Road Ramblings

So I spent the day on the road yesterday. Drove down to a farm just south of La Crosse, Wisconsin to photograph a tractor for the 2008 Farmall Calendar (you'll be able to pre-order this at Amazon.com in a few months--watch this space for a note).

Nice to be out shooting, and nice to be on the road. Some observations from the day.

The built-in navigation system on my Garmin GPS V sucks. I used Mapquest to lay out the route, and the Garmin wanted me to go east on 94. I didn’t. Mapquest (and my contact from La Crosse) told me the way to go was down 52 to 90. The funny part was once I passed 94, the Garmin didn’t recalculate for an hour or so and told me I had 485 miles to go when the actual mileage was 175 or so. Stupid thing.

I like open spaces. I don’t particularly care for the flat, open section of southern Minnesota around Rochester. It has this sort of run-down, mullet and Quiet Riot feel that I don’t care for, but I do like seeing big expanses of sky. There’s something liberating about driving down a nearly flat road with nothing but sky and road in your plane of view. Clears the mind.

A couple of notes from the shoot (despite having done this for a while, I'm still learning ;-) ).

Bring a gazetteer along. Being able to pinpoint precise locations, beyond what you can do with a state map or a slightly whacked GPS unit, would have helped me find my destination (which was off the built-in grid on the GPS and off the Mapquest map).

The winter light is harsh and unusable mid-day, but warms up nicely about 2:30 p.m. and is nice and bright until about 4:30. The saturated light from 4:30 to 5:30 was nice but changed colors enough to be distracting.

Always bring my doubler. I could have used more lens for a shot. I had one of the machiines up high on the hill, and could squeeze a bit of cornfield, the tractor, and the blue sky into the shot. I shot it with my 200 and got it reasonably compressed, but it wasn’t as clean as what I had in mind. A 400 would have been perfect.

I’m concerned about the cheap-ish Manfrotto ballhead ($60) I bought. It just didn’t feel terribly stable. I may have to drop some money on a high-end ballhead down the road. The images confirm my suspicions about the unit's stability--some of the longer shots are not sharp. I shot them using the 2-second timer on the Canon and had the ballhead clamped down, so there's not much more I can do with the tripod. I wonder if I can find a good ballhead used?

I need to make sure that second battery for the 1DS arrives shortly. The battery died several times, as the cold shut it down. I put it in my pocket and warmed it up, which bought me another 10 minutes of time before it died again, but it wasn’t really that cold—the thermometer in my Audi read 24 degrees when I drove up. On a colder day, I would have been struggling with only one batttery.

I stayed relatively warm, by the way. I wore wool long johns under light pants and a heavy snowmobiling jacket. My hands got cold—I would have liked some chemical hand warmers in the my pockets, and a better pair of gloves. I used motocross gloves, which were too thick to allow me to use the small buttons on the back of the camera, and not all that warm. I think some thin poly gloves would be a good addition.

After waxing nostalgic about driving Sam’s pickup last week, I have to say, I really enjoy being on the road in the Audi. The car feels tight and is comfortable, reasonably powerful, and smooth. It’s an effective tool, plus the stereo is good.

Lastly, under the category of what six hours in the car with a CD player does to you, I've come to these conclusions: Jack White is a genius, The Pixies live up to the hype, and I want to hear more of the Dresden Dolls--those vocals are amazing.

Over and out, L

Riding the Rain

Last Sunday was spent riding with the Washington ATV Association, a club based in the Pacific Northwest. They were out on a work weekend, clearing trails in the Capitol State Forest near Olympia. The rain was heavy and steady, and it was a real challenge to keep the cameras working. The 10D fogged after two shoots, and the images were unusable after that (you could see they were fogged in the review screen, thankfully, as I realized the camera was toast and put it away). The 1DS was much better, hanging tough until we got back to the trucks. I think the better environmental seals on the 1DS body paid off. That camera worked through about a dozen stops, and then it fogged up back at the truck. The equipment was soaked by the end of the day, and I had to air out my bag and all of my equipment for a day when I got back. Happily, everything still worked just fine.

Incidentally, my flash and the new 1DS weren't on speaking terms (I think the contact pad wasn't hooking up, but I still have to investigate that glitch further), which meant that I had to shoot a lot of blurs and some static set-ups in low light. The blurs came out surprisingly well. The top photo was one of the first shot without a flash, and I think the soft light gives it a much more interesting look than all the second-curtain sync flash shots you see out there these days. I also hit a few pans on the nose and kept things sharp enough to work well, which I wouldn't have bet I could do in that light. Honestly, given the conditions, I was surprised to find plenty of good images when I came home.

As I noted a few entries back, I wanted to try having someone along to help out during the shoot. Tami Inslee, a graphic designer friend, was willing to lend a hand in order to get a dirt fix. While the tough weather and narrow trails made it pretty much impossible to put her to work while I was shooting on the trail, it was great to have a camera working while I was interviewing club members. As with the Wisconsin club, that is a busy time, and having someone else free to take photos of club members, the setting for the get-together, and so on is a big plus. It's also nice to have someone to help get names. An added bonus was she got one of the best quotes of the day, from four-year-old Hannah. Hannah rides her own ATV, and when asked why she likes it, she said, "Because it's fast." Nice quote, and the help was appreciated.

Big thanks are due to the club members who came out in nasty weather to take part in the ride. They were incredibly generous with time and machinery, and went out of the way to make us feel welcome. In fact, I think we both would have frozen without some borrowed clothes. And thanks to Ron Wolf, a Wisconsin guy who did his best to send us home smashed on his homemade cherry and booze concoctions. We managed to dodge that bullet, but I appreciate the hospitality! The club is doing good work keeping our trails open, and have logged a ton of time clearing trails. A hard-working bunch dedicated to their sport. If you ride in the Capitol State Forest, you have Kathy and Joe Heitmann and the Washington ATV Association to thank.

The Magic of Beater Trucks (long)

I’m in Seattle staying with one of my best friends and his family. He’s been bothering me to come out and see his new house for a long time, so I took the opportunity to join him for his New Year’s Eve party and to stick around and do some work in the Pacific Northwest.

He and his family have been outrageously generous, and it’s been a great way to start off my new venture. They have plenty of space, and provided a basement bedroom, my own bathroom, and let me take over his home office for a few days.

Better than that, my buddy loaned me his 1996 Ford four-by-four. It’s a blue club cab rig with 122,000 miles and a banged-up right fender that spent it’s former life hauling a horse trailer over the local passes. The seat is sacked out, the driver’s side window doesn’t roll down, and the ball joints are so shot the truck practically weaves down the freeway. I love driving it.

You see, I’m a pickup guy. I found my first truck sitting in the weeds while riding motorcycles with buddies. It was a 1940 Chevy nearly buried in the grass behind Bill Burdick’s house, about eight miles from my childhood home north of Brill, Wisconsin. I remember the musty smell when we climbed inside, and the excitement of talking about where we’d drive it if we got it running. I asked Bill if he’d sell the truck, and he was more than happy to get it off his property. We used my neighbor’s tractor to tow the rig down the narrow trail behind Bill’s house and down the 8 miles of pavement and gravel that led to my parent’s home on the Brill River.

We put it in my yard, next to the garage my Dad had built by my uncle and his long-haired crew in 1968, and there that truck sat. I tried to jump start it with Dad’s truck, but my skills were not up to turning the rusted relic into a runner.

The truck sat in the yard for a year or so, and my Dad finally got sick of it and I sold it to a neighbor kid for $40, pretty pleased at the tidy profit I netted on the Chevy.

More importantly than a ten-dollar windfall, I learned the joys of sitting in a truck, hanging your arm out in the breeze.

I ended up spending most of high school driving my Dad’s 1979 Ford F-150 around the countryside, where my truck guy roots were solidified. During college, I mostly drove motorcycles and shunned four-wheeled transportation, with the exception of an old Buick Electra 225 handed down from my folks and a gold 1973 Cadillac my grandmather bought me to haul my stuff home from California after a one-year stint in school there that turned into an extended lesson in surfing, making printed circuit boards, and how the two made it nigh impossible for me to focus enough to get good grades in school. My dreams of attending Berkeley sunk with my GPA, and I came back to the University of Minnesota for my education.

Once I graduated and found myself with a job that paid more than $10 an hour, I promptly returned to my pickup truck roots and bought a early 1980s Ford two-wheel-drive work truck that was clean, had low miles, a faded-out blue topper, and crank windows. That truck was enlisted for hauling motorcycles, dead deer at the cabin, and me to work and all places inbetween.

That truck aged and passed on, and was replaced with a 1995 black F150 that was one of my favorite trucks. I still think that body style is the best one Ford has had, maybe ever, and I just love the way those trucks feel inside.

I’ve been flirting with non-pickups during the past six years, starting with a 2002 Nissan Xterra that I loved dearly but couldn’t haul anything. I went back to a 1997 Ford F150, but didn’t enjoy parking and driving the truck around the Cities, plus the gas mileage was atrocious, so I bought myself an Audi Avant Quattro that gets reasonable gas mileage, has plenty of room to haul camera equipment, and is a joy to drive. I really love the car but . . . it isn’t a truck.

So getting into Sammy’s 1996 reminded me that, well, I’m a pickup truck guy. I love the way you sit up high and look down on everyone but truckers and the misguided Yuppies driving Hummers to the grocery store. I love that you can turn your head and see through that big flat pane of glass whether or not anyone is behind you. I love bouncing over curbs and not worrying about grinding undercarriage or damaging delicate fenders.

I love the cozy feel of the cab, which has just enough room for you, a shot gun, a friend and a dog. And I like the fact that a woman can sit right next to you on that big bench seat if she wants, maybe shift it for you if it’s manual.

There’s also nothing better than being able to throw in a load of gravel or a couple sheets of plywood. You forget what a hassle getting things that home is until you have a car and have to hook up a trailer every time you want to do a little home improvement.

And I really like having a truck with some miles on it, something that already has had the new vehicle shine worn off by branches scraping it as you bounce down the trail. Bounce a few cement blocks off the side of the box, back into a tree while hauling wood, or maybe scrape it up against a parking meter or two. Then you’ve got a truck, because a little scrape doesn’t mean nothing.

A good friend of mine had a white four-wheel-drive Ford that got sideswiped bad, hammered and battered so badly that the tires stuck out past the smashed fenders. He jimmied the door so it would open, cashed the insurance check, and drove the truck for another six months before buying himself a new one. He loved that truck. Loved how it looked mean, and loved the fact that when he took it up the muddy trails that lead up the mountain to his hunting spot, the mud flew off the exposed tires and covered the truck with huge chunks of black, wet Colorado soil.

My brother-in-law is the proud owner of the Ford That Won’t Die. He calls the truck his Cash Cow because it’s been wrecked and paid for by insurance companies so much it’s more than paid for itself. The truck has nearly 300,000 miles on it, and has been run ragged, dry, and hammered into everything you can imagine serving as a mule for my brother-in-law’s business.

During Christmas, said brother-in-law and I made a newspaper run from my grandmother’s house in B.F.N., Wisconsin to the little gas station in Greenwood (Near BFE), and I picked up a copy of the Tradin’ Times, a local paper that features anything and everything for sale, trucks included. I found a dozen trucks for sale with 150,000 or so miles priced less than what you’d spend on a good computer.

Next decent check that comes in, damned if I’m not going to go buy me one of those.