One that got away

[Bruce Watson]

Spring is in full force here. You can tell because the dogwoods are peaking. That's the sign that this warm up thing isn't a tease, it's for real.

Out wandering around the neighborhoods today I found a scene I've been watching for for decades. A nicely formed dogwood in good proximity to a nicely formed pine tree. I don't know why but this kind of scene just means spring to me. Anyway, I could see a nice vertical pano -- dogwood at bottom and pine at top. And to find such a scene in a residental setting where I could make the photograph without too much interference from man made stuff (houses, roads, cars, etc.) was a complete surprise. And the light was right too!

So I hot footed it on home and dragged the camera back. After a bit of work setting up the 5x4, I could tell that this one was going to get away. The 150mm lens was too short and would have required that I set up in the middle of a busy street. The 240mm lens was so long that I had to be back too far and a bunch of utility cables (three are big trunk cables for telephone in the area) intruded on the top.

This is the first time in years that I've wished for a lens I don't have. But a 180mm or a 210mm would have probably done the trick.

Oh well. All I got was this story to tell. Anyone else want to tell about one that got away?

[vinny]

I dropped my 210mm repromaster into Convict Lake two years ago. Two fellow shooters and a ski pole helped me fish it out. It's now cleaner and just as good. The shot got away but the lens didn't.
vinny

[Nathan Potter]

Yea. Here's an old story - probably about 1972 in Southboro MA. A friend and myself found an old general store with a classic old - maybe 1920 - fuel pump abandoned by the side of the store very close to the street. He was using a Pentax 6X7 I was using my 4X5 Leitz/Linhoff macro camera with a reverse mounted 120 mm Summar. Hazy lighting was superb for my Panatomic X, low contrast with about an N+1 development. Composition was perfect and could be accomodated with considerable tilt and small aperture. I was set up with my tripod and loading film when an older and I mean ancient, certainly over 90, shriveled lady came out of the store waving a broom and shouting "what are you doing; I don't want you to take pictures of my store". My friend fled with his Pentax but before I could respond the woman took a swipe at my tripod and toppled the setup to the ground. Then she started beating me with the broom. Fortunately no damage to me or the camera, but that was sheer luck. "OK I said we'll leave - I'm sorry you are so sensitive." Well, I picked up my gear and we fled without any photos. A few years later I was back but the wonderful old gas pump was gone and presumably the lady lady had expired.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[J D Clark]

I was in Death Valley on one of my many visits in November. The night before was pretty nasty with a winter storm dropping snow on all of the mountain rimming the valley, which would make for a fantastic photographic opportunity, only there was a heavy overcast. I headed in the direction where the sky looked a little lighter -- toward Ubehebe. I made a number of photographs there, and was heading back to Stovepipe Wells, when a little gap in the clouds opened up, and illuminated some of the high peaks on the west side south of Stovepipe with just some of the most wondrous light I've ever seen.

We pulled the car off the highway as quickly as possible, and with my wife's help had the camera read to expose a photo in about 4 minutes. Just as she was handing me my meter, the cloud gap mostly closed, and the photo was gone. We hung around with the camera ready for about 15 minutes, but it just didn't come back.

That's my story of the one that got away!

John Clark
www.johndclark.com

[cyrus]

Came upon a street performance by a Korean community of women dressed in their traditional outfits. Sudden gust of wind sent their wigs and outfits swirling all over the place. A chaotic scene of fluttering women and material. I quickly snapped a shot using my handheld 4x5 only to realize that I had left the lenscap on. Still kicking myself.

[Brian Ellis]

Old drugstore I drove by often for years, lots of old products and advertisements from the 60's or '70s still in the windows, faded signs, paint peeling, the story of many neighborhood drugstores killed by the likes of RiteAid et al . But this one was different because all the window treatments had been left in place when the store closed. Every time I drove by I'd tell myself I had to make a photograph of that store some day. Well some day finally came, I loaded the camera, tripod, holders, meter, etc. into the car, arrived at the store ready to set up - and naturally the window treatments were gone and the windows were boarded up. Without the old window treatments it was just another old boarded-up building.

Moral of the story: Ruth Bernhard's mantra - "Today is the day, now is the time" - should be heeded by all of us.

[Vaughn]

How about one that was finally captured?

I have been driving by this semi-collasped house for the past 13 years...a small place with some old fruit trees. It is behind an occupied house and across a cow-filled field. I have been wanting to make a B&W 4x10 of it while the fruit trees were in blossom (old and new, old white house/white blossoms, etc) for the past 7 or 8 years..

But I have been relunctant to contact the owners and when I could photograph it, it would be raining, or windy or I could not make the time, or I was out of film etc etc etc.

This Spring I was driving by and the people's gate was open --- I finally stopped and got permission to access the old house on the week-end (very nice people!). So I photographed it two Saturdays ago...but had forgotten my split darkslide once I got out there (w/ my last 4 sheets of film)! I took the shot anyway and planned on just cutting the neg down to 4x10. But I also made a quick order of more FP4 (Thank you Freestyle!). This past Saturday I went out again and rephotographed it with my modified dark slide. The fruit trees were even heavier with blossoms, little to no wind (this was about 8:30 in the morning)...though the wind started to pick up (a soft breeze, really) by the time I was done. My times with my shutter-less 19" RD Artar was 1 second at f/90.

Developed some of the negs last night -- they look good, and I have several more to develop. So I think I got it. I am developing the negs for Platinum/palladium (but I have to get some more chemicals for that first.)

So never give up! Sometimes everything does come together!

Vaughn

[Diane Maher]

Two big windstorms blew through my community in July 2006 (two days apart). The winds toppled down one of those big red and white radio towers in a field and crumpled another tower into a ball. I always wanted to take pictures of those with the 5x12, but by the time I finally got around to it some six months later, they'd been cleaned up.

Also, an old abandoned building just to the north of the Eads Bridge in St. Louis which had this really big Switzer's sign painted on it was partially blown down (by one of the 2006 storms) onto the bridge deck. This is one of those shots I had meant to get with the 8x10 from the pedestrian walkway on the bridge, but never did.