
This last week’s trip to McKinleyville, Blue
Lake, Eureka,
California can be divided into two topics: people and
photography. Early on, we dropped our
car at the body shop, and stopped and visited
Barnes and Noble. I bought Phillip Andrews Advanced Photoshop Elements 7. I can not completely understand his easy
Photoshop Elements. But I am in the
middle of a learning processes between the two books. Here is were I committed myself to RAW. I
read the book, but reading the book without benefit of your computer with the Photoshop
Elements software while riding down the road has little meaning.
We drove down to California
on I-5 and then the last leg is along the California
Coast with the Redwoods and the
Pacific coast. The weather was in the
high seventies and the sky was totally blue. No clouds and no fog. Mr.
Radish generously stopped for photo ops.
Then on the way home we drove the coast which takes considerably more
time. We decided to take three
days.
The first day driving weather was equally perfect allowing
the windows to be down when we were not grossed out by the wind. The weather cheered us, we were buoyant. We stopped at the many view points that the
State of Oregon has created.
My book had explained about shooting photos in RAW. If you do not know what RAW is, you are
right with me. But my book had several
chapters on it, and for the purposes of us ignorant, it captures detail, it
allows for endless editing retaining quality of image AND it uses huge amounts
of RAM both on your chip and your computer.
And most good photographers use it.
What this means is while even if you do have a digital camera that can
take thousands of pictures, with RAW you need discretion.
We needed to make our way home. Although the coast is slow, we came close to creeping,
so the second day we needed to pick up the pace. Still I wanted to take pictures. It is hard to photograph at 55 miles an hour .
But I wanted to photograph so I decided my goal was to photograph at 55. Going
fast you have to be at the ever ready.
This means that you must have the camera in hand at all times. There is so
much to see when you peer out the window for hours and see half second vignettes;
unless you see the scene in advance and can decide to take the picture, get the
window down, be sure the camera is turned to on, and the cap off the lense, the
object goes whipping by. It is too late.
The best ops came and went at
blurring speed. Some of the time it
rained, and it is impossible to take photos through glass in the rain. A real hindrance was that the more
picturesque scenery was on the drivers left side of the car because driving
north along the Pacific Coast
is where ocean and beaches and sand dunes are posed. Eventually I arrived at a plan for those
vistas on the left side of the car. I
set my camera to P which sets the shutters speed and aperture and focused out
through Mr. Radishes lowered window and somehow I missed the side view mirror
and his profile. That I had anything
turn out at all was a miracle.
Anyone who has read to here has a lot of patience. Thank
you. It is hard to be a writer when this week I am a photographer.