Christine, a Made-up Story

Christine sits in her usual spot, a small rectangular table in the front window of Tully’s on NE 45th, sipping coffee and reading The Weekly. She comes here every Friday evening after dropping off Emily with the ex. When Emily was born, going out for TGIF family dinners became a ritual, only since the divorce Christine doesn’t go anymore. Instead, she sits here with a tall non-fat Americano and tries to ignore a dull ache in her chest that just won’t go away, although it will get much better when Emily gets home.

On first and third Fridays Emily comes home right after dinner. On second and fourth Fridays she’s away until Sunday. Then Christine ventures out to a Saturday night partner dance, the one thing that takes her mind off of loneliness. She’s learned East and West Coast Swing, Nightclub Two Step, and Waltz, but her favorite is the Tango, with its long slinking strides. She glides along the floor cheek-to-cheek with her partner, halting suddenly for a dramatic swoop of a leg and a precision about-face, to start over in the opposite direction. Christine can forget everything, even who she is, and become an exotic, passionate, mysterious woman for a few magical minutes.

Friends are always trying to fix her up, but she won’t have any part of that. You’re barely 40, Christine, they say. You don’t want to spend the rest of your life alone! One heartbreak per lifetime is enough, she answers. I’d rather be alone. Thanks anyway.

Guys hand her their cell numbers and ask her to give them a call, but she never does. And she never gives out her own number.

Tonight Christine is reading the Personals and laughing softly when something in the window catches her eye. It’s Todd waving at her to come out. The ache in her chest recedes slightly as she thinks about the fun they have at the Saturday dances. Todd shares her passion for the Tango. In fact, he’s passionate about a number of things like charity work and teaching. Christine admires that. He’s also not bad looking with silvering hair and a well-kept physique, and looks very nice dressed up for a special dance. Christine stops herself. Todd is an OK guy, she thinks, and a pretty good dancer, but he’s a guy. Don’t need any of that. Nope. She doesn’t move.

He sticks his head in the door. "Hey how’re you doing Christie?" (Why doesn’t she mind his using her nickname?) "Missed you last Saturday at the dance. It’s never the same when you’re not there. Come for a walk with me, it’s a beautiful outside."

Christine shakes her head and looks down at the paper to dismiss him.

Ten minutes later Todd is back, this time holding the stem of a red rose between his teeth. Cradling an imaginary partner, he Tangos up and down the sidewalk, stopping every now and then to bend his partner over backwards with a flourish. Christine’s shoulders lift, and she smiles. Todd drops to one knee on the sidewalk, clasping the rose to his chest with one hand and offering the other hand to her, mouthing an aria skyward. Then he pretends to lose strength and slowly crumples towards the sidewalk, like a perishing Romeo. Christine’s chest feels light and warm.

Laughing, she goes out to him.

Hyperfocusing in Photography

What's the best way to get the entire scene in focus in a photo? Like most amateur photographers, I've always focused on the most distant point to do this. For example, to get a mountain and the foreground in front of it all in focus, I'd focus on the mountain. We learned in photography class, however, that this isn't the best way to get everything in focus. Instead is a technique called hyperfocusing, which sounds pretty technical, but it's actually not all that difficult.

The principle behind hyperfocusing is this: the range of a scene that your lens can focus on the most clearly extends 1/3 in front of and 2/3 behind the point in the scene that you focus on (aka the focal point). In order to decide on a focal point, you should pick a point that is 1/3 of the way from the closest point that you want to have in focus in your photo to the most distant point.

The following two photos of seven evenly spaced plant pots illustrate this principle.

 

In the first photo above, I used a shallow depth of field (large aperture and long focal length) to make the areas that are in focus easier for you to see. The flower hanging down on the side of the second pot was my focal point. Notice that the photo quickly goes out of focus both in front and in back of the flower, but that the focus is better on the pots behind the flower than it is on the one in front of it. For example, look at the third pot, and compare it to the first pot. The third pot is in better focus because it is behind the focal point (flower), even though it is the same distance away from the focal point as the first pot is. In fact, even the fourth pot is in better focus than the first one.

While the above photo illustrates the basic idea of hyperfocusing, it doesn't show you how to get the whole scene in focus. To accomplish that, in addition to hyperfocusing, you need to use a the greatest possible depth of field (smallest aperture and shortest focal length) possible. Doing this will maximize the amount of the scene that the lens can get into focus.

  

In the second photo, above, I focused on the same point, using a great depth of field so that as much of the photo as possible would be in focus. Notice how sharp it is from the closest pot to the furthest one. In addition, even the blinds way behind the focal point are in focus.Woo hoo.

Nora Ephron, Writer

I just watched an online interview with Nora Ephron, who wrote and directed Julie and Julia among other great, funny movies. Here are a couple of quotes from the interview about story-making:

“Someone once said that there are only two facts about your life: when you’re born and when you die and everything in between is how you choose to tell the story, or how someone else chooses to tell the story."

"My mother used to say, 'Everything is copy,' meaning that every event in your life will become a story."

Nora Ephron Interview

Pete’s Home Texaco

To passing tourists driving motor coaches and towing campers, Home Texaco is another stop on the road to paradise. It's where you refill your propane bottles before continuing on to Penrose Point or Joemma Beach, or top off your tank before heading home. If Pete’s Home Texaco were in the city, it wouldn’t be a gas station. With its view out across Jones Bay to Anderson Island to the East, it would be a fancy eatery or a luxury condominium complex. But in Home such views are taken for granted.

Home Texaco is the place to borrow a tool for an auto or tractor repair. Pete doesn’t get to do as many mechanic jobs as he might if his service station were in Tacoma, but he doesn’t mind. He likes the slow pace of life here and having friends for customers and customers for friends.

To locals, Home Texaco is a social hub. While filling your tank, you find out how far down Herron Road the County is going to be chip-sealing this week and when George and Leona’s 45th anniversary celebration will be. You already know it will be at the Longbranch Improvement Club. That's a given. Pete’s knowledge about the lives of those he serves makes him a better source of news on the Key Peninsula than any newspaper you could buy.

Pete is more of an ear-witness than an eye-witness because he hears about what happens to people rather than seeing it most of the time. But he did get to watch one of the most exciting events to occur on the Key Peninsula for the entire year of '96 when Jason Barns raced his '77  Trans Am up the Key Peninsula Highway –  Pete figures he was doing about 120 – careening down the patch of road that runs through Home and past Home Texaco. Here the road makes a 30-degree turn, a few feet from Pete’s doorway. When Jason tried to make the curve, the Trans Am rocked sideways onto two wheels and flipped. The car was wrecked. Jason walked away.

We all thought that would be the end of Jason’s racing, but six months later he was back to it. We just hoped we weren’t in his way the next time he flipped. Pete said that Jason’s wildness started when his mother died the year before. This kept folks from getting too mad at him, even though he was “an endangerment to the community.” But that’s what Pete does. In his own way, he helps everyone understand everyone else.

Contrast in Photography

In my black and white photography class, we're learning how to develop and print our own film. I took the class because it's a prerequisite for most of the other classes at the school. Much to my surprise I'm loving it, notwithstanding the need to stand in a darkened room with noxious chemicals for hours on end. Go figure.

Anyway, last week's lesson was about contrast. The more contrast, the more middle gray tones move to either white or black. The following pictures were printed (enlarged or whatever the heck they call it) with different contrast filters. These are physical filters made of colored plastic gel that magically affect the contrast of the photo being printed/enlarged.

The topmost photo shows the effect of a #1 contrast filter, which reduces the contrast. The second photo was created using a #2 filter, producing normal contrast. On the last three photos I used #s 3, 4, and 5 respectively, which as you can see, increase the contrast. The result of using five different contrast filters is five different "takes" on the same picture. Pick the one you like the best. You can do the same thing for digital photos in a photo editing program.

The Smoking Rock

While growing up, my opinion of houses went something like this: Houses are good places for keeping possessions warm and dry--things such as clothes, bedding, and books. Houses have conveniences such as running hot and cold water and electricity, so that you can cook food more easily and wash and dry clothes even when it’s raining. Houses also help you have successful parties. Many people won’t come to a party that is outdoors, especially if it’s cold and rainy. Houses do, however, require you to spend time indoors on upkeep tasks such as cleaning when you'd much rather be outdoors.

Not everyone shared this somewhat low opinion of houses. In fact many people, I found, actually like spending time in them even more than they like spending time outdoors. Such as my family. While I preferred the outdoors and always had a special place or two where I spent a great deal of time, the rest of the family sat around indoors, sewing, chatting, watching TV, and reading the paper.

Each day I would arrive home from school, change into outdoor clothes and head for the door. “Where are you going?” my mother would ask, as if she didn't know. I’d cringe for fear of being caught in the snare of some household task or errand.

“Out.” 

“Where?”

“Just out.”

“To do what?”

“I don’t know. Maybe write.”

On a lucky day, the conversation would end here. Otherwise, I'd have to finish my chores before escaping.

If it were my sister asking where I was going, then she’d come out with me. Not that she liked the outdoors particularly, but it was a good excuse to get away and smoke.

So, on a lucky day, I’d walk out of the house into the surrounding New Hampshire woods, sister in tow. We’d both light up and walk along the path we’d made with countless foot strikes over months and years. 

The path ended in a small clearing carpeted with vinca and pine needles and surrounded by fresh-scented pines and a few white birches with peeling bark that you could write on. In the center of the clearing sat a large pock-marked granite rock, discarded long ago by a glacier. The rock was big enough for both of us to sit on. In fact, it would have been big enough for several people to sit on, if anyone had cared to join us.

After a time, cigarettes smoked and butts carefully buried, my sister would stand up. “Well, I’m going back. You staying here?” Not waiting for an answer, she’d head back to the house. 

I’d pull some fresh air deep into my chest and then sigh it back out, expelling the last few molecules of cigarette smoke and indoor air. Then I’d settle down on the pine needle carpet and lean back against the cool rock, waiting quietly. If no one appeared right away, I’d begin scratching words into my Think Book. 

The woods would be quiet at first, the silence broken by treetops applauding a passing breeze, roaring like a narrow river in spring, or the plop of a pine cone hitting the ground. Eventually my stillness would be rewarded by the sounds little creatures make when they move around in the woods. Rustlings and scritchings would grow closer. A chipmunk might  reveal his bright eyes over the top of a log. If I held very still, he might even come over and check me out. Then a slight movement of an arm or a too-noisy breath would send him racing back to safety.

Chickadees were bolder. They’d perch on branches that bent low to the ground, so close that I could reach over and touch them if I dared try. The chickadees would talk to each other. I imagined their conversations about the weather, their children, and the pine nut harvest this year. I’d talk back to them sometimes, in human language, about my school, my boyfriends, and favorite songs on the radio.

After sitting long enough, listening to enough bird talk, writing enough words, and soaking in enough of the place to sustain me until the next day, I’d slowly stand up and walk home. 

As I opened the back door, warm air laden with house smells would find its way up my nose, replacing the cool piney air of a moment ago. The mantle clock would tick loudly above the rustling of my father’s newspaper and some tinny applause and laughter on the TV. I might hear the clanging of pots in the kitchen and my mother’s voice calling me to come set the table.

On other days, if alone, I’d take a different route up the driveway, turning right onto the road’s gravel shoulder, and following its ascent to an ancient pine tree where it towered over another glacial boulder. The pine’s fat branches spread wide, inviting me to climb into their embrace. Standing tip-toe on the giant boulder, I’d stretch into my longest reach until I could work my fingers between the sharp ridges of bark on the lowest branch. Then hanging on tightly with my nails, I’d walk up the side of the tree until I could get my knee onto the top of the branch. After resting a moment, I’d gain my feet on the branch and stretch up again, following the same process to get as high in the tree as I dared. 

My reward was a broadened view of the woods sloping down to the blue lake below, the pungent smell of pine sap, the sensation of sharp bark poking through my shirt and jeans, and a slight sense of superiority. I would indulge in this sense until my body got tired of being poked, got cold, or both.

This time, even after crossing the threshold of the house, the scent of the woods would remain in my nostrils, drifting up from the pine sap on my fingers or the butt of my pants to mix with the smell of the indoors until my mother told me I had to change my clothes and wash for dinner.

Shutter Speed in Photography

I've learned that the shutter speed you choose can make a big difference in the way your  photos look. The faster the shutter speed, the better the camera is at stopping the motion in the scene. Here are some examples of photos taken with various shutter speeds.The above photo was taken at a fast, "stop action" speed of about 1/250 of a second. The photo of the two dogs below was taken at a slower speed, so the dogs are a bit blurry. Their feet are the blurriest because they are moving the fastest (and would soon take the dogs through my flower bed). The slower shutter speed gives you a good sense of the dogs' motion.

In the next picture, the shutter speed is even slower, and the guy tearing out the floor of our family room following our little flood of a few weeks ago is so blurry you almost can't tell that he's a person (except that his shoes are clear because his feet aren't moving).

The last couple of photos show VERY slow shutter speeds, of 2 or so seconds. I took these photos outdoors at night, "painting" by moving the camera around.