How my camera has made me a lazy writer

Clafin Landing.  Seven AM.

 

I'm sitting in the cold, damp sand, staring out into the fog, allowing the sand fleas to flay my skin one microscopic nibble at a time, punishing myself like some damned soul self-consigned to one of the outer and more amenable circles of hell for the sin of literary laziness.

There's a young woman back up on the beach behind me.  She's blonde, leggy, deeply tanned, in a sun-faded sweatshirt and shorts.  She's backed a battered Chevy Suburban onto the sand, propped open one of the back doors with a gray as stone oar, and unpacked and stacked several large  and battered metal coolers and crates, a couple of long-handled dip nets, and a clam rake.  At the moment she's sitting in the bed of the Suburban, her back against the closed door, her right foot propped up against the inside of the side window, her left leg dangling over the bumper, her foot swinging gently, her toes skimming the sand.  She's settled in to wait for something or someone, a change in the weather, a lifting of the fog, a friend to come along to take her out or to come back in to unload the morning catch into her coolers and crates.  She's a picture waiting to be painted or photographed and if I didn't think she was aware of me pretending not to spy on her or if I was bolder I'd reach for my camera.

And I'm mad at myself for that.

Not for wanting to take her picture.  For wanting to do it instead.

Instead of writing her picture.

And I was already mad at myself for being mad at myself for a lack of boldness not reaching for camera earlier.  Hour ago, shortly after I started out, I passed a church where a major renovation is being done.   Carpenters had been at work since dawn, I'm guessing, since it was time for a coffee break.  Maybe these two were just having trouble getting their motors going.  Doesn't matter.  What matters is that there were two guys on a bench in front of the church, one in his twenties, the other pushing fifty, both dark-haired, sharp-chinned, could have been father and son.  They were sitting side by side, slumped and huddled, paper cups held lightly in their dangling hands, staring forlornly with heavy, tired eyes at nothing in front of them, while a third man, in his thirties, larger, beefier, brighter-eyed, slid a ten foot ladder onto a rack in the back of a pick-up.  And at one point the two men on the bench looked sideways at the third man and their shared expression of mingled annoyance and disgust at the third man's industry was hilarious.  If I'd been bolder and quicker and equipped with a better camera I'd have had a great picture, and all the way out here I was sulked with disappointment at not having taken that picture.

The thing is that once upon a time I'd have walked away from those men happy to have an amusing entry for the notebook.  Once upon a time I'd have been sitting here on the beach cheerfully at work at describing the young woman and her gear and her SUV.  Yeah, I know, I am at work at doing just that.  (For the second time, actually, since I didn't bring my computer with me to the beach.  I'm typing up the notes I made with pen on paper.)  This is a notebook entry of the kind I am mad at myself for not writing.  So what's my problem, you ask?

My problem is that I'm not content with writing it out.  I still want those photographs.  In fact, I'm fighting the temptation to take one now, and losing the fight.

What if I pretend to take a picture of something else?  That naturally arranged artistic pile of seaweed, for example.

No.  Can hardly see her, can you?

How's this?

Damn.  I'm weak.

But you see what I mean?  A telephoto lens would be just the ticket...

Sorry.  I'll go back to feeding myself to the sand fleas and staring out at the nothing that is the fog.  There are gulls out there, invisible in the fog, making mournful croaking noises and one of them, I swear, is crying, "Help me!  Help me!  Help me!"

Comments

[Ken Muldrew]

Is your chronic use of underexposure a holdover from Kodachrome days? With digital you don't get richer colors by pushing to the left; it's best to get as much light as you can without blowing anything out and then use curves to bring it back down to where you want it (or maybe you already do that and I'm an idiot for not realizing it).

BTW, the Suburban looked better in your written description but the girl...well, one wants a photograph, but candid rather than posed, and one doesn't want to take it without consent, but that would take away the candor. I can't do it either but I always struggle with whether I'm being respectful or just chicken. At least you've got the chops to write the picture.

[Rana]

Lance, I hear you. My blog's gone dormant at exactly the same time that the backlog of unprocessed photos has ballooned. I've made a few sporadic efforts to combine the two, but the writing pace and the photographic pace don't seem to line up very well.

I disagree with Ken's suggestion about not underexposing; maybe my camera's sensor and in-camera processing work differently, but I've had far better luck recovering an underexposed part of the image than one that has been "blown." It's like there's data in the dark that the camera recorded but I can't see, while the white end of things is nothing but white pixels. That said, I do agree that underexposing is only really useful when a blow-out on the high end is likely, or if you want a wee bit more saturation. (I was a Velvia girl, back in the day, so I loves me some saturation.)

All that said, I would have just assumed that the dimness was a result of the fog, not camera settings.

[Sean Paul Kelley]

Mannion, I totally relate. There was a time, a few years back, when I relied on my camera too much. And sometimes it's just too easy to capture a scene with a photo than it is to write about. There were times in India--which is a terribly exhausting place under any circumstances--when all I could do was just shoot photos. The good news is, as I am sure you will find out, when I returned home and settled down to write the manuscript, the photos were a good tool to help me rekindle the moment.

[Ian Welsh]

We should all be lazy writers like Lance. ;)

[Lance]

Thanks, Ian. SP, I always think I'm taking pictures for the mnemonic boost later, but when later comes that's when I get lazy.

Ken, Rana, thanks for the tips. Ken, I don't think I'm addicted to underexposures. It's a trick of my eyes, sometimes. I've got very good night vision and things don't look as dark in the dark to me. But usually whatever effects I get, good or bad, are the result of not knowing what I'm doing. These photos may be what they are because of the fog, but they may also be because of something else---my camera has died, and if the troubleshooting I've done on the web is correct, it's because the ccd scanner has failed.

[Ken Muldrew]

Sorry to hear about your camera, Lance. That is a tough blow on vacation. Then again, considering the content of this post, maybe the Universe is trying to tell you something?

Rana is right that any blown highlights are unrecoverable, but if your camera has a histogram (and really, is there any excuse for not having one in a digital camera?) then it's pretty easy to get the exposure right. For quick shots I just use 'P' mode and don't worry about it but when there is time to set up the shot, then it's easy enough to take a test picture or two.

Effects like saturation and lighting are best done in the computer, and for that a full histogram is the ideal starting point. But that takes time and effort so sometimes it's more fun to just try to get the effect in-camera.