Shooting With a Game Plan

On one of my first model location shoots I showed up at the location not having a clue of what I was going to do photographically. "I'll just wing it..." I told myself. The results were, well...predictable. The images looked rather ordinary and snapshotish at best. Winging it can at times produce some wonderful results, but that usually happens only after you apply lessons learned from previous shoots using a game plan. As I continued to develop my location shooting skills it became apparent how having a game plan of what I wanted to accomplish was an important element to help me focus my efforts on a particular theme.

A good photographer friend of mine seems to do this naturally without effort. At times it appears he is winging it, and maybe there is an element of that in his technique, but his approach is one of mentally breaking down the shoot into manageable photographic steps, tweaking the moment just enough until what he is visualizing suddenly appears in front of him and then he captures it. He has a knack for identifying the artistic elements of what is truly there and then being able to bring the moment to life. I've learned a great deal simply observing him as he works.

Shooting with a game plan involves several things. First of all, you must have an instinctive command of your equipment. Being able to know how your camera is going to react to a given lighting situation is key as it gives you the ability to make exposure adjustments on the fly without too much thinking about it. Understanding exposure in general is a must. Always shooting on program mode handicaps your ability to use creative instincts. Also, understanding exposure using artificial lighting...speedlights...is without a doubt one of the most important elements of your game plan. Speedlights give you the ability to control different planes of light at the same time. Understanding how to apply this gives you a powerful advantage. Also, test your equipment. I once did a shoot that required several speedlights where three of them were placed some distance from the camera transmitter. Turned out the transmitter would not reach that far and I struggled to get the shot, initially. However understanding how the lights worked, I was able shift them from being fired directly to being fired as slave units trigger by the flash of another another unit which solved my problem. So understanding your equipment and its limitations is an important aspect of implementing a game plan.

Secondly, having a game plan gives you a place to start. You know from the beginning what you want to accomplish even though the steps to get there may not be readily apparent. Every shoot is different in their dynamics. The lighting is different, the setting, the model, the angles, the energy, in short you the photographer must be able to adapt to your surroundings. Your game plan provides you with an idea, a direction in which to travel. It becomes your shooting roadmap without which it might become easy to get lost or sidetracked. Also, remember the best laid plans do not always go according to the plan, so be willing to adjust your game plan. Even though some of my most successful photographs are the result of having a plan in place, the idea did not always fit the actual live situation.

Thirdly, your game plan should include knowing the location. Ask yourself a few questions. What direction will the light be coming from at any given time of day? Are there shaded areas or high contrast areas? Are there background distractions? Will I need overcast skies or sunny skies? Will this be better late or early in the day? How easy is it to setup...is there a hike involved and if so how do I get my equipment in there? What equipment will I need? What is the most dramatic angle? And, most importantly, what am I trying to accomplish...what will my finished photograph become? I will spend a great deal of time simply searching for locations and then make mental and sometimes physical notes about the location and how it might be used in a shoot. One thing to keep in mind, a game plan will work regardless of the purpose be it a high school senior location shoot, a wedding, or a shoot focused on capturing a single specific type of look or photograph.

Shooting with a game plan helps you to become more efficient in the field. During many of my earliest attempts of shooting a model on location I struggled to find a focused effort and wasted a lot of time. In reality I did not know what I was doing and jumped around trying this and that and ended up with photographs that looked like this and that. During the times I have observed my friend during his shoots, it became apparent at just how efficient he was. Move here, move there, this angle, this lens, this light. He seemed so in command of what he was doing. It is a trait I wish to emulate. Many times I tend to attach a lens and stay with it throughout the shoot when I should have changed lenses a time or two to obtain a different look. Be willing to make strategic changes during your shoot if for no other reason just to see what happens. You can always go back to what you were doing.

A game plan can apply to other types of shooting. Take for instance this photo of a beautifully restored 1976 Corvette in front of the National Corvette Museum. Having a plan in place, knowing the location, using speedlights, then adapting to the situation allowed for a really fun shoot of an iconic car and location.

Lastly, stay within your style of shooting, but experiment with new techniques and styles. Avoid growing stale by not doing the same ole thing the same ole way all the time. All of us can learn from others, but all of us tend to migrate toward a comfortable style. It is perfectly normal to do so, but do not be afraid to try something new...step out on the edge every now and then and spread your photographic wings. That is the only way you will grow.

Having a game plan helps you in so many ways, getting started can often be the most difficult part of the process. To avoid always falling into the I'll wing it trap, start to develop your game plan by saying to yourself, "This is what I want to accomplish...now how do I get there?"...then, go out and do it.

Using Light as an Artistic Tool

All of us take light for granted. Even though it surrounds us and permeates our lives with a myriad of flavors
and colors, it seems so common, so ordinary and everyday, we simply choose to overlook its influence. In spite of it being such an important element in our lives, we often look past it simply because it is always there. However, as a photographer Light is the most important element in our craft. I am always conscious of the effects of light even when I am not carrying a camera. I not only see it, I observe it, I watch it closely, I recognize those special moments when by itself, it becomes the subject of what I am looking at. Over the years this awareness of light evolved into a conscious understanding of its nature and how its nature can be used as a photographic tool.

Many years ago I spent a good amount of time developing my artistic flair...I drew pictures of people and places. During that time I did a lot of reading about art and artists and before long it became evident how the great artists understood the use of light...and more importantly how they used the absence of light to create depth and character. In time as my artistic drive shifted more toward photography, this revelation about light has served me well. Light then simply became another tool of an artistic trade.

Light can be used as a tool in many ways; it can be directed, toned down, brightened, softened, blended, recolored, and used from different directions at the same time. It can create shadows to create character. It can be directed to fill in the small spaces where not enough light exists or it can be blocked to create a darker moodier tone. It can bring life to an otherwise dull composition. It can be accumulated or subtracted. In short, light is perhaps your most important and versatile photographic tool simply because it is so versatile.

Take this photograph I call The Pilot. Several phases and planes of light were used in creating this image. The ambient background light, all natural in its flavor, created the overall mood of the image. From that, I added some fill lights to illuminate the airplane hanger and the pilot.

All three of these light planes were of different intensities, yet when blended together the impression of the light creates an interesting result. Light then was used to sculpt the final image and bring to life three separate compositional elements; the hanger with the airplanes, the background sky setting, and the pilot. Light became the chisel used to carve out the depth and character of the portrait.

Light is unique in that it alone can create shadows or it can provide full illumination. By changing the angle and the direction of the light along with its intensity, you can create soft or harsh shadows or highlights. Depending on the mood of the image, light is used as element connectors to bring the composition together not unlike nails or screws are used to connect separate pieces of materials.

There are times we can take light and use it to create order within what might otherwise be an ordinary composition. Flat and dull light will often create a flat and dull image that exhibits no real quality, only a sense of chaotic jumbleness. But, throw on some extra light, change its angle, and alter its intensity above or below the ambient light, and you can isolate what is truly important and separate it from the chaos of what surrounds it.

When attempting to build an interesting composition, regardless of what it is, the first thing I evaluate is the light. Even if all the elements line up correctly but the light is wrong, it just will not work. But, when you approach your photography using the idea that light is another tool you can use to build your image, it changes how you visualize your final image. Light is a powerful tool and when used creatively helps you to build not only amazing images, but a powerful vision.

Musical Waters

Rest alone is not always enough of what we need to recover from the challenges life throws at us. Sometimes we need more, something richer, something deeper, something that helps us rediscover who we are, a place to go for repairs to damages hidden inside. As life catches up with us, we look for a special moment to help us along, something subtlety powerful to carry us a bit further down the path toward recovery. Anxious moments, uncertainty, bruised emotions, sometimes a claustrophobic feeling of being trapped with few escape options can weigh like a fearsome burden on a mind and body and cause us to withdraw dwindling emotional funds from our inner bank.

No one is immune from such things. As sleep resisted me and simple resting fell well short of what was required to remove the ghostly fatigue that hovered over me, my soul cried for something more, so...I went fishing.

The late September day proved unseasonably warm with mid-day Indian Summer temperatures hovering near 90 degrees. The first hints of fall tossed out their clues of what will come with a splash of color here and there.  A cobalt blue sky spread its wrap above the landscape and a few summer clouds suspended themselves like patches of white sewn onto the outside of a new blue dress. I slipped into the parking area just off the road...no other vehicles, good, I was alone, with no camera, just my small collection of spinners, fishing rod, and the musical waters of Trammel Creek.

At first I just stood next to the waters edge taking in the clean air and listening to the song of the creek. The first step I made into the cold waters quickly filled my old tenny's and sent a chill through me but it was a refreshing reprisal from the warmth of the day. Flowing clear and clean around my legs the current spun and rolled its way down stream in its perpetual motion, twisting and swirling, seemingly happy with its purpose in life as it flowed around obstacles. I wished I could as easily flow around obstacles. As the first cast was signaled by the whirl of the fishing line and a gentle plop of the lure next to a stretch of deeper water, I sighed in relief asking myself where the summer had gone.

Moving here and then there, casting across and through the waters I lost myself amongst the luxury of fishing, not caring if, not even anticipating the strike of a trout. I was simply being there away from everything else, at least for a while. It was a fine and pleasant moment, almost dream like, listening to the lively song of the waters as they careened and cheered, before tumbling over the shallows with a sparkle of reflected light to fill the deeper pools in a choreographed chaos.

Time easily loses itself like a drifting fog around musical waters, and so it was on this day. With dozens of casts tossed into slow moving pools or across faster moving swirls, time indeed seemed insignificant and a full hour passed with barely a notice. During a long wade down stream to that 'other fishy spot', I saw them, the trout, swimming lazily in their blissful home pools, yet they seemed unaware of and certainly less interested in what I offered to them as bait. Didn't matter...just knowing they were there was reward enough.

Eventually, I returned upstream and found a small grassy clump where I could sit in the cool of a shade. Ten yards to either side of me flowed a crystal clear set of riffles keeping time with the sounds of the day. Overhead a majestic hawk surveyed the fields, banking and gliding with little or no effort. With barely a flap he caught a rising air current and soared up and over the ridge dominating the western edge of the creek, and was gone. Down stream there was a chatter, a blur of movement, then a splash. I turned to see ole Mr. Kingfisher launch himself back into the air, this time carrying a meal in his beak.

The fishing was slow, so as I sat in the shade, I lowered the rod and simply listened to the natural quiet. Sometimes we need quiet in our day as a counter balance to all the cluttering noise that infiltrates our lives. Sometimes quiet is uncomfortable, at first, because our usual daily thoughts and actions tend to become inflamed by all the rhetoric and nonsensical kinds of noise we allow to distract us, so much so to where quietness seems foreign. All that noise and clutter causes us to deplete the value of who we are and we often find outselves poor of spirit and even poor of hope as a result. Yet, quiet is what we need more often than we allow for ourselves. How easily we forget.

Quiet and stillness is a powerful healer of the sorrowful anxieties that draw us ever closer to the edge of depression. We resist such things, being drawn into emotional states that hold us down, even so, on this day, I gladly allowed my thoughts to find comfort from the song played by the musical waters of this little dancing brook. In the process I became a musical waters millionaire, refreshed, ready to rejoin the world again, at least for a while.

Like the old Jeep, I still need a few more repairs, yet, the more-than-rest I searched for spoke clearly to me on this day when the fishing was slow, because as I have previously discovered and what was once again made abundantly clear...musical waters offer so much more...than catching fish.

Portrait Studies: Creating a Character Portrait

The world is full of characters and we who live in Kentucky have our fair share of them. Some are a bit rough around the edges, some are the salt of the earth, while others...well, lets just say they are bit more or less rough in their character ways. As a photographer, they all make great portrait studies, for they do come in all shapes and sizes and demeanor's.

This past few years I've been shifting my photographic efforts in a different direction...I've been doing more location shoots with more Characters...actually a better definition would be Situational Characters. What I mean by this is to shoot different situations using someone like a cowboy and his horse, or a biker and his Harley, or a farmer and his tractor, a homeless man sitting on a bench, and even a fireman and his fire truck, or as I recently accomplished, a pilot and his airplane.

The idea I keep tossing around is to find as many situations as I can and setup an interesting location along with dramatic lighting. Finding a willing Character model is only part of the problem...possibly even the most difficult part of the equation. Capturing them photographically boils down to following your creative instincts and patience. To accomplish this you have to be not only a photographer, but a weatherman, a choreographer, a salesman, a geographer, an historian, a magician, and also an optimist who keeps his fingers crossed hoping it all falls together. In essence, you must become a multi-dimentional character yourself.

Creating a character portrait demands you effectively blend your character with the light and location. Location is just as important as light and sometimes can require a great deal of leg work to find. How you compose the image depends on the location because you want to include in the background the supporting elements that enhance the moment. Angles are critical for the shooting angle can make or break the portrait. Not every portrait should be shot from eye level. How you make the exposure depends on the ambient light where dark skies can create drama and mystery, or colorful backlighting can set the moment in its proper place. Creative use of the white balance setting can dramtically alter the look of the image. Adding that creative flair also requires you to master the use of off-camera speedlights. Having it all come together at the same time requires the use of sorcery.

The idea on creating a character portrait is to shoot for one single image. It may require many photographs and a lot of trial and error, but the idea is not to do a typical high school senior location shoot where you take and provide a bunch of photos. The idea is to visualize what you want to accomplish, create the setting, add the accent light, throw in some dramatic lighting, and hope your character stays in character during the shoot. The result can often be stunning.

Photographing the Athletic Body

I have for quite some time been a strong advocate for diversifying photography skills. What I mean by this is to be willing to try different types of photography, cross training as I call it. I cut my teeth on nature and landscape photography and I still consider this to be my primary roll. However, I have learned just how important it is to try new and exciting types of photography including portraits, both in the studio and on location, astrophotography, a little sports or action, still life, incorporating flash or speedlights in what I do, and even a little video from time to time. This diversity I do believe has made me a stronger, more rounded photographer mainly because I have avoided falling into a rut , or stated another way, always doing the same ole thing the same ole way.

Some types of photography can be further broken down into separate sub-types, like portraits. I have fallen in love with shooting portraits, especially location shoots. By doing so it has forced me to learn how to use artificial lights to a greater extent than I even realized was possible. Using speedlights on location has opened up an almost limitless array of possibilities by allowing complete control of the lighting. This alone has parlayed into trying other sub-applications. One such application is photographing the athletic body.

Due to budget restraints I recently constructed a pair of DIY strip lights. Strip lights are a tremendously useful lighting tool allowing you the photographer a wide range of lighting capabilities. They are long relatively narrow light boxes that provide a linear light angle making it possible to photograph the body with highlights along the length of the athletic body helping to define and separate the body from the background.

It also helps to have a son, Christopher, who is rather athletic and willing to pose as a model from time to time, so it was only natural to try these lights with him. So here is the setup.

First of all the shot was taken outdoors late in the afternoon and not in a studio. The late afternoon light was still realitively bright, but I wanted him framed against a black background. To make this work, I had to kill the ambient light with my exposure. On manual mode I set the shutter to 1/125, the ISO to 100, and the aperture to f/5.6, just to see what would happen. As it turned out, the ambient light all but disolved and the background became virtually black.

Next, I set the two strip lights slightly behind and to either side of Christopher. This effectively provided a rim light that created a nice outlining exposure along his arms and sides. It also provided a cross light that helped to define his muscle groups.

The thrid light came from a 32 inch octobox placed on a C-stand and elevated to where it was slightly in front and slightly to one side. The octobox provided a nice downward flow of light that created the muscle defining shadows so important for capturing the athletic body.

After the initial setup, it was just a matter of getting the power settings on the lights adjusted to provide the proper exposure values. Many photographers will use light meters and worry about lighting ratios between the key light and the accent lights. That is all fine and good, but I simply use the instinctive method of trial and error...when it looks right it is right regardless of what the ratios are.

You do not always have to use strip lighting to capture the athletic body. Sometimes a simple bare speedlight or two will do the job. In this next image, that is exactly what I did.

I used two speedlights, one set behind and to the left of the young lady athlete and one set in front and to one side. This shot was made during a special photography outing with several other photographers and models. On this particular shot there was a black backdrop, provided by another photographer, setup behind our model. All I did was move the lights around and snap the shutter allowing the motion freezing aspect of the speedlights to do their job.

The athletic body is certainly an interesting and exciting subject to photograph. Using speedlights, strip lights, or whatever suits your situation can transform you images into works of art. Also photographing the athletic body is a great way to learn about lighting angles. Like an artist who draws the human body to learn about its form, shape, how light flows across it, and positioning, photographing the athletic body helps the photographer better understand how to apply light to almost any given portrait situation. It also serves as a great learning tool or proving tool as to how to apply off camera lighting to your portraits.

The Power of Light - Turning 4 Speedlights Into 8 or 10 or 12...

I am continually amazed at the versatility of what is possibly the most mis-understood component of photography; The Speedlight. The more I use them, the more amazed I become. Compared to studio lights, speedlights are relatively low in power, however they possess a huge advantage over their more powerful siblings. That would be portability, and although not as powerful, they provide enough lighting capability to handle most jobs. About the only real limiting factor they have is their cost. A name brand speedlight can often cost four, five, or six hundred dollars for one unit depending on the model. If you are like me, well, I can't afford those kinds of prices.

 In recent years some very good lower cost units have shown up on the market. Godox, Neewer, Youngno, just to name a few offer very good speedlights at reasonable prices and they work quite well. I was able to purchase four Godox flash units complete with remote transmitters and receivers for about the price of one high end name brand speedlight. Even so, four lights stretch my budget out about as far as I can take it.

Even with four flashes, I've run across situations where five, or six, or even eight flashes would have been desirable. I usually end up having to make due with what I have and the results sometimes fall a bit short. That got me to thinking about how I might be able to more effectively use the four units. After some thought and watching a few videos, it finally dawned on me that under certain situations, I could easily turn those four units into eight. It's all a matter of combining several images into one to obtain the desired results. Let's take a look at how this works.

Under normal shooting situations you would probably not have the time nor the need to follow this process and this is not HDR (Hi Def Res). To use this process you must be trying to accomplish a single task, or put another way, to come up with a single photograph and not try to capture a lot of different images. The idea then is to think out ahead of time what kind of image you are wanting capture, and then plan your shoot in such a way as to have a good idea of what you want the finished photo to look like. It takes a bit of planning and pre-knowledge of how speedlights work and some PhotoShop skills come into play as well, but they are relatively straight forward.

Let's look at how this photo was accomplished. It is a photo taken of a pilot and his airplanes at sundown. The nature of the natural light dictated that several speedlights would be required to get the desired results. What I wanted to do was to have his two airplanes sitting in the hanger with a Kentucky sunset in the background. I also wanted the pilot to be up front and center...it's really a portrait of the pilot, with the airplanes in a supporting role. The background and general setting  was used to simply establish a point of reference and add interest.

There were several planes of light used in this shot, each with a different required exposure value. The first plane of light was the background sunset with the pilot in the foreground. The second plane was just the background and a third plane was the hanger with the airplanes inside. I did add a 4th plane, but it was a simple lighting of the fuel container standing next to the hanger.

So the basic process was this; I took several photo's of the sunset and pilot using two strip lights so as to provide light along the full length of the model. The exposure was set for the background, and the striplights were added to fill in the light on the pilot. This image then became the base line image, the one upon which the others would be built. Once I had the sunset composition established, the camera was then locked down and was not to be move again during the shoot. Focus and exposure values were set to manual and would not be changed during the rest of the shooting.

With the hanger composed against the background, the inside of the hanger became very dark. As a result the hanger and airplanes inside were not visible. What was required was to provide some illumination to the inside of the hanger, and to the airplanes themselves. To setup the second plane of light, I set three speedlights low inside the back of the hanger. On two of the lights were orange and yellow gels which were added to provide a bit of color to the back of the hanger and to also tie it in with the sunset. One light was left bare, mostly to provide some simple fill light. I took several shots with this configuration. Of course by this time the sky had become darker, but that was okay...you'll see why later.

As an added note I ran into trouble while performing this setup and exposure. The lights were a good distance away from the transmitter sitting on my camera which resulted in a weak signal on the receiver end causing the lights to not fire like they should have. Sometimes one woudl fire, but the other two would not. What I ended up doing was setting two of the lights to Slave Mode, and allowed the one light that was firing to trigger the other two with its flash. I also had to move them closer to the front of the hanger...those few yards seemed to help. This effectively solved my firing problem, however we lost a lot of time and experimenting opportunities because of the delay.

Once I had a satisfactory image of inside the hanger and airplanes, I captured a simple shot using one flash pointing at the fuel tank alongside the hanger.

Once I had all of these photo's taken, the next step was to blend them all into a single photo. This was done using PhotoShop Elements. First of all I had to create a base image by combining the two sunset images into one. This allowed me to erase the strip lights out of the image and to expose the background image behind them thus giving me a single image of the sky and the pilot without the lights showing.

I then opened the hanger picture and tweaked it slightly to bring out the details I wanted. This sky background photo was them copied and pasted onto this hanger photo. Using the eraser tool, I began to remove the the darkened out hanger exposing the lighted airplanes that resided on the layer underneath. Once I had accomplished this, I flattened the image to merge it into a new single image.

Then I opened the last plane of light and tweaked it much the same way as the previous one bringing the fuel tank into view. Finally after some overall tweaking I flattened the entire image and saved it.

Overall I was pleased with the results...I feel I can do a better job as this particular image still needs some work, and maybe someday if our pilot wants to give it a try, we'll do another session. The delay caused by the malfunctioning trigger cost me too much in being able to really do all the more subtle photographic techniques I wanted to try...in reality I became frustrated and failed to focus on the things I should have. Regardless, we had a good time, I learned something new, and ended up with a pretty good photo.

The Longest Day

Every once and a while I will share a story or two about my time in U.S. Coast Guard usually after a moment of reflection about how something that happens today reminds me of an event from all those years ago. So it has been recently.

The last few days have been rather exciting and at the same time extremely tiring. The big eclipse of 2017 passed thru this part of Kentucky and as a result thousands of people from all parts converged on this area to capture a glimpse of the great solar eclipse. Many of them arrived a day or two early and as a result they were looking for something to do...so...a great many of them visited the National Corvette Museum where I work part time taking fun pictures for those who attend. It was so busy the past few days that I found myself absolutely exhausted, so much so today after work I crawled into bed and crashed for a couple of hours after I got home. Oddly enough the exhaustion I experienced reminded me of another event that happened over 40 years ago when I experience one of the most exhausting stretches of my life. I call it The Longest Day.

Back in the summer of 1974 I was stationed at the U.S. Coast Guard station Umpqua River on the Oregon coast. We performed many duties but our primary roll was search and rescue. As part of that roll some of us had the opportunity (pun intended) to stand what we called the Tower Watch. Actually it was a vital function as the Tower Watch were the eyes and ears of the station where those in the lookout tower, a small building positioned along the edge of the ridge that overlooked the Umpqua River Bar, were responsible for 24/7 every day of the year to monitor boating traffic in and out of the Umpqua River crossing. This also included maintaining a Communications watch where we monitored emergency radio frequencies. This watch was rotated every 4 hours and during each week you could stand the morning, mid, or evening watches.  We also had our daily work assignments along with the watches.

During one summer week I was assigned the first 4 to 8 watch which meant I had to get up very early, usually after not much sleep, and then turn to work on our daily work schedule right after getting off watch at 8 that morning, and then return again at 4pm for the evening watch. I was also what was known as the duty Seaman which meant if any kind of rescue situation was required when I was off watch I had to head out as one of the boat crew.

The Longest Day began with my ordinary morning and evening watch. The day before had been a long day and night so I was already tired having been up for most of the previous two days with virtually no sleep, an hour here and there. Around 10pm I was about ready to turn in for the night when we received a call from one of the commercial fishing trawlers that they had stumbled onto a cabin cruiser drifting about 15 miles off shore. Somehow or another they had a power failure and were unable to start their engine or radio for help. As luck would have it, myself and two other crew members headed out to bring them in. Seemed like a routine Search And Rescue, but it turned out to be anything but that.

The night air and the ocean were rather calm, so much so they both seemed surreal as we cut through the waters. On the surface was a thick layer of fog that obscured our visibility, but overhead we could see stars. As we powered our way toward the rendezvous with the cruiser, the propellers from our motor lifeboat stirred up that phosphorescent algae that began to glow pale green from the agitation. I was fascinated by this observation as you could follow the trail behind us far enough until it disappeared into the fog.

Several times along the way we had to take a radio direction signal to alter our course and as I also operated the radar unit I would from time to time take a quick look, adjusting the signal strength to reach out far enough where we would eventually see them. It took us a little while to reach them, but eventually we did and we took the cabin cruise in tow...thanking the crew of the trawler for their assistance.

At that point it appeared we were on our way back to finish up a routine run. When towing another vessel, you must slow down because each hull type has a maximum towing speed. If you go too fast you could cause the vessel in tow to broach and potentially capsize. You also want to let out enough tow line so the two boats are in sync with each other, with both of you rising or falling across a swell at the same time. So we backed off the throttle, let out about 150 feet of tow line and puttered our way toward home. It was going to take about twice as long to get home as it took to get out there. I tried to catch some sleep but it proved to be impossible under the circumstances.

The return trip became one of sitting back and monitoring systems and because I also handled all the lines, I would from time to time check on the towing houser just to make sure all was well. The fog was so thick our vessel in tow at times disappeared into the void of the fog. When were about half way home, our boat coxswain, Myron Dale, asked me to check the radar and get a visual fix on where the Umpqua River entrance Bar was located in relationship to where we were.

I switched the radar back on, peered into the hood and adjusted the power setting. For a brief moment I could see the beach area and the jetties about 7 or 8 miles away...then, the radar went black. I tried to readjust the settings, but nothing on the screen. I turned it off and back on...still nothing.

"uh...Myron...We gotta problem here," I said in a rather confused voice.

"What do you mean a problem?"

"I mean the radar is dead. There is nothing on the screen."

Myron and I exchanged places for a few moments. I operated the boat while he fiddled with the radar.

"Crap...it's dead." He grumbled.

"Yeah...that's what I said." I smarted off.

Myron jumped back on the coxswains chair and tried to use the radio direction finder to lock onto the radio beacon coming from the Umpqua River Lighthouse. It was dead.

"What the h--- is going on?" he again grumbled.

About this time our engineer, Dan Mckean, got into the act and went below to check on circuit breakers and fuses and things like that. They were all in good order.

Myron then tried to call the Umpqua River Lookout tower on the radio. Nothing...not even static. It was dead. It appeared almost everything electrical was dead and we were running blind on a foggy night with a vessel in tow. The only thing working was the depth finder. At the time we could not figure out why it worked but nothing else would. It turned out to be our ticket home. (Later we discovered that one of the two motor generators had burned out. The burned out generator supplied power to everything electrical except the depth finder.)

The problem we faced was in order to cross the Umpqua River Bar, you had a rather narrow section thru which to cross. Too far to the south and you would end up running into the jagged rocks of the jetty. Too far to the north and you might run aground in shallow water, not to mention the possibility of a breaker line forming across the bar. The radar would help us see that as intermitent lines running between the jetties. Difficult enough even for our surfboat which was designed for such things, but having another boat in tow complicated the situation.

Myron was pretty cool and experienced. With the depth finder working he simply said, "Okay, we'll run straight in until we reach the fathom line where we know the end of the south jetty ends. From there we will run north until we see the end of the jetty, then loop around and cut across the bar."

Sounded simple enough, but the fog had reduced visibilty to about 50 feet by this time.

Myron shouted at me to take in some of the tow line so we could better see our tow, which I did. As we approached the correct fathom line, he backed off the throttle to where we were barely moving forward. Dan climbed out onto the bow of our boat and I stood down in the well near the rear compartment. We listened for waves rolling up on the jetty and strained to catch a visual confirmation. In the distance we could hear the waves rolling onto the rocks, but could not see it. Myron, crawled us forward and all three of us strained into the foggy night. Then, about 50 feet away, the end of the jetty came into view.

Myron back down on the throttle, and shouted "Watch that tow line!"

I jumped over to the towing head and quickly took up the slack to avoid the line from going too slack. A slack line could have fouled our props and we would have been in real trouble if that happened.

Myron spun the large wheel and touched the throttles forward just a bit and we arched our way around the end of the jetty eventually turning into the channel. After a quarter mile or so, the fog lifted and we could for the first time in some time breath a bit easier.

It took another hour or so to bring our tow all the way in to the harbor, get her secured, fill out the SAR reports and get all the information we needed to call it a night. By this time it was approaching 3 am While we were performing this, the skipper of the cruiser asked me why we had come so close to the jetty on our way in. I smiled and said,

 "Oh we lost all of out electrical power and were running blind in that fog. We had to cut it little close."

I looked the skipper in the eye and in the faint light of the harbor I could the see the color drain from his face as he began to realize just how serious of a situation we had been in.

My night was not over though. By this time I had been up for over 60 hours and just undergone a stressful ordeal that ran late into the night, but once we got back to the station, I had to prepare to go on watch again for the 4am to 8am morning watch. I was dead tired, but managed to stagger through that watch. By 8 am when I returned to the station I was so tired it was all I could do to grab a bite to eat.

Friday's most of the time we were granted early liberty after lunch, but on this day we were not. Too much going on, so I ended up having to work for most of the afternoon...still with no sleep. I lost track of how many hours I had been functioning, but when we were finally released, I simply fell into my bunk, clothes and all, and fell off to sleep. Luckily I had the weekend off and I estimate that I slept for about 18 to 20 hours before getting up the next day...the day after the Longest Day.