Straight Edge Life

Shot this image about halfway through a hike through the Narrows in Zion. Carried a monster bogen pod for 17 miles and the damn thing didn’t keep this image from going blurry when set in the riverbed. I suppose I couldn’t expect it to but I’m bummed that I’m going to have to repeat this hike to clear the grudge (and get a better composition). Anyway. I think it was shot at 1/2 second or so at about f8.

So here are the specs on my new server. Dual 1.25GHZ PowerMac G4, 1.25GB RAM, Mac OS X Server 10.2.6, Lasso Professional 6, MySQL 4.0.x. Made it live today.

This represents a massive improvement over my previous G3 350MHZ with 768MB RAM. So if you don’t see a speed improvement it’s my connection speed. But the weakest link has been removed.

Ok, ok. So I can’t claim that I went into this movie expecting a lot… but there was just too much ass and too little plot. And that’s all I have to say about that. Well, it did do a good job of mixing in a lot of campy style references to a lot of older movies. Even so it’s not high style enough to really give it too many props. ‘A’ for effort though.

I like writing on a computer; my fingers can keep up with the flow of my ideas, but I like writing in a sketchbook even more. A lot more actually. For as weird as it was to start writing in a paper journal again it’s charm wasn’t lost. There’s something to slowing everything down and feeling the fiber of the paper through the pen.

Take more film. Lesson 1 was remember which film you loaded into which back. Got out to Smith shot 5 rolls of 120 in about 45 minutes on Staedler Ridge and the Marsupials as the light was getting golden red, hiked to the Monkey Face, shot another 4 rolls on a nice sunset over Mt. Jefferson (gonna climb that bastard one of these days), promptly realized that I didn’t bring nearly enough film and drove home. Well, the plan was to shoot my remaining two rolls on star trails from the Old McKenzie Pass observatory, but as it turns out the road was closed because of snow. So I drove all the way home. What the hell. I had plans to shoot climbers, star trails, and the sunrise over the Crooked river. Lesson learned. I need to order 100 rolls from B+H or something. 120 goes fast. Really fast.

I jammed the Mamiya into my old tamrac photo backpack. It was hideously uncomfortable with the old tiltall tripod strapped on the bottom of it, but it worked. I even managed to stuff my water bladder in there, thus doubling the pack as a reservoir. So I guess I can hold off on the new backpack for a while. My stolen light meter is something I’m going to have to replace. My hike up Misery ridge would have been a lot easier if I weren’t carrying a 35mm Nikon and lens to act as a meter for the Mamiya. Blah, blah.

Overall, it was a good trip. Sometimes it’s nice just to get out and shoot pretty things. I have all sorts of ambition to be a cutting documentary photographer, and plan in all honesty to make a go of that. People intrigue me. Human experience amazes me. It does. But I don’t think I’ll ever lose my love for shooting climbers or for being in the high desert. I recharge my soul at Smith. I smell sage and dust in the air and I know I’m home. I feel the power of sun on my back, I navigate in a truly 3 dimensional environment where there’s as much vertical movement as horizontal and it just feels complete. It? Life. My day. Whatever… I step off the ground or I hold the shutter open… It doesn’t matter. That’s life for me. Plain and simple.

I liked this movie. It didn’t blow my doors off but it was worth the ticket price. Harrison Ford and Josh Hartnett make a great team. Ford is really comfortable in his role of paternal cop / failed entrepreneur. Hartnett works well in his role more from effective casting choices than by talent. But the combo is great and the pacing of the movie is just about right. It’s very funny. I found little about this movie that I didn’t like.

I’m heading off to Smith Rock in a couple of minutes. Taking the mamiya and a bunch of film. Found one of my deep red filters for b+w, couldn’t find my sing-ray polarizers for color. Guess I’ll really have to pay attention to the color of the light. Ain’t nothing worse than a gorgeous scene with the wrong color light.

I won’t be able to show any of my photos on the site until I get access to a medium format scanner, but I’ll let you know how it goes.

I followed a speeding fire truck from 24th and Willamette all the way to the Spencer’s Butte parking lot. It was a quick trip and I was glad to have all green lights along Willamette street. Even as I grabbed my poles and pack out of the trunk and walked past the ambulance that was already there I didn’t think too much about why they were there. Maybe some guy had a heart attack or something. I started up the trail. About 1/4 mile in I rounded a corner to see an EMT holding a baby in her arms to her chest. The baby was motionless and quiet. Following behind was another EMT and a man with a baby backpack, empty. He looked like he had just vomitted, ghostly white and sweaty. As I turned around to watch them go by I saw the baby’s face. There wasn’t any visible injury, it’s eyes were open, but there was a lot of blood. Deep dark blood all over his face and discoloring his blond hair (I think it was a boy. I’m not sure). Ironically the baby was lucid, almost smiling. Eyes wide open and alert, watching hikers and the trees go by as they descended the trail. The only thing I can imagine is that the man fell or was tipped over somehow and the baby fell out of the backpack. I wanted to stop and tell him that it was going to be ok. That it wasn’t his fault. Nobody let’s that happens to a baby. It was an accident. It had to be. And the baby was so alert and so calm, he was going to be ok.

I woke up in a crazy jolt this morning to the sound of the garbage man taking the neighbors recycling away. Aaaargh! Forgot to haul out the trash and recycling last night. So I throw on a pair of pants and run down to haul it out. It’s a gorgeous day. Gonna be in the 80’s or higher I’m sure of it. I guess it’s time for a hike. On a day like this how can’t I hike? Well I guess I could float the river. That would work too.

Confidence. It’s a caper. I learned that from my dad. I never knew what a caper was until now. Full of mirth and humor. Dustin Hoffman plays a super creepy con man in a layered con game (aren’t all cons?) with a group of other grifters. I only say his name first because it’s the only one I remember besides Rachel Weisz (yowza!). This movie did most of what I was hoping The Italian Job would do but not as much as my favorite caper Oceans Eleven. Definitely likable.