VI

July 8th, 2003 by

My favorite number. It probably comes from my college days when I was shooting using the Zone System constantly and zone vi was my favorite value. It’s a magic number to me. It has all sorts of fabulous meanings, memories and connotations. Like six; the year my great uncle gave me 6 silver dollars on my birthday. He turned out to be a racist pig and taught me a lot about human nature. Or six, the amount of time between now and when I was climbing seriously, in years. Right now I can’t underestimate the power of this kind of magic. Silly but honest. How many times have I been surprised by the unexpected? How many times has it been for the better that I left my options open and my preconceptions limited? There’s a lot to say for people who don’t have all the answers. People who spend half their day wondering about the world. People who believe in a little bit of magic. Why would you want to be with someone who has nothing left to discover.

Tonight, I discovered a road that parallels a track in the Union Pacific rail yard this evening. Along this railroad is a pile of fir bark that’s probably 40 feet high. Across from this mass of bark is some kind of petroleum storage unit. Massive round storage tanks with staircases spiraling around their white bellies. I haven’t seen something like this in Eugene before. At the expense of about 2,000,000 splinters I climbed the bark pile and took photos of the evening light casting shadows through the staircases onto the tanks. VI is the value of the mid tone highlights.

I like that. I like that Eugene still has secrets for me to discover. I mean it’s not like this find tonight is a place that I’ll take Nichole to to romance her or anything. But I think it’s all just part of me being alive and full of passion. And that’s one of the most attactive things of all. This simple little place makes me happy and it gave me an excuse to do what I love. Regardless of whether I’ll get a great photo out of it. Regardless of whether I’ll go back again. Anyway. I’m off to bed. Sleep well.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 8th, 2003 at 12:10 am and is filed under WebLog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Leave a Reply