Another rambling "how my day went" missive...
Yesterday I went to shoot some cute, huge, walking allergens.
Fortunately the combination of antihistamines and inhalers I
used warded off an athsma attack, but I did get a nasty headache
which may or may not have been related. (The preventative
inhalers weren't quite enough, and I did wind up using my
Albuterol inhaler twice, but I never let it get Really bad.) I
spent as little time as possible actually in the stable, and
shot into the arena from the outdoor entrance, and burned more
film watching horses and riders warming up outside where there
was more light for me to use anyhow. Not sure how well I did,
but I came away with a definite sense that I'm a less-patient
(and therefore probably not as good) photographer when my
fingers are freezing and I'm thinking about my breathing. It
was reasonably late-autumn chilly here yesterday, but rather
windy, and of course I was a good ways away from the city, and
stupid me, I forgot to bring my gloves. (I could have worn
gloves -- the KX and Spotmatic have controls I can operate in
gloves, and I used the Super Program entirely in
aperture-priority mode.) I'm also not sure how steady I was
holding the camera during the coldest moments -- other than my
hands and face I was mostly dressed okay for the temperature,
but when a cloud covered the sun and a gust blew at the same
time, I found myself shivvering a bit.
(Not like two days before, which was a perfect late-spring day;
or the day before that, which was the ultimate comfortable
summer day, which we never get in summertime here.)
So I came away feeling like I'd not done as good a job as I
could have, as well as knowing that I still have a lot to learn
about horse photography (catching them with their legs in good
positions and such), but also feeling like I'd gathered a clue
or two. And the friend (hoping for more, but for now friend) I
specifically went to see, got a third-place ribbon. And it
looks like I'll get some help paying for developing (due to
folks wanting to see what I got), so I won't have to wait months
for my finances to catch up before I get to find out what worked
and what didn't.
I ought to be able to get away with more on this shoot than I
would at another time of year -- it was "costume day" at the
stable due to the proximity to Hallowe'en, so there was extra
cuteness to be captured. Riders in costumes. Horses in
costumes (including an adorable black, pointy hat). My friend
was in renaissance attire, and her horse was adorned with a
fancy headpiece and had his body and tail wrapped in ivy, which,
of course, he kept wanting to nibble on. (A mutual friend was
in medieval clothing, as was I, and the friend who drove me was
in a mix of renaissance and modern. We all acknowledged that
wearing such garb as a costume feels like "cheating" -- we wear
it often enough that it doesn't feel like a costume, and really
it's just something we pulled out of our closets. We got
admiring comments from others present, but we did so without a
lot of effort or planning. *shrug* I still haven't figured out
what I'm going to wear for Hallowe'en night itself.)
One woman had shaved(*) designs into her horse's rump -- a Jolly
Roger on one side and a jack o'lantern on the other -- and asked
me to make sure I got photos of those as she'd not brought a
camera. Hmm. A black-on-black design visible by texture and
depth, the easiest thing in the world to get a quick snap of,
right? I caught it in full sun (at a couple different angles)
with Portra 400VC and bracketed a little over -- I've got my
fingers crossed on that.
(*) More like "trimmed"? The horse's skin wasn't exposed, but
the hair was very short in the design.
I don't know how to talk to horses. Most of them just stared at
me as though they were expecting me to say or do something, so I
just spoke to them in English ("Oh, you're a pretty one, aren't
you?") and they continued to stare. Except for one or two who
I'm _certain_ were saying either "pet me!" or "treat please?",
and one who had to investigate my KX to find out whether it was
food. I'm passably fluent in Cat (uh, for a human anyhow), know
enough Dog to get by, and am rusty in Bird (well, the family
that includes parrots, budgies, cockateils, etc.) but can still
communicate with them ... but I'm completely lost trying to
communicate with horses so far. (Then again, from what I
understand from horse people, most horses understand a certain
amount of Human anyhow.) Fortunately there were all these riders
around, so it didn't matter as much, but basically I felt like
an alien. (Hmm. I'll have to ask my friend how much
horse-communication is done by touch -- I know that
rider-to-horse communication is entirely touch, but I don't know
how much is when both parties are standing on the ground. With
the species I do know how to talk to, it's mostly body-language
and gestures. I was afraid to touch any of the horses, because
if I'd done so and then rubbed my eye or something without
thinking, the results would have been extremely uncomfortable or
worse.)
Oh, what a terribly-constructed paragraph that was.
One horse seemed to know what a camera was -- he _posed_ when I
pointed it at him.
Y'know the occasionally recurring debate over whether it makes
any sense to worry about being able to use a camera without
batteries? With chronic pain and without a car, I haven't been
able to get out to stores that carry the right batteries often
lately, and with my cash-flow I haven't always had enough left
over to spend on batteries after buying milk, bread, and toilet
paper. Friday afternoon, my Super Program started flashing its
low battery warning, and I went into the camera bag to pull out
a pair of batteries but found only one. Yesterday we were
running late and didn't have time to stop any buy batteries, so
I was thinking of dead-battery contingency plans. (Either drop
the Super Program and just shoot with the other bodies I'd
brought, or take the batteries out of the KX and put them in the
Super Program and use the KX without its meter.) Yes, I do
acknowledge that this counted as unusual circumstances -- how
many of us really get to say, "stocking up on spare batteries
ahead of time wasn't possible"? -- but hey, it _did_ come up,
and while I'll acknowledge that it shouldn't be a problem for
most people, I am glad *I* had options for shooting without
batteries. Fortunately, the Super Program did make it through
the day, and I was even able to pick up some cheap alkalines on
the way home. (Hmm. Must remember to ask a battery question in
a shorter post later.)
I've related regrets over not taking extra equipment along on
other recent outings. Well this time I did toss the Spotmatic
in the bag and threw a tripod in the car. Never did use the
tripod (I must get or build a monopod!) but I was certainly glad
I'd brought a fourth body. (#3 was the ME.) I didn't bring a
full set of screwmount lenses, but the two I did bring turned
out to be useful. The length I missed having was a
portrait-length lens, but I don't have one of those in
screwmount anyhow so that wasn't a result of deciding not to
bring something. (I brought a 50mm and a 135mm. I probably
should have also grabbed the 28mm, but I was okay without it.)
Now some days all you need is one camera. Usually three will be
enough, sometimes two is right, and some days you only need one.
But once in a while that fourth (or fifth (or sixth)) body
suddenly becomes a Good Thing. I could have done yesterday
reasonably with three, but I was glad I had four. I loaded up
some TMZ for shooting into the indoor arena, and some APX25 for
bright sunlight. Provia 100F for sunlight, and Portra 400VC for
both indoors and out. I probably could have skipped the Provia,
but I did want some slides. I could have shot Tri-X for both
environments, but I wanted the extra speed for longer lenses,
(and didn't want to shoot only TMZ because I wanted something
less grainy when I had enough light ... and besides, I wanted to
see what I could do enlargement-wise with APX). With a fifth
body, I might have replaced the Portra 400VC with one body using
Press 800 and another using Portra 160VC ... but that also might
have felt like too much to juggle. I could have done this with
three bodies -- I'm not fooling myself into believing that I
_needed_ four -- but I was certainly _happier_ with four.
Next time I do this, I'll make sure it's in summertime, when my
fingers won't be cold and they'll do the whole thing outdoors
where I won't have to worry about having enough light (only
whether the light is too harsh and which direction it's coming
from). And maybe I'll even remember to bring the dust mask that
I'd planned to bring yesterday and forgot. And maybe I'll feel
more at ease in that environment and actually do things like ask
riders to "please move over here where I can get that roof out
of the background?" and such (_after_ their judging, of course).
All in all a pretty good day despite needing more drugs than I
would have liked to get through it; a day where I got to learn
stuff without any pressure to get things right the first time
(though I do hope to learn to photograph horses well enough to
make a little money at it eventually). And I finally got to
meet my friend's horse.
-- Glenn, starting to run
out of film
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