I remember feeling like a failure so often on my journey because so many of my dreams never materialized… I had to get realistic and admit that life is full of twists and turns and rarely moves in the straight line we may wish it did… We don’t have to bring every single dream to fruition, but instead, we have to be flexible and supple enough to pick ourselves up when we inevitably fail so we can readjust and give ourselves new dreams to pursue… The trick is to keep moving.
Sean Tucker The Meaning in the Making
I set off for the eastern Ochocos to try my hand at photographing the night sky, wild horses, and whatever else presented itself. I had also just received a copy of Sean Tucker’s book: The Meaning in the Making. Since this is the hottest time of the year and the temperatures were expected to be fairly high, I planned to spend at least a portion of the afternoons in a hammock reading.
To maximize my chance to get good star shots, I planned the trip to occur when the moon was new. There should be dark skies for the majority of the night. Then to improve my chances of finding wild horses, I chose an area where I could monitor two active springs from the same location. I would have to setup the camera about 100 yards from camp to get an unobstructed view of the southern sky, but that’s acceptable. I also located another three springs to which I could divert if the primary location was for some reason inaccessible.
The last week of July through the middle of August is typically the hottest time of the year in the Pacific Northwest. It’s common to experience temperatures near 110˚. For this trip, record high temperatures were expected. To avoid the highest temperatures, I selected a campsite at an elevation of about 5600’. I expected that to keep temperatures to a reasonable 105˚, or so.
Oh yes, I almost forgot, the thunderstorms. The weather folk were all atwitter about potential thunderstorms in the area Sunday and Monday. If lightning started a fire, I wanted to maximize my chances of returning home, unBarbecued. So, I plotted out two escape routes with another two diversion paths if the roads on the escape routes were blocked. I was prepared!
Well, the best laid schemes… My plans went agley when I discovered my selected campsite was blocked for logging operations. I went to the next two backup locations and the access road at each one was gated and posted with this sign:
Who can argue with this? It cites the advantages to charismatic megafauna and innocent farmers. It plays to one’s conservation ethic and even has an American flag graphic! So, I sat in the shade, scanned GAIA GPS and planned out a route to an alternative campsite; albeit one with a single entrance/exit route.
Not but an hour away stands Spanish Peak. At an elevation of 6864 feet, this peak appears to be the tallest prominence between Mitchell, Dayville and Paulina. And there is a road to the top of it. Unless the road is gated, or the peak is a Friday night hangout, it would serve quite well for night sky photos. Heck if I could stand to stay there for a week, I might get some awesome lightning photos. Standing on the top, I would be the tallest object in maybe 100 square miles. I would lose my chance to find the wild horses, maybe next time.
The drive proved to be uneventful. The road was intact, and open. Probably due to this antenna complex on the southwest side.
Those are the Maury Mountains almost obscured by haze in the distance. I decided that I would return to the high country there the following day. I knew of a spring that wasn’t frequented by people and unless things had radically changed in the past year, I should be able to find a great campsite there. No wild horses, but maybe elk and deer.
I setup my camera with the new Arsenal photo assistant and tried out some test shots. I captured a few shots of the setting sun. Nothing fantastic, but these two have an appeal.
I noticed that the Arsenal wouldn’t let me access some functions because the noise reduction option on my camera was turned on. However, the camera wouldn’t let me turn it off in the selected state. Unfortunately, the camera wouldn’t point me to how to exit the impeding state—so I tried to work around the limitation.
My photos of the night sky were much less successful. This is one of the few with any detail at all, and the stars are out of focus. Most of the exposures were underexposed and totally out of focus. I need more practice. I spent time reading the manual and learned that there is more to silent photography mode than lack of noise. Hint: it’s not good for night photography. The noise reduction works by averaging multiple exposures, thus increasing the time on target.
I awoke before sunrise to setup the camera to capture the predawn landscape. This is the first shot I took. I like it the best for the pastel rainbow of colors in the mountains and sky. I also like the way the haze softens the distant ridge lines.
In timelapse mode, I ignored the noise reduction error and it worked. I was successful in taking a time lapse of the sunrise, now I have to figure out how to stitch the images together to make a video file. I’m still learning and didn’t want to hold up this post until I figured out the process.
Given there was no shelter from the sun on the peak I decided to relocate to more friendly climes in the Maury Mountains. At this time the Maury’s are not off limits to motor vehicle travel, which enables me to find campsites away from the crowds.
I parked in a clump of pines and Douglas-fir next to the outflow from a spring I had discovered last year. The shade got me out of the sun and the cool water flow moderated the temperature.
The area around the spring is cooler than the surrounding forest and a bit more humid. When I setup I was not aware of the number of flies in this area. I guess that they were also seeking relief from the heat. Oh, and this area is used by the local bovines for heat relief.
I setup a tarp for additional shade. It wasn’t long before a dragonfly settled on one rope.
Here is an enlargement from the above photograph. I got the focus right.
Just after the first dragonfly flew off, another one perched on a nearby branch and asked for its portrait.
Due to harassment by the flies I relocated to the meadow where I had camped last year. I cooked dinner and read from Sean Tucker’s book The Meaning in the Making. This book has come to me at exactly the right time in life. I’ve been a scientist all my life, now I’m trying my hand at becoming an artist, or at least producing art.
I’ll leave it to Sean to describe his book.
And if that isn’t enough here is the first chapter.
Sean encourages Makers to answer three questions:
- Who are you?
- What do you care about?
- What is your story and how has it shaped the way you see the world?
There seem to be so many facets to what makes up any particular individual. To really understand who you are is a more complex issue than is evident at first glance. All afternoon I alternated between reading, stalking picket pins, and thinking about this in my way—I wrote lists. Starting with: I am a male member of the species Homo sapiens, who acts as a highly imperfect husband to my wife.
Sean says:
We want your creative voice to be born of your story and communicate your worldview because, chances are, the things you’ve seen and choose to share will leave the rest of us feeling less alone.
Sean Tucker The Meaning in the Making
I think this is the essence of interpretation—building a connection between observations and emotions. In spite of being a professional interpreter of observations, I have a personal difficulty with the filtering that comes with being an introvert. I just don’t want to put my ideas out there, but that is the essence of art.
Is this a personal desire to avoid the feeling associated with criticism? Probably. I won’t go on quoting the whole book here, but Sean offers ways to deal with criticism. Read this book. It isn’t the be all and end all, but his insights are deep enough to provide hours of introspection. But even more important these insights can be applied to the practice of art.
I’ve not yet achieved craft competence. In order to express anything more than the most basic “truths,” I’ll need to get much better, both at carving and photography. And this only happens with good, directed practice. In photography this means taking the shot.
All through his book Sean encourages us to take the shot. In digital photography each shot costs very little and the reward can be great. This night, clouds covered the sky so I was unable to try out my adjustments to the camera. The calm hot night made it difficult to sleep, so I read by Luci light.
I convinced myself that with the local bovine contingent, there was no chance for ungulates here. After a quick breakfast, I packed up camp again and headed for a morning drive to Arrowhead peak. I’ve seen elk there on more than one occasion. Not this time.
In response to predictions of thunderstorms for the afternoon, I decided to return to the meadow. Here I made lunch, setup my hammock, and enjoyed the cool breeze. The sound of distant thunder roused me to put things under cover. When the rains came, even though they were very light, the heat was broken. Temperatures in the late afternoon and evening were very pleasant.
I was offered one last opportunity for the shot. It’s not as pretty as the sunrise/sunset, but I still find it pleasing. Smoke from a nearby fire softened distant ridge lines while leaving the near ridges sharper.
Oh, and for the first time since I started looking, I found no scorpions at any of the locations I spent the night. So, there are some areas of the Oregon desert without them. Well maybe the heat got to them and they hid until it cooled down.