by jphilo | Jul 15, 2016 | Family, Out and About
This Fantastic Friday post looks back at a favorite camp memory…four generations of family enjoying a magical evening on a houseboat. Though that was our one and only houseboat adventure, my camp job is still photographing the week’s events while other people sweat and toil on logging, construction, and cooking crews. Life doesn’t get much better than this!
Camp Photographer, No Sweat!
Though we’re not at Family Camp any longer, I wanted to share a photo taken during Friday night’s jumping-off-the-top-deck-of-the-cruis-boat-highest-cannon-ball-splash-contest. I took hundreds of action shots, hoping to get a few good ones, and ended up with this one of the Jolly Green Giant crouching on a mountain top.
One of the pillars of Family Camp is a couple hours of hard work for everyone, every morning. Some people do sweaty and generally disgusting work like digging trenches, insulating walls, hanging sheet rock, mudding seams, logging, or hauling rocks from the river. Others do fun but complicated work like fixing three meals a day for 30 – 40 people.
A couple years ago I was asked to be camp historian and photographer. “So,” I asked by way of clarification while stilling the little flutter of joy that comes with being excused from sweaty, disgusting work and kitchen duties, “you want me to take pictures and write commentary about people doing sweaty and disgusting work and the cooks in the kitchen?”
“Yes,” the boss man said. “That’s what we want you to do.”
I waited for him to say, “Fooled ya’. Grab a pick ax, sucker,” but instead he said, “Have fun,” and walked away. I jumped on that order like a tick on a dog’s back and have been wielding my camera and computer ever since. But guilt has plagued me all along, when cool, clean and sweat free, I record the hard work and play of others.
But this year the guilt evaporated when I started running a slide show of each day’s pictures after supper. People smiled and laughed and remembered as the pictures floated by. And I finally understood the boss man’s wisdom in rustling up a camp historian. The construction and preservation of memories, while not sweaty and disgusting, is as necessary as cabins and meals. The record of our time together is shelter and food for our souls.
Thanks, Tom, for knowing what our hearts need and allowing me to provide it. I’ll do it again next year, no sweat.
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by jphilo | May 11, 2012 | Walking Down the Gravel Road
This beautiful spring morning, I decided not to lug my camera along on my walk.
“I took it yesterday,” I reminded myself. “And what with stopping to take pictures of
our town’s freshly painted, newly filled swimming pool,
two goldfinches playing king-of-the-hill at a bird feeder,
Papa Gander, Mama Goose, and the goslings out for their morning constitutional,
and a bluejay in a tree, I wasted a good portion of the morning.
So no, I won’t take it along today.”
My decision seemed like the right one at first.
The swimming pool looked much the same as yesterday.
The bird feeder was abandoned.
The pond was still as glass and empty.
The bluejays were nowhere to be found.
But just past the pond, an unfamiliar chirping made my head lift.
Only a yard away, at eye level,
An indigo bunting perched in a sapling.
It glowed in a shaft of sunlight,
puffed its chest, and sang a clear and piercing song.
Yesterday, I took my camera.
But today I chose
Time over nature,
Time over beauty.
Time over a picture I’ve been waiting years to capture with the lens.
When will I learn that time hoarded is opportunity lost?
by jphilo | Jan 20, 2012 | Walking Down the Gravel Road
In winter, the extra hours of darkness
Weigh upon my shoulders,
Press upon my eyelids,
Make me groggy and slow and stupid.
Still last week, when the moon was full,
And the air was winter-warm,
I took my camera into the darkness
As the sun waited patiently to start her day
Until after the moon went to bed.
The darkness was too thick
And my hands too shaky
To capture the glory of the moon,
And finally I quit trying,
Trudging home with shoulders bent,
Eyelids drooping in a darkness
That lingered until yesterday
When I finally looked at the pictures.
Disappointments, all of them but one,
Where the bright moon waited
In the blue-black sky.
Not behind bare black branches
As it was in reality,
But in front of them,
Eclipsing them,
Engulfing them in silver light.
Looking at the picture,
My shoulders straightened,
My eyes opened wide,
When I saw the truth.
Light is stronger than darkness,
Waiting patiently to be found by those who seek it.
by jphilo | Sep 24, 2007 | Daily Life
Last week, I mentioned the senior pictures I’d be taking for my daughter’s best friend, and I may have said something about a certain horse being part of the photo shoot. Since I’m writing this you know I lived to tell about the experience, as did the horse and the beautiful young woman. Though it was sunny and breezy and a whole lot warmer than expected in late September, everything went well.
We had a few tense moments when Rachel (the girl) nearly had her bare foot stomped on by Lancelot (the horse). But the bareback horse/barefoot girl look was what Rachel wanted and since she got her foot out of the way in time, no damage was done. Except that some of the horse photos weren’t that good. The quality issue had something to do with the photographer’s obsession with avoiding the back half of the horse when she should have been framing shots of the front half. Anyway the picture above is proof that the pictures were taken, but you’ll have to trust me when I say the girl was there, too. Until she sees her pictures, you’ll have to wait.
When I add Sunday’s experience to the difficulties I had on Saturday. when I took shots of stuffed animals for a magazine article, I’ve decided not to pursue a pet photography career. Sometimes, the littlest things remind me that life is really, really good.
