Finding the beauty in ordinary things
Waking up to another foggy morning, I decided it was time for an updated shot of ol’ Angel Eyes – especially because there seems to be so much interest in her this time of year.
I first posted pictures of Angel Eyes three years ago on my blog:
Perhaps a spirit has attached itself to this monument? If so, it’s certainly a friendly one. I’ve never felt anything except peace while walking the grounds of Bayview.
My friend Nichol suggested a photo walk around Bellingham this afternoon. The City of Subdued Excitement did not disappoint!
Of autumn’s wine, now drink your fill; the frost’s on the pumpkin, and snow’s on the hill.
– The Old Farmer’s Almanac, 1993
It never fails. If I don’t have my D90 with me, I’ll find something to photograph.
A few days ago, I was walking around Bellingham and saw these leaves upon the green-painted curb of a shaded sidewalk. I have a Smart Phone, but it’s definitely not in the same league as the fancy iPhones out there in terms of camera quality. Why should that matter? The camera shouldn’t limit my ability to be creative. The best camera is the one you have with you, right? A slight adjustment with a Photoshop app, and voilà!
I’ve been reading Susan Sontag’s essays, “On Photography”. A few pages into the first essay she writes, “Travel becomes a strategy for accumulating photographs.” She refers to snapshots as souvenirs – and that clicked for me, so to speak. I don’t buy souvenirs, I take pictures.
However, on my first trip to Ireland I chose not to photograph one beautiful moment. I felt that capturing it would somehow rob the moment of its magic. 1,000 words could never do it justice, but I attempted to describe for my memoir what didn’t feel right to photograph. This short piece will be at the end of Chapter 6, about my first day in Dublin.
Lady in the Leaves
In a shaded courtyard somewhere outside the National Gallery, I sat down to rest my feet and lament my insensible choice of footwear. The wind gusted, and a squeal pierced through the sound of rustling leaves, attracting my attention. A few feet away, I saw her.
Alone, she drifted across the courtyard through a sea of autumn color. Arms outstretched, her weathered hands poked out from the tailored ends of her coat as the wind tousled the white curls above her wrinkled face.
Leaves like glowing embers showered from the trees, and she raised her arms to them like a child in the rain, smelling the sweet, earthy fragrance as they tumbled through her hands. Then she kicked through the brittle waves, her scarlet checks touching the gleeful corners of her pale-blue eyes as she watched them rise and fall.
Instinctively, my fingers ran across the buttons of my camera to collect the image before the moment vanished. But as euphoric notes burst forth with each kick of her polished shoes, I began to fear that the sound of my shutter would startle her out of her moment. And even if it didn’t, could I simply click and capture her joy – bringing her home like a cheap souvenir?
No, this flicker in time wasn’t mine.
I picked myself up, a hot pain radiating across my soles, and limped away unnoticed by the lady in the leaves. Her picture still hangs in the only place that it should, living and vibrant in my gallery of memories.
All I had with me was a camera phone on my walk this afternoon when I found this. I enhanced the color a tad with my PicSay Pro app and voilà! Since I haven’t mentioned it in a while, if anyone is looking for a good app for your smart phone to do quick, but quality photo editing, PicSay Pro is the way to go. It far outshines the Photoshop app I found. I paid about $1.99 a year and a half ago for it. It may be a tad more now, but it’s worth it. You can do all the basic editing like adjust exposure, contrast, saturation, etc. But, you can also layer your photos or use Faux HDR, posterize, pencil sketch, duotone, B&W, sepia, tilt shift, etc. etc. and pick from several borders.
With 25,000 apple trees, BelleWood Acres is the perfect place to spend an autumn afternoon with a good friend (and my Nikon). Andy introduced me to owners, John and Dorie, who planted the first trees back in 1996. Today, in addition to their primary commodity, visitors can find a pumpkin patch, a gift shop, and some amazing baked goods and apple cider. Andy bought an apple pie, which we drooled over and devoured later.
The majority of our time was spent walking through the rows of the orchard, snapping pictures. I had an unfortunate encounter with a rather large spider that had cleverly strung a web with the consistency of small guitar string across my path. As I stood strumming the odd web, he jumped on my leg. Spiders are my only known phobia, and the sight of it on my leg threw me into a panic. In the half second it took me to realize he was on me, I’d swatted him off. This was immediately followed by blood curdling screams and a mad dash back to wherever Andy had disappeared so he could inspect ever inch of my clothing. I was safe, but I insisted Andy walk in front of me the rest of the trip. He’s such a good friend!
Spider incident aside, it was a fun trip, and I’ll definitely return to BelleWood. Enjoy the photos!
Although it may feel like it, and the snow has been falling already, Autumn hasn’t called it quits yet. I spotted the Fairhaven Village Green sign on the way to Daphne’s in Fairhaven for hot toddys the other day. The colors were still so vibrant. Sometimes the quality of my Motorola DROID camera phone really impresses me.
This may be the last time to appreciate the colors, though. More high winds are expected tonight, which will probably clear out the remaining foliage.
Sitting under a tree on the far side of Whatcom Falls parking lot on Saturday, we found a woman feeding Cheetos to the squirrels from her car. Apparently, her windows being open, the squirrels had jumped in and started terrorizing her. Throwing Cheetos on the ground lured them back out. See, they do attack!
Wounded, no doubt, in an epic battle involving bored adolescents, this poor angel at Bayview Cemetery is still standing. Unless, of course, I’m jumping to conclusions and she actually came pre-severed…
This will conclude my posts on Bayview. I’m wondering what new photo project to start?
It seems like every photographer has a smooth waterfall picture in their portfolio. Andy has a few on his walls. Until now I didn’t really care, but then as we walked through Whatcom Falls Park yesterday on our group photo walk, I decided I wanted my own.
David‘s advice, after lending me the Canon 40d I’m currently using, was leave the setting on auto then aim, focus, and look at what the shutter speed, aperture, ISO are. That will help teach you what to use when you want to go manual. That ended up being good advice, and I haven’t been in auto for quite some time.
With this water fall, I manually set the shutter speed, but kept an eye on the auto settings for everything else. Eventually, I figured it out, and this is what I ended up with. The shutter was set at 0.6 seconds, the F-stop at 22, and ISO at 160. The problem I noticed immediately with leaving the shutter open longer is that more light gets in, washing out the photo. Lowering the ISO and increasing the F-stop look care of that. Did I do this correctly? I’m an amateur, so without taking a class I don’t really know. But, the pictures looks like what I had envisioned.
One last thing (and I hate ever admitting that Andy is right), you MUST use some type of tripod when leaving the shutter open for a longer period of time. There’s just know way you can be steady enough, and the parts of the photo you want crisp will be blurry.
The colors may be more vibrant, but I still prefer the original Twisted.
Camera: Canon 40d
Location: Entrance to Bayview Cemetery; Bellingham, Washington
Jolene's Life in Focus 