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Thread: A saw and a ladder

  1. #41

    A saw and a ladder

    "No one has the right to cut or prune a tree except on his/her own property."

    Tell it to the lumber companies that make all their money from public lands.

    Or, the estate of Fred Picker.

  2. #42

    A saw and a ladder

    Wacking a Chem-Lawn shrub is doing the world a favor.

    Back as a Univ of Oregon student in 1981, I gave my obligatory $20 to the fledgling Earth First movement and read Edward Abbey's Monkey Wrench gang over and over (where is that movie version?). I did a project on rampant development and had a show with the typical Lewis Baltz - Robert Adams ice cold pictures of deserted suburban houses and creeping signs of mankind in every bucolic scene. Had I stuck with it, and had a German surname, imagine the glory awaiting me.

    Then I had to get a job and Oregon's economy sucked - 20% unemployment - and ended up house framing, hodading, and, yes, cutting trees. It changes your perspective when the only way for a middle aged man in the rural west to support his family is by exploiting - or harvesting, depending on your POV - natural resources.

    I learned that like it or not, humans are part of the environment and are here to stay. I don't think they should log everything, or send the raw timber to Japan - but I don't have a problem with a well managed timber operation. And watching a puny human fall a giant tree is actually pretty awe inspiring. Heck, I get a kick out of cutting the 5-6 inch trees on my lot, but I don't cut wood for pleasure.

    The US currently has more biomass than before the revolution (200 + years ago). It doesn't compensate for the loss of old growth, erosion, loss of habitat, or the destruction of the tropical rainforests, but - short of killing off billions of people, we need to cut trees to survive. Some photographer hacking a limb - in a responsible way of course, while being respectful of propery rights - hardly makes a difference to our environment.

    If you really want to get a bug up the PC environmentalist photographer's arse, ask them where the tropical hardwood on their Wisner, Canham, or Ebony came from... and if it was FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified? Especially the Asian built cameras, where the concept of conservation is all but unheard of.

  3. #43

    Join Date
    Dec 2004
    Posts
    192

    A saw and a ladder

    Francesco, I have to admit, there is a certain irony to the image of a photographer toting a nice expensive ebony or mahogony camera complain about loping off a branch from a tree in the middle of an industrial wasteland.

    But then if you look closely, the discussion isn't actually about environmental issues at all. It is about good old fashioned bourgeois middle-class property rights.

  4. #44

    Join Date
    Dec 2000
    Location
    Tonopah, Nevada, USA
    Posts
    6,334

    A saw and a ladder

    A lot of "holier-than-thou's" here. Don't need the ladder because I use the bed of my 4 wheel drive Bubba pick-up, (we just back over small trees that are in the way) and can't hardly piss anyone off because nothing in Tonopah grows tall enough to take a whack at. I suppose to be politically holy John should have recommended purchasing some plastic foliage at K-Mart to hang over the camera. Although sooner or later the plastic plant would become toxic trash someplace. My my. There's simply no solution but to quit taking photos all together.

  5. #45

    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    Ann Arbor, MI USA
    Posts
    219

    A saw and a ladder

    Francisco,

    "Especially the Asian built cameras, where the concept of conservation is all but unheard of."

    Although I can't speak for entire Asia, the concept of conservation has always been central to daily life in Japan where I'm from and where Ebonys, Tachiharas, Wistas, etc. are made. My parents pounded into me not to waste even a drop of water. It's simply a matter of survival, not a political issue, in a country without much resource. The concept does exist. I admit, though, there is much wastefulness nowadays as the country grew more affluent. Just a clarification.

    Back to the original topic...
    The saw episode reminded me of a photo and text in a landscape photography book I've read. It was a photo of some trees with a carpet of small, yellow flowers in the foreground (or some such). The photographer wrote something like "...I carefully pulled all the white flowers that were distracting..." I was rather shocked. How much is allowed to "direct" the scene for an exposure?

  6. #46

    A saw and a ladder

    In principle, I don't have a problem with someone chopping down a bit of a tree for their shot, depending on the circumstances. Problem is, once the principle is out the window, you're stuck with the individual interpretation of 'reasonable'.

    It's ironic the mixed response tree cutting is getting, given a post I made on photo.net last year (since deleted because of flaming). I raised the idea of asking a property owner to move a chair on their property by about a metre - and even mentioned doing it myself if I could find nobody around. No suggestion of saws at all, and the response was strongly against me. At the time, I took it to be a generally American feeling which emphasised property rights above helping someone out. Yet this thread suggests my explanation was wrong.

  7. #47

    Join Date
    Sep 2003
    Location
    South of Rochester, NY
    Posts
    286

    A saw and a ladder

    I really hate to "contribute" more to this thread because I think it's getting a bit out of hend. But...

    I may be way off, but my interpretation was that it was a question of respect. Not property rights or cutting limbs, or any of the other interjections. Simple plain old repsect dictate that you don't mess with something that isn't yours. I also see it as the single most lacking item in our current society, which is another whole discussion for a different forum I suppose.

    But for those who misunderstood what I had written, there's the explanation... Respect...

    And about that chair and how it fits in. No disrepect meant, but another possibility. Say you couldn't find the owner and you moved the chair. Maybe you even tried to move the chair back. Now say the owner comes out a few hours later to sit down, misses the chair and breaks a bone is his 90 year old body because he's blind and had no idea the chair had moved by itself... Far fetched, but possible, and I've run into situations just as strange in my life. You can never tell what your actions will cause down the road in life....

  8. #48

    Join Date
    Mar 2002
    Location
    Sweet, ID
    Posts
    523

    A saw and a ladder

    Hey John, good to see you're still stirring the pot from the east coast. Here on the west coast, all of the environmentalists "already have their houses in the wilderness."

    You still get top bill in my book for the best photo accouterment ideas. The ladder idea is spot on, as usual.
    The only trouble with doin' nothing is you can't tell when you get caught up

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