously said, and later wrote, “Give Peace a Chance.”  I would modify that a little—not much—to say, “Give law a chance.”  Hold fast to your opinions, but back the rhetoric down a notch, or twenty.  It only makes justice harder to find.

USA Today estimates that 201.5 million U.S. citizens age 18 or over will be eligible to vote Nov. 2, although many are not now registered.   Of these, about 55 million are registered Republicans, and about 72 million are registered Democrats.  Never mind wondering how Republicans ever win any national election, one would think that, out of 55 million, we would be able to find at least one human with those two qualifications.  Apparently not.  The field of candidates currently running leads me to long for a ballot that allows me to vote for “None of the above.”  Absent that option, I have decided to pick an eccentric, probably unelectable candidate, and give him my vote—I’m leaning toward Ron Paul. 

My only fear is that enough American voters will agree with me to actually put him in office.  Don’t laugh.  I was living in Minnesota when Jesse Ventura ran.  No one took him seriously, even when he brought his gravel voice to the debates and made a great deal of sense—he was an ex-Navy Seal and an active professional wrestler known as “The Body.”  He was given to wearing pink feather boas and speaking the politically-incorrect truth in front of the voting public.  When the poles closed, he was the 38^th governor of the state of Minnesota.

So, what’s a Republican voter to do?  Well one can hope for a knight in shining red armor to ride into Tampa Bay next August and take the convention by storm—one can also dream of hitting the Powerball jackpot.  One can vote for the above mentioned eccentric candidate, or one can lobby for a “None of the above” space on the ballot.  Anybody know a good lobbyist?

Ed's Granddaughter

I heard a story somewhere, probably not true, but pertinent.  It seems a group of trap shooters were on the range with their multi-thousand dollar over and under shotguns.  An elderly man in overalls pulled up in a battered truck, and unhooked a worn, slightly rusty Model 12 from the rack in the rear window.  He limped up to the line with his old Winchester pump, and proceeded to clean their clocks.  Thoroughly humiliated, the group cased their guns, and asked, “How is it that you have put us to shame with that rusty old pump?”

“Well, it’s not much to look at, and it was never expensive, but it always fires when I pull the trigger.  Then, again, there may be something in the pointing of the thing.”

One of my favorite portraits was taken in the 40’s with a Brownie Autograph (you have to be old, a collector, or both to have ever seen one.)  The picture on this post was taken with a Blackberry (you have to be young, hip, or both to have one.)  Neither was ever intended to be a serious camera—both ended up well “pointed.”

I have worked with Topcon, Nikon, Minolta, Linhof, Leica, and Graphic film cameras and currently have a nice digital Canon that cost about as much as my wife’s new refrigerator.  Generally, one can do better with good equipment than with cell phones and folding cameras, but the point of this post is to encourage you to use whatever you have to go out and make images.  The adorable photo above has limitations—just try to make an 11” X 17” print of it—but it should be a family treasure forever.  The principles of light and composition do not change according to the price of the equipment, be it a $1.00 yard sale find, or a $35,000 Mamiya DM-Series 645DF 80MP DSLR, with a Leaf Aptus-II 80 Digital Back, and 80mm LS Lens.  As Nike says, “Just do it!”

...and forks.

Thanksgiving Potatoes

Not every shot you take needs to be fine art, but that is no excuse for ignoring the basics of composition, lighting and tone when simply recording friends and family.  All the same rules apply—take lots of shots, and be brutal in weeding out the poor ones. 

Last Saturday we went to Montrose, Colorado, a small city famous as the gateway to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison (a National Park) and the servicing airport for the insanely campy town of Telluride with its high-profile celebrities and world famous ski slopes.  The purpose of the trip was mundane—Charlotte’s sewing machine needed service—but it was a clear day, and the San Juan Mountains were washed with new snow.  The clouds were interesting.  I couldn’t and didn’t resist.  We found an elevated spot with an unobstructed view of the range.  I set up the tripod, planned the shot, and took the dozen frames that I needed for a nice panorama.

That evening I stitched the frames into a single photo, cleaned up the edges, and sat back to contemplate it.  The color was good, it was sharp as the proverbial tack, the clouds rested nicely on the mountain peaks; it was (yawn) supremely ordinary.  Which proves one thing that photographers generally know, but often forget—the eyes are not a camera. 

Seeing a landscape with the naked eye is a complex, three-dimensional process that involves as much emotion as it does accurate reproduction of the objects seen.  Photography relies on a boatload of composition techniques and alchemy to craft a synthesis of that emotion.  This photo lacks that.  It has no focal point to draw the eye into the picture.  There is nothing in the nondescript foreground to create perspective.  It belongs squarely in the, “You know better!” category.

Was it a waste of time?  No photo is ever a waste of time if you can find the objectivity and humility to look on it as a lesson.  I am older (sigh) and a little more experienced for the effort.  The mountains are not going anywhere.  There will be other days, God willing, and lots of other vantage points.  Giving up and moving on?  As my youngest would say, “You done bumped your head!”

Cottonwood in the Rain

On October 22, 2010 I made a whimsical decision—at my age, whimsy is one of my more valuable decision making tools.  My wife was at the beauty shop, it was raining lightly, and I had been telling myself for several days that I should photograph a mature cottonwood tree that stands virtually alone in a pasture on the edge of Cedaredge, Colorado.  While my wife had her fingers Dremeled, (I know; never transform a trade name into an adverb.  So sue me.) I ran off to set up the shot.  I had no permission to enter the ranchers land, and this is an area where trespass can be hazardous, so I simply shot from the road, hand-held, with the lens racked out to 250 mm. I shot at 1/1000 of a second to steady the camera that already has an image-stabilized lens and needed an ISO of 800 to achieve my minimum aperture of f/5.6.   I don’t like ISO’s greater than 400.  This was the result.

Several writers on photography have opined that good photography is directly correlated to the photographers willingness to work under…suboptimal…make that crummy conditions.  This would seem to bear that out.  But wait!

 The next summer, I made a point of asking permission to mingle with the cows.  The rancher graciously agreed.  So I patiently waited for

Cottonwood with Friends

the chill of fall to ignite the foliage once again.  Other than getting a barbed wire ding in my jeans, this shot was easy.  Twenty pounds of camera, lens and tripod allowed me to work at ISO 400, stopped down to f/22 (beyond that I get diffraction—it’s a good lens, not a great lens) and still live with 1/20 of a second.

Jan Grant, an administrator at a British photo site where I share some of my work, recently suggested that I should shoot the cottonwood in all four seasons.  Plans are forming—it’s hard to compete with Autumn, but we shall see.   

In the course of talking about the site, we discussed blogging, which I do…irregularly.  The upshot of it all is that I have created this new category on my blog site dedicated entirely to photography.  I have seen some of the beautiful, and instructive blogs that others are publishing.  I do not intend to compete.  I will, however, allow readers to peek inside the mind of an old man with a camera…and a computer.