HUMP ROCK

I tend to have affairs with my images. I finish them up, meet up with them from time to time, enjoy them, fondle them, caress them, maybe take them out to show my most trusted friends. But inevitably it ends… badly. After a few days, perhaps weeks, perhaps months, I intensely dislike most of them. I don't mean to. It just happens. I start to see through the shiny exterior and discover the flaws in their personalities. What was sexy and exciting oh-so-shortly ago becomes mundane. And I'm left with an image that I regret spending the $.00032 that it costs in Hard Drive space. This is why I usually end up posting images from 6 months ago instead immediately uploading shots from a recent trip. I need to know if this relationship is going to go anywhere first before I trot it out to meet my friends and family (which is you).

 So no, the Gorge ISN'T this green right now. This was taken last spring with some folks who I am honored to call my friends: Sarah Marino, Ron Coscorossa, and Koveh Tavakkol. We trekked mightily (or clumsily in my case) mile after mile (or about 1.2 miles) through the dense jungle (or along a well maintained path) until we reached the nexus of the universe (or a small waterfall). Everyone dutifully set up their gear, trying desperately to keep things operating in the monsoonal rains (or a light sprinkle). Compositions were considered, insults were traded (my favorite pastime), and smack was talked. Sarah decided that the rain wasn't making things wet enough and tossed her camera into the raging torrent. While this seemed silly at the time, it was clearly a field test which provided her data for a writeup on the Canon 6D.

 I bring this up because it is rather integral to the composition. As aforementioned, the smack talk was smacking that day, and as a recent Nikon convert, I felt it my sworn duty to suggest repeatedly and enthusiastically how superior I felt in my gear choice to these Canon users. I kept digging until I got to a little soft spot, and then went for the jugular.

 "Oh, you Canon people can only go to 16mm?? Pity, that. Yeah, you would think that being at 14mm isn't a big change, but it opens up a world of possibilities that you Canon people aren't familiar with".

 Once this gauntlet was laid down, I had ZERO choice but to find a composition that absolutely needed EVERY SINGLE MM to work so that I could enrage my Gorge guests. This made me nervous, as I simply wasn't finding one, especially when you are trying to outdo such compositional masters as Sarah, Ron, and Koveh. Finally I found this fern that I could JUST fit in the edge of the frame if I positioned myself immediately in front of a large boulder. After much consternation I managed to maneuver my tripod in such a way that would actually work, but in doing so removed it from my control. The only way to access the camera to compose, shoot, review, etc. was to mount this rock in a way that made both shooter and observers rather uncomfortable. There was the requisite grunting as I got myself in position, and as it dawned on me that my pose could be mistaken for one of lovemaking, my only hope was that my friends were busy enough with their own image making that they wouldn't notice my amorous movements on this particular piece of mossy granite.

Sadly, the photographic evidence of my event was shown to me shorty after my dismount. Canon users = 1, Nikon user = fail

You can see Sarah and Ron's incredible work at:  https://www.naturephotoguides.com