The One Defining Moment

Here is a repost from a couple years ago. Sometimes I go back thru some of the blog posts for no other reason than to hopefully regain a bit of inspiration and to remind myself why I am doing this. This one I think is a good reminder....

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I've missed more great photographs than I've ever come close to making. Maybe one percent of what I take could be considered pretty good...the other 99 percent was practice. Even so, I am always on the look out for that one defining shot...the single moment in time where everything falls into place...when location, light, preparation, and opportunity all come together and I succeed in capturing that one defining moment. It hasn't happened yet...but I keep trying...keep looking.

Many years ago I witnessed such a moment...all the elements were there...except I wasn't prepared. On this occasion I was driving south along Oklahoma's I-75 and was a few miles south of Henryetta. A big spring storm was brewing...dark clouds...distant thunder. It was late in the afternoon not far from sundown. The dark cloud spread out above me and was threatening the entire region, but off to the west there was a break in the clouds low on the horizon.

There was plenty of lightning, but not the normal cloud to ground type...the lighting was spreading out across the sky from cloud to cloud in a web-like manner like electric fingers extending in all directions. There was very little flashing...just a slow expansion of electric tentacles that moved across the sky. As I topped a hill the view changed to where I could see a valley off to the west and at the same time the sun popped below that break in the clouds. Everything lit up in an expanding warm light...yet the lightning continued to flash across the clouds. For a few moments...that may have been one of the most remarkable sights I've ever witnessed....and I had not a camera of any type with me. That may have been the first time I've ever wished I had a quality camera and knew how to use it...but it wasn't to be. I've never seen anything that remotely came close to that moment.

Another time probably around summer, 1975, I found myself visiting Crater Lake National Park in Oregon. An absolutely remarkable place. I spent pretty much the entire day there making a couple loops around the rim drive, photographing ever nook and corner of the view I could find. I've never seen such blue water or blue sky. As I was leaving it was right at sundown and the entire region was enveloped in a red glow. The surrounding mountains were layered in purple and the sky was on fire and spread out from horizon to horizon. I was at the right place, at the right time, under the right circumstances...but I had no film left in my camera. All I could do was stop..get out of my vehicle...and watch one of the most spectacular endings to a day I've ever seen...and was unable to take a single photograph of the moment. All that remains of both of these moments are the memories stored in my mind.

That one defining moment is an elusive dream that maybe someday I'll be able to capture. My eye is always on that search...and as I mentioned before I still continue to miss great photo ops simply because of a lack of readiness. One of my favorite locations to photograph is Oklahoma's Tallgrass Prairie. If there is any location that will offer such a defining moment that is unique to photography, it must be this place. I can visualize what it must look like...that one moment...but time and circumstance has yet to provide it.

That one defining moment may never happen...but I'll continue to search for it and even though I'd rather be good than lucky...maybe a little luck will come my way and I'll stumble onto a magical moment of light and actually have my camera in hand.

The Natural Still Life

I found myself one day sitting on the trunk of a blown down tree that had fallen along the edge of a creek I was hiking around. I wasn't doing much of anything other than sitting and enjoying some much needed nature time. A few birds flittered in and out but I was unable to capture any meaningful images. Mostly I just sat there...being still.

Afer a short time I began to see photo opportunities around me that I did not see before. To my right a part of the old tree roots stuck out. I pointed my camera in that direction and zoomed in to tighten the frame. As I shifted the frame around a natural still life came into view and I fired off several quick images. Of all the images I took that day, that particular unexpected event produced the most pleasing of the batch.

Sometimes you just gotta be still to be able to see a Natural Still Life. I like most neurotic photographers tend to move to quickly and fail to see what is really there. I want to jump around looking for the Big Picture...the big landscape...big sky shots, when often it is the small more subtle opportunities that provide us with the best shots.

 

There are times I go through dry spells where I seem to have lost my edge and my work tends to look clicheish and ordinary. When that happens, I will often purposely find a location and sit still and allow the opportunity come to me. Eventually, I will see it...it's just a matter of remaining still long enough to let it happen.

Keith

Camp Cooking with Mosquitos and Grasshoppers or Building Self Asteem Through Trial and Error

I got to looking at an old book the other day called Roughing It Easy. It's all about how to camp cook in style and has all kinds of recipes and outdoor cooking ideas to make your life afield more enjoyable. Well, I got to laughing to myself as I remembered a number of camp cooking learning experiences I was able to endure over the years and so having nothing else to write about at the moment I thought I'd share one of the most memorable ones with you.

My camp cooking career began many years ago oddly enough in my grandparents backyard. The year was probably around 1960 or 1961. My dad had purchased an old canvas army surplus pup tent. It was a drab army green and had that old musty smell like it had been stored away wet since 1942. It was summer and as was typical of that era, I spent a good part of my time outdoors running around barefoot and looking for something to do when I came up with the brilliant idea of camping out...in the backyard...but, regardless it was a real genuine campout for a nine year old.

The tent was setup in a strategic location; far enough away from the house so it would feel like being out in the wilderness, but close enough so if too many creepy crawlies creeped and crawled too close I could easily make a dash back to the house. The old army cot was wedged inside the tent with more blankets than the one hundred degree plus temps required piled on top.

There were numerous broken limbs lying around the yard and I gathered everyone of them I could find and built a small fire late that evening. That time of year in that part of the country it doesn't get dark until well after 9:00pm, and I couldn't wait to sit up at night around my campfire. What I didn't realize was just how much firewood would be required to last until then. For the next several hours as my campfire continued to burn down I would run around in the ever widening circles in ever increasing darkness looking for something to burn. My intent of course was to cook my supper over the fire after it got dark, but by that time, it was too dark to find any more wood to burn and my grandmother had fixed fried chicken whose aroma kept drifting across my campsite, so I ate inside that first night. But, I was determined to fix my own breakfast the next morning.

Morning was long in coming. Army cots are not the most comfortable of devises to sleep on and it was hot and the mosquitos swarmed inside my open ended tent. I'd pull the covers over my head to protect me from their blood sucking bites until I would get too hot and then have to come up for air. I've often wondered what it is about the inside of your ears that is such an attractant for mosquitos. They were constantly buzzing and dive bombing around my head and wanted to burrow deep into my ear cavities. The grasshoppers were thick that year and a number of them along with daddy longleg spiders turned the inside of my tent into a residence. It was a regular commune of mixed species trying to co-exist. That pretty much was the pattern all night. Somewhere between one of the coming-up-for-air bouts and the hoot owls and whippowills seranade I fell asleep.

By the next morning I was skeeter bit from top to bottom. But, I jumped out scattering grasshoppers as I tossed the blanket aside. I quickly gathered another arm full of firewood searching high and low for the fuel...rekindled the fire and ran to the refrigerator and extracted a couple of eggs and several strips of bacon. Using my old army surplus spit kit I commenced to burning the bacon and destroying the eggs. What I ended up with was part burnt bacon bits blended with rubbery eggs and egg shells pieces and probably a hapless grasshopper or two that managed to find their way into the mix when I wasn't looking...which by the way probably considerably improved the taste and texture of the meal. I loved it. I was now a genuine fully fledged camp cook.

Over the years just how much my camp cooking skills improved could be debated long into the
summer night. Although I've managed to graduate to a more modern approach to camp cookery, those first feeble attempts proved much more valuable in the long run. What has improved is my appreciation for having done those things. As simple and comical as those trials-by-error events were, they were none the less great learning tools for those time when a good sense of self became important. I guess my parents and my grandparents instinctively understood things like that. They allowed me to build my own self asteem through trial and error, mostly through error. It is amazing just how effective cooking burnt bacon and eggs over your very own campfire...and throw in a grasshopper or two...can be when it comes to building such things.