Hi Asher,
Asher Kelman said:
The addition of the flag would be ideal for ...
Now if you put an flag of one of Iran, for sure Janet Reno Someone from Fox Radio would be there with binoculars and in radio contact an FBI urban combat team!
I have to be careful on this one since I am a communist photographer. Well, at least I have a
five year plan that is continually evolving. When I find compositions they go into the five year plan and I work on the light. My first entry (which is still on the list) can only be shot 3 days a year from about 30 miles north of here on the 3 days before the full moon of Winter when the full moon rises behind Mt. Baker (a volcano) just prior to sunset in January from Anacortes, WA, USA. I got the composition and exposure years ago using a 3.3 MP digicam, but I missed the focus on a 8 second exposure showing scattered clouds across the sky backlit by the moon with the the volcano in near-silhouette as the longer exposure picked up the last pink light from the setting sun (it was dark to the human eye). But it keeps being rainy, dreary, and depressing at that time of year and I have yet to get up there to shoot it. Hence, the five year plan.
Since taking up the communist methadology I have added many shots to the list. And with every major camera or lens upgrade the list gets reset.
Asher Kelman said:
I think the care you have taken is the classical approach to getting such impactful pictures. Now the 500 pictures would really raise the eyebrows all the way off the head of my good friend Nicolas. He laughs at me for shooting so many pictures. He simply could not get through that number of shots without drinking enough Bordeaux wine and then, overdosing, he'd be asleep in the snow, the bottle clinging to his tight fists!
I think one often does need a lot of pictures as one hunts for the best position. My father-in-Law would perhaps take maybe 12 pictures, but that would be film with a Hasselblad. However, he'd return to the same place many times. You need to take more since each time, you have to get permission or receive a bunch of buckshot in your butt!
Oh, I have blanket permission to wander the farm once I got it. Another farm down the road is one I need to touch bases for every shoot on. But they have touchy horses and that would be dangerous to me. But they are very nice people and the wife has offered to set things up for me (move the touchy horse to a different pasture) so I will get it some day. But that farm needs more scouting for sunrise and it is on the list.
Heck, that morning when I walked into the pasture the tenant farmer pulled in and we chatted for a bit. I met bacon, sausage, and ham (3 pigs) who will be grazed on the pasture this Winter to eat rose hips to hopefully constructively eradicate some of the wild roses (Rosa nootka if my ID is right) slowly taking over the pasture.
Looking at my RAW files I took 234 photos that morning of which 145 were on the farm and the rest were on the roundabout walk there and back. Of those 145 shots roughly 40% were shot to be able to see what I got and help me understand what lens it would take to capture what I wanted. Another 10% were experimental shots of snow as I rarely get to shoot. The rest were compositions as I sought the one.
I shoot much higher volumes with critters and people than with inanimate objects.
And there is not buckshot that I have seen. My previous visit sometime this Summer involved me wandering the path around the pond (a big pond) and finding that the electric fences now closed it off and the trail itself was horribly overgrown with salmon berries. Thank goodness for my tripod which did much to protect my legs and arms while wearing short pants and a t-shirt from the stickers.
As to the last time I took 500 shots in a shoot, I was taking money for a pet shoot of a 17 year old dog (now passed on) and that was over about 3.5 hours.
Asher Kelman said:
I'd expect deer there. Now that would be really postcard perfect!
Deer are common around here. But I saw no deer spoor on the farm although there was some in the yard. But I did get tacit permission to bait the coyotes in the woods up there. Now to those who dislike such, said permission from the tenant farmer who I ran into that morning was given (actually, he suggested I bait them) after I asked about the coyotes and he mentioned leaving out two turkey carcases the day after Thanksgiving which promptly disappeared. The suggested "blind" the tenant farmer mentioned actually led to this shot.
For those who dislike baiting I should note that my first reaction to seeing coyotes on this farm was worry. After talking to the owner and tenant farmer I was exposed to joyous acceptance that they could share this land with such beautiful creatures. The baiting suggestion I was given by the tenant farmer was about bringing them out and his thoughts were easy food for them on a snowy day. Sadly I lack the lenses today, but feeding them and watching and shooting them in recompense does not strike foul with my morals considering they get fed on occasion anyway. But longer glass is still needed.
enjoy,
Sean
