The corner of her studio where Ria does the majority of her drawing and painting.

One of my favorite commissions is shooting an artist working in their studio. The best results are when an artist lets me come in for a couple hours when they are working on one or more pieces. We start out with more talking than shooting. Pretty soon  the artist forgets about the camera (not always easy when strobes are going off every few seconds) and I start to see both the Art and the Artist’s personality emerge.

The shots in this post are from a shoot I did last week with with Ria de Neeve, a Missoula-based artist who’s work you may have seen in my prior posts. (You can view some of Ria’s amazing paintings at her website: www.iamariver.org.)

The purpose of these shoots is to provide artists with professional images that look casual for gallery brochures, articles, and websites. (These candid images appear by permission of Ms. de Neeve. Click on any of these thumbnail images and view  a larger version.)

Her non-traditional tools yield amazing results

Ria uses plastic cards of several sizes as painting tools. This made for some interesting shots. (Shallow DOF helped here.)

Ria de Neeve using plastic affinity card to apply paint

I’m always on the lookout for good facial expressions. Posed photos are fine, but some of the most captivating Gallery books I’ve seen are based upon truly candid photos – where the Artist’s personality – be it stern or playful, or both – comes through. Several good opportunities occurred as Ria and I talked:

A phone call offered a chance to make use of a mirror I had been eyeing, but had so far had not been able to figure a way include in my composition:

We chat about Art in general, and muses in particular. Finishing her work with some paints, Ria turns to me “lets take a picture of my painty hands!” she says, thrusting them out. Her hands are below table level, and it takes me a couple seconds to readjust my camera for the reduced light. “Some people really like my feather tattoo,” she offers.  Peering through my viewfinder, I become one of them.

Ria's Feather tattoo - and painty hands

The feather design is Ria’s own design and artwork. She had it put on with WHITE tattoo ink. It looks a lot like a reverse suntan – and is a beautiful, delicate addition to her arm.

White Feather Tattoo

Today Ria is working on a series based on the Hebrew alphabet. Starting with pencil drawings, she is building collages. I get several good images of her working with scissors, cutting out a drawing:

Having spent just over an hour and taken about 400 frames, we agree we are done in the studio. Even though it is now noon with full sun and no clouds, I agree to attempt at least a couple outdoor photos. I quickly abandon all hope of getting good fill flash – the sun is too bright and we are both squinting like sun-blinded Eskimos. Ria suggests a shady spot she knows. Bingo!

And we are done! It was the kind of shoot photographers love – it took 90 minutes but it felt like 15. And we came away with over 100 publication-grade shots.

TO SEE RIA de NEEVE’s art you can visit her site at: www.iamariver.org

TECH NOTES -

CAMERA – Canon 5D Mark II.

LENSES: Canon 24-105 and Canon 50mm 1.4.

LIGHTING – Available light augmented with fill from a Canon 580EX speedlite (as a master) and two Canon 420EXs (as slaves). For beauty-light type shots I used a DIY three-strobe bracket with polyethylene  diffusers.

ISO/Shutter speed/F-stop: ISO indoors was usually 500. ISO Outdoors 320 and 640. Shutter speed ranged from 13th for blurred hand shots to 80-125th for most others.  f-stop was typically 2.0 for the 50 mm and 4.0 to 5.6 for the 24-105mm. This varied when I was creating implied sunlight with strobes.

MODE: Manual (I almost always shoot in manual for complete control.)

Undiscovered subject: can you spot the spider? (click for larger image)

Yesterday I was climbing Blue Mountain, just west of Missoula, MT with our dog Angua. I ran into some great flowers and took a number of macro shots using extension tubes.

It wasn’t until I was doing post processing this morning that I found an added bonus. I was doing sharpness checks at 1:1 in Lightroom 3, and suddenly there was …. a dustspot? No, it was…. a spider! A very tiny one to be sure, hiding in the petals of the subject flower.

Can’t see it? Here it is close up and personal. In retrospect I was extremely lucky that it fell within the depth of field. I’ve shot bugs before, but I believe this is my smallest wildlife subject to date.

See him tucked away there, near the petal tips? (Click for larger image)

Because it is over 6 feet long, the large black painting to the left is (obviously) not a good candidate for full-sized reproduction via a DSLR image. (Bark ball and painting are shown with permission of the Artist, Gary Carpenter.)

My answer to their first question is a question: “How big a copy does your customer want to make, and do they wish to print it, or just show it on the web?” You’ve seen perfectly good images of artwork on the web that were taken with a 4 megapixel (or less) camera. However, you probably haven’t seen art prints of any size from that camera. (The answer to the other two questions – “Will people really pay?” and “How much?” are “Yes,” and “It depends…” (More on the last question in a future post.))

Let’s cut to the chase and do some quick calculations about camera resolution and what it means for final image size – both printed and web:

What really matters is pixels-per-inch (or centimeter) sent to the output device. Note that this is NOT the DOTS per inch your printer brags about, its PIXELS per inch, the little dots that make up the image.) For printing, you need to send at least 150 (bare minimum), and preferably 240-300 pixels per inch to a good quality printer to achieve crisp results. Over 300 DPI, and most observers aren’t going to be able to see it (and many printers won’t print it any clearer). For on-screen viewing (web, slide shows, conversion to video) you only need 72-96 DPI (dots per inch).  Here is a quick way to calculate how well your current camera meets your needs:

This 10"x12" painting by Ria de Neeve is an excellent candidate for limited edition reproduction from a digital image. (de Neeve paintings appear with permission of the artist.)

1)      Determine the number of pixels your camera records horizontally and vertically. (tip: check the EXIF info – FastStone and Irfanview are free programs that make this easy. Recent versions of Windows will also reveal this for JPG files, but not camera raw.) Round these dimensions down to the nearest 100.

2)      Divide each dimension by 150. The results are the LARGEST PRINT you can make and (probably) still have a satisfied customer.

3)      Divide by 300 to get the largest using “best resolution” techniques. (Yes, it’s half the size, or just one quarter the area of the 150 pixel version.)

Example:

Let’s use a Canon 20D, an older prosumer camera body now available for about $300-$400 used. It records a 2336×3504 pixel image. At 300 ppi you have 2300/300 = 7.6” and 3500/300 = 11.6. That is, you can make a very high quality reproduction up to about 8”x10”. Going to the lower quality limit of 150 ppi will get you to about 15”x22”. This assumes your artwork fits proportionally into the frame. Images with different proportions will obviously not fill the frame, resulting in a smaller maximum size in one dimension. Since you need SOME border, these sizes are a maximum.

Now Let’s talk about photographing work for screen display. Suddenly, your resolution needs are much MUCH lower. Like cameras, monitors work in pixels. And compared to camera sensors, monitors are small. Even a high res monitor (QSXGA spec) only has 2560×2048 pixels. So you can easily do full-screen images with an 8 meg camera, and even have some pixels available for cropping. For display purposes on commerce sites you are only displaying about 800×800 pixels, or 0.7 megapixels. So even a 4 megapixel camera is more than adequate!

Bottom line? You probably do NOT need to invest in a new, high resolution camera (Darn! There goes THAT excuse!)  BUT (aha, you knew a “but” was coming, didn’t you?) there are real, sometimes significant advantages to a better, more current technology camera body with a larger sensor. This is especially true if your current gear is a Point and Shoot camera (P&S) rather than a DSLR with interchangeable lenses.

These advantages include:

1)      All camera sensors  are NOT created equal. A Point-and-shoot camera with a 12 mp sensor  often will not take as sharp a photo as an 8 mp DSLR.

2)      Larger high quality prints. (A 21 megapixel 5D2 from canon has 5616 x3744 pixels. At 300 pixels per inch this yields a high resolution print size of 18” x 12”. (Since larger prints are typically viewed from further away, the 150 pixel per inch is likely to yield a very satisfactory result – this means a 36” x 24” print is quite feasible.)

3)      Newer sensors are (generally) better – creating less noise, clearer resolution, and truer color. (e.g. You get what you pay for.)

This detail was cropped from the same frame as the full sized image above. It shows the metallic sun and the brushstroke details well.

This detail required a second frame; even with a 21 megapixel camera there is insufficient resolution in a full-painting shot to show good detail in call-outs.

4)      The higher resolution image means a larger print size, and the ability to “grab” detailed callouts  from a single shot, rather than having to shoot each callout separately.

5)      Greater zooming depth: When using tools like Flash that let viewers zoom into a photo, higher resolution images gives you more zooming depth.

6)      More space in the frame:  With extra pixels you can include small color charts in the border area. This makes each image easy to calibrate, even if you change exposure parameters such as f/stop, shutter speed, and/or lighting. This is especially handy if you are shooting in natural light. Sunlight, even indirect, changes with passing clouds and the passage of time.

7)      The ability to work “tethered” – Newer cameras allow you to easily hook up to an external monitor, displaying your shoot “live,” making decisions about framing, focus, and depth of field much easier. (WARNING – Do NOT make color or exposure correction decisions based upon the art object’s appearance on an external monitor unless you’ve calibrated it – even then it may not reflect “truth” as it will appear in the captured RAW file.)

8)      Your results are also greatly affected by lens quality – something you can’t change on a P&S but which you can on a DSLR. It IS possible to take good web shots of artwork with a P&S camera. But P&S camera lenses are typically not designed for close copy work. Instead the camera’s designers focused on the user wanting good snapshots of people 5’ to 20’ away.

9)      If you have a P&S camera you may not have full manual control of the focus, f-stop, shutter speed, white balance, and image capture type (RAW vs JPEG).

For an excellent technical discussion of the details of sensor size, see Cambridge in Colour – Digital Camera Sensor Sizes.

To see more of Ria de Neeve’s artwork, visit her site at: www.iamariver.org

My thanks to both Ria de Neeve and Gary Carpenter for permission to reproduce their work here.

Now you have determined the limits of your camera body. Next time we’ll talk about Glass: Part III – Picking Lenses.

Are you inadvertently releasing your health care data to spammers?

Are you self-employed and using the web to look for health insurance you can afford? Be careful or you could get – or give – much more than you bargain for.

Self-employed means self-insured. Self-employed people (like me)  have no employer to pay – and hide from us – the true cost of our health insurance. We get to figure out where to get the $10,000 – $20,000 insurance costs each year for coverage that doesn’t kick in until you’ve spent that much out of pocket.

But this posting isn’t about how screwed up our health care system is – you know that already. It’s about people who I believe are taking advantage of people’s need to find health insurance they can afford.

In my own search for affordable health insurance I signed up for an email that promised to help me find lower cost health insurance by getting quotes from multiple Health Insurers in my area. The email came. It linked me to three OTHER companies that promise to do the leg work of actually getting the quotes. Since I’ve just had the usual large annual rate increase in my insurance (almost 20%) I decided to give one of these services a try.

First, they asked me to fill out demographic information about all members of my family and disclose any pre-existing conditions, plus provide some basic contact information.  At the bottom of the form was a check box to accept their terms of service.

As an IT executive I got in the habit of reading the fine print in contracts, ALL the fine print. Yes, it takes time, but it’s interesting, and sometimes surprising and enlightening to read the Terms of Service and Privacy Statements companies ask you to accept. For the most part, these are long, boring, paranoid, and generally benign – you simply agree that no matter how badly they mess up, they aren’t in any way responsible or liable. But for this health care insurance quoting service I found something interesting — and more than a bit worrisome — buried deep in their Terms of Service:

The personal profile information you submit to HPQ remains your property, but by submitting that information to HPQ, you grant HPQ, the right to use that information for marketing purposes. HPQ may also use such information for content improvement and feedback purposes. We may sell the personal information that you supply to us and we may join together with other businesses to bring selected retail opportunities to our members. These businesses may include providers of direct marketing services and applications, including lookup and reference, data enhancement, suppression and validation. In addition, HPQ reserves the right to release current or past member information in the event HPQ believes that the membership is being or has been used in violation of the Rules or to commit unlawful acts, if the information is subpoenaed, if HPQ is sold or acquired, or when HPQ deems it necessary or appropriate. By agreeing to these terms, you hereby consent to disclosure of any record or communication to any Third Party when HPQ, in its sole discretion, determines the disclosure to be appropriate.

(Bold Emphasis added)

In other words, anything you tell them is not “private” in any way. They can use it to direct market you and your family, and not just for health care services, but for anything. And they can SELL YOUR INFORMATION. Their Terms of Service could just as well be called a “general full release statement.”  Check the box accepting their Terms of Service and your name, weight, age, marital status, zip, preexisting conditions — anything you give them about you, your spouse, your children — is now available to this company to sell as they see fit,  for any use.

Why would anyone accept terms like these? Probably because the whole thing is put in a wrapper on the website that looks a lot like the HIPAA forms you see at your doctor’s office. But those forms tell you how the doctor cannot disclose anything without your permission; just the opposite of this agreement.

Are these companies really in the business of getting you useful medical quotes? Or are they marketing list companies preying upon people’s need for affordable medical insurance to gather information for general marketing purposes? Since they don’t seem to think the HIPAA laws apply to them, I suspect they have little to do with health care, and everything to do with marketing.

Is their service worth the disclosure? Will they find someone who will sell you good insurance you can afford and save you big bucks on your Health Insurance? I doubt it, but I can’t tell you for sure if any useful quotes come from these companies… because I wouldn’t accept their Terms of Service. But I know what I suspect…

Eagle in Trees

A day for celebrating our independence in the United States. Why do we HAVE that independence? Because a hell of a lot of people gave up a lot, and continue to give up a lot, to see that we keep it.

I extend my thanks for the democracy I enjoy to the people who made it possible. The obvious group are those who serve or served in our military. Some, like my father and my good friend (and fellow photographer) Tom Ferguson gave up years of their youth. Others, like my Uncle Roger, were severely wounded, and spent the rest of their lives living with pain and disability so that we could continue to live in freedom and democracy. Countless others gave the ultimate sacrifice, dying while in service to our country. (Next time your responsibilities to our democracy, including voting, paying taxes, or participating in civil political dialog feel excessive to you, compare your burden to that LAST group. Then tell me about how unreasonable the demands on your time or wallet are.)

Others are teachers in our public schools and universities. We depend upon these folks who dedicate their lives  to helping the next generation learn the value of our way of life, the values that keep it alive, and teaching the skills that will keep us going for … well, for a while longer. Most of all, we depend upon teachers to teach our children to THINK RATIONALLY. We depend upon teachers to assure that each generation knows the basics of history and learns the civics skills needed to be an effective part of our democracy.

Still others serve our country as policemen, firemen, border guards and social workers. All these public servants keep our social fabric intact. Without that, we have no basis for our democracy.

Often these people get less support from us than they deserve.  It’s easy, over time, to forget the people who made great sacrifices. It’s easy to feel the pinch of budgets and forget yesterday’s contributions. To forget the value of schools. To forget the effort it takes to run for local public office – win or lose.

Make sure your voice is part of the REAL Grass Roots and ignore the astroturf of political noise and nonsense.

I believe our political process is becoming more polarized, less civil, less truthful, and less rational. We again face rising challenges in the world, in our communities, and in our environment. This fourth of July it would be a good idea for all of us to remember that the United States needs to be just what the name says – The UNITED States. That means we all chip in, and we all  give as well as get from our society. And we remember democracy is based upon compromise and mutual respect.

Three quotes come to mind:

SERVICE:

“Service is the rent we pay for being. It is the very purpose of life, and not something you do in your spare time. The only thing that lasts is what is shared with others.”
Marian Wright Edelman

ADVICE TO POLITICAL LEADERSHIP FROM CITIZENS:

“Abandon the failed politics of partisanship. You can’t demonize each other and expect us to trust you.”
Report by citizens from an AmericaSpeaks national Town Hall meeting held June 2010 about the US Budget Deficit.

DEMOCRACY:

“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”
Winston Churchill

I wish you a fun, safe, and thoughtful Fourth of July, 2010.

Art

The author makes contact with Art at the Henry Gallery

No, this is not about great art shots of nature and/or abstraction. I love taking those, and I frequently spend my free hours seeking them out. But these days it’s tough paying the bills with art photos. On the other hand sculptors and painters often need photos of their Art for their business selling art. Press releases, catalogs, fliers, and small run reproduction needs all create a market for the agile, technically proficient photographer with the right gear. So if you can’t ORIGINATE the value chain by creating the original art, as a photographer you can at least still eat by JOINING the value chain!

Artists are not generally wealthy, and there is plenty of competition, so shooting art is not a way to make a LOT of money. But it IS a way to meet some creative people, to test your technical skills, and to have fun taking photos of people within their creative space. Who knows – it might also help cover your costs in slow times, or at least keep you from getting bored.

For me, shooting artwork breaks into two kinds of sessions: commercial recording gigs and creative celebrations. Recording gigs often don’t even directly involve the artist. It’s a straightforward job that pays $10 to $100 bucks for each delivered image depending upon quantity, complexity, and location. You’re expected to produce perfectly color balanced, proportionally correct, glare-free, spotless high resolution TIFF and JPEG images of the artwork – sometimes in your own studio, often elsewhere.

The real creative photography fun begins when the artist gets involved. (No, I’m NOT being sarcastic. Artists are great – or at least they can be – if their ego isn’t too big or too bruised.)

What makes them so much fun to work with? Artists understand, and live for, creation. They inherently support it. And once comfortable with you, many of them will join in and help you create and have fun while you work with their work.

Two pieces by west coast artist Gary Carpenter (at the Henry Museum) (Click for larger version)

I recently completed a second shoot in Seattle. This one started in the Henry Gallery at the University of Washington, and finished up in the artist’s studio. We spent about four hours and shot five very large pieces, plus we did a couple quick artist portraits with the work. Right now I’m in the middle of a shoot for a Missoula-based artist.

While both are fresh in my mind, I thought I’d pass along some of the challenges shooting artwork can pose, and the solutions that are bringing me some small successes, at least in the artists’ eyes (and when my customer is happy, I’m ecstatic!)

Next up: Cameras and Resolution – what features help? How many pixels are enough?
Followed by: Picking a lens; Lighting options, polarizing filters and white balances; Formats: Raw vs JPG; studio setup; field rigging; and finally – ‘Answering Questions’ and ‘Turning over the Camera’ – deciding what you are ‘really’ selling.

As expected, it gives you sunrise/sunset, and moonrise/moonset, plus twilight times for each day (Civil, Nautical, and Astronomical for both a.m. and p.m.). But it does something FAR better, something I’ve never found before. It shows you lines that represent the angle at which the sun or moon will be visible from the point you choose. So now you can tell on what day the sun will rise or set right down that bridge you’ve been eying. Or when the buildings on main street will look like stone henge in the town of your choice.

The Photographer's Ephemeris - civil twilight and oh, so much more!

And of course you can work it the other way as well. Are you Going somewhere interesting on July 4th? (I HOPE so!) So call up the map for that location and date. You now know not just the civil twilight and moonrise/set times, but also the angle the sun and moon will be at in relation to your position. You can start thinking about your shots and how to compose them now!

Freakin’ amazing!

The best part? The Photographer’s Ephemeris is free for PC, Mac, AND Linux(!) use. If you want it right in your pocket, it’s also available at the iPhone app store, for just $12. They say a Droid version is on the way.

It does many other things as well, including angles, elevations, and remembering locations. But you can read about all those at the site, or on the tutorials. There is no excuse left for not getting the shots of which you dream – ot at least for not finding the natural light you want. (Since weather can play a role, Wunderground weather is probably worth checking a day or two in advance ).
P.S. A tip of my hat to west coast photographer Tom Ferguson for putting me on to this outstanding tool!

So I was both surprised and beyond pleased at the casual, fun, yet respectful air that surrounded this particular graduation ceremony. Yes, there was the usual standing in line and grumbling to get in. And yes, there was the one graduate who may have started his partying a few hours too early…. But there were so many real positive differences I’m not sure where to begin. There was a big slide show, not of student works, or of stodgy head-shots. It was a slide show of students working and playing. And it started early, and played continuously.

The students probably dressed more casually than the faculty...

... but not by much!

The students had a choice of “cap and gown” or “other”. “Other” won in spades. Probably less than 10% chose the traditional “little professor” dress. (I wasn’t counting, but I was looking down on an sea of heads, not mortar boards, when I looked over the graduates.)

Students and audience both enjoyed the candor and casual feel of the awards comments

A ballcap? Why not! No old ladies fainted, and he looked happy and comfortable with his choice.

The variations they elected were befitting a group of artists: on the guys? One young man wore a white suit, another a baseball cap with tassel, there were lots of blue jeans, plus black suits of all descriptions, age and style. Sort of formal-casual seemed to be the theme, but there was clearly no rule.

Two creative takes on the traditional black robe...

White and Pink were good choices, too.

For the women you had everything from cap-and-gown to party frocks, (though I don’t recall any women in jeans).
One ingenious young lady presented herself wearing a traditional mortar board, a slick short black dress that confirmed she had an athlete’s figure, and a long white jacket/sweater.

The faculty shared in this casual blend. There were two professors in full PhD regalia. At the other end of the spectrum? A sport shirt.

The faculty also wasn’t there to be stodgy and professorial. When presenting awards, many expressed genuine respect and joy for the students they were lauding. They often spoke more from the heart than their notes, and one even got emotional and shed a few tears, at which point she was hugged and patted by the recipient. And no one seemed embarrassed by either the tears or the hyperbole. Not a bit.

Groucho glasses and mustache somehow fit right in with the spirit of respectful fun

Only a few audience members pushed the limits of good behavior. One gentleman felt it necessary to shout some word in an oriental language and pump his fist in the air as his daughter’s name was read, and again as she mounted the platform, and again as she was handed her a diploma, and again…. well, you get the idea. But I think there was no more disruptive behavior than at a traditional graduation, and it was clearly less disruptive.

Yep. That's a pup-in-arms there on the balcony...

A mom thought it necessary to bring in little Fifi-the-pocket-dog, and then to stand at balcony’s edge, holding the dog out for a better look.

The guest speaker, a Microsoft millionaire, was bland, a bit disorganized, and at times tough to hear. But he kept his remarks to under 20 minutes and showed a few interesting personal slides. He was the designer who lead the development of the first Microsoft Mouse, and he told how he’d tried playing the curve as music. He clearly appreciated his parents – though just what it was that his father had taught him eluded me. But somehow, the speech fit the mood and the audience was mostly attentive.

But the best feature was the attitude and behavior of the students: they were there to celebrate.

Everyone was smiling, and they all seemed to be rooting for each other (click thumbs for full image).

Not disrespectfully, but joyously and without (much) restraint, they celebrated their own, and their entire classes, achievement. They smiled. They waved at family. The early-partier waved his arms from time to time, and everyone laughed a lot. And despite the dread fears and warnings of hundreds of graduation organizers spanning over hundred’s of years, this celebration had all the momentum of a Mardi Gras parade – it just kept moving forward. It stayed “in control,” it was interesting, even fun, from end to end, and it ENDED ON TIME!
During the march of graduates, (in which hugs were as acceptable as handshakes) they played the traditional “Pomp and Circumstance.” But once the ceremony ended and it was time for everyone to go outside? They played it again – but this time it was the best full-on version that I’ve ever heard.

Participants were gracious spectators and celebrated each other's accomplishments.

In short, for this group of lucky students the traditional celebration had shed decades of dust and crust, and was carried out as it should be – as a joyous occasion. Just like a wedding done right. (Or even a very good wake.)

Afterward, just outside as graduates hugged friends, introduced parents, and headed off into the rainy Seattle night, I thought about the somber drudgery of all the prior graduations I had witnessed or marched in. The closest thing to them was a funeral. What a great change this was! I felt more than a little envy, and hoped these grads would carry this positive spirit forward into their lives.

The next day I learned that the school of Public Administration had a vastly different, traditional graduation (“You MUST wear a cap and gown if you wish to march.”) But I was relieved that at least part of our culture has adopted a true celebratory attitude about such a great occasion.

(Photo note: all images were taken using a Canon 5DMkII at ISO 12,800 with a 24-105 zoom lens. Post processing was limited to a few Lightroom tweaks.)

I started with GIMP several years ago, switched to Photoshop about 12 months ago when I got serious about doing professional photography again, and by last fall I finally had a general understanding of what I was doing.

I put together a page of before/after images to share with friends. My intent was showing what could be done by an apprentice-level Photoshop user. These images are a bit more, um, “creative” (aggressive? egregious?) than my routine Photoshop work, but they demonstrate some of the cool “stuff” that you can make happen in a photo using digital manipulation — without too much expertise.

You can view the samples by going HERE – B4nDaftr – Photoshop Fun>. (It opens in a new tab, so you can just close it when finished.)

Comments? Suggestions? I’d love to hear from you, either by email, or in comments here on the blog.

Best,
Art

But this morning, at 7:24 a.m. I was just too rushed – had to drop off my son at school, and get a set of DVD’s delivered to a client before 8. As I headed out the door and reached for my 20D, I realized the batteries were still in the charger, and the CompactFlash chip still in my PC. I hesitated, grabbed my car keys and shot out the door behind my son.

The universe can be a heartless bastard when it has to re-teach you a lesson. Especially if it’s a lesson it’s taught you before, like “If you think of yourself as a photographer, always take your camera. Even for the short trips…”

Driving down our cul de sac I see the most incredible sunlight in the clouds. Perfect grays. Layering not two or three deep, but five visible planes of clouds. All backed by a hazy white orb, and all within about 4 f-stops of each other. I stop. It’s Perfect. I am composing the shot before I realize — no camera. Well, I probably won’t have had the right lens – this shot really would require a 70-200, and I usually keep a 17-40 for walk-around photography. But still… Sigh… I drive on.

I drop off my son, take a couple turns to get heading the right direction for my next stop – and see not 2 or 3,  but 6 – count ‘em SIX – bicyclists riding down an untraveled side street. They are side by side across the whole street. Their arms are stretched out, each resting a hand on the shoulders of the rider on either side. Those on the end have their arms stretched out like wingtips. One perfect row of riding-with-no-hands, ain’t-spring-great, let’s-have-some-fun!

It only lasted a moment. I don’t know if I could have been fast enough to capture it. But still…. no camera… I sigh and drive off.

I drop off the DVDs’ with my client. We make her deadline. She’s happy. I’m happy she’s happy. Life is good again. The day is recovering.

Then I stop by the Good Food store for fresh ground whole wheat flour and yogurt. And there, sitting alone in the parking slot opposite my car — is a Mercedes. In all its glory. The traditional grill. The hood ornament. Not black, but a slightly faded yellow. What’s so special about a clean, old Mercedes?  The FOUR BALES OF HAY strapped perfectly straight on the roof. Empty parking lot. Mercedes. Four bales of hay strapped on with the precision equal to that of the car. Morning light from my back. Even a sky still dark enough to photograph well. The iconic Montana photograph is right before my eyes… Perfect for a down-low shot with the 17-40mm about half-zoomed in. But of course my camera is still at home….

Ah, universe… Why must you be SO CRUEL, so HEARTLESS in (re)teaching me these lessons?

Anyway, I sincerely hope your camera is with you when you meet YOUR four bales of hay today!

Best,

Art