Do you ever just look hard at the world? Even without a camera in your hand? I saw something wonderful early yesterday morning.
I first learned to "look hard" when I drew from life as a kid. I was good at drawing when I was young, and "artist" was my main identity among my peers for the first 18 years of my life. In the way that kids latch on to simple identities for other kids. I was not so good at painting because my color sense is only so-so at best...you learn whether you have a color sense when you try to paint; it's an acid test for that.
But I was not a true natural as an artist. It's frustrating to be uncommonly good at something yet not quite good enough. I remember reading an article about the guys who make it to Triple-A ball through hard work and singleminded devotion but just don't quite have the gifts to make the majors. Like that.
Trying to draw from life is a good way to hone your observational skills, though, that's for sure. Regardless of how well the drawing turns out!
The fall
I saw something unusual later in the day, too. We had a windstorm—the power went out—and there were big waves and whitecaps on our normally very protected, narrow lake. The neighbors were down on the shared dock trying to keep the tied-up speedboats from smashing against the dock; one guy was trying to lower the flags but the rope had come off the pulley.
I happened to be looking out my window, thinking I might record a short video of the swirling leaves and the thrashing trees for my niece, when I saw a big tree fall. I was looking right at it. It was obvious there was something in the atmosphere passing that spot, because the tops of the trees in the one little area were thrashing around in a frenzy. As I watched, a medium-sized tree—fifty, sixty feet, maybe?—headed for the ground with a sickening crack and a vigorous whump into the ground.
It didn't hit anything except my poor smaller rhododendron that blooms delicate purple flowers in its season. It was pulverized. It's gone. Blitzed.
Speaking of weather, get a load of this completely bizarre weather report:
I've never seen anything like that before. (For those in other parts of the world, 123°F is 50.6°C and 1°F is –17.2°C.)
So here's what I saw this morning. I got up very early, just before dawn. (Not on purpose—in my whole life, I've just never been good at sleeping. I'm better at it now than I ever was, but I still have problems.) Looking out the window, I saw in the half-light of dawn a blustery, overcast day. The windstorm hadn't started yet but an unsettled breeze was lazily tossing the leaves of the trees around. There was still a lot of the dark of night in the sky—the world was shrouded in murkiness. The sky, spitting a little rain, was solid cloudcover, gray with some cobalt blue, beautiful shades of blue, but the overcast was high up so I could see some shape and details in the clouds.
And then, from the sun just rising over the high ground behind me, piercing in from under the overcast, the top of the bluff across the lake was illuminated with a rosy, orangey dawn sunlight.
Mind you, I don't live on the lake, and I didn't get a clear view of this. I saw it through telephone lines and treetops, the line of sunlight on the opposite shore interrupted by a lot of junk in the way. There wasn't any possibility of a picture.
Except in my mind. What if I were at a good vantage point, somewhere where I could see? I could envision the finished photograph in my mind: a darkish, blueish, brooding landscape but with that raggedy line of beautiful dawn sunlight at the crest of the high bluff in an unbroken line, glowing like hope.
As it was, I just stood there and looked at what I could see. The magical light lasted for about ten minutes. Then the sun reached the blanket of cloud-cover and hid.
Sometimes the picture is there, but you aren't.
Still, we get to look.
Mike
[It happened again! Last year a red oak cracked at the crotch between two main branches (they do that sometimes) and half of the upper part of the tree fell to the ground. The other half has been hanging up in the canopy—what loggers call a "widowmaker." They're dangerous because they can come down at any time. So I was out throwing the ball for Butters a few hours ago and there was a loud CRAAACK! from the hillside and the other half of the tree came down with a great clatter and commotion. I knew right away what was happening. It was far enough away from us that I didn't feel endangered, but, just like yesterday, the chances were pretty slim that I'd be standing right there when it came down, such that I could watch it fall and break apart. It's a perfectly still day, too, although I'm sure the wind storm yesterday weakened it and hastened its fall.
I'm glad it's down. Now it can't endanger anyone, not that anyone ever climbs that hill.]
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Featured Comments from:
Greg Bolarsky: "To me, photography is a way to share a private moment. But trying to capture it can ruin the very moment I want to share. The fact is, nature has a way of telling you when to put down your technology and simply immerse yourself in the experience. I find that—sometimes—sacrificing a photo for the experience brings much greater rewards. A lot of the time (maybe most of the time), the image I have in my head would never come out the way I see it. If I try too hard to make the image work, I miss the moment. So, I tell a story with words instead of images."
Rob de Loe: "I see much more now than I ever did. I also look more, and notice more. I study the relationships among things, I notice the colours, tones, shapes—all the things that photographers and visual artists who rely on the 'real' take note of. And yet, I photograph what I see less. I don't carry a camera with me all the time. Even when I happen to have a camera, I regularly spend a lot of time looking and seeing, but not making photos. I'm not describing a problem or pathology. I just don't feel the need to make photographs of things I see as much as I used to. Sometimes it's because I've made that photograph before, or because I've seen many versions of that photograph. Other times it's because I have enough experience to know it won't work as a photograph. Often, it's simply because I know that the photograph I could make from what I'm seeing isn't going to add anything to what's out there already. The benefit of being picky is I'm more committed to the ones I do make. I work harder and care more at the taking stage, and I have a clearer sense for what they need at the developing stage. More seeing, and fewer pictures: that's not necessarily a bad thing."
Geoff Wittig: "Just looking hard feeds the soul; nothing quite like being present for one of those perfect little moments. It can be that divine rose light just before the sun crests the hills to the east. Or the dead-calm an hour before sunrise, when the silence and the sharp aroma of wet earth feels like something you can hug. The challenge of distilling that feeling into a photographic print is precisely what I find so compelling about the craft."
PaulW: "One of the best things I've ever done to improve my powers of observation was to take a drawing class. I remember the instructor telling us that to really see the world, draw it. I haven't looked at things the same since. Even though I don't draw much anymore, I frequently pretend I'm drawing something. It's amazing how much more I notice when I do this."
Dogman: "We had a bit of wind recently here in Louisiana. Roofers, contractors, wrecker drivers and arborists are busy these days around town—and I live in the northern part of the State, far from Hurricane Laura's landfall. We were lucky at my house. One big pecan limb fell on our patio furniture, but did not cause much damage, and a smaller limb made a mess of a gutter but missed the roof by inches. I recall hearing the sound of trees and limbs breaking while sitting in the dark due a power outage. Kinda freaky. Kinda scary. Trees can be deadly. Remember Beaumont Newhall's wife and writing partner Nancy was killed by a falling tree while rafting on the Snake River in Wyoming. Our pecan tree drops limbs frequently but this is the first time it did so with a vengeance."
Mike replies: I never knew that was how Nancy Newhall died. I have several of her books. I seem to recall reading that, on average, 150 people are killed by falling trees every year. A friend back in Wisconsin told a truly awful story of a young couple heading home from their family engagement party during a thunderstorm. Only a block from the house a tree fell on the moving car and killed the young man, while leaving his bride-to-be untouched. Truly tragic.
MikeR (partial comment): "There's a weather phenomenon called a microburst. A small parcel of cool air suddenly departs from whatever has been holding it up, and it plunges to the ground. It can affect a surprisingly small area on the ground, and if a tree happens to be there ... (Experienced here May 2019. Two willow trees perhaps 100' from the house flattened, and nothing else. Glad it wasn't 100' closer.)"
Brandon: "I first became interested in digital photography in order to take better snapshots of my kids/vacations and to understand the optics that my iPhone X was trying to mimic in 'portrait mode.' Although both of those goals have been achieved, the more important thing that happened was that I started seeing things everywhere I looked—clouds, graffiti, birds, sunlight reflecting off the lake, even the flowers that grow in my own backyard—that I'm pretty sure I previously knew were there but had somehow never really seen. Initially, I took lots of pictures of these newly-noticed things, but now I often just look hard, even when I have a camera in my hand."