Solitude

Early morning... sun just above the horizon... you and the sea. Nobody else.

Are there greater moments than this?

Looking Forward To It.

Woke this morning to 14 degrees Fahrenheit. A fair amount of  ice from yesterday's snow melt to contend with. Temps made it to 35 or so in the afternoon. More melt. More ice. Tomorrow... slight chance of snow and freezing rain. Friday brings a greater chance of significant snow storm. 

*sigh*

Spring's just around the corner, isn't it? 

Gone Fishin'.

Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after. ~Henry David Thoreau

There will be days when the fishing is better than one's most optimistic forecast, others when it is far worse. Either is a gain over just staying home. ~Roderick Haig-Brown, Fisherman's Spring

Kodachrome 64... No More...

It was inevitable, really. The Godfather of transparency films is being snuffed out! Kodachrome will no longer be available after this Fall. (Story)

Kind of a shame. But oh well... a photographer continues moving on. Bigger, badder sensors, and custom curves and all that.

But just for old times sake here's a shot of my big brother with a "trophy" bass from the Greenbrier River in WV. (ca 1973.) Good times. Great film.

"Kodachrome... they gives us those nice bright colors, gives us the greens of summer, makes you think all the world's a sunny day... Oh yeah."

Cheers.

'Tis the Season.

"There's a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot." ~ Steven Wright.

Can you sense it? Feel it? Smell it? It's in the air! Time to get the waders out. Dust off the Shimano. Put the roof-rack on the car. Time to do a little fishing!

*Brrrr*

Tonight's forecast: 19 degrees F. Possibly some snow. The high temp for the next few days won't make it out of the twenties. Snow expected over the weekend. Upper Midwest is getting hammered with tons of the white stuff and temps 20 below! Northeast, not looking much better.

Yep... thinkin' about the summer.

Be Prepared.

The sun is setting fast and the sky is looking good. I've got a wide angle lens and I've crouched down so as to highlight the clouds. The flash unit is in my left hand, held out and up. I've dropped the exposure by about a stop (I'm guessing here!) and flash exposure is preset in manual mode and likely is at 1/16th power, which usually works at this distance.

Knowing your settings and distance beforehand makes it much easier to capture shots like this.

Also, in the background you can just make out the young man on the lifeguard's chair I shot earlier. (You can scroll down to the "Quality of Light" post to see it.)

Mid Day Shooting.

This picture was taken at 12:05 PM. Bright sunny day at noon...the absolute worse time to make a photograph...EVER!

That is, unless you are aware of the difficulties and try to overcome them.

If I had exposed solely for the sky, the fisherman would have been too dark. If I exposed for fisherman, the sky would have been totally blown out, overexposed.

What I actually did was spot metered the blue part of the sky and just went with that reading...which in this case was 250th of a sec @ f 6.3. (ISO 100.) I then popped a flash in there for a little fill light. Help balance things out.

To be honest, I wasn't too sure I liked the overall photograph even after all that. But John said he thought it was cool. So this is for him!

Cheers.

Gone Fishin'!

Had an opportunity for a mini photo essay the other day. Text message said: "I'll be at the canal at ten." Cool. Grabbed my 70-200 and 17-35, a flash, and tons of memory. It was nice and overcast when I first arrived. Though, later, the sun peeked through the clouds and wreaked serious contrast havoc. No choice but to just go with it. Strong contrast tempered with a little fill flash. Anyway, here's a small sampling of those few short hours.

John the Fisherman

When I grow up, I want to be

one of the harvester of the sea...

I think before my days are done, I want to be a fisherman...

Calling John the Fisherman.

-Les Claypool, Primus

For the past two years or so, I've been shooting my own personal project down at the C&O Canal and Great Falls. Periodically, John and I meet up. As passionate as I am about my photography...it barely comes close to John's passion for fishing. As I stated in an earlier post John is one of my best subjects. Very patient and accommodating. I've got countless images of the boy at various points throughout the year. Fall, Summer, Spring (no Winter shots, but maybe that, too, one day!)

Anyway, I intend to share many of these images as time goes on.

Now, I've always been jealous of the fact that John pretty much has a personalized song by one of our favorite bands (see above). In the song, however, "John" grows up to be a fisherman of the seas, and he ends up dying when his ship goes down in a major storm. You can rest assured, though, that this will never happen to our John. We were both on a ship in the ocean once. We both puked our guts up for nearly 4 straight hours! Both vowed never to return to the sea.

Selah.