Icy Day

February 1st, 2008. Today it was icy. Funny how often days can be defined by weather conditions. It was fun stopping and taking pictures of things that had new meaning because of the ice. Guess I'd never really paid attention before.
Proceeding with caution is generally a good idea but was a particularly good idea on this day. I grew up in California and never experienced an ice storm in my childhood. The first ice storm I remember is in Harburg, Germany, on Buxtehuder Strasse, in the early months of my mission. I still remember the sparkling trees and the size of the power lines. Of course, we took public transportation and rented an apartment so other realities beside the beauty of it all never crossed my mind. There is a lot of beauty associated with an ice storm and that's probably the important thing to remember.
The next ice storm I remember was in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It must have been the fall of 1978. As far as weird weather goes, Tulsa is right up there with Berlin and the Susquehanna Valley. I remember working the 3p-11p shift at the hospital that day. I went to work in shirt sleeves. the temperature must have been in the mid-60's or better. Thankfully, I wore a long-sleeved lab coat at work because when I came out to the car after my shift, it was entombed in ice - literally! The ice must have been 1/4 inch thick. I could not get my key in the lock to unlock the doors. I had no ice scraper. I believe a co-worker had a lighter and unthawed my lock. After unlocking the door, the door would still not open because it was sealed shut with ice. I bumped my hip into the door, hoping to jar the ice loose so it would open. Instead of jarring the door open, it CRACKED the door! Jeanne and I had thought for years that when the Honda was repaired in Idaho after her wreck with Bill in 1976 that the doors were new, or at least reskinned. Apparently not! The bondo cracked right through with my hip-nudge in the ice-covered conditions. It was a bit frustrating. It took an hour and 1/2 to get the car ready to drive, which was probably about the silliest idea of all - to drive the car on ice covered roads. I'd never experienced anything like it. It certainly wasn't like snow. Steering and stopping were quite difficult which makes driving an unpleasant experience. Nevertheless - I LIVED - just another miracle in my life. I thought the above picture was pretty funny, to have a sign with icicles hanging from it warning that the approaching bridge "may" be icy.
This is the street where I work. It wasn't looking particularly "cordial" today.
There is a very real beauty about ice-covered things. Again - it's good and bad. Beautiful to look at - dangerous in excess. Fortunately the branches of this shrub are strong enough to support the ice coat, thus the beautiful effect. If the ice were a little thicker, the branches start to break and that's not a beautiful thing at all. I must say that ice is certainly good for the windshield replacement business (just in case you're looking for the good things about ice).

Temple Day

Bishop Kenley challenged us to do 11 things as individuals, couples and families. One of those was to visit the temple monthly. Well, Jeanne and I believe in accepting challenges from bishops and take them seriously. There was that challenge from Bishop Beal all those years ago. He had a meeting one night with all the parents in the Woodinville 3rd ward (or maybe it was 2nd ward or 4th ward but definately not 1st ward) and the only thing I remember about the meeting was his contention that nothing good could happen at sleep overs and challenged us not to allow our children 12 and older to go to sleep overs. Well, Jeanne and I went home and called the children together, explained the challenge and asked who could support the bishop. They all raised their hands and a new rule was adopted in the family. Of course, Mary and Emily were not there to vote so they contended at various points that it was a dumb rule and they never agreed to it, but we stuck by it, at least until after we'd been in PA for a while. By the way, had anyone ever noticed this fantastic door on the side of the Washington, D.C. temple. It was new to me even though it's always been there. It's amazing the things you see when you're looking for good pictures.
So, it was the 31st of January and Jeanne and I had not gone to the temple in January - the first month of the year, the first month of the commitments to the bishop. Seemed like it would be a pretty good idea to go to the temple. It was a beautiful day, sunny and about 40 degrees (5 degrees warmer than PA). I had recently purchased an 18-35 mm lens and needed to try it out after the session.
President Hinckley had died on the previous Sunday. The temple was flying the flag half-mast in his honor and memory. It was a neat picture except the wind was dead still so it's hard to see the flag. We'll miss President Hinckley. He was President for 13 years - almost the entire time we've been in PA. The only President Emily has ever known and the only President (outside of a very short stint for President Hunter) that any of the kids have ever really known. President Hinckley was pretty much running the church in the latter years of President Kimball's tenure and then was 1st Counselor to President Benson and acted in President Benson's stead for the last years of his life due to illness. So, as Br. Shaffer put it today in Sacrament Meeting, "He's been the face of the church as long as (he) can remember."
Holiness to the Lord. "More holiness give me" is my constant plea. Thank God for temples where we can go to learn about and experience greater holiness.

A Windy Day

January 30th was very windy in central Pennsylvania. It was so much the theme of the day it's all I wanted to get a picture of. I had all kinds of great ideas how to do it and none of them really worked. These two give you a little feeling for what it was like, but don't really convey the strength of the wind.
In order to produce the effect, I mounted my D200 on a tripod and took multiple pictures. (If I'd have known this was the method to be used in the final product I'd have taken more pictures.) Then I opened them in Photoshop and took everything but the flag out of each picture except the background layer using Magic Extractor. Then I merged the pictures to give the effect of the flags blowing in the wind. I wish it were better, but for a first attempt at serious creativity, maybe it's not too bad.
This picture made me think of dad. He used to love to hunt. He and Craig loved to hunt together. I remember coming home from college at Christmas the semester after returning from my mission. Dad was always a great planner so he had planned a hunting trip for the three of us (Craig, Dad, myself). Two nights before we left he took me into the garage, picked up a shotgun and said, "Rodg, this is a shotgun." It was akin to "the birds and bees" at age 11. His assumption (nearly correct) was that I was starting at ground zero. Turns out I'd shot birds in Idaho on Lisa's ranch and in Utah with Jay and Jeff my freshman year at BYU. Anyway, he took me all the way through the shotgun lecture. The next day he and Craig and I went somewhere to shoot skeet. I wasn't very good and was amazed at how often Craig and Dad could hit those blasted clay pigeons. Then, the next morning Dad woke me up at some ungodly hour (it was dark and it was cold), stuffed me in the pickup and drove over to Craig's house. After Craig got in I fell asleep (so much for male bonding) and my impression is we drove for a long time. When we wound up wherever we did, it was still dark, and cold and foggy. We put on hip waders and walked out into the fog in hip deep water. At some point we came to a cement "tube" vertically placed in the water and dad said, "get in." "Don't shoot anything until it gets light." Then off he and Craig went into the fog with their dogs. Sitting in the dark in a cold, cement tube, alone in the fog wasn't my idea of fun nor my idea of male bonding. Is this really what hunting was all about? Did I forget to mention Craig and Dad both had dogs? Pretty soon it got lighter, you could see the outline of the sun through the fog low to the horizon (at least I knew which direction was what), and right over my head flies a duck. I don't think I even got the gun to my shoulder - it was straight over my head. I shot "up" and a bird came down. A short time later one flies straight across my position (a little more challenging shot) and it goes down as well. Then a big, white bird flies over and down it goes. From somewhere in the fog my dad's voice rings out, "Rodger, what are you doing?!" "Shooting birds." "What does it look like?" "It's big and white." With a bit of panic in his voice my father cries, "how long is its neck?" Later I found out her was afraid my snow goose was a swan and he'd be banned from hunting for life. By lunch time I had 4 birds and Craig and Dad hadn't pulled their respective triggers. They suggested we may as well go home. I was uncomfortable hunting. Heck, I catch flies in the house and let them go outside. Thankfully, they never asked me to go again. Beginner's luck? No, a blessing from God. He knew they'd never ask me again if I got all those birds and I was too whimpy to say I didn't want to go.

Cats (is) Coming

The grammar sounds wrong but is actually correct. Cats is the name of a show and Emily is in it. Elizabethtown Area High School has decided to produce Cats as its musical this year. Mr. Biddle has asked me to sell pictures again in the lobby to make money for the drama department so I'm practicing to be more ready than last year. It's a little tough right now because everyone is wearing black "cat" suits. Trying to get black in low light without noise has been a challenge, but it should be better when everyone is wearing their real costumes which will be much more colorful.
Emily is a kitten but has distinguished herself with her dancing. She has moved to the front line in several of the dances. I think only 3 freshman made it into the show. So, even though Emily was disappointed she didn't get the part she wanted it's still quite an accomplishment to be in the show at all. Leading up to auditions she kept telling me, "I'm so using the secret to get this part." Over and over again she told me she was using the secret. The day she found out she didn't get the part she was down and said essentially, "the secret doesn't work." I asked, "How long until opening night?" "Two and a half months." "And you don't think someone could break a leg or get seriously ill in that time?" "Dad! That's terrible!" "You are the one who decided to use the secret. I'm just saying that it does work if you really want it to." Within a couple of days she came home and said the girl who got her part had sprained her ankle bad in rehersal. I kind of winked at her. "I don't want to get the part like that." So, she's happy now and doing well.
I think there are only 16 kids in the show and probably 14 of them are girls. Must be a sparse year for guys. Emily tells me next year Mr. Biddle wants to do "Guys and Dolls." He'll certainly need more than four guys for that one.

and again ...

May I bore you with ice one more time? Please? You see the reason it's important is so you'll know just what lengths I'll go to get a picture. Which is sort of a defining thing for someone who wants to get good at something. What risks must be taken in order to get good?
Well, of course, there are hundreds of kinds of risks that can be taken but I believe anyone who ever got really good at anything had to be a risk taker. So, maybe, just maybe, I have a chance at getting good at photography based on the events of the 28th of January. You see, the sun was out, the ice was still on the river (but not for much longer) and even though I'd taken some pretty good shots of the ice, there had to be one or two more that I had missed. And there was no doubt that the ones so far missed were the best!
So to access the river I climbed down a small embankment. The temperatures had risen some and my shoes were getting a little muddy. I figured to be a serious photographer you couldn't worry about muddy shoes. (Remember my discussion on rubber boots? Obviously not in the car yet.) Well, in order to come up around a tree trunk right on the edge of the river I needed to step up a small embankment. Did I mention that I had my D50 and my D200 around my neck? The reason being I wanted a wide lens with me so the D50 had the 18-35 and the D200 had the 28 - 105. As I stepped up the bank, my foot slipped. I noted that I needed to be very careful because the melting had left some slippery conditions and searched for another spot to get up the bank. Upon finding a secure spot, I stepped up and began to come straight down on my face. Except, it didn't matter about the face, what mattered were the cameras. Too bad it's not on video, because somehow I got a hold of both cameras, turned slightly and took full impact on my elbow. "Ouch", you say, "I'll bet that hurt your elbow!" Wrong. The impact traveled straight through my elbow, up my humorous and directly into my shoulder socket. Now you can say "ouch!" But, I SAVED THE CAMERAS! Later, when Jeanne asked about it and I told her the whole story (probably looking for a little sympathy) she said, "it's a good thing you saved the camera. That cost me an entire paycheck!" I'm very glad she bought me the camera and more glad it was saved. Is descending down a 3 foot slippery embankment to get a good shot enough risk to think one day I might be a good photographer? (Be kind.)

Back To The Ice

Kelly and Erica and I traveled to the river after Sunday dinner to see what the ice looked like. I'm glad we did. Everything had a kind of golden glow. The sun was low, so all the corners that were poking up became translucent and modified the golden tones to pink.
This is Erica's spot, so named because as we were driving on 441 to the next spot by the river, Erica said, "did you see that?" As I turned the car around she lost confidence and indicated we could just go on, it probably wasn't that big a deal. What she had seen was the sun shining through a stone, arched culvert with reflection in the water. I'm glad she saw it and we returned. Just another example of being in the right place at the right time and having the eyes to see (which just happened to be Erica's). Another good reason to take others along when taking pictures. The more eyes the better!

You've pretty much seen this all before but I can't get enough of it. Enjoy! If you look really close at the picture below you'll notice that the ice block on the left has a little Valentine's Day message on it. A little early, but impressive still.

Sunday People

I didn't want anyone to think my interest in photographing people had waned. The object for the last month has been to take at least one picture a day. Most days the opportunity simply doesn't arise to shoot people. Several times in the last month, after taking the 50th picture of a barn or the 100th picture of a sunset I've yearned to photograph people and even thought to call a modeling agency just to have access to human beings. So this day, Sunday, the 27th of January, 2008, I took my camera with me on my visit to Tom Edmonds. Tom is 88 years old. He joined the church about 3 years ago while living in masonic homes. I'm not quite sure how the sisters ever found him, but he is delightful. He grew up in opulence outside of Pittsburgh, down the street from the Mellon family with servants and the whole bit. He has traveled the world and loves to tell stories about it and is still capable of deep thought. I visit him every Sunday morning before church. He's on my hometeaching list. His comment to my camera and picture taking, "Rodger, stop taking pictures of me. I thought you were my friend!"
Sunday mornings are inspiring so I had a little creative inspiration. The object was to portray Tom a little ethereally. He's in his last days and sometimes seems to be venturing into other worlds or planes so the above picture is the result of that attempt. It was simply a hand-held, no flash, long exposure picture of Tom in his chair. It turned out kind of fun.
Since Jeanne had a ward conference to attend and wouldn't be home until 6pm or so, we all gathered at the Ditto home after church for dinner. Annie always acts like she actually enjoys having extra people for dinner, which is very cool. When Jeanne is working late at the hospital Annie always calls and asks, "What are your dinner plans?" Even after so many inquiries that always end with, "Why don't you guys come eat with us," I still fully expect her to instead say, "Why don't you take us all out to dinner." But she never has. She really seems to enjoy having us all in her home for dinner, which is another huge blessing of having the Dittos live down the street from us. The above picture of Laynie, Emmy, and Addy is just your basic pre-dinner photo op. You do have to carry the camera with you everywhere to take advantage of such moments.
Erica DeKort has been hanging out with us lately. She is here on an internship program as part of her Ultrasound Tech training program and will finish in June. Her husband was here with her but they made the tough decision that he should return to BYU in January and they'd be apart for a while. Ouch! You may as well have lived in Brigham's days and given him up for a mission! Anyway, she is cute and fun and willing to take chances. So, when Kelly and I were about to leave for our (becoming traditional) Sunday photo shoot, I asked if she wished to come along. It was really cold and when she said she would like to come I asked if she needed a coat. She assured me she was ok. What do I know, women can certainly experience temperatures different than ambient so we piled in the car and headed for the river. When we stopped and started to get out of the car she wondered out loud what we where doing. "Taking pictures," I said. "I thought you said we were delivering cookies," was her response, which directly preceded, "It's really cold." Nevertheless, she got out and took pictures with us like a trooper and we all had a great time.
One of the funnest things about photography is inviting people along. Kelly loves to take pictures. Emily loves to take pictures. So, if I want company, it's generally pretty easy to get.
It's great to have Kelly down the street and at the business. He's a good man who's fun to be around and full of good ideas with the energy and wherewithal to make his ideas happen. We're all blessed to have him as part of the family.