Tag Archives: photography

Photography: The Right Place at the Right Time

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It’s kind of like the stars needing to align just the right way to get the best shot.

Practice Makes Perfect
This reminds me of a podcast I was listening to in the car just yesterday on my way back to Wickenburg from Winslow. It’s an episode of Freakonomics radio which discusses practice as a way of becoming an expert at anything. If you’re interested in learning or getting better at a skill and like to understand the science behind how things work, I recommend “How to become Great at Just About Anything.”

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine — we’ll call her Jane — shared a photo on Facebook. She’s an amateur photographer turning pro and has begun to sell some of her work. Other work has appeared in various publications. I’ve known Jane since she first took a serious interest in photography and it’s no exaggeration to say that her work has come a very long way since those early days. Many of the photos she shares now are absolutely stunning. Practice makes perfect — or at least helps you get closer to perfect.

Anyway, the photo Jane shared that day was one of those where she caught the light on her subject just right. It was one of her best shots — in my opinion, anyway — and I complemented her. I also added the comment, “It’s all about being in the right place at the right time.”

I don’t remember her exact response, but it was something like, “It’s a little more than that.” I suspect that I’d offended her and I certain didn’t mean to. But I’ll stand by what I said and make an attempt to prove it with an example. I’ll also share some of my philosophy about photography.

What Makes a Photo Great

The way I see it, a photo can’t be truly great unless the photographer nails three components: subject, composition, and light.

Subject
The subject of the photo is what the photo shows. It should be something beautiful or notable or interesting in some way. Beautiful is pretty straightforward, although I agree that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Notable is what I think about when using photography to document something, for example, the way a bridge cable attaches to a support or the design of a water fountain. (Yeah, I’m sometimes fascinated by silly things like that.) Interesting covers a lot of ground. The pattern of sand after a wave has come by is interesting. Paint peeling off a wall can be interesting, too. It’s part of the photographer’s job to make the subject something that speaks to us in some way, something that makes us stop and look and think. A good photographer can do that with just about any subject using the other two components.

Composition
Composition refers to the way the photographer arranges the subject and its surroundings in the camera’s frame. You may have heard of the Rule of Thirds and it’s a great thing to keep in mind when composing a photograph. But that doesn’t mean a photo can’t be great without following that rule. One of the differences between a good photographer and someone who haphazardly snaps dozens of photos in hopes that one will be good is that a good photograph can figure out where to stand and which lens to use (or how to set a zoom lens) and how to hold the camera to get the best composition more often than not. I should add here that a good photographer does not need to rely on cropping to get the right composition; she should be able to compose right in the camera. (One obvious exception to this rule is when a photo’s desired aspect ratio is unsupported by the camera; for example, a square photo would require cropping.)

Light
Of course, photography absolutely depends on light. Without light, there would be no photography — after all, that’s what the camera’s sensor (or film in the old days) records. What so many amateur photographers don’t understand is that there is good light and bad light. Natural light changes with the weather and time of day. Blue hour or twilight light is, as the name suggests, bluer and dimmer than daylight. Golden hour light tends to be redder and softer, casting longer shadows. Midday light is often harsh and bright, flattening out the scenery. Beyond that, light can be direct or reflected or shadowed — sometimes all in the same composition. A good photographer using natural light — for example a landscape photographer like Jane (and me) — understands the importance of light and makes a special effort to photograph the subject at the best time.

Get all three of these right and the photo will be great. Get two of these right — for example, subject and composition or subject and light — and the photo might be good, but it won’t be great. Get just one right and the photo won’t be very good at all. (We’ve all seen these — think vacation photos uploaded en masse on Facebook.)

Being a Serious Amateur
I call myself a “serious amateur” photographer and I don’t use that phrase lightly. I see it this way: An amateur is someone who snaps photos without bothering to try to make the photo great. Good is good enough. A serious amateur is someone who understands what makes a photo great and puts a conscious effort into trying to make great photos. Each shot, objectively reviewed, is a step (hopefully up) on the learning ladder. Good is never good enough.

The trick is to objectively assess how good you’ve covered each of these components. And that’s a Catch-22 in itself: if you’re not a good photographer, you likely won’t be able to objectively critique your own work. That’s part of how practice makes perfect. Keep trying, keep comparing, keep objectively trying to figure out what could be better in each photograph you make. If you’ve got a good eye and you’re honest with yourself, you’ll get better all the time.

Right Place, Wrong Time

This past weekend, I was up in the Navajo and Hopi Reservations in Northern Arizona. This is an amazing place for landscape photography, with the broad desert scrubland of the Painted Desert punctuated by deep canyons, flat-topped mesas, and towering buttes. The west end of the Navajo Reservation is where red sandstone formations laid down when oceans covered the Four Corners region meet and merge with dark brown lava flows emerging from the multitude of volcanic cones north and east of Flagstaff. That’s where an explorer with a vehicle capable of tackling rugged roads can find the Grand Falls of the Little Colorado River.

Grand Falls Terrain
Nothing better illustrates the way the two landforms come together at Grand Falls than a satellite image like this one. You can clearly see the reddish rock of the painted desert butt up against the lava flows. One flow forced a bend in the river around it; the falls come right after that bend and then cut into the rock joint, forming the Little Colorado River Gorge. (The Colorado River flows east to west here.) Want to study this for yourself? Use Google Maps to Search for Grand Falls, Leupp, AZ.)

As a subject for photography, the Grand Falls is a crap shoot. I’ve seen the falls completely dry without a single drop of water flowing over the long shelves of rock. While that might be interesting to some folks — geologists come to mind — I personally lack the skills to make it interesting enough to qualify as a great photo. I’ve also seen the falls with water thundering over its entire breadth and mist rising up into the sky. When the water is flowing it’s always reddish brown from sandstone silt it picks up along the way, thus giving it the nickname “chocolate falls” or “chocolate milk falls.”

So timing is vital when visiting the falls. It nearly always runs with spring runoff from the mountains far to the Southeast, so spring time is the best time to visit if you want to see water. It also may run from monsoon rain in July and August — depending on weather, of course. But it was January — too cold for runoff and no monsoon rains. We did, however, have a good rainstorm on Friday night. And my trip to the Hopi Reservation put me just over an hour away. It was worth a try.

I was lucky. The falls were at about half flow: certainly interesting enough for some photos. So I had a good subject.

I spent about an hour shooting from various points along its south shore. I would have crossed the river to shoot from the other side, but there’s no bridge and the crossing looked a lot muddier than I was willing to try, even in my big four-wheel-drive truck. My ability to compose my shots was limited by where I could stand to shoot and the lenses I had with me. Although the photos here are from my phone’s camera, I did have my Nikon and three lenses with me. To fit the entire falls into the shot, I wound up using my 10-24mm zoom lens. This gave me a huge amount of flexibility as far as framing was concerned. I did the best I could and believe I got some interesting compositions that showed off the geology with manmade objects to indicate the scale — after all, Grand Falls is actually taller than Niagara Falls. So I was relatively satisfied with my compositions.

Light was another story. I arrived at midday, which would have been horrible on one of those perfectly clear, blue sky days Arizona gets so often. But it wasn’t a perfect day. It wasn’t even a nice day. I’d driven through fog to get to the falls and the low clouds had lifted only a few thousand feet above me. The light was soft but colorless. The sky was gray. The air felt wet.

Now I know that lots of photographers like the kind of soft light that was all around me that day and I know it’s hard to make a bad landscape photo on a day like that, but it just doesn’t appeal to me. Still, you can’t adjust natural light; you have to take what Mother Nature delivers. So I did what I could. I got a bit excited when, about 30 minutes into my visit, the sun began shining down the canyon past the falls. I watched the soft sunlight creep up towards the falls, hoping it would give me the kind of spotlighting I’d seen downriver. I waited. I was at the right place — or as close to it as I could be — and I was willing to wait a while for the right time.

It didn’t come. The gap in the clouds closed up. Everything returned to the even flat light. I took a few more shots, got back into the truck, and left. The rain started immediately.

Grand FallsHere’s my favorite unedited cell phone shot from the visit. Note the sunlight on the canyon wall at the top left of the photo. I was waiting for that light to get to the falls, but it never did. The Nikon version of this shot shows a wider field of view and the composition is a bit better.

So did I get a great shot of the falls? I don’t think so. I did get a good shot, though. And, for a while, I was satisfied with that.

Right Place, Right Time

Until the next day. It rained (and snowed) again overnight and I figured there might be more water going over the falls. I was leaving La Posada in Winslow (where I was staying) and another trip to Grand Falls would only take me an hour or so out of my way. I knew that if I didn’t at least try it, I’d regret it forever. After all, how often do I get up to that area of Arizona with a sturdy vehicle and time on my hands?

There was some fog along the way, but not much. The sky was clearing and blue sky was poking out. There was definitely sunlight but it was filtered through lighter clouds. Soft yet bright light. It was still early in the day — not long after 9 AM — but long past golden hour. (I’m not sure whether golden hour would have been golden anyway; the clouds were still thick around sunrise.) As I drove the last 10 muddy, bumpy roads, plowing through puddles that would swallow a Smart Car, I wondered whether the angle of the sun would cast deep shadows across the falls.

Of course, that’s a whole other aspect of light. The angle of the sun determines where the shadows will be at various times of the day at various times of the year. It was winter, not long after solstice, so the sun was nearly as low in the southern sky as it would be. And it was morning, so it would be low in the southeastern sky. The falls faced southwest, with a canyon wall to the south. Would that canyon wall cast deep shadows at that time of the day? How long was I willing to wait there for the right light?

Turns out, I didn’t have to wait at all. The light was damn near perfect when I arrived. (Perfect as far as I was concerned, anyway.) The sky was an interesting mix of patches of blue with clearing clouds. The falls had about the same amount of water flowing over, which was okay.

Grand Falls
This is nearly the same composition, although for this shot I got down into a crouch to include some sunlight-illuminated plants in the foreground. (The crouch also allowed me to block the floating garbage patch at the base of the falls (ick!) with a rock formation.) The light was nice and soft and really added color to the shot. And because it was a soft light, the shadows cast by the wall of the canyon weren’t deep enough to screw up the exposure. This shot is also unedited, from my iPhone.

Is this a great photo? Some people might think so. I’m certainly pleased with it. But I can always do better. I just have to try.

But what it really illustrates is that it’s not enough to be in the right place for a good photo. You also have to be there at the right time. While I might not have been here at the “perfect” time to shoot a “perfect” photo, the timing of my second visit was much better than the timing of the first.

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Related Posts:
I’ve written a bit about this before. Check out the following posts:

Some Thoughts on Drone Photography

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If you can’t beat them, join them.

Phantom 4
The Phantom 4 is a flying camera.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the rise of unmanned aerial systems (UAS), more commonly referred to as “drones,” these days, mostly because I’ve been able to get some good hands-on experience with the prosumer DJI Phantom 4. The Phantom 4 is marketed as a flying camera and I honestly think it’s a good categorization. Clearly it was designed for photography and it has given me a new appreciation for drones, which I don’t generally like.

Drone Threats

As a helicopter pilot, I’ve felt a rather unique threat from the rise of drones (no pun intended). I want to take a moment to explain, mostly because although my general opinion of drones has changed, my views about their threats have not.

Safety

First and foremost are my safety concerns. There are too many drone “pilots” who fly irresponsibly in places they should not be, including near airports and at altitudes that should be reserved for manned aerial flights. The FAA has attempted to reduce the risk of drone/aircraft collisions by setting a maximum altitude of 400 feet for drones. This is far from a perfect solution for two reasons:

  • Irresponsible drone pilots ignore the restrictions and fly higher than 400 feet above the ground. I have witnessed this more than once, although I’m glad to report that I wasn’t flying at the time.
  • Helicopters generally don’t have a minimum operating altitude so we can fly below 400 feet. Even my Part 135 certificate, which sets some limitations for on-demand charter flights, specifies a minimum altitude of 300 feet — this means I can legally be sharing 100 feet of airspace with UAS with charter passengers on board.

Drones are small. They can fly at speeds in excess of 50 miles per hour. I fly in speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour. That’s a closing rate, for a head-on collision, of 150 miles per hour. Does anyone really think I can “see and avoid” something the size of a 12-pack of beer coming at me at 150 miles per hour?

And if pilots are irresponsible enough to disobey FAA regulations, are they responsible enough to stay clear of aircraft?

Other drone-specific regulations regularly ignored:

  • Staying clear of temporary flight restriction (TFR) areas. There have been many reported instances of drones flying around wildfires being worked by firefighting aircraft. In some cases, these violations of airspace have caused the grounding of aircraft.
  • Staying clear of other restricted airspace. The one that worries me most is flights close to airports.
  • Keeping the drone within sight. That’s not easy to do when the drone has a range of more than 3 miles and it’s so small.
  • Not flying over people. I have witnessed this first hand many times at outdoor gatherings.
  • Obtaining FAR Part 107 certification for commercial use of drones. This certification helps ensure that drone pilots are real pilots who know and understand FAA regulations and important aviation and aeronautical concepts.

I can go on and on, but why bother? The fact is that although many drone pilots are responsible enough to learn and obey the rules for operating their drones, enough of them aren’t responsible at all. They make pilots — especially low-level pilots like those flying helicopters — worried about their safety.

Economics

The second threat I’m feeling is economic.

I’ll be blunt: over the past 15 or so years, I’ve earned a reasonable portion of my flying revenue from photography and survey flights. Drones are increasingly being used for both roles, thus cutting into my potential market.

I currently charge $545/hour for photo flights. Although I can cover a lot of territory in an hour and give two photographers a platform for aerial photos at the same time, not everyone sees the benefit. For about the same price, a photographer can buy a decent entry level photo drone and get the shots he needs. And then use the same drone another day without a further investment.

Or make a larger drone investment and get a better drone and better camera.

I’ll admit it: in many instances, a drone can get a better shot. A perfect example is a dawn photo shoot I did with a good client about two years ago. They’d staged the Wenatchee Symphony Orchestra at a local park, Ohme Gardens, and wanted sweeping aerial images of them playing. On our first pass, our downwash blew away their sheet music. (Oops.) We eventually got the shots they wanted, but I recall saying to my client, “You should have used a drone for this one.”

Aerial Orchestra
Here’s a still image from one of the aerial sequences we did that morning. Watch the whole video here; all the aerial shots were done from my helicopter.

But another client needed aerial video and still images all along the Columbia River from Wenatchee to Chelan, then up the Wenatchee River to Leavenworth and up Lake Chelan to Stehekin. This was well over a hundred miles to cover and some of it was inaccessible by car. We got all of the shots in less than three hours of flight time. It would have taken weeks to get that footage with a drone — and even then, some of it would have been impossible to get.

And a four-hour shoot from Seattle to Mount Rainier along often remote areas of the Green River? I can’t even imagine doing that with a drone.

But not everyone sees that. So I see drones threatening part of my livelihood.

Flying Cameras

My generally poor opinion of drones was significantly changed this past week. What changed it? Getting my hands on a Phantom 4 and seeing the quality of the photos and videos

My friend Jim — a gadget guy if there ever was one — has one of these drones. He started off by showing me some of the video he’d shot on an RV vacation in the southwest with his wife last summer. I was immediately struck by how rock-solid and clear the images were. I’ve created footage with a GoPro mounted in various places on my helicopter and have seen footage created with high-quality professional video cameras from my helicopter both with and without gyro-stabilized mounts — Jim’s footage was as good as or better than any of that.

From a flying camera that costs less than $1,000. To put things in perspective, that’s less than my Nikon DSLR, which doesn’t fly.

Then Jim and I took the drone out for a few flights. It was remarkably easy to fly, even if you choose to do so manually. The controller has two sticks that were immediately familiar to me as a helicopter pilot. The left stick handles ascent/descent (like a helicopter’s collective) and yaw (like a helicopter’s anti torque pedals) while the right stick handles direction of flight (like a helicopter’s cyclic). The drone is amazingly responsive, but what really blows me away is that releasing the controls brings the drone to a controlled hover at its current altitude. And if that isn’t enough, several program modes and tools make it possible to program a flight. The damn thing can literally fly itself.

Phantom 4
Jim’s Phantom 4, awaiting takeoff near Vulture Peak in Wickenburg, AZ. I got a chance to experiment with both manual and automatic flying modes.

I could go on and on about the Phantom 4’s feature set — which I understand is shared by many competing products these days — but I won’t. I’ll let you explore them for yourself. There’s plenty of information online.

I will say this, however: As someone who has been involved in tech for a long time — hell, I wrote books about computers for 22 years starting way back in 1990 — I’m not easily impressed. The Phantom 4 completely blew me away.

Me? A Drone Pilot?

Part 107 Explained
Want to become a commercial drone pilot? Start by learning all about the FAA’s Part 107. This book will help. Buy the ebook edition on Amazon or from Apple. Or buy the paperback edition on Amazon.

Jim, in the meantime, is looking to upgrade and offered me a sweet deal on his Phantom 4 with lots of accessories. That got me excited about owning one of these flying cameras. So excited that I watched all of the Phantom 4 tutorials on DJI’s website, worked through the FAA’s UAS pilot online training, and took (and passed) the FAA’s Part 107 pilot test. All I need is a meeting with the FAA and a sign off to become a certificated UAS pilot.

What does that mean? I’ll be legal to conduct commercial UAS flights. That means I can create (and sell) some of the photos and images I collect with a flying camera like the Phantom.

But I have other ideas for how I can make drone photography part of my professional life. Stay tuned; I’ll be sharing more on this topic in the months to come.

After all, if you can’t beat them, join them.

Found: Camera Equipment

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I unpack a few more boxes and find some camera equipment I forgot I had.

Regular blog readers might know that I moved from the Arizona home I lived in for about 15 years to Washington state back in 2013. I packed my belongings over a nine-month period while waiting for my much delayed divorce to make its way through the court system. In the beginning, I packed the things that meant the most to me — heirloom items, mostly — but I also quickly packed my valuable possessions, including electronics and camera equipment. (Eventually, I packed or discarded things I didn’t really need or want, but that’s because I was bored and pissed off and I didn’t have anything else to do while I waited to get on with my life.)

The Migration of My “Stuff”

My new home wasn’t waiting for me when I moved out of my Arizona home. So the boxes went from my Wickenburg home to my Wickenburg hangar (September 2012 through September 2013) to my Wenatchee hangar (September 2013 to June 2014) to my Malaga garage (June 2014 to today). I started unpacking when my living space was nearing completion in April 2015. I’ve been unpacking ever since.

Seriously: I packed way too much stuff. Everyone who comes into my garage tells me I have too much stuff and I have to agree. I’ve given a lot away and I’ve sold a bunch, too. (Craig’s List works much better here than in Wickenburg.) The benefit, of course, is that I didn’t have to buy much when I moved into my new home. I already had almost everything I needed to make a home.

As my modest living space fills with stuff, I struggle to find places to store it all. That’s why I’ve still got about 20 boxes in the garage that need unpacking. One thing I learned is that the first step to keeping your home clutter-free is to have a specific place where everything you own belongs. If something can’t be put away, it should be thrown away.

Finding the Camera Equipment

These days, I’m organizing and arranging my garage’s shop area. Part of the job is to finish unpacking those damn boxes. So while my friend Bob was over, working on his boat, I began tackling boxes again. I had a mission: I wanted to find and unpack my games and camera equipment.

I found the games right away: Boggle, Scrabble, two (?) Monopoly games, Pente travel version, Uno, Skipbo, dominos, Parcheesi, and playing cards — including a few custom decks I’d had made not long after returning home to get divorced. I sorted it all out, with some games going upstairs to live on the bottom shelf of my coffee table and some going into my truck camper (the Turtleback) for my annual trip south. I got a lot of joy out of flattening that empty box and tossing it atop the others waiting for a trip to the recycling center.

The camera equipment was a bit more elusive. Although I had some of it in a plastic bin on a garage shelf, a lot of it was missing. I definitely remembered a light gray camera bag and two identical Nikon 35mm film camera bodies. There was a 10.5mm fisheye lens that I hadn’t seen in a while, too.

The equipment in the bin was what I’d had with me in the big fifth wheel (the Mobile Mansion) where I lived every summer since 2010 and then full-time while waiting for my home to be built. I knew there was more from my old house and I was pretty sure I’d packed it. But none of the boxes were marked “Camera Equipment” — I’d labeled every single box — and I was at a loss.

And then I remembered that I didn’t always label the boxes with the exact contents. The reason: a mild case of paranoia. If someone got into my Wickenburg hangar that last summer and started going through the boxes, I didn’t want him (or her) to find my valuables. The same thing applied to the movers; I didn’t want them knowing exactly which boxes they could find stuff worth stealing.

I looked at the labels on the remaining boxes. One was marked “Old Photos.” But I also had a plastic bin full of old photos. How many old photos did I have? I used my box cutter to open the box. And there was the gray camera bag, along with a bunch of lenses, filters, and other equipment I’d completely forgotten about.

It was like a great birthday or Christmas day: getting presents that you actually wanted.

The 35mm camera bodies — which are pretty much worthless these days — were in the box. But the camera bag was full of lenses. Not only was the missing 10.5mm lens there, but there were three others I’d completely forgotten I had. They’re all Nikon lenses and I suspect, based on their weight, that they’re of different qualities (metal and glass vs plastic). Not only do they fit the D7000 I currently use, but most of them will work with the old film cameras (if I ever start using them again).

Camera Equipment
With the newly found lenses, I now have seven lenses to choose from: 10-24mm ƒ3.5-4.5 zoom, 10.5mm ƒ2.8 fisheye, 16-85mm ƒ3.5-5.6 zoom (on the camera here; my “everyday” lens), 18-55mm ƒ3.5-5.6 zoom, 50mm ƒ1.8, 55-200mm ƒ4.5-5.6 zoom, and 70-300mm ƒ4.5-5.6 zoom.

This is not “professional” camera equipment. Back when I was shopping for my first DSLR in 2007 — right before my first Alaska trip — I bought a Nikon D80 camera, mostly because it would work with lenses I already had. It had a crop sensor, not the full-frame sensor preferred by professionals. (Learn the difference between full-frame and crop sensors here.) By the time I bought my D7000 in 2011(?), I had a lot invested in lenses and didn’t want to have to start over; that’s why I went with another crop sensor model, albeit one that’s slightly more advanced than a general consumer model: the D7000 I still use today.

Of course, it wasn’t just lenses that I found. There were also about a dozen camera filters — the good, glass screw-on type — that included polarizers, skylight filters, and neutral density filters. There are also a few collapsible reflectors that could be used to either shade or reflect light back up to small subjects. I distinctly remember using those for flower photography in the desert near my Arizona home.

And then there’s my HD video camera and all of its accessories. And my old time-lapse setup. And my geotagger. And my lightweight tripod. And lens pouches. And bean bags.

Needless to say, I’m thrilled to have access to all of my camera equipment again. I’ll be bringing quite a bit of it with me when I head south — well, we’ll see what I can comfortably fit in the Turtleback, anyway. Maybe it’ll motivate me to get a little more creative on this trip. With so much equipment at my disposal, there’s really no excuse not to be able to capture the images I want.

In Defiance of Logic and Reason

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My thoughts on a photo that sickens me.

I’m trying very hard this election cycle not to blog about politics. There are a couple of reasons for this.

First, I don’t want to alienate readers who come to read posts covering the wide variety of topics I write about but may disagree with me on politics.

Second, I know damn well that the folks who have been paying attention to the presidential elections this year have already made up their minds and there’s nothing I can say that will change them.

But sometimes a push comes to a shove and I’ve been pushed a few too many times this past week.

Where We Are

If you have been paying attention, you know how crazy this election cycle is.

On one side, we have a qualified, politically experienced, and knowledgable candidate who has been in public service in many different roles for about 30 years. She’s been haunted by conspiracy theories that focus not only on her but on her husband. She’s been battling investigations and insinuations for years, with a patience and fortitude I find amazing. And although most of the dirty rumors about her have been proven false, many Americans continue to believe that she’s some sort of evil monster that will take away their guns, abort their fetuses, and send them to death panels.

On the other side, we have a “successful” billionaire — if you consider six bankruptcies a sign of success — who clearly has very little knowledge about the Constitution, world affairs, or the global economy. He got his start in life with a million dollars from his rich father, who, along with various banks, has bailed him out of more financial trouble than the average person can even imagine. He’s bashed minorities, immigrants, veterans, African Americans, Muslims, and women — what he says about each group depends on who he’s speaking in front of. He incites violence at his rallies, hinting at one that “second amendment people” — gun owners? — could stop his opponent from nominating Supreme Court justices they didn’t like. He sees conspiracy theories everywhere and has even promoted one of the biggest: the so-called racist “birther movement.” And he’s already planted seeds with his supporters that if he doesn’t win the election, it’s because it’s “rigged.”

You can find articles online in reputable publications that support everything I’ve just said. Just Google and be mindful of the difference between investigative journalism like you might find at the Washington Post or New York Times and opinion pieces you might find at Fox News.

Of course, if you’re a Trump supporter, you’re not likely to trust any of the media since your boy Donald told you not to. You’ve drunk his Kool-Aid and all I have for you is pity.

“Locker Room” Talk

But that’s not what I’m writing about today. I’m writing about “conservative” women supporting predatory sexual harassment and assault.

Let’s get this straight: Bragging to an acquaintance that being a star lets you kiss women or touch (or grab) their genitals without their consent is not locker room talk. Not the locker room talk of men who have any amount of respect for women. Such talk is crude and lewd and clearly indicates an attitude of misogyny far beyond what should be tolerable in civilized society.

But what’s worse is that it indicates an attitude that says sexual assault is okay. This is a prime example of the rape culture that keeps making its way into the news

I cannot tell you how my blood boils when I hear women who call themselves “conservatives” claim that their men talk like that. Really? Your men really talk about forcing themselves on random women, about grabbing them “by the pussy”? Then what the fuck are you still doing with them? How can you possibly tolerate life with someone who thinks so poorly of women that they’d talk about women in such a way? And what are you teaching your daughters about women’s roles and rights? Why are you holding them back in your sorry backwards world?

I feel sorry for the women who honestly believe that “all men” talk like this. They don’t.

And with Trump, it’s not just talk, ladies. It’s actions. Since the release of the “bus video” last week, women have been stepping forward to tell their stories about how Trump kissed them or touched them or groped them against their will. Or walked into beauty pageant dressing rooms to gawk at young women while they changed their clothes. Every day, more women come forward with more stories or confirmation of those already told.

Donald Trump is the new Bill Cosby. Presidential material? I think not.

About the Photo

But I’m not really writing about that, either. What I’m really writing about is this photo, which has been circulating around Twitter, Facebook, and the rest of the Internet for a few days.

This Makes Me Sick
This makes me sick.

This photo makes me sick.

Here’s a woman proving to the world that Hillary Clinton was right: half of Trumps supporters are deplorable. How else could you label a woman who wears a shirt like this in public?

How can a woman think so poorly of herself that she invites sexual advances from a 70-year-old pervert?

How does she explain this to her children? Or grandchildren? What is she teaching them?

Do women like this one realize how they are degrading all women? How they are holding back other women from being taken seriously in school or the workplace? How they’re dirtying the rest of us with their appalling behavior?

(This is even lower than women who use lingerie photos of themselves to attract men on dating sites, but we won’t go there.)

And does she not see the irony in this? Does she not realize that Trump’s disdain for women who are not “beautiful” and for women who are overweight would likely make her a target for his ridicule?

Is she really that dimwitted and brainwashed?

What is this fucking country coming to? It’s gotten to the point that I ask myself this every day.

Comments Are Open

Comment are open — at least for now. The discussion is about this photo and the bus video that started this chapter of Donald Trump’s campaign. It’s not about Hillary Clinton. It’s not about Bill Clinton. It’s not even about Bill Cosby. It’s about this photo of this woman and the message she sends to the world about herself, Trump supporters, and the rest of our country.

And yes, I do realize that there are third party candidates. This isn’t about them, either.

Stay civil. Comments are moderated; you might want to read the comment policy before wasting your time posting something that won’t be seen.

Comments about anything other than this photo or the bus video that prompted the subject of this photo will not appear here, even if they do get through my blacklists and junk filters.

The Bighorn Sheep in My Yard

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Wild Kingdom* out my window.

There are bighorn sheep in the cliffs across the road from my home. I often hear them clattering around in the rocks, creating mini landslides. I’ve also seen them quite often.

Last year, they’d show up pretty regularly across the street in my neighbor’s yard. By regularly, I mean around midday every day. For weeks. I even had the misfortune of seeing my neighbor outside, buck naked, taking photos of them when I was watching them through binoculars and movement caught my eye.

They were gone for quite a while. Sure, I’d hear them up in the cliffs and the sound would often get Penny all worked up. Despite numerous helicopter rides with me, her hearing remains excellent and she often hears them before I do.

A few weeks ago, they started showing up again. A pretty big herd of mostly females. One time, they even put on quite a show for some weekend guests who’d come with their RV. We sat up on the deck having a late breakfast while they grazed on weeds in my neighbor’s yard.

Bighorn Sheep
It wasn’t easy to take photos of the sheep at the road; the sun was right behind them.

The other day, they were on my side of the road. I watched them, fearing that they might start grazing on the willow trees I’d planted alongside the road last year. But they seemed more interested in the weeds than the trees. Good.

Penny and Sheep
A cropped cell phone picture of Penny facing off with one of the sheep.

On Thursday, I was working on some shelves in my garage when Penny started barking at something. Turned out that she was near the end of the driveway, facing off with one of the bighorn sheep. I managed to get a photo with my phone before the sheep bounded off. I mean that quite literally — it ran off with a hopping motion that was actually quite funny to see. But what really surprised both Penny and me was that the sheep wasn’t alone — are they ever? There were at least a dozen more in my front yard, hidden from view by the tall weeds and my shed. They took off after their friend, running across the road.

I took a break and went upstairs for some lunch. I ate out on the deck. The sheep had moved into the road about halfway down my property line. Some of them were actually lying down in the road. I live on a dead end road and there are only three occupied homes beyond mine, so there isn’t much traffic.

Cathedral Rock Traffic Jam
Seriously? Lying down in the road?

Eventually, however, one of my neighbors went out. Even though they obviously saw the sheep — how could you possibly miss a herd right in the road? — and they drove slowly, the sheep moved.

Into my yard.

As I watched, they came closer and closer to my home. I know they saw me up on the deck watching, but they didn’t seem too interested. They came to the north side of my place, the side that faces the Columbia River and Wenatchee Valley. They were nibbling on the tops of the native grass and weeds that grow wild there. (I have 10 acres and the vast majority of it has “nature’s landscaping.”) They came closer and closer. At one point, one of them was right at the edge of the gravel drive, not 100 feet from where I watched from the deck.

Herd of Bighorn Sheep
My Nikon was handy and I’d popped the 70-300mm lens on it when they first came into the yard. They were so close that I had to zoom all the way out to capture this group of the herd. This is 70mm from my deck, uncropped. A handful of others didn’t fit in the frame.

They were beautiful. And healthy. Adult females mostly, with a few youngsters.

momandkid.jpg
Another shot from my deck. This was shot at 300mm and is not cropped. They were close!

This is the video I Periscoped. It’s a shame it saves a downsampled version of the video.

I took pictures, of course. Lots of pictures. And video. I did a live broadcast on Periscope and another on Facebook. I wanted to share my experience with my friends. (I guess that’s what this blog post is about.)

I’d left the door open and when I saw them looking down at something, I followed their glance. Penny was out there, sizing them up. I didn’t want her scaring them off so I called her, softly. She seemed to debate whether she should come. But then she trotted back into the house and up the stairs. She joined me on the deck to watch them and stayed quiet.

And then they just left. After about 20 minutes grazing in my side yard, one of them headed off purposefully and the others followed. I watched them go. They crossed my driveway and then the road and headed back up toward the cliffs.

Did they come back yesterday when I was out hiking and hunting for mushrooms with a friend? I don’t know, but I bet they did. And I bet they came back today when I was out doing helicopter rides in Quincy. Tomorrow, I plan to get some work done at home. Maybe I’ll see them again.

I hope so.

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* Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom was a television show about animals that originally aired from 1963 until 1988. I grew up watching this show. A new version began airing on Animal Planet in 2002. Learn more here and here.