Tag Archives: Photography

Shooting Hawks and Clouds

Posted by dkrashb on

I am sitting at my desk on a conference call.  I have been working on a spreadsheet for hours and, as I listen to the call and tweak numbers, I suddenly start seeing double.  I take off my glasses, rub my eyes, and then look out the window at the sweeping view of downtown.  Something between me and the city moves across my line of vision.  I look and recognize one of the hawks I’ve been seeing in the park across the street for the last few days.

There are two mounds in the park.  According to the sign, the mounds were created as part of the process to contain hazardous waste.  Not exactly comforting, but they look nice.  The mound on the right has low-growing plants all along the sides that flop over and create lots of little dark hiding places for rodents that scurry through the plants whenever someone walks by.  Pat and I have been trying to get a good look at exactly what lives on that mound for a long time.  We know it’s grayish brown and larger than a mouse or mole.  We decided they were voles after getting a quick glance at one, but part of me secretly fears they might be rats.

Whatever it is that lives on that mound, a pair of hawks discovered the colony the other day and seems to be returning regularly for an afternoon picnic.  I’m relieved to see the hawks.  Not just because they will help control the rodent population, but because I miss seeing birds from my window.  Other than the house sparrows and starlings who seem to have an ongoing war over who will roost in the crevices above our windows, most the birds hang out in the park and are too small to see from my desk.  However, I’m confused by this hawk.  It looks to be on the small side, but it has very bright reddish coloring around it’s head, chest, and shoulders.  I would normally assume it was a Red-shouldered Hawk, but it looks awfully small.  It’s also more vividly colored both in the red areas and in the strong contrast in the spots on its back.

When I see the same pair again that evening, I spend some time looking up Red-shouldered Hawks and Cooper’s Hawks trying to determine for sure what it is.  Now, most people who have any interest in birds do not have trouble telling a Red-shouldered from a Cooper’s.  I, however, am wired to perceive connections and similarities.  This is probably due to some genetic misfortune in my brain that causes me to see commonalities that may or may not exist, but others rarely see.

This same feature of my perceptions causes me to mistake people I’ve never seen before in my life for people I know quite well.  I had to start applying a rule of probability in deciding whether to enthusiastically greet someone or not in order to avoid frightening complete strangers.  The rule of probability takes into account the likelihood that the person I think I’m seeing would actually be where I am.  I will say, though,  that I did run into a co-worker once when both of us unknowingly took vacations in Scotland and then happened to end up waiting on our completely unrelated groups outside of Edinburgh Castle at the same time.  What are the odds?

Fortunately, I did not fail to greet my co-worker in that case because I heard his voice and knew definitively it was him.  Similarly, with the hawks, if I could hear them calling, I would know for sure which species I have the pleasure of watching.  If they are calling, the traffic noise drowns it out and there is no hope that I will ever be able to use their voice for identification.

But, back to comparing Red-shouldered hawks and Cooper’s, in my defense, a young, molting Cooper’s Hawk can look like a Red-shouldered Hawk if they turn a certain way, stand in direct but muted lighting, and the viewer has a vivid imagination.  Plus, the size of these birds seems more like a Cooper’s to me than a Red-shouldered.

However, after looking at pictures of both in various settings, I have to go with Red-shouldered.  I continue to be puzzled by their size.  I manage to get a few shots, although I struggle with focusing with my long lens pointed out the window.  It’s a pretty good distance to the bird, so I’m not surprised that my shots are disappointing.  I leave the camera set up just in case I have another opportunity the next day.

In the morning, I start watching for the hawk as soon as the sun is bright enough.  When I get too busy to look, that’s when movement catches my attention out of the corner of my eye.  I look out and there is one of the hawks, hunting on the hill.  She has something in her talons that she carries to a light post to snack on.  I cringe when I see it’s a rodent with a long tail.  I really didn’t want to see any evidence that those voles really might be rats.  I say a quick thank you for the presence of the hawks and hope for some owls, too, while I’m at it.

When I go for a walk, I see the hawk in the park again, only this time I am looking up at it.  I realize it’s size is correct for a Red-shouldered hawk after all.  I’ve been looking down at it from a distance.  Now that I am standing on the ground looking up, I remember the old trick in photography that says if you want your subject to look bigger, get down and point up at it.  If you want your subject to look smaller, stand above it and shoot down at it.  Apparently it is this phenomena that has been at work on my perception.

Now that this is settled, I can move on with my life.  Next step:  learn how to shoot the suckers so that they are in focus and doing something interesting.  For now, the sky is cooperating more than the hawks, so I switch from shooting wildlife to shooting clouds.

Aquarium Revisited

Posted by dkrashb on

After spending most of my day out on my bike, I return to the apartment and decide I am in desperate need of some restorative yoga.  Since I still have not bothered to find a yoga class, I get out my collection of yoga props and start practicing alone.  The lack of music reminds me that I still haven’t set up streaming to our receiver from iTunes–I’m pretty sure that’s not what I’m supposed to be thinking about during yoga.

I decide to do a couple of slow flows to warm up a bit.  This helps remind me to think about my breath instead of the infinite number of other things I tend to think about.  Then, I start into the long poses required for restoration.  Of course, I have no clock visible, so I have no idea if I stay in the poses long enough to get the full effect given that, in restorative, poses are often held for 10 minutes or more and it’s pretty darn hard to both breath and relax into your pose and mentally track time all at once.  So, I just hold them until it feels like my joints have space in them that they didn’t have before.

After about an hour of yoga poses, I feel far more relaxed and any tightness I had from riding is gone.  I decide that I cannot stay home another evening, doing nothing but sitting around on the couch.  I remember my aquarium membership and my desire to try to shoot in the aquarium and decide this evening is a good time to give it a try.

I jump into the shower and immediately, the memory of the man I met during the bike tour today asking me if I’m retired jumps to mind.  I like to tell myself that I fully accept the fact that I’m aging.  Yet, it’s moments like this that I have to face the fact that vanity has no concept of acceptance.  I may be OK with aging as a general fact of life, but I am not OK with other people thinking I look like I’m aging.

This spurns a sudden interest in appearance.  Instead of doing my usual routine of throwing on some sunscreen, scrunching my hair, and pulling on my most comfortable walking shoes, I suddenly decide to blow my hair out straight, put on some make-up, and locate a cute pair of flats.

After determining that I look as good as I can without professional assistance, I decide to take my camera with one lens so I don’t have to carry my backpack and tripod.  I decide to experiment with my fixed length 100mm lens.  I put the necessary cards and cash into my back pocket, grab my house key, and head out, choosing the fastest route since I am wearing less comfortable shoes than usual.

As I enter the bridge, two men are walking towards me.  One of them, who is probably close to 60, looks at me and says, “Ma’am, you’re looking f-i-i-i-i-ne today!”  Now how did he know I really needed to hear that?  I laugh and say thanks as I continue on my way without slowing down.  I laugh because not only does the timing strike me as funny given my vanity crisis, but also because what was sexual harassment in my 20’s is now rare and welcomed attention in my 40’s.

As I cross the bridge, I look across the water and see people that appear to be standing on the water.  There is a low-lying pier that blends with the surface of the water due to the reflecting light.  I turn around and look back at our building and see the back drop of the hills and the foreground of the park and decide I should stop and shoot for a moment before going to the aquarium.  When I turn on my camera, it gives me the message that no one who has just walked 1/2 a mile in less-than-comfortable shoes wants to see:  “No CF Card!”  I groan, turn off my camera and head back towards home.

I suck it up and get the card and then return to the aquarium, stopping briefly on the bridge for a few shots, but the light reflecting on the pier is not the same.  Oh well, another shot missed!  I enter the aquarium members reception and get my free ticket.  I head towards the penguins.

The glass in front of the penguins is smeared and there is a wall of children pressed against it, standing on the benches in front.  The penguins are racing back and forth, leaping fully out of the water as they fly by.  I make an attempt to capture this, but I have several issues.  First, 100mm is too close for the situation.   Second, even at f/2.8 (as wide as this lens will go), there is not enough light for fast enough shutter speeds to freeze the penguins in motion.  Third, reflections and smudges on the glass confuse the autofocus and make getting any kind of clear focus next to impossible, even when I try to shoot the penguins standing still.  Since I am coming back here for a photography workshop in a couple weeks and I don’t have a lot of time before the aquarium closes, I decide to move on to the jellyfish.

Turns out shooting jellyfish with the macro lens is fun, but also challenging.  Even though they don’t move fast, they move enough that a slow shutter speed causes blur.  And with a wide-open aperture and close focusing, the depth of field is so shallow that I can only get a small area of the jelly in focus.  I play with this a bit and end up with a couple of shots that are interesting, although not quite what I was hoping for.

I move on to look for the alligators, hoping to get some good shots over the top of the glass.  Unfortunately, the alligators are hiding this evening.  Not one appears for a shot.  I shoot some turtles that appear to be cuddling on a log and a couple of birds, but then move on again.

Next, I go up to the atrium on the top floor of the river building.  I find a place to sit and watch for birds.  There is a feeder near my seat, so I figure it’s a good spot.  Eventually, a yellowish bird I don’t recognize comes and perches where I can see it.  I get a couple shots, but even after looking at the signs listing what birds are in the atrium, I cannot identify it.  I make a note to look it up later (I feel quite foolish when I realize it’s a female Scarlet Tanager–something I should be able to recognize).

On my way out of the building, I take a few quick “drive-by” shots of a sea turtle.  I overhear a father and daughter talking about the fact that this turtle is supposed to be in the other building, but he is in timeout for hurting a shark.  He is a huge turtle and there are a lot of small sharks in the other building, so I can see how that would be a problem.

I decide to see if I can find the Macaws before I have to leave.  I’ve forgotten which exhibit they’re part of and it turns out that they’re on a floor in the other building that I skipped today.  Since it’s almost “kick out” time and my heels are now blistered from my cute flats, I decide to call it a shoot and find dinner.

Instead of heading home to fix myself something, I decide to find a bar I can eat at.  This is a habit I developed when traveling alone on business.  I like to be around people vs eating alone in my room, but it feels weird to sit at a table by myself in the middle of a restaurant.  Eating at the bar usually guarantees that you’ll at least have a TV to watch and often results in interesting conversations with complete strangers you’ll never see again.

Tonight, I end up sitting next to Clyde.  He is also alone and we end up talking.  He’s in his 50‘s, unsuccessful at finding a suitable partner in life, and tells me a lot about the differences between women from Wisconsin (where he’s originally from) and women in Chattanooga (which he has called home for more than 20 years).

In the meantime, a couple sits down on his right and the woman next to him keeps talking to him when he’s not talking to me.  Eventually, she leans in, looks back and forth between me and him, and asks, “Are you all married?”  Clyde laughs and says, “No.”  She looks at me and says, “Are you on a date?”  I laugh and say, “No.”  Her face becomes slightly puzzled, “Are you just friends then?”  I smile again and say, “Nope.”  She looks really puzzled and then says, “You all don’t know each other; you just met?”  I nod and say, “Yes.”  She pauses for a moment, looks at Clyde and says, “She just sat down next to you?”  He affirms.  She glances at me, then back to Clyde and says, “She’s real purty!”

If the woman seemed more sober, I might have felt more flattered by this compliment, but I will take it.  Once again, the universe has answered my vanity’s call for affirmation–if only I could get the universe to help me out with more important things (like maybe letting go of my vanity all together)!

After I eat, I say my good-byes and head back across the bridge.  I call Pat and we talk as I walk home.  This is supposedly a security measure, but I tend to think I’m safer when I’m not on the phone just because I’m more alert and, therefore, look less vulnerable.  But, I suppose Pat could call 911 if something happens.  In any case, I make it home safe and sound and it’s only 9:30PM.  Looks like I will still be spending some time on the couch tonight!

Tripod Experiments

Posted by dkrashb on

This morning, I am like a kid at Christmas–although I opened my “gifts” the night before.  I have finally invested in a good tripod and the pieces are now all here that will allow me to use it.  I am up before the sun (although that’s not saying a whole lot these days).  I have read all the directions (yes, I do that) and now I just need to screw the bullhead mount into the legs and attach the quick-release plate to the camera.  I’m too impatient to wait for the sunrise, so I contemplate which lens to use for long exposure experiments.  I decide on the 17-55mm lens, which will work equally well if I’m still shooting when the sun catches up with me.  I put the lens on the camera along with my other recent purchase, a wireless remote.

I put my head through the strap on the camera (a habit I’ve developed to prevent camera drops given my clumsiness) and pick up the tripod.  I walk out to the balcony and start setting up the tripod.  This is a challenge.  The balcony is not large and there are 2 chairs and a side table sitting on it.  Plus, it is set in an alcove of the building so that the opening is surrounded by brick and a large, wide “post” at the corner divides the view to the East from the view to the South, reducing the angles available.

I think about going up to the roof to shoot, but then I look at my watch.  It’s just now 6AM.  I imagine dragging all my gear down the hall and up the stairs and then walking across the roof to set up.  Now, this might not seem like a potential act of inconsideration to ones neighbors, but we happen to live under the corner of the roof where they installed a large deck with patio furniture and a grill.  Our next door neighbor lives under the deck as well.  Every night when neighbors who don’t live under the deck go up there to hang out, grill, or have a party, what we hear is a herd of elephants trumpeting and thumping across the roof.  We finally figured out that the trumpeting part is caused by dragging furniture across the deck (for some reason, no one seems to ever pick the furniture up).  The thumping is just walking.  I think about Pat still sound asleep in the bedroom and our next door neighbor (who may or may not be home) and decide that I will just stay on the balcony for this morning.

I find that with the two legs in front in a single plane, pressed against the railing, and the leg in back fully extended to brace the tripod in place, I achieve two things:  first, I reduce the floor space needed and, second, I get the camera lens out from behind the brick frame of the balcony opening.

Excited to start shooting and noticing there is plenty of traffic this morning, I decide to play with getting streaks of light from the traffic below.  I pick a composition and find that while getting the camera where I want it and getting it to stay there is far easier with my new equipment, I still feel restricted compared to not using a tripod.  But, I wouldn’t be able to get the shot I’m about to take at all without a tripod, so I figure I will learn to appreciate the increased flexibility in shutter speeds over the loss of speed in composition.

I’m all set and ready to shoot except for one thing–I forgot the radio control for my wireless remote.  Now I have a dilemma.  With the tripod set up the way it is, it’s possible that a strong wind could topple it over the balcony railing.  Plus, I have blocked myself in and will either have to climb over the one fully extended leg and a chair or move the tripod, which I just got set up.  I gently rock the tripod slightly to see how secure it is.  I stand still for a moment and just feel the wind to see how strong it is and if it’s steady or gusting.  You would think I was about to take flight vs run inside to get something.  I decide to shorten the fully extended leg without moving anything else.  This sets the tripod more firmly on the ground and gets the camera back away from certain disaster.  However, it still requires climbing over obstacles for me to get back inside to get the remote.  I manage this without bumping the tripod and without tripping–anyone who knows me would be proud.

Now, with remote in hand and tripod back in place, I discover a new challenge.  My camera won’t shoot if it’s not in focus.  And, because I’ve chosen a single-point focusing method (which I always use because I like to pick the one thing I really want to be in focus), it cannot focus with the current composition.  The single-point is off in the dark.  When I am not using a tripod, I just point at what I want to be in focus, press the button halfway down, and then compose my shot.  But I can’t easily use this process with the tripod.  I decide to set a different focusing mode.  However, it’s dark and the top of the camera is above eye-level, so I am standing on my tippy-toes trying to change controls I can’t see.  I decide to recompose so that the focus point has something it can focus on instead.  Now, finally, I start shooting.

Playing with the car lights is fun.  But, eventually, the sun does rise.  I try shooting clouds with just a hint of light catching their edges, but the wind is blowing them around too fast for my slow shutter speeds.  Then, as the sun makes it’s way above the horizon, the light turns gray.  As it turns out, the sky is so heavily overcast that not even the sun can make an impression.  There is no drama this morning–it’s just like someone turned up a dimmer switch.  Realizing that it’s time for me to move on with my day, I move my gear inside.  This is achieved far more easily than setting it up was–I just shorten the legs and bit and pull them together, walk through the door and stand the tripod back up on the floor.  There’s more space inside and I can leave the camera set up all the time if I like–it’s just one more thing for me to trip over.

While I can’t say that any of my photos turned out quite the way they looked in my head, I did get some good, long light trails.  It’s a fun effect to play with more in the future.  But for now, I must get to work.

Back in Chattown

Posted by dkrashb on

Having spent the night just outside of Lexington in a semi-frightening hotel, I am doubly surprised when the alarm jerks me out of a sound sleep.  First there is the expected surprise (sort of paradoxical, isn’t it?) of the alarm itself, but then I am also surprised to realize that I have slept through the night undisturbed.  I hop out of bed and get myself ready to roll quickly.  We have a 3 hour drive to home, today is a work day, and I have an important conference call this morning.  Fortunately, I was able to finish the presentation material last night and send it out for a quick review.  I check my mail to see if I have any responses.  Only one with no suggested changes.

We forgo the free breakfast that comes with the room (probably just cereal and bananas anyway) since it’s still a half an hour before the service starts.  We get in the car with me setting up to work from the car while Pat drives.  It’s early enough that nothing much urgent is happening and my cellular MiFi is getting sketchy reception as we get into the hills.  Deciding I’m as caught up as I’m going to get this morning, I put the work away and watch the sunrise over the mountains as we make our way from Kentucky to Tennessee.  It’s a gorgeous morning.

Pat starts nodding off at the wheel, so we stop for a break and to grab something to eat.  Then, we switch drivers.  I drive us the final stretch into Chattanooga.  It’s the first time I’ve been the one behind the wheel as we returned to our now hometown.  It’s only the 2nd time I’ve driven in Chattanooga since our move.  I get to experience some of the oddly banked curves of 27 as we round the city and cross the river to our exit.  I manage to drive us safely to our parking lot, but with the stop we made, it’s almost 9AM.  I grab all of my work related items and dash upstairs to get back online.

When I get online, nothing has happened.  My boss hasn’t sent me any comments on the slide deck.  No one in Australia responded to the replies I sent early this morning (already past their office hours).  I’ve still heard nothing from Singapore, Hong Kong, or China on any of the things I’m working on there.  And no one in any other part of the world sent me an email between 7:30AM and 9AM.  That hour and a half that I wasn’t able to check emails really wasn’t so critical after all.  I’m glad that I relieved Pat of driving rather than insisting I needed to be working.

During the day, fortunately during a break between conference calls (and after my most important call of the day was over), squealing tires and a big crash attract my attention.  Two cars have collided in the intersection below our balcony.  Since my camera is already set up, I indulge in a few quick shots from the window and then return to work.  I count the number of sirens required for this accident.  Both drivers are alone and both walk away with no apparent injuries, yet 3 fire trucks, 1 ambulance, and 6 police cars all come screaming to the scene.  This helps explain the ridiculous number of sirens that go by every day!  When I next look out the window, they are loading up one of the cars on a flatbed tow truck and sweeping the debris out of the street.  I get a few more quick shots and then forget all about the accident.

That evening, the sunset reminds me why I tolerate the sirens during the day for our view.  I talk Pat into going up on the roof with me so I can get a better shot of the sunset since there’s a building between us and the horizon to the West.  I watch the sun go down with deep breaths.  I slow down all of the anxiety-produced nervousness.  I settle into myself as I watch the sun settle into the landscape.

I think this is why I love to shoot–it creates stillness.  It stops the motion of time and pauses in a single moment.  While a photo stays in that moment forever, the photographer moves on to the next moment and repeats the process.  Between shots, I watch with an open mind and wide eyes.  I am eager to see what next will present itself.  All my senses feel alive and alert as I decide, “Is this the moment to shoot?  Is this?”  This is especially true during a sunset when I might shoot a hundred pictures of virtually the same thing–I watch for minute changes that make the scene worth shooting again.

Today, I am also working on some skills.  As much as I enjoy shooting, I am rarely really pleased with the end results.  Today I am practicing using a tripod and a remote shutter release in the hope of improving the sharpness of my images.  While I’m at it, I play with long exposures and car lights, which is always fun.  I also always try to improve composition.  Unfortunately, I’m finding the use of the tripod is making composition much more difficult.  In addition, my viewpoint makes getting the elements I want in the photo difficult to arrange around the rule-of-thirds.

Although I work on each of these things and take them into consideration as I set up for each shot, it is without anxiety.  After all, this is a low-risk activity.  If I don’t like the picture, I delete it.  Instead, I work with the tripod to figure out how to best position the camera for the composition I want.  I don’t worry so much about the rule-of-thirds for tonight.  I breathe into the sunset and push the button on my remote.  I feel calmness, serenity, and perhaps a little awe as I watch the light disappear.  This is why I shoot.

Seeing Eagles and Shooting Soccer

Posted by dkrashb on

It’s our second day visiting my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew in Indianapolis.  We are at a lull in the day where each of us has found our own way to entertain ourselves.  I am working on photos.  Paul is doing something related to work.  Megan has gone for a run.  Scott is off somewhere.  We have a few hours before we will reconvene to go to the next soccer game.  Pat is the only one devoid of entertainment.  He wants to do something fun and he wants someone to do it with.

I ponder this for a while.  While Pat used to do things on his own quite often, they typically involved having a workshop and building something.  It’s not the kind of interest that you take with you when visiting others or even relocating temporarily.  His tools are being used by a friend instead of in storage, but they remain in Columbus.  It dawns on my why he wants to go back to Columbus so frequently.

In the meantime, my brother gets up and finds some sort of game for the two of them to go outside and play.  It looks like Jai Lai, which I would have never heard of except that we had a restaurant in Columbus when I was a child named “The Jai Lai,” so we all learned what it was.  Since Paul has taken care of entertaining Pat, I return to my photos.  Sorting through the shots from yesterdays soccer game is a challenge.  I actually had many decent shots (given that my goal was to shoot my nephew), but they mostly look the same.  I missed the crucial moment many, many times.  For example, when my nephew scored, I couldn’t get my lens turned fast enough and ended up with shots of the grass.  I have a new respect for sports photographers.  But now, I have hundreds of similar shots that really should be discarded because they are dull.

Pat suddenly returns to the room I’m working in all excited.  He tells me that he and Paul have seen an eagle diving into their neighbor’s yard and that I should come outside.  While I’m somewhat skeptical that they saw a Bald Eagle diving out of the sky in the middle of their suburban neighborhood, there have been eagles nesting by their neighborhood lake, so this is not as far fetched as it would have been even 5 years ago.  The only part that is at all surprising to me is that a Bald Eagle would choose to hunt rodents when there is a lake full of fish just a block away.  I make a mental note to google Bald Eagle eating habits later.

When I step outside, I am surprised by the bright sunshine.  While the weather was improving yesterday, it’s downright perfect now.  I suddenly regret that we didn’t decide to go for a short hike before the soccer game.  Instead, we walk the streets of my brother’s neighborhood looking for an eagle eating something.  We never spot that eagle.  Pat doesn’t take nearly as much interest in birds as I do, but he is interested in birds of prey.  So, when he tells me the bird they saw was much bigger than a Red-tailed Hawk, I tend to believe him.  But, now it’s getting close to time to leave, so we return to the house to get ready to go.

When we get to the soccer fields, I haul out my big lens again on it’s monopod.  As Pat and I settle in at the sidelines, a father sits next to us and says, “Are you with the Indianapolis Star?”  He points at my camera.  I assume that the Star is the local paper.  I laugh but before I can say anything, Pat jokes that we’re from the Chattanoogan some-name-he-made-up and that this game is getting big coverage.  The guy laughs mightily at that–this is a co-ed recreational soccer league–and says, oh, yeah, big, big game!

As I practice zeroing in on my nephew as he plays goalie (making my job much easier) the first half of the game, I periodically pause and look around.  It’s an interesting shift when I am thinking only about shooting a subject and I’m looking through a telephoto at that subject, and then I suddenly look outside the lens and allow the full scene to enter my consciousness.  It’s a good analogy for tunnel vision, I guess, which is, of course, an analogy for narrow thinking.

I think about one of my least favorite corporate expressions that’s being overused these days:  “Laser Focused.”  Remaining “laser focused” allows me to shoot my nephew without getting distracted by the pretty leaves across the field, the crooked lines drawn on the field, or even the ball.  But failing to look around causes me to miss all of those things, including who’s actually winning the game.  I experiment with looking for other things to shoot when the ball is at the other end of the field.  This creates an interesting tension between keeping an eye on the ball so that I know when my nephew is likely to be back in action and peering down that telephoto lens at some other subject, when I’m most likely to miss what’s going on in the game.

Then, Pat points out a big bird circling over the woods across the field.  I had seen it and dismissed it as a vulture because of its size.  Now, as I look again, I realize that it is not a vulture, but I can’t tell what it is.  It’s too far away and I don’t have my binoculars with me.  We watch it circling and then it suddenly tucks it’s wings into a shape you would expect to see on a military fighter plane and dives towards the earth at break-neck speed.  Pat sees a white head and is convinced we’ve seen another Bald Eagle.  I’m less convinced.  I didn’t see a white head (although it could have been a juvenile) and I’m still not confident that eagles commonly hunt on land.  I make a second note to google eagle eating habits.  However, I can’t say that I’ve ever seen a hawk that big or one that dove like that.

I hope that it was a Bald Eagle.  I remember the first time I saw one in the wild.  It was 1992 and I was on a trip to the East coast of Maine.  At that time, I’m not sure if there were any places closer to Columbus, OH where you could see a Bald Eagle in the wild than the East Coast of Maine?  DDT destroyed the population.  It’s unbelievable to me that I was able to drive 15 minutes from our home in Columbus to a metro park to watch a nesting pair of Bald Eagles for the past two years and that my brother has a pair nesting in his neighborhood.  It’s one of those stories of hope that makes me think it’s possible to correct the damage that we’ve done and restore some sort of balance to the ecosystems we depend on.

But returning to the game, I get to practice panning (a lot) when my nephew plays defense in the second half.  Turns out, panning it pretty difficult when you’re following a subject that is unpredictable.  I also get to use an autofocus setting that I don’t use often–it keeps refocusing as your subject moves.  It’s a little tricky to get used to, but a couple of my shots come out reasonably clear (out of about 100).  I definitely need more practice!  It’s funny that I’ve been trying to learn this hobby for about 7 years now, but I’ve been so sporadic that it’s like I have to start over each bout of shooting–I even have to get the manual for my camera out and relearn what’s what periodically.  Oh well, at least it’s a hobby that’s likely to last a lifetime.

After watching my nephew’s team win their second game of the end-of-the-season tournament, we all head home.  We pack up the van and we take two cars to dinner.  We eat at an Indian restaurant that’s on the way out of town for us and not far for everyone else.  Pat and I will drive to Columbus straight from dinner.  I am dubious about eating Indian–I like Indian, but it doesn’t always like me–but I order something mild.  As we say our goodbyes, I am suddenly sorry to be leaving.  For a moment, I ponder what it would be like to have a close-knit family that lives within a couple blocks of one another and walks in and out on a daily basis.  Then, we get into the van and go on our way.

Shooting the Moon

Posted by dkrashb on

People walk in Chattanooga a lot. It’s part of the city’s identity. It’s also part of the reason we ended up here. Chattanooga offers total coolness when it comes to places to take a walk–both literally and figuratively. The Walnut St Bridge tops the charts for popularity.  Connecting downtown to the North Shore, Walnut St Bridge was converted from an old wooden bridge for cars to a pedestrian walkway. The entire bridge is dedicated to people-not-in-cars–imagine that!  Paralleling Walnut St Bridge to the West, the Market St bridge also has sidewalks on both sides and a good share of its own pedestrian traffic, although there is plenty of car traffic too. There aren’t many places that you can’t walk safely in Chattanooga. Maybe that’s why they don’t have traffic problems?

I intended to shoot the moon (I know it’s a pun, but it makes me giggle) after hang gliding last weekend, but I missed the true full moon because hang gliding was so exhausting that I slept right through the moonrise. So, I shot the almost-full moon the next night instead.  [Photography lesson learned: a monopod is not the right solution for long-exposure shots with a big, heavy 100-400mm lens. That said, some of the blurry shots are still interesting.]  We raced out to the Market St Bridge to find a place to shoot just before moonrise.

Standing on the bridge after another hot day provides the relief of the cool breeze that seems to be constantly blowing over the river. I admit that when we visited last January, we didn’t find this breeze so refreshing, though. People go by in all shapes, sizes, ethnicities, and fashion styles. My favorites are the cops on Segways. The blue lights on the Segways always make interesting light patterns as they travel across the bridge. You can hang out on the Walnut St bridge–there are benches. The Market St. bridge is not so hang-out friendly. As we wait for the moon to rise, our fellow pedestrians rush by without pausing, although usually with a friendly greeting.

No one seems to wonder what we are doing there–I suppose a camera offers it’s own explanation. I imagine this town is familiar with gawkers and photographers alike. I have seen photographers far better equipped than me wandering around the riverfront, shooting the fantastic views of Chattanooga’s downtown area–there are a lot of subjects to choose from.

Shooting requires concentration. Trying to hold a big lens still in a strong breeze becomes a sort of meditation: position yourself, take a deep breath, set up for the shot, breathe out, hold everything as still as possible, snap the shot. The moon rises quickly–as if it’s worried it’s late for it’s nightly appointment. In the fading sunlight, it glows big and orange. I see the man in the moon clearly through my lens and wonder who decided it looked like a man. But, I feel the pull of it’s magic.  What is it about the moon that makes my blood run at a different pace?  It looks so naked hanging there in reflected light, yet what does its nakedness reveal?  That the moon still seems mysterious in a time when it has been picked clean of all its secrets speaks to just how magical it is.  This night, it looms large and poses for me only briefly.