Purple Martins Archives - bc-bog-trotter.com

Ho Hum, Pass The Rum

A Weary Traveller. I found this moth on the hood of my vehicle. His wingspan was about three centimetres. The photo was taken with my cell phone. Some technology is amazing. — A Weary Traveller.
I found this moth on the hood of my vehicle. His wingspan was about three centimetres. The photo was taken with my cell phone. Some new technology is amazing.

It’s blog o’clock. I haven’t written a blog in a while and, at the moment, don’t really have much exciting to write about but my readers should be warned that yet I live. Each day is pretty mundane. Life is ticking by, my health is improving and the wounded ankle is slowly healing. I’m walking and swimming as much as possible. Part of my dream is to hike along cactus-studded ridges and look down on this boat anchored in translucent warm, green waters below me. Yeah, like the Sea Of Cortez! I want to be in good shape for that and I know that being in big shape is a death spiral. I reckon that I’m packing around the equivalent of a sack of concrete in my Value Village jeans. If any of you flat-bellied folks want to get ready for winter, I’ll make you a package deal on several pounds of blubber.

"Lard Tunderin' Jasus!" Fierce as it looked, this cumulonimbus cloud fizzled out and faded away. A snap-shot with my cell phone while at a stoplight. — “Lard Tunderin’ Jasus!”
As fierce as it looked, this cumulonimbus cloud fizzled out and faded away. A snap-shot taken with my cell phone while at a stoplight.

I’m also beginning to realize that I imbibe a buffet of prescription medications. I’m sensing that the pills are a toxic stew which does nothing to improve or maintain good health. It may be having the opposite effect and I’m noting how one thing leads to the next. Is my excess weight due, in part, to the influence of my daily drugs? I know that when I’ve sworn off some of these concoctions, the weight loss is soon noticeable. One new prescription’s fine print noted that if mixed with another drug, already in my daily intake, there could be dire consequences. At three bucks a day for this one poison, I declined to participate in someone else’s Porsche payment program.

Profusion. Scotch Broom, an invasive species, seems to have especially brilliant flowrs this spring, much to the delight of thousands who are allergic to its pollen. — Profusion.
Scotch Broom, an invasive species, seems to have especially brilliant flowrs this spring, much to the delight of thousands who are allergic to its pollen.

A free tree in every one! Cottonwood seeds enjoy their say, much to the irritation of those with allergies — A free tree in every one!
Cottonwood seeds enjoy their say, much to the irritation of those with allergies

It’s my body and it’s up to me what goes into it. A person should not blindly trust strangers to keep an eye on the details of their health anymore than one should trust a new mechanic with their vehicle. It’s simple. If the flab goes, so do the damned pills and perhaps, if the pills go, so does that excess weight. It’s all connected. And so pass the rum, chum. Now that’s a medicine I understand and can even advocate. Yes I’m aware of the side effects. That’s why I drink it!

"C'mon up to my box baby" Purple Martins at their nesting box beside 'Seafire' — “C’mon up to my box baby”
Purple Martins at their nesting box beside ‘Seafire’

When the summer's business of raising chicks and eating tons of bugs, the Martins will fly all the way back to Mexico. Enviable I think! — When the summer’s business of raising chicks and eating tons of bugs, the Martins will fly all the way back to Mexico.
Enviable I think!

Meanwhile I’m tinkering the boat back into good shape and watching other boats come and go. Damn! That makes for a big itch! There have been some beauties pass through already. One monstrous old Tolly Craft appeared within the painful thunder of two extremely loud Detroit Diesels. (If a tugboat produced that much noise, it would never have a crew.) Everyone in the marina was holding their ears. The geriatric skipper wore an intercom headset and mercifully shut the engines down promptly. The yacht gleamed and although it displayed no name, it caught even my eye. Within minutes of docking, the couple aboard it were out, up, down and around polishing and buffing. That went on until sundown when the flickering blue of television filled the vessel’s cabin. Wot a life! A Fart Parkerson-type sailboat next appeared bearing the name “High Heels.” There are things I just don’t understand. All that money, apparently, with no imagination. Yesterday an old geezer pulled up beside me at a stoplight. He was driving an Audi R8, a gorgeous, rare sports car. Its V10 motor rocketed the car away as if I’d only imagined seeing it. I looked it up on the internet and discovered the price tag is $164,000. And it only seats two! (Maybe the chap was a pharmacist!) I wonder how it would look jacked up in the air with big fat wheels.

Warm and fuzzy snow. For a few days there are drifts of Cottonwood seeds then it rains. (These large hardwood trees are commonly known as alder.) They can grow very large. Each seed is about the size of a small grain of salt. — Warm and fuzzy snow. For a few days there are drifts of Cottonwood seeds Then .it rains. (These large hardwood trees are also commonly known as alder.) They can grow very large. Each seed is about the size of a small grain of salt.

Just off the end of the marina where ‘Seafire’ is berthed, a local marine contractor is breaking up a decommissioned steel tug. I can hardly bring myself to photograph the process. It seems so very sad. Each day there is less of the tug and a higher pile of scrap on the breaker’s barge. The smell of burned paint and the shower of sparks from the cutting torches are like the effluent of an Indian funeral ghat. In a bizarre way I relate to the worn-out old hulk. I hope that when my day comes there is a more glorious or, at least, discreet ending.

A dissection in progress. The bow stem cap and forebits are lifted away. how many hours I've spent off-watch leaning on bits like these while watching the world go by. It was as far away from the noise and the rest of the crew you could get. — A dissection in progress. The bow stem cap and forebits are lifted away. How many hours I’ve spent off-watch leaning on bits like these while watching the world go by! It was as far away from the noise and the rest of the crew you could get.

Call It Fred

There may well come a time,

When I’ll be shark shit.

I hope, at least, the bottom feeder will be a fish

And not a politician.

How my time in this dimension

Comes to an end I do not know

Except that with luck it will occur while at sea.

Hopefully I can be afforded the dignity of being discharged

in something like a sailbag ballasted enough

to take me quickly to a depth where the big fish are.

Passing through the belly of a gleaming sleek beast

I will become an object of low regard

Yet I will still exist, drifting, dissolving, feeding little fish.

They in turn, as you know, will feed bigger fish and so on

Until a time arrives when I am a shining smiley in your net.

You came name that fish.

Call it Fred,

It’ll all be the same to me.

The aspiration of finding a decent J.O.B. is dwindling. Apparently nobody wants to hire an old fart like me and pay me for my decades of experience. I also do not have a certificate or license for much of anything. You seem to require a document to do anything now and I marvel at all the things I have done in my life without paperwork. As we all know, a ticket is no assurance of competence but I won’t get into that rant now. I also have no interest or social skill to be a box store greeter or a security guard so, I’m desperately looking for a clever and legal means of producing an income, hopefully something I can do while travelling. That of course means working online and this Cyber-Neanderthal has got some adventures ahead on that path. In my heart of hearts, I don’t really want employment ever again, but there are other realities. Living under a bridge is not one of my ambitions.

A boat wit no name. This glorious, gleaming stinkpot represents values I can't comprehend. — A boat with no name, all fifty-plus feet of her. It does have an oxygen tent.
This glorious, gleaming stinkpot represents values I can’t comprehend. (But I wish I could afford it!)

High Heels ...enough said. — High Heels
…enough said.

It is now past mid-May and proving to be a very dry spring. Hopefully Vancouver Island does not end up burning like Fort McMurray but a serious drought does appear imminent this year. The creeks are dry already and the days are an endless stream of cloudless warmth. Every day, in an effort to stave off the blues and various anxieties I try to find the beauty in the world around me. Some days that is especially hard to see, but not because it isn’t there.

Other mornings the amazing natural wealth all around becomes obvious in overwhelming clarity. With the dry spring the wildflowers are profuse. I’m trying to improve my skills with the photo mode of my LG cell phone. It can produce some excellent high-quality images despite the clumsiness I find in using it. I’ve restricted my photography for the moment to that single device. All the photos (Except those of the birds) in this blog were taken with that one mobile phone.

So, this blog proves to be another photo essay. “Thar be new adventure to write about just over the horizon Billy! Stay the course!”

Leaves of grass There is richness and beauty even in the simple symmetry of a clump of grass. — Leaves of grass
There is richness and beauty even in the simple symmetry of a clump of grass.

“There are times when the wolves are silent and the moon is howling.” George Carlin

Hard Butter And Strange Birds

Hard Butter and Strange Birds

Blackberry season began in July, with a little rain at the right time it'll be a bumper crop — Blackberry season began in July, with a little rain at the right time it’ll be a bumper crop

The seasons have moved from late spring to mid-summer. We’ve had blistering hot weather, then a few days of rain. Now the evenings and mornings are cool. The butter in the galley is once again hard at breakfast time. It’s great weather for sleeping. My dog Jack and I wake up one toe at a time. The rain has helped produce a profusion of blackberries and some are already ripe for picking. It seems the plants are producing their treasures a month earlier this year.

Silva Bay is blessed with an annual migration of Purple Martins and Barn Swallows. They’re delightful as they chatter and zoom about through the rigging. I wonder if the annual influx of yachters aren’t a clever device which the birds use to attract the biting insects they in turn feed upon. This year’s brood of baby birds is well on its way to being ready to fly south. That magic is amazing. Birds return to mate and nest and produce tiny eggs. Those eggs in turn become ugly little dinosaurs which rapidly evolve into beautiful creatures born with a navigational intuition which which will take them as far away as Central America then back to this bay next spring.

Don't look now but I'm tellin' ya, somebody's watching us! (to guage their size, the wire they're perched on is about 1/4"thick) — Don’t look now but I’m tellin’ ya, somebody’s watching us!
(To guage their size, the wire they’re perched on is about 1/4″thick)

An e-mail I received recently advised not to worry about old age: it doesn’t last that long. I forwarded that message on, explaining there are things to do before I end up as a few puffs of smoke in the crematorium chimney. A song playing on the radio has the lyrics, “If I die, I wanna die old.” Hey baby, there’s no if about it! As I rushed about the business of the day a lady discovered an inert heron floating by the docks. It was freshly killed. The bright crimson at the back of its head was evidence of a mortal tangle with an otter or a collision of some sort. In my haste I debated briefly about taking a photo but then rushed off to the tasks at hand. I can still see that dead heron. Beak slightly parted, bright, sharp yellow eye staring serenely into my soul, an image more indelible than any photo. This morning I open the hatches to a perfect dawn with the birds calling and chattering. There is a perfume of fresh newness as if the world had just been unwrapped, an incredible gift which we so often don’t quite see. Baby birds, dead birds, life, death, dawn, sunset, the days whirl by. Life has no apparent meaning for me. How I wish I could learn to enjoy life’s plateaus and find the ability to live fully in the moment!

Stainless Steel Bowtie, A custom-built SS CQR anchor at the front of a visiting mega yacht — Stainless Steel Bowtie,
A custom-built SS CQR anchor at the front of a visiting mega yacht

Now the hot weather has returned. Yesterday afternoon when I stepped into the boat it felt cool. The thermometer read 29ºC. This morning the bird’s noises are subdued. Old men wipe the dew from their white boats. Flags lift and drop flaccidly. It’s going to be a blister! Forest fires rage across the continent and the global warming faction is saying, “See, I told ya!” Uno cervesa por favor.

Days later, the grand summer weather continues, thankfully today we have a moderate Westerly breeze. Yesterday was windless and airless, an absolute torture to work bent over in the sun, at least for this aging old fair-haired boy. Days like that leave me wondering at the feasibility of my Southern dreams. I say that even as I continue my research on Mexico and Costa Rica. That seems ludicrous in this paradise which is my home; but the nights are shortening. Another long, grey wet arthritic winter is coming. I’m also questioning the sanity of staying in a place that seems doomed to self-destruct politically, economically and environmentally.

My pal Jim has now arrived in Hilo, Hawaii with his boat. He has sailed a hurricane- pace tour of the South Pacific. His next stop will be back here in British Columbia. I admire Jimmy totally in his ability to realize his long-held dream and I look forward to helping welcome him back. Much of his journey was cursed with a lack of wind. When you’re out there with your little windship rolling and rolling day after day, your rigging is self-destructing while your precious fuel and water supplies dwindle and the nearest ports are thousands of miles away, you are left feeling very tiny and somewhat doubtful. Fortunately on the leg from the Marquesas to Hawaii Jim had perfect winds and describes it as the sail of his life. The passage was made on one tack with only minor sail adjustments. Good for you Jimmy and mucho kudos to Donna, the wife who has provided ground support for him throughout the journey.

A winter scene in the Broughton Archipelago, something the summer sailors never see. That's a dolphin chasing a school of Oolichan. Imagine it all covered in thick, black crude oil. — A winter scene in the Broughton Archipelago, something the summer sailors never see. That’s a dolphin chasing a school of Oolichan. Imagine it all covered in thick, black crude oil.

This place called British Columbia where we live is an ultimate home, especially for the mariner. We have 17,000 nautical miles of shoreline to explore. Even in the harshness of winter our weather is often better than summers elsewhere on the planet. Despite the rising social economic issues we’re having to face, we are privileged to still hold a claim on this piece of the planet. Unfortunately the politicians on our payroll won’t respect our will and are intent on wholesaling our assets to the first bidder. We pay retail prices at the gas pumps while there is a determination to pipe oil for many hundreds of kilometres from the environmental mess that is Northern Alberta to coastal shipping facilities. It is incredible, it is stupid. We are posing a monstrous environmental threat on our land and our waters to wholesale raw resources outside the country. We in British Columbia will receive little benefit once the project is completed. The oil will be shipped in vessels manufactured from some of our own iron ore and coal. Other ships line up to load raw logs from the docks of shut-down sawmills. I repeat my weary metaphor about the chicken farmer who goes to town to buy eggs.

Whose pockets does the money go into? What the hell is going on? I know this is all weary rhetoric but the threat of impending disaster seems to skip off the top of our heads. We should be in every politician’s office, on the lawns and in the chambers of every government building with our pitchforks and chainsaws and environmentally friendly weed eaters until we regain control of politicians and their weighty bureaucracy which is pledged to serve US, the people who hired them. If it were anyone else in our hire, we’d fire them. This blog is not a venue for rants. I can easily slip into pages of diatribe about the rape of our fisheries, our forests, our water and mineral resources but we’ve all heard it before.

The real problem is our complacency. We let the corporations and bureaucrats run our lives while insidiously steering us deeper into their carefully designed consumer rut. Until our own personal comfort zone is clearly threatened we won’t lift our heads from the drinking pool. It pisses me off! Wake up! Look around! Ask questions! Don’t believe everything, perhaps anything, thrown at us. We evolved with questioning minds for good reason. Use them!

1964 Cheoy Lee Bristol, A first cousin to Avanti, the Cheoy Lee I'm finishing up. The Bristol owner reports that the boat, formerly his father's, is on its third teak deck! — 1964 Cheoy Lee Bristol,
A first cousin to Avanti, the Cheoy Lee I’m finishing up. The Bristol owner reports that the boat, formerly his father’s, is on its third teak deck!

Jill, my wife has just returned from a visit to her old homeland of Scotland. (Where the price of gas is double ours despite their own tremendous petroleum resources. Yep, more inept politics) She had two gruelling weeks of dealing with her ailing mom. For once the weather there was quite agreeable but she was held to a regimen of caring for the needs of family. She came back to Canada with a delightfully funny story about a dead parrot. Her brother and his wife live in an old school house. It is a wonderful building with two-foot thick sandstone walls, high ceilings curling stones on the front steps and rolling farm fields for a view. Even their mailing address is wonderfully quaint, being in part: The Old School House, Drumlithie. One morning one of the dogs noticed a bright flash of colour in the back garden which proved to be a dead parrot and an interesting toy. This is not an ordinary find anywhere, let alone in Scotland, a country definitely not known for any abundance of tropical birds.

After a wondering discussion, it was decided there wasn’t much else to do but put the mystery of the dead bird out in the trash. Of course the bird was soon mentioned at the local pub and the thistle telegraph buzzed with the story. Within hours the telephone rang with a call from a neighbouring village, a few miles across the fields. Someone wanted to come and claim the remains for burial. Old Hagis, we’ll call him, was retrieved from the tip bin and carefully cleaned of coffee grounds, bits of eggshell and other detritus. Two women arrived, mother and adult daughter. Both, apparently, were beyond Rubenesque These two very round people, both dressed entirely in black, had come to take their beloved Hagis off to the big limb in the sky.

It’s a wonderful story with a vivid splash of Monty Python.I can see both John Cleese and Michael Palin having fun with this one. Apparently the remnants of the Monty Python gang are getting back together to work up five more shows. They don’t have to pretend to be geezers anymore. Also, in the wake of the ‘Two Fat Ladies’ cooking show, BBC is now airing something called ‘The Hairy Bikers’.Two middle-aged blokes are trying to follow in the wake of Jessica and Clarissa. Fat chance!

Rear view of a flower bent away from the sun

I’m now writing on the first Sunday morning in August. The boat is anchored in a tiny bay in the Gulf Islands which I’ve been passing by for over 25 years. I can see through Porlier Pass to the mainland mountains over thirty-five miles away. Ancient fir trees lean over this little bight. Eagles call, kingfishers chatter, schools of tiny fish roil the water. The morning breeze is fresh and warm and fragrant, the day is full of promise. Jack is anxious to go ashore. There is some wonderful exploring to be done here and I can post an entire blog dedicated to this lovely secret place.

In fact, I will.

Making honey on a very big flower — Making honey on a very big Cardoon flower

“On the sea there is a tradition older even than the traditions of the country itself and wiser in its age than this new custom.

It is the tradition that with responsibility goes authority and with them accountability.

…for men will not long trust leaders who feel themselves beyond accountability for what they do.

…And when men lose confidence and trust in those who lead, order disintegrates into chaos and purposeful ships into uncontrollable derelicts.”

“On The Collision of Wasp and Hobson”
Wall Street Journal – Editorial 14 May 1952

Walking and Thinking

I’m on the ferry again. It’s May 7^th already, two days past Cinco de Mayo, or Independance Day in Mexico. Apparently there are signs of the coming rainy season as it becomes unbearably humid and hot. It’s time to head inland to the higher altitudes of the mountains. The locals stay where they are and survive as best they can. Next year I’ll be able to do that, go to the mountains that is. I’ll have my trailer. I’m on my way to pick it up today. I’m excited that another piece of the plan is falling into place although I’m a bit subdued with a bout of flu. Don’t worry, I’ve washed my hands and I’ll turn my head to cough.

Camas Flower, The natives used the bulbs of these as a food source. — Camas Flower,
The natives used the bulbs of these as a food source.

It is a lovely time of year to become infected with some ugly bug. I suspect it has something to do with the nasty, mouldy old sanding dust that sneaks under my mask while working on the vintage Cheoy Lee. I’ll soon have the interior finished and as our rainy season finally eases I’ll start ripping up and rebuilding the decks. Hopefully I’ll have the antibodies for whatever lurks within that spongy mess. This project has become what feels like a career. It goes on and on. I intend that this be the last boat project I ever take on. I find it frustrating that everything takes so long to accomplish, due in part to the simple fact that I no longer possess a younger man’s zeal and energy. The boat’s owner is happy with my work and certainly observers (Yes, with spring comes the return of the ubiquitous dock inspectors) all offer favourable reports. This is a job that requires an older man’s patience but the ability to wiggle and contort into awkward places is getting much harder. I’m definitely no longer the willowy kid whose clothes I once wore.

While I work I often listen to CBC radio. Usually it’s Radio 2 where the odd gem of music is heard within the manure pile of repeated cliché cacophonies. I understand the need for Canadian content but surely there are more than the same ten tunes. Sometime for a break in monotonies I listen to Radio 1 which, quite often, is an endless diatribe of interviews about meaningless issues. Occasionally someone actually has something to say worth listening to. Recently, a professor from an obscure Midwestern university offered a very interesting conjecture on the relationship between physical activity and creative thinking. He offered several examples of writers and composers whose daily artistic regimen includes walks of several hours. Thoreau is an easy example. Then there was Forest Gump.

Where the giants fell, second growth forest, now a nature preserve on Gabriola Island — Where the giants fell,
second growth forest, now a nature preserve on Gabriola Island

This academic extrapolation explained that the human brain is a computer which is maximized by the electro-chemical stimulus produced by prolonged moderate physical activity. It is the way we are biologically engineered. We need to get up to operating temperature for full function. Walking, jogging, bicycling, rowing and swimming in their many forms, or any other ambulant activity, are fundamental to clear creative thinking and problem-solving. This now rather Rubenesque writer can recall all the years of mornings that began with a long swim in the nearest pool. Even when travelling on business, if at all possible, my first event of the day was that swim. I joked about going to the “Think tank”. Often, while doing my lengths, I’d be able to think out a business problem or some other conundrum. I wrote two novels and many stories sifting through the many plot challenges and character developments, in part, while swimming.

Surrealscape, Jack, tidal pool inspector at Gabriola Pass on a low tide — Surrealscape,
Jack, tidal pool inspector at Gabriola Pass on a low tide

I know, I know, I live on a boat, what’s my excuse now? There is no swimming pool available on Gabriola Island. Somehow the romance of wriggling into a still-damp and cold wet suit to leap off the dock into murky ice-cold water and plunking around the bay eludes my personal discipline. I suppose rowing is the next logical routine and I offer no excuse other than the many nasty weather days. Certainly, in places like Mexico, each day begins for me with a long swim out to sea. Breakfast is taken nearer to noon, one meal of the day is eliminated and life is good. At home my dog Jack demands his daily constitutions and apart from the ambling we do, all that shouting for him to come back is good for the lungs.

While on the subject of higher creativity I should thank all those who take the time to send positive comments and questions about the photos in this blog and on my Flickr photostream. And actually no, there have been no negative remarks. Really! You’re all so kind. One person has even asked for longer blogs!

I don’t want to write any photography manuals in response to the questions about how I take succesful photographs but I will try to respond succinctly. There is no subsitute for practice. I began taking photographs when I was was seven or eight years old. I found someone’s discarded Kodak Brownie camera. It used 120 roll film available, I believe, in eight and twelve frame rolls. I remember having to seal the camera case with adhesive tape to block light leaks and saving pennies and nickles to get the film. There was a mail service that provided a fresh roll of film with each set of prints. The cost was probably about two dollars. Every frame was a carefully considered captial expense.

Even then I was more interested in composing an artistic image rather than accumulating contrived mug shots like everyone else. Yeah I was always weird. Having a talent for sketching I slowly evolved to painting with watercolours. Then I began photographing scenes so the light remained constant for my paintings. I eventually discovered the darkroom and became a madman locked away in a tiny compartment, hot and fumey, as I learned the art of photographic printing in black and white, colour and cibachrome. Over decades I’ve catalogued thousands of stock images. It doesn’t seem so long ago that when submitting a magazine article, one was required to provide slides with the manuscript. No one was geared up yet for digital images.

Now digital photography is standard technolgy and film manufacturers like the giant Kodak are gone. There’s a generation now which doesn’t at all understand the Simon and Garfunkle song about Kodachrome. The great thing about digital images is that people can freely treat photography as any blend of science and art they chose. Some old arguments can be put to rest. The one that used to inflame me was that the photographer didn’t take the picture, the camera did. My retort was to ask if it were the brush or the artist who painted a picture.

With the photo programs now available anyone can manipulate their images to suite needs and whims. It is easy now to prove that photos can indeed lie. There is no more chemical trickery required to process film and prints in carcenogenic darkrooms and there is no concern about cost each time you release the shutter. One other joy of digital photography is the immediacy it provides. The shot I’m posting of the swallows, taken through a blurry plexiglass window, was a digital file number ready to share with the world within two minutes of taking the shot. It’s a technically weak image because of the plexiglass, but it was available in seconds. Nevertheless, the basic principles remain, no matter how easy it is to collect images. The first is that light travels at a constant speed. The second is that no camera can ever determine composition, envison what your creative imagination can see nor determine what lighting will best produce the desired final image.

Birds on a wire, two Purple Martins outside a window on 'Seafire' — Birds on a wire,
two Purple Martins outside a window on ‘Seafire’

Good photographs cannot be attributed to what sort of equipment you use. For the past few months I’ve tried to limit my photography to one simple pocket camera. I’ve used an Olympus T-2 which is a pretty basic camera. It is frustratingly slow some times and is not able to handle certain light conditions well but it can produce some great photos and takes me back to working the basics. There is no hope with this little camera of machine-gunning an image and hoping to find the best shot later. Even mobile phones can produce great photos if the photographer understands lighting and how the camera lense works.

It is simple. Because the speed of light is a uncompressible constant, a correct exposure requires that only a specific amount of light can be used to make a proper image. So if an aperture is opened to a value of f4 for an exposure time of, let’s say, 1/60th of a second, the same exposure value can be made at f8 for 1/30th of a second, or half the light for twice as long. An advantage of a slower speed and smaller aperture is greater depth of field in the image. The slower shutter speed however means that the chance of blurring the image due to camera movement is greater. Faster shutter speeds offer shallower depths of field but also facilitate sharply freezing a moving subject.

If I’m trying to be technical I should explain briefly about f-stops. They are simply a way of expressing a ratio of the diameter of a lense aperture to the focal length of that lense. If a lense is 100mm long, an f-stop of 4 means the aperture is open at a diameter of 25mm. F8 would be a diameter of 12.5mm. We need to be able to control that opening in order to control depth of field and to control the speed, or amount of time the lense is open, to shot moving objects. Some older cameras were considered fast if they had a shutter speed of of 1/500th of a second. Now cameras can freeze action at speeds measured in several thousandths of a second. Digital cameras can provide shutter speeds so incredibly fast that we can see the progress of things in freeze-frame like the progress of a bullet piecing the skin of a balloon.

Another explanation is to regard a camera as a crude copy of an eyeball. The shutter is a copy of the pupil opening and closing in response to the amount of available light. A great way of understanding this is to check out ‘F Numbers’ on Wikipedia. They provide diagrams and math equations. Most photographers simply keep their cameras in auto and let the camera do the thinking but until you understand the unholy trinity of aperture, focal length and shutter speed, you own’t be in total control of your photography.

Some photography classes required students begin by using disposable film cameras until it was understood that the photographer makes the photo, not the camera. That is why I never display technical information about any photograph. Shutter speeds, f-stops, lenses, filters, ISO and any other techno-gibberish are irrelevant, even perhaps detracting, to appreciating an image; in my opinion.

Expensive high quality cameras, and the myriad of available lenses only reduce the effort required in achieving a specific image. Most modern cameras are so loaded with optional functions that the process of taking good photographs can be quite bewildering. Don’t worry about all those sales features, just stick to the basics.

A poor photographer might have difficulty making good images with an expensive Hassleblad and a good photographer can take winners using any camera.

Photography is the art of seeing, it is as simple as that. I’m always happy to answer questions on this subject but first open your eyes to really see what’s there. Take plenty of photos until you began to understand the process for yourself. This takes us back to walking and thinking.

This winner was taken by a friend in Mexico. How many people passed this amazing frame without ever seeing it?

For me, the process of walking and thinking while taking photographs can be very cathartic and uplifting. To be able to break down the world around me into single, simple moments of focused observation and clear interesting images helps me re-establish my tiny place in the universe. When I come home without any images I know I’m having a bad day. Of course taking a dog along almost guarantees some good pictures.

The most indelible images are the ones which you never manage to get into a camera. For example I was whizzing along a highway in Mexico, with heavy trucks behind trying to push me even faster. There was no daring to stopping. Then, in the gathering night, I saw an amazing sight in one fleeting moment. A brickmaker had fired up his kiln and the golden glow of that inferno will be forever imbedded on the hard drive in the back of my skull. The fire-tinged outline of each brick, the sillouette of the workers, the reflected light on a huge stack of waiting firewood and some children’s faces, it’s all there, a full stop. Whatever works for you, take some time to stay in touch with the planet that sustains you. It’s a wonderful place. Class dismissed!

The trailer! It’s mine now, bought and paid for. Yep, more damned stuff! Two weeks ago it all seemed impossible. I’m cashless for the moment but I’ve got a huge component in the progress of my dream. I’m posting some grab shots taken of it on the way home. For now I’m scheming the best way to arrange versatile accomodations inside to suit my needs. Then I’ll be hitting the road. Meanwhile ‘Seafire’ needs plenty of attention. I can see a very busy summer ahead.

By the way, a final note on the art of seeing. Remember that washed-out photo of tiny birds sitting on a lifeline after a morning rain? I forgot to mention the most wonderfully obvious thing of all. The purple martins are back!

BLOGGING ON

I still can’t get used to this bloggery bloggerty word BLOG! It sounds like something you’d find stuck under a school desk or a church pew or…something you’d do in a barnyard on a rainy day in your bare feet. Of course words like net and spam had a singular meaning not so long ago. Tweet, Twitter, Skype and Google are all terms with an unknown or very alternate meaning not so long ago. Language constantly evolves and so must we; like it or not.

Silva Bay, April 24th, 2012 — Silva Bay, April 24, 2012

Anyway, it’s another full moon tomorrow night. The forecast is for rain tomorrow so I grabbed this shot a few minutes ago. Already another month has jetted past. There has been little progress in getting this boat ready while other urgencies have kept interrupting. I do now have a new computer, a most appreciated early birthday gift from my wife Jill. No more vertical blank line in the middle of the screen and despite my apprehension I’m finding Windows 8 easy to assimilate….believe it or not!

I’ve fought and struggled to comprehend how to make WordPress work for me. Their people have sent some helpful e-mails and I’ve spent some quality time with a local cyber wizard named David Vincent, who has a brilliant little business here on Gabriola Island called Sleep Deprived Computer Techs. He did more for me in an hour than I’ve accomplished in a month.

Now I have things set up so I can post blogs with photos, set up links to other relevant sites and, I also now have a way folks can subscribe to my addled scritchings and receive then automatically by e-mail. What boggled me today was that wifi reception was, for some reason, quite spotty where David and I met for lunch but somehow he tweeked something on his cellphone which immediately produced a working connection on my laptop! I know it’s been a very long time since I built a crystal radio in grade school but I am absolutely amazed at some of the technology that I learn about and which other folks take for granted.

What’s all this cyber-musing got to do with anything? I recently offered an anecdote to a friend who was bogged down with trying to realize his dream. I said that when you climb to the top of a mountain, the first thing you see are more mountains. You determine to climb some of those but almost invariably you have to descend from where you are, cross a valley, and begin climbing all over again. So when you’re up to your ass in wormy mud in the proverbial swamp, wrestling nasty creatures, it’s hard to remember that you are actually mountain-climbing.

I am a writer, a frustrated one. All the books I’ve written are not producing any income. It appears that blogging is another way for writers to achieve some recognition. So with that ulterior motive in mind, I hope I can write inspiring and interesting bits for other people working towards fuller lives and their own personal dreams.

The swallows and purple martins have returned to the bay as well as brown-faced friends from their winter sojourns. The motivation is there and this beautiful boat where I sit writing is tugging at her lines. The days rattle by. We dive into another one as the rising sun warms the bay.