“There are infinite shadings of light and shadows and colors…it’s an extraordinarily subtle language. Figuring out how to speak that language is a lifetime job.”
(Conrad Hall)

 

I’ve been working hard on my photography again, and one way to stretch my Self is to enter the challenges that Smugmug hosts in their forums.  It’s a friendly, safe place of like minds and I was fortunate to recently place 3rd in the “filters” challenge with a rendering of this old boy, titled “State of the Nation”:

 

Third place also got me into the upcoming “Mega Challenge”, a quarterly competition for the top 5 finishers in each bi-weekly challenge.  And with a digital camera up for grabs, you can well imagine everyone wants to win – including me!

The theme is “The Elements”.  And since an obvious shot, such as a tornado about to sweep over an exploding volcano, isn’t exactly within reach of most of us, I suspect we’ve all been scratching our heads over how to represent this deceptively simply idea in a single photograph.

Earth, wind, and fire.  Water.  In Chinese astrology, air, earth, water, wood, and metal.  The base definitions are similar no matter how you look at it.  I set them adrift inside my mind for days, then at last an idea bubbled up. 

I spent almost all day yesterday in an attempt to bring my vision to life.  In photography, it’s all about the light so I started in the early morning as the sun’s rays came over the horizon and eventually began to stream across our little backyard.  First I had to build the “set”.  This necessitated 2 trips over the side fence to borrow stones from my neighbor’s empty garden bed.  Next, find suitably-sized candles, grab some lighters, then drag the hose across the yard.

Stack the stones carefully.  Wet the whole setup down with the hose.  Light and position the candle, stack small pieces of stone around it.  Turn on the hose and adjust it until there was only the smallest of steady drips streaming out the end, and settle it on top the stack of stones.  Adjust the resulting water to run off the stones in a pleasing conformation without putting out the candle’s flame.

It only sounds easy.  Astrologically, water and fire have a hard time co-existing and such definition is, indeed, a mirror of real life.  But eventually I got it right and took an initial series of shots.  As the day moved into afternoon, I finally went inside to look at the results.

Close.  But no cigar.  I needed different light, more water, more flame.  And by then I also needed a nap. 

Later in the afternoon, with first lessons in my back pocket, I returned to the backyard and rearranged the set.  The next series of photographs proved much better all the way around.  The “Gotto of the Goddess” was becoming a reality:

While I am pleased and would have no problems posting any of the results as a daily photograph, I am not entirely satisfied.  Not when the stakes are so high.  The results have spiraled visions of alchemy, and I must introduce a far more compelling element of drama. 

And this means only one thing.  Night.  And smoke. 

But the after-dark session was derailed by weariness and spotting a tiny night visitor at the big squirrel feeder.  Showing us that, as Bob put it so eloquently, life is elementary:

 

“It is the hour to be drunken! to escape being the martyred slaves of time, be ceaselessly drunk. On wine, on poetry, or on virtue, as you wish.”
(Charles Baudelaire)

 

It’s been a long week.  The pace at work has quickened again and I found my Self driving into the office several times.  Not that driving into the office is unusual, but this is one week I’d have preferred to skip it.  The Woodward Dream Cruise is today, and what started out as a little whim – to dedicate one day to driving the infamous strip in Detroit’s most beloved and lovingly maintained or restored products – has now become Big Business and traffic on my normal route now become a nightmare of congestion that spreads insidiously across the county like some mechanical virus for a whole week.

And if there’s one thing I dislike, it’s crowded roads.

Unable to escape the grip of firedrills before the start of rush hour, and with having to make a stop on the way home yesterday I finally coasted up the driveway.  Spent but grateful to be back on terra familiaris.  The brightly-colored impatiens framing the deeply-shaded little dooryard, glowing against the wooden fence and dark-red brick of the houses, were a sight for eyes weary of sun glaring off asphalt and concrete.  As I got out of the car and made my way to the side door of the house, a hand suddenly appeared over the high top of the backyard gate, gesturing me to come near.  Then I heard Bob’s loud and excited whisper.

The young Cooper’s hawk was here! 

It made its presence known to us two weeks ago and is apparently hanging around.  Quite the fearless little one, Bob had been watching it for perhaps ten minutes or so.  And had brought out my camera.

I, of course, dropped everything and beat stealthy feet to the backyard.  The hawk had moved to the utility lines behind the house next door and was resting while keeping an eye out for the return of the flocks of small sparrows who frequent our bird feeder and that of our neighbor two doors down.

 

 

The late afternoon light was fantastic – clear and bright and low.  Matilda sounded like a gentrified machine gun as she rattled off a hundred shots at her 7-frames-per-second speed, capturing every nuance of the hawk’s watchfulness.

Suddenly, the hawk decided to move.  Really almost too fast for my big lens at this distance even if I’d been prepared for it, in the space of a heartbeat I was both resigned to missing the shot and enthralled at the sheer majesty that is a raptor in motion.  I also thought that was the end of it.  But the small hawk had other ideas and merely moved perhaps 30 feet into the backyard proper and stopped to perch on the utility lines that connect my neighbor’s house to the pole.

 

 

A precarious perch at best for anything larger than a pigeon, this didn’t last long, and with a great flap of its long wings, the young hawk again lifted and, to our surprise, simply moved up into the deep shadows and secure footing of the maple tree in the middle of the backyard. 

It was entirely nonplussed as we moved in parallel in our yard to reposition Matilda near the edge of the low fence and I continued shooting.  Strong gusts of the day’s light winds created flurry of movement of leaves and shifting light that, combined with the surprisingly loud and incessant wail of sirens and the sounds of low-flying helicopters all spilling over from the vast, milling crowds on nearby Woodward Avenue, put the hawk on high alert.

 

 

And yet, being young and perhaps more inherently savvy than most like to give credit, the hawk would soon realize no threat was imminent and settle down to wait some more.  And I continued to shoot. 

There is much to be learned from simple, quiet observation.  While I do not rehabilitate raptors, I’ve had the opportunity to see them “up close and personal” and know that their large size is rather a deception.  To be sure, they are incredibly powerful creatures, yet that immense power is contained in a body far smaller than their feathers would suggest.  And as the wind blew in a particular heavy gust just as the young hawk drew up a talon in rest, its fragility became quite clear.

 

 

More than an hour passed before it finally headed off.  A magical hour that swept my weary mind free of the cobwebs of Man’s frenetic posturings and put the world back in proper perspective.

 

 

It’s been said by many of the work-weary that it’s always happy hour somewhere.  This was certainly one happy hour that will be remembered for a long, long time.

 

“People don’t notice whether it’s winter or summer when they’re happy.”
(Anton Chekhov)

 

It was downright chilly yesterday morning!  Even the sun seemed to have hit the snooze alarm once or twice; as I sat down to write it was already an hour past sunrise but the first rays were only just beginning to color the sky blue and reach down into the ‘hood to illuminate our little world.  Even the birds remained strangely quiet.

I’d wanted to go to the nature preserve at dawn, but between my night owl tendencies and Saturday’s housework, I just couldn’t roust my Self out of the warm bed early enough to make the trip worthwhile.   So instead I let Bob sleep in, finally heading out back to fill the feeders and feast my eyes on the dampness glistening in the backyard.

 

The early light soon faded to grey and the continued coolness found me spending part of the afteroon in the kitchen happily chopping and sauteeing various tasty tidbits to make a pot of Japanese-style soup.  In my humble opinion, miso is a gift from the gods and it seems like forever since I’ve partaken of its health-bringing flavor so what better time to indulge than the start of allergy season?  And to be sure, as I later enjoyed a big, steaming bowl, it was, indeed, the right thing to do.

As evening grew nigh I headed out back to feed the residents in the pre-release pens.  To my surprise and chagrin, I discovered that Mama Flyer had a second litter of babies.  And from the size of the 4 wee babes, almost 3 weeks ago! Mama, her newest ones, and her first litter are all happily squished together in one of the nest boxes, which is why it wasn’t apparent she’d given birth again.  I can now scratch away the task of putting a tiny “come & go” door on that pre-release pen (a task we had intended to do this weekend) since the flyers should be released as a group and it will be a while before the new babes are ready to follow the adults on their first forrays into the ‘hood.

My prodigal Donny showed up, too.  He’s grown thin in his first week of explorations and, in part, from being soundly chased by the other, more established fox squirrels as he pokes his furry nose where it doesn’t belong.  He was quite grateful to be given some “captive chow”, then to my surprise he headed into his empty pre-release pen and after a long drink of fresh water he crawled into his old nest box and made it perfectly clear he intended to stay put.  So I did what any good foster mother does and locked him in the pen for the night to insure he would sleep safely and undisturbed.

And sleep he did.  It must have been the healing sleep of utter exhaustion for he was still in the nest box when I filled the feeders early this morning.  I took him out a proper breakfast and after a while he finally headed off to spend the day doing whatever it is that squirrels do when they aren’t eating or playing in our backyard.

And he has a good day to do it, too.  It’s a perfect summer morning with predictions for a moderate high to be reached under bright, sunny skies.  The kind of day I wish I didn’t have to work; it begs for sitting on the back patio,  first with the camera, later with a good book.

But I’ll happily make do with open windows.