gwrhino

Cactus, cactus bo bactus, bananafacto bo dactus, you get it.

Today I named an image "Desert Dalliance" No lie. I'd laugh as I typed it if I wasn't so tired of it. But what was I gonna do? Hang at the keyboard for 20 minutes waiting for some kind of inspiration? Find a thesaurus and come up with some erudite, snobby-assed word that proves I can use a thesaurus? Maybe I should call 1-800-MUSE ? (I actually did that. Lets just say that her idea of "muse" was somewhat divergent from mine, and after 25 minutes of listening to her, I discovered what the rates were, and had to hang up). Should I rip off another song? Oooh, I know, I can do another really bad pun...(seriously, no effort all for that one)

About a million photogs shooting tens of thousands of images and all - have original and unique titles. If I had a dime for every Plateau Light I've seen, (including my own), I'd be able to download a couple of Ian Plants ebooks (wonderful value, btw).

No matter what I feel about it, once in a long while, a title will be so appropriate that it will seemingly add something to the dimension of the piece, and so the game goes on. As you can tell I spend little time on it. I'd as soon call it %#^&*(@.  My total alltime fav was, once I stood next to shooter who was rambling through various titles as he shot the image..."Tangerine Dream"...no, no, "Creamcycle Delight", he muttered as he extended the tripod. "Autumn Extravaganza" he exclaimed excitedly.

Tonight I settled on alliteration. I did have fun with the Muse, tho...

...and thats the good news. it seems my air conditioning went down on the first 110 degree day of the season...I'm trying to work, but my sweat keeps shorting out the keyboard....

...just an announcement of sorts. Unfortunately, Pulitzer Prize Winner Jack Dykinga injured himself and is unable to lead this particular workshop, and I will be his replacement. It runs March 25-29, 2011...

www.friendsofazhighways.com/wo…

A few spaces are still available. Join us while we rock the Texas desert and come home with great images to boot.

Today I referenced one of the many close brushes that I have had with lightning over the years. I believe that somewhere theres a bolt out there with my name on it. While most of these events occurred in the pursuit of my photography passion, my near misses with lightning started long before then. Todays tale, though goes back almost to the beginning of my career.

I had been trying for 4 years to get pictures into Arizona Highways Magazine, often failing spectacularly. Once I submitted a bunch of 4X5 chromes for consideration on a Thursday morning that were returned to me in the mail at my house on Friday afternoon. That means the editorial office had them in their possession for maybe 45 minutes. Anyway, I finally got the photo editor to give me a "maybe" on a portfolio idea I had pitched for the Sierra Anchas Wilderness. There was no rush, as the earliest he might be able schedule publication was almost 2 years away. That gave me a calendar year to collect the work, if he even remembered talking to me in a year.

Two weeks later I got a call from the editor; there was an opening in the schedule and could I have the images to him in 3 weeks? Like a total dufus, I told him "sure, I'm ready now", when in fact I had maybe 2 decent images. So sweating bullets, I grabbed the gear and took off to the Sierra Anchas, and four wheeled down a torturous road to the bluffs. That night a storm moved in, and I shot one of the signature images of my life ("Edge of the Abyss" in my DA gallery). Feeling alot better about my prospects I crawled into the back of my Four Runner just as huge storm broke on the bluff, with the distant thunder getting closer.

The storm got really close and pretty soon lightning was crashing on the bluff, with the "flash and the crash" being simultaneous. I lost count of the strikes at around 20, when I really began to wonder about the overall advisability of camping on the bluff. The barrage continued as I lay in the back making sure I kept my hands from the roll cage while repeating the mantra, "I'm not grounded, I'm not grounded". The lightning barrage hammered the bluff for another 20 minutes, then it rained really hard for maybe 2 minutes, and the weather stopped. Feeling better, I rolled over and went to sleep.

The next morning I crawled out of the back of the truck and looked around me. I was so shocked my mouth fell open. I felt like Moses - there were burning bushes everywhere - all over the bluff (smoldering, actually). With all my concern over the lightning, the idea I might die in the resulting forest fire had never crossed my mind. That 2 minute rain had saved my sorry ass. Not that I could have 4-wheeled out of there in a fire, but I guess I could have jumped off the side of the canyon.

PS This is not even close to being my tightest encounter with the wildfire

I used this as the title of my last posted image because of the hard angles, but it got me thinking about the words...

..ran into a friend that had his girl friend move in. After a few weeks of relatively blissful co-habitation, it had been "suggested" by his very hot girlfriend that he should help out more around the house, and could start by doing the laundry. When I caught up with him in the laundry room, he was in the process of unwrapping some brand new red hunting socks and throwing them in the washer followed immediately by some obviously expensive womens undies.

As a friend, I figured I would be remiss if I failed to point out that, if he actually were to wash said items together, her white delicates would come out pinker than Joe Arpaio standard prison issue.

He looked at me and said, "Exactly. I need to nip this clothes washing thing in the bud."

his girl, being a rational reasonable human, never lets him anywhere near the laundry again, of course.

now thats textbook - "deliberately obtuse"     Hey! it WAS a friend. Swear on a stack!