A couple of weeks ago, the sun came streaming through rare, early-morning fog to produce the most ethereal view in our neighbor’s backyard.
photography
Chores
Porch
Drips
Off the Trail
Wandering about a now-known trail with a new camera, I found myself taking more shots of less obvious things.
Roots
Ice Age
Waterfall
At Table Rock State Park yesterday, I had to take the obligatory slow-shutter-speed shot of the waterfall…
1.3 seconds, f/29.0
Sunset After the Storm
Backyard Photo Walk
“Can I take a picture?” It’s a common refrain whenever I bring home the small point-and-shoot I use in the classroom.
The Girl especially likes going for photo walks in our back yard.
I tag along with a camera too big for her even to hold, taking pictures of her taking pictures.
Back in the house, we transfer the pictures to the computer. I straighten a few of hers, delete several blurred ones, and correlate them with my own photos.
“You’re silly, Tata,” I hear behind me, “Taking pictures of me taking pictures.”
Top Floor
K’s parents have a large house. They have to: they run a little noclegi business — something like a bed and breakfast, but more often than not, without the latter.
This is the view from their highest balcony.
All the quirks of Poland, on display. The relatively rich live beside the poor. They both live next to an enormous flea market, where everything is available, and all prices are negotiable. All framed by the mountains that give the region its beauty and its culture.
Two Crops
Summer Approaches
Country Night Sky
It’s impossible to stay in rural South Carolina and not take a few night shots.
“Those planes flying over are Delta flights,” my uncle explains. “I’ve flown over my own place countless times. It takes me fifteen minutes to get to the airport from here and two hours to get back.”
He is known for his hyperbole.
Reunion
Looking back over my childhood, I remember family reunions occurring with some regularity. All the aunts, uncles, grandparents, great-aunts, great-uncles, great-grand parents, cousins, and significant others would rent some place or another and come together for an afternoon of horse shoes, fried chicken, gossip and sweet tea.
It’s been years since I’ve been to one. Saturday, the streak was broken.
Most, if not all, of the family reunions I attended were for my father’s side. Saturday, it was Nana’s side’s turn. Because I know Papa’s side of the family better, it was an odd feeling, in a room full of strangers who constitute an extended family.
There was food and there was gospel singing:
“One thing about the W family,” said Papa. “They can sure sing.”
By the entrance there was a table of old photographs, including one of my maternal grandfather with his two brothers (essentially in the left-center of the picture below).
I never met him as he passed away long, long before I was born. I honestly don’t even know very well what he looked like, but Nana informed me that there was an uncle who looked very similar.
Everyone hovered around the picture table, though. They were the only record of many like my grandfather: people who would have loved to have seen how a small family grew into a small army company’s worth of people.
Seeing I had a fair amount of camera equipment (and associating equipment with skill, I suppose), a gentleman approached me to take some pictures of old faded images that he’d like to have copies of.
Of all the pictures snapped Saturday afternoon, these are worth more than all of those combined. These are the ones that somehow truly fulfill the role photographs are supposed to play in people’s lives.
A look at a time so far removed from ours that it might as well be a different world. And truly, it was a different world. Without the instant, worldwide communication, the pre-Twitter, pre-YouTube word was more insular.
Safer? I don’t know. After all, the Cuban Missile Crisis showed how a little Twitter can go a long way — or at least a direct line of communication between mutually powerful countries.
Bottom line, there was less — of everything. Somehow, that seems comforting.
Looking at these pictures, I regret I didn’t take the whole bunch out to the parking lot, lie them on the ground, and very carefully photograph them. After all, the pictures become fewer and fewer, as if somehow trying to pay tribute to the frugality of the times they capture.
Emtpy Handed
The first camera I remember owning was one our family bought at Sears just before a trip to California in 1984. I believe it was even a Sears brand; it seemed terribly fancy for a twelve-year-old, though it was just a point and shoot.
The next camera I remember was an SLR manual focus that I borrowed from a friend. I took some pictures of birds, but I don’t think I ever developed those shots.
It wasn’t until I went to Poland in 1996 that I became seriously interested in photography. I took a Canon point and shoot with me, but I quickly discovered its limitations. I headed to the market and bought a Zenit — a Russian made SLR that could drive nails. Literally.
K’s first camera was a Russian view finder that I can’t even recall the name of. She moved to Zenit and Nikon; I replaced my Zenit with a succession of Nikon and Canon manual and auto focus cameras.
Finally, K and I ended up with our current primary: a Nikon D70s, which was fairly cutting edge when we bought it. Since then, we’ve added a couple of lenses to our collection and have a whole bag of glass to carry around.
Friday, we pack our things and head to Charleston for a day of wandering about the city, stopping at cafes for coffee, taking pictures, and simply experiencing one of America’s most historic cities. We arrive and I glance in the back.
“Where’d you put the camera?” I’d been packing our bikes and related materials. I assumed…
“I didn’t get it. I thought you…”
We look at each other for a moment.
What to do?
Simple: enjoy Charleston without a camera. Life without a camera is possible.
In the meantime, Nana and Papa took the Girl to the serpentarium. Nana and Papa remembered their camera…
Tower II
The tower at Furman.
Tree Trunk
Eviction Notice
He flew in with a beak filled with building materials, landing on our back deck banister. L saw him first.
“Tata! Look! A bird!”
We’ll have to begin playing “I spy” soon.
The bird sat for a while on the railing, then flew into one of the juniper trees in our backyard. The ones which I’ll drastically cut back at some point this spring, thus disturbing the bird, possibly spoiling a nest (though I’ll do my best not to).
If only I could have reasoned with him: demolition work ahead. Best build elsewhere.
The Photographer
The Girl began doing it in Poland, as we were standing outside the church, waiting to go in for her baptismal Mass. Everyone was fretting about this and that — Will the Girl be able to sit that long? Will she remain calm when taken to the altar? Will the loud singing upset her? — when L calmly walked over to the tripod and began taking pictures of everyone.
No camera necessary.
None of us realized she had a passion for photography.
We’ve already begun discussing when to get her camera. After all, when she sees me taking a picture, she often runs over and asks to take a picture herself. Granted, the camera is almost as big as she is, and she doesn’t quite get the concept of framing a picture (she just presses the shutter release, and holds it down if I don’t switch it to single-picture mode), but she does understand the concept: she takes the picture, then thrusts the camera away from her so she can look at her work.
“Maybe next year,” I suggest. “When she’s three.”
“Or maybe this summer,” K says. We are planning several weekend trips this year.
Maybe we’ll get the camera this year, and a Flickr account for her next year…