TECHNICAL DETAILS
Fall Dawn Off Centerville Road, Anoka County, Minnesota, 2015
Leica D-Lux (Typ109) Focal length: 27.2mm ISO 200 1/30 at f/8 Shot in aperture priority mode while bracketing and checking depth of field. Hand held. Developed in Lightroom CC.
PROVIDENTIAL DAWN
On my morning commute today I was reminded of the importance of having a camera with me nearly always. The ability to visualize a scene and find in it the photograph that you want to make is a vital element of producing compelling work. Having the means, inclination, and ability to react to that scene in an instant is another matter entirely. Heading south along Centerville Road, just past where County Road J intersects it from the west, is an agricultural field of maybe 20 or 30 acres, a land-use anomaly there on the edge of suburbia. As I passed a stretch of woods and the view opened up to my right, a stunning sight instantly struck me. A thin seam of wild clouds was on fire on the western skyline, torched by the just-rising sun. The foreground still lay in the cool, pre-sunrise shadow, drawing contrast with the lush green of newly emerged vegetation and the salmon and orange of the first rays striking the distant, low clouds. Thin fog hovered over the wetlands behind the field. I was gobsmacked. I was also in heavy, nearly bumper-to-bumper traffic moving at 50 miles per hour. I had a conference call and a 35-mile commute ahead of me. Shit. The ability to leverage these fleeting moments are what makes interesting photographs. And, I think, it’s what separates the haphazard from the intentional effort to make a memorable image. So, as I slowed and approached the stop sign ahead, a small break in the traffic opened. I hit the brakes for a U-turn. Three hundred yards back north I pulled off the road on a wide shoulder, grabbed the small Leica from my bag, and jumped out. It took at least a minute for a break in traffic to get me across the road, and my anxiety grew by the second. I didn’t get 10 yards into the field before my shoes began to squish. Last night’s rain clung to every blade of grass and soaked my pants. But I sprinted 150 yards through the field to the great hay wheel as I discovered the scene in my mind, and I begin shooting. Exposure compensation adjustments…depth of field…framing…can I hold a shutter speed this slow without a tripod? Exhale, hold the breathing, steady the shoulders, gently squeeze the release again. Just moments later, the light moved on, the drama was quenched. A year or so ago I would not have made this image. There would have been no camera with me. My mind would have been there, but not the means to capture the scene. Perhaps I’d have become an iPhonographer, but even the latest Apple marvel is, for me, a difficult tool. My aging eyes can’t compose on a phone screen without glasses; I much prefer to work through a viewfinder that has dioptric adjustments built in. And in early 2015, I made what in hindsight has been a transformational decision: all my beloved Canon gear was sold. Thanks to my dear brother, since I first started shooting seriously decades ago, I had been on the Canon side of the great gear divide. I had my share of other top-quality cameras on the side, too: Leica, Hasselblad, Contax. But the main gear always had white lenses with little red bands. John and I traded and shared lenses and bodies, talked specs and upgrades, and made the transition from film to digital together. But increasingly, the camera stayed on the shelf. It got to the point where a couple of years ago I went on a family trip to Europe and only took along a small Lumix point-and-shoot. But I had it with me. As the separation between desire and willingness to put up with the logistical effort broadened, I finally committed to letting the pendulum swing the other way. All the Canon gear went, replaced by a couple of smaller, mirrorless cameras without interchangeable lenses. They aren’t the large, signature, marquis bodies, nor are they supported by an arsenal of lenses. But they are versatile, capture great files, and they are with me. It has been liberating and this change has reenergized my shooting. I haven’t enjoyed photography so much in years. I don’t have traditional ‘pro’ equipment and I don’t care (although I spent a couple of thousand bucks on this ‘trade’, much to my darling wife’s consternation!). The images stand as testament to the result by dint of their very existence. I climbed back in the car, soggy-shoed and running late, and dreamed all the way to the office of how I would approach the RAW files and whether I could make the data match the experience. I’m happy with the result. I’m happier still for having tried. Yes, the exposure actually was f/8. And I was there.
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