Love Affair with Photography: Part 2

So what camera to get? There are some that are quite expensive but even as a working man I can afford them, if I really, really want to, most anything within reason. I heard a salesman for Sage fly rods once say, “people cannot always afford the best, the best cars, the best houses are out of reach, but the best fly rod is within reach financially, and if you can afford the very best… why shouldn’t you own it”?

Obviously he was a salesman, and a good one.
He has a point though. The problem is of course there is no one camera that has everything and does everything. It is like buying the perfect do-everything boat or the perfect one car, they don’t exist, there are always compromises and which compromises does a person throw into the basket for buying?

Clearly, each person’s needs vary and oftentimes it is very hard to be honest with yourself about what you actually do. People want huge resolution thinking they will blow up photos for gigantic enlargements when they never actually do it. They think they need a professional machine when they are a part-time hobbyist at most. They discount things like weight and ease of use.

There are a couple things I have learned through years of use though. Number one, it is important to go fast and light. This is generally always a good idea whether packing a suitcase, setting up a business or whatever. The huge camera and the heavy case full of expensive lenses and the tripod and all, seldom gets taken. One reason is the sheer weight and clumsiness, the other is the cost if there is a screw up. I constantly hear Canon owners, and Nikon too, say they “bought into a system” and they have so much money tied up in all their gear, they are locked into that brand for the rest of their lives. This seems bizarre to me.
Coming in at number two, and tied to this, is to have something to use that is not your entire life’s savings. Addicts in Bangkok and Mexico, and drug infested places like downtown Everett, know how much they can get for your precious Canon gear too. So if you are afraid to carry it because it is too heavy, or too precious, it is very close to useless. It is kind of like that white couch your mother had in the “good living room” with the throw cover, that people could only sit on during Christmas Eve.

Some people take the response that if your photo is not in RAW and everything is super professional you will have the photo opportunity of a lifetime and not capture it correctly. I take the tact that if you have to do all that goodness, you will miss most of the photo opportunities that come your way, and if it really rocks, it will get published anyway. I was always told to take your camera wherever you go. Being in the Pacific Northwest weatherproofing also comes to mind.

Thirdly, is that LCD screen in back. After fiddling with a variety of them I think they are a must have for crowds and un-posed people pictures. Most of the top end cameras don’t have them. This lets you take pictures without getting up into people’s faces and being obvious about what is going on. Similar to the effect created with the old Hasselblad viewfinder this feature is a must have in my opinion.

The first digital I bought was a Nikon 950 and it ran $1000, which was pretty high. People at the time said I should have waited for prices to come down. This is one of the main bug-a-boos for digitals, whatever you get will be upgraded in one year or so. This is another reason to shy away from the top of the line full frame digital 35mm right now. The old film cameras moved slowly on innovations, the new digitals move rapidly. The time saved in the darkroom needs to be spent on staying on top of the latest technology.

Love affair with Photography: part 1

Cameras are important to me; photography has been an important part of my life and a lifelong hobby.

I remember my first camera I bought when I was in grade school, it was all plastic, in a plastic bag and cost exactly $1.00. It was a 120 roll film camera and I still have some of the photos I took. Next, was a Kodak Instamatic I received for Christmas, with the flash cubes, and I went on through the Polaroids, 35 mm SLR’s, my own darkroom, and into the present digitals. Right now I have approximately ten cameras (more or less), although I usually only use three or four of them.

Through the years I have in my opinion taken some pretty darn good photos. Some people have suggested I should do it for a living but that hasn’t really lured me yet and the more I learn about the professional aspects of photography the more I wonder if I would like it as a job. I think sometimes things you love doing as a hobby like fly fishing, when turned into the drudgery of daily income generation, somehow filters out the joy. I have worked things like weddings, and taking pictures of people’s children, and there is the pressure of not capturing the “most important moment” of someone’s life.

Digital cameras really rock, they have solved the biggest problem and expense of photography…dealing with film. Film isn’t just very expensive, it is also hard to deal with in comparison, and time consuming, and lastly it uses dangerous and polluting chemicals. I used to “bracket” exposures because if you had an important shot, or something that you really wanted to capture, then it was important to get the exposure down. Oftentimes it was unclear what you would really end up with. Now bracketing is cheap and easy, and mistakes can just be deleted. In addition, programs like Photoshop can be used to edit and do the “darkroom” stuff on photos.
So now a person can just shoot and shoot and it costs virtually nothing. There is some talk about what the ethics of photography currently are as far as what is the original image, and what is altered and changed digitally. Edward Weston used to feel there should be no image manipulation at all, even enlargement, and he contact printed his 8”x12” negatives with a lightbulb in his little shack in Carmel.

There are currently so many ways to manipulate digital images it is very hard to tell what is original and real, and what is not.

But images in general are easier than ever to record. Many cameras now are weatherproof and even water pressure proof for very inexpensive prices. The options are endless for today’s photographers. People today can even use film if they really want to be old school and film cameras now are super cheap.

So the question is…with all the choices what is the best camera to have?

Coit Climb

My plan for Election Day in San Francisco was to hit the Ferry building; check out Coit Tower, head back to China Town, and back to the hotel. I left the hotel by Union Square in the morning and walked down to Market Street, this is the financial district of Frisco. I was walking down the street thinking I would catch a streetcar to the water front.

As I was walking along I was struck by how it was a pleasant sunny day but it seemed very dark and depressing on Market Street. The tall buildings blocked out the sun and created a depressing canyon of cold blustery wind on an otherwise perfect November day. The sunshine and I desperately tried to reach each other through the cracks between building blockers.

The old ferry building had a recent re-model and was full of expensive wine and cheese shops. It was trendy-cute, but uninteresting in general. I slowly worked up the Embarcadero, finally in the warm slowing sun and could see Coit Tower in the distance. Fortunately, being on Telegraph Hill it is isolated and not covered up with newer less stylish structures. It sticks up like a lone index finger and can be seen from quite a distance. I was looking around for a taxi or bus to take me up.

It didn’t take too long and I was down below the tower at a small market drinking a water and looking at a cliff on the side of Telegraph Hill figuring how to get around it. I asked a woman walking by and she allowed, “there are stairs, but there is also alot of them”! I walked down and took a couple rights and started walking up the twisted staircase. At the top of that are some slanted walkways and then of course more stairs. It was interesting because they went right through people’s yards and alongside their decks and front doors. I almost felt like I was trespassing in their lives and I imagine they felt that way too judging by a couple stares I got.

I heard squawks and fussing of the wild parrots. I had heard about them of course non-native to the area and I forgot how they got there but they seem quite happy. They are about a foot tall and green with red heads. Also in this area I saw several plants I have not seen anywhere else. Although the climb up was a workout I really enjoyed it and saw more that was interesting than at the tower itself.

I came out on the parking lot and bought a ticket up for five dollars. The elevator is an old manual one that is hand operated. The windows at the top although covered with plexi-glass have coins from around the world lying on the sill. I am not sure the meaning of this custom. I found this amusing ditty on a comments section of a Yelp blog….

“On a personal note, I used to live a block and a half off the "Hose" and as a child not only attended Garfield Elementary School, which is adjacent to the steps leading to the Tower. Walking everyday used to be quite a hike up the hill, bumping into our legendary "Long John" who would chase us part way home and dance an Irish Jig or the Waltz in the center of any intersection on the streets of Telegraph Hill. The kids and I in the "hood" used to venture about the hidden cave (before they closed because of toxic "gas" fumes) In the cave, you would have found Native American etchings on the wall. When I think of how fortunate we were not to have fallen or slipped down that cliff! And, sometimes my brother and I would bring our flashlights and check out the "make-outs" in the parking lot of the Tower and bang on their car doors to shake em up. Yup, I was one of the Lil' Rascals”

The bottom of the tower is circled with huge, famous murals that some think are the work of Diego Rivera but actually just inspired by Diego Rivera, which means ahhh….Anyway, they were painted by students from the California School of Fine Arts.

By the time I got down, wandered through Grant Street in Chinatown and got back to the hotel I was totally shot, but I felt like I had really seen the city in a non-tourist kinda way. So many parts of the city are either encapsulated by the water on the small peninsula there, or can be seen from there, that the city seemed very user friendly to me in a non-car touring way.

Michael Mina-Union Square San Francisco

While in San Francisco recently, on the day of the historic election 2008, my wife Lisa and I had dinner at Michael Mina. http://www.michaelmina.net/mm/ It was rated as two stars in the Michelin Guide which was the highest rated restaurant in downtown San Francisco.

I wanted to go to the French Laundry based on a story I read from Tony Bourdain. Bourdain is one of my favorite writers and personalities with his world-wide food show now on the travel channel. I have read just about all of his books and remember where he once stated that the “French Laundry was the best restaurant in the world”, this sincerely impressed me, since it is so rare to hear that about an American restaurant. Unfortunately, it was some way out of town in the northern wine country, and of course, I also heard it took “three months” to get reservations from some affected dude at William Sonoma on Union Square.

So in looking around and finding Michael Mina only two blocks away it was the logical choice!

We had the seasonal Prix Fixe menu: I had the bacon wrapped scallops, the Brant Farm beef, and the Quince Fall spices for dessert, Lisa went with the Dungeness crab, Elysian Fields Lamb and the Chocolate Florals. In addition, there were two other courses which were “compliments of the chef”. The first was the starter and included a lobster salad and the last was a type of hand-made ice cream pops that was most delicious. http://www.michaelmina.net/mm/pdf/Prix%20Fixe%20Menu.pdf

I was very impressed with the plates and dishes which seemed to have been custom made just for that particular restaurant and their menu. The service was excellent. One distraction was the constant picture taking with goo-goo patrons trying to capture their moments in the sublime; the other was the pro-Obama rally gathering outside with their compliment of police escorts, their chanting to rhyme.

The bill ran $322 for two, with no booze. The most impressive thing to me was the collection of tastes designed in a certain progression. In other words, for the scallop plate the three bay scallops were all in different presentations and were to be eaten in a certain order from left to right, and I did in fact think each was better than the last. An excellent meal, in a highly recommended restaurant, that befit a perfectly caught historical moment in times of good living....

Victoria Holiday

Living close to Canada I have been there a few times. When young we would often be lured to go because the drinking age was 19. We went up to Vancouver one night just because we were bored to have a late dinner. So it is close and not a big deal from the Seattle area.

The first time I went to Victoria it seemed quite foreign, now not so much. It also seemed much bigger previously, now it seems fairly small and encapsulated. There actually are less people on the entirety of Vancouver Island than in the Seattle area. Victoria is all about tourism and the main income there is tourism. There really isn’t any industry there to speak of.
I had gotten a package deal off of the Victoria Clipper website, http://www.clippervacations.com/ , on the website itself I couldn’t book a package like I wanted so I talked to someone on the phone. We got four nights for the price of three and since they couldn’t get the hotel we wanted they got us an upgrade to a suite at the Executive House, http://www.executivehouse.com/.

This turned out to be a very, very nice room with all windows on two sides, a corner room on the seventh floor. One thing I have always really liked is that coming from the boat dock you can easily just walk to town and many hotels. It was a 10 minute walk to our hotel which is nice. In addition most all of the tourist activities are also quite close, within walking distance. We did take three or four taxis to places like Craigdarroch Castle, http://www.craigdarrochcastle.com/visitor.htm , which is on a steep hill, but were able to walk back down. There are buses and tours to places like Butchart Gardens, which are out of town a way.

My favorite thing was to just stroll down the street and interact with the many street people and performers. Another thing I hadn’t done previously was the “high tea” at the Empress hotel. This was fun but probably something you just do once, it was a tad pricey, about $56 dollars each. It did cover lunch though, we were quite full when we left and had deserts to go, along with an anniversary tea tin! HA! There are many fancy pants shops in the hotel selling cashmere sweaters, Indian art and the like.

We took a little boat harbor tour and since we took the less popular “north tour” we were on the small tug like boat by ourselves. By the time we left I was really ready to go home. I think Victoria is good for about four days, and then it is time to move on. The Canadian dollar is down against the US dollar once again so things are reasonably priced. This is the kind of trip even a very timid traveler can enjoy, in many ways it is less “foreign” than LA!

Should I Shoot that guy?

My wife had noticed a man following us about 25 feet back. He seemed nice enough and was wearing a suit jacket, occasionally he spoke into a radio. We asked our guide who he was; he said a policeman who was a friend of his, hired to watch our backs for pickpockets and keep the more aggressive street vendors from swarming us.

In addition to our guide, and the rear-guard, there was another man whose sole job seemed to be watching me and my photo selection. I had taken a photo of a woman, most likely Muslim, sitting in the street selling vegetables and apparently this was not a good thing. We were in Tetouan, at the Souk or Sunday market, in Morocco.

The tiny alleys were impossibly narrow and dark and I imagined that if we had no escort this whole thing might go quite differently. At one point I went to take a picture of a man in a shoe repair/ cobbler type of store which appeared to have been inherited from his great grandfather. It was a crevice maybe six feet wide and filled with old leather and tools with the man’s lined face barely visible in back, this was the scene I came so far for. He saw me photographing him however, and making an angry noise, he came after me!

Should I shoot that shot? Sometimes I wonder. Am I being rude, am I intruding, do I have any rights in this photographic interlude that I travelled so far and paid so much money to achieve?
Ethics in photography gets a lot of play now in terms of talking about digital manipulation of images, what is real and what is photo-shopped fake? Also talk of “staged” news story images, and the meanings and context possibly being changed, are debated. Nature photography is concerned with disturbing animals that may be endangered. Here however, I am speaking of taking pictures of people, in their natural surroundings, for my own pleasure and use while traveling.

I wouldn’t mind asking for a release or even paying for a shot of people on a foreign street or going to Sunday market in Morocco but it just takes so much time. After a tedious negotiation I am usually rewarded with a posed “touristy” picture that I wanted to avoid in the first place. For me the ideal is to photograph people in their natural surroundings living life undisturbed and unaware, therein lies the problem. If they knew they were being photographed would they object? If they don’t know and they are not interfered with, is it OK? I mean no harm and simply want to capture my wonderful adventure to share with friends and family for the most part. So do I have that right?

Oftentimes, in situations where I want to be incognito, I will use the flip-out 360 degree LCD screen to make it appear I am doing, or looking at, something else other than my subject. Also, sometimes with a smaller camera I might set the timer and put the camera on a table out of the way and out of mind, to capture an image. When the camera is up to my face and aimed right at someone, it can be quite intimidating. People certainly wonder; what is he doing, what does he want with me? This is true whether in Seattle or across the world.

Each situation is different and some are hard to decipher. My personal guide tried to steer me by saying “ah… this is a nice picture”, and pointing, he thought helpfully, at one of his standard kitsch scenes. I tried to be nice and show interest and occasionally snapped the shutter.

In this way we seemed to balance in a ying-yang of privacy and perceived decorum against my eye’s hunger for the exotic and spicy marketplace images I wanted to burn in my memory, for the rest of my life.

Train Trip To Ronda

Early birds find the adventure

When traveling around the world, some things seem universal — toddlers playing peek-a-boo and taxi drivers lying to you. The drivers don't stretch...
By Ed Peters
Special to The Seattle Times


When traveling around the world, some things seem universal — toddlers playing peek-a-boo and taxi drivers lying to you.
The drivers don't stretch the truth just to gouge their fares; there exists a variety of reasons for their ploys. Indeed, many places, fed up with their antics, have provided set rates or fare readouts to control them.
My wife, Lisa, and I were at the Castillo de Castellar in the Andalusia section of Spain and had requested a taxi to drive us to the next town north where we could catch the train to Ronda. The driver stated, "No, the train does not stop there."
I told Lisa, "Five bucks says he's lying," and of course he was. He wanted to go back and join his knot of friends drinking café con leche, smoking cigarettes and discussing soccer.
Ah well, it pays to be flexible.
We had arrived at the Castillo de Castellar train station four hours early. Inexplicably, the schedule we'd received from our hotel was wrong, most likely out of date. So, looking to kill some time, we resurrected an idea we'd had before — the "hippie castle." I had read that some time back, hippies had moved into an old castle, squatted there and set up some kind of Bohemian village.

This is where dragging along a heavy laptop and a bit of research the night before help out. It is always nice to have options.
So off we went, up the mountain. There were virtually no tourists, or guides, or any money-draining devices, just a walled castle with people living and working inside. There were literally cottages, si viende (for sale) there, too, and a couple of places for rent.
Walking along, seeing the stones in the street and old stone stairs, I could imagine the hundreds of feet over hundreds of years that wore them to their current smooth patina. I thought of someone pulling a cart or carrying a baby through the old town. The fact that people were living there now added to the image. It was an anti-sterile-museum tonic; it seemed more accessible to my imagination.

The train ride to Ronda took us slowly up in elevation and it reminded me of the Ellensburg area. It started to rain, and when we finally got there it was pouring. We started off to find "the bridge." I didn't have the actual name on my lips, but an Internet search of Ronda, Spain, always shows the same picture of an amazing bridge, spanning a deep chasm between two plateaus cut by a river.
Of course, many tourists were already standing in doorways, out of the deluge, looking at travel books, trying to determine the same thing.
By the time we got to the bridge, we were soaked. I had my larger camera in its case in the backpack wrapped up to stay dry, and I was using my small weatherproof Olympus trying to capture this stunning view. After struggling a bit, I determined only Ansel Adams in a helicopter could do Ronda photographic justice.

Drying off in a "matador bar," my wife and I debated running for the train or waiting it out. Madly, we decided to go for it. We walked crazily through the rain, dodging umbrella points as fast as we could. Wet and exhausted, we cheered when we realized we were right on time.


The Travel Essay, written by readers about an adventure or insight, runs each Sunday in The Seattle Times and also online at seattletimes.com. Essays, which are unpaid, must be no longer than 700 words and will be edited for content and length. E-mail to travel@seattletimes.com or send to Travel, The Essay, The Seattle Times, P.O. Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/travel/2008030930_tressay06.html