Tiny Little Fractures

Pre-flight scorpion

My boss gave me a scorpion. Well he didn’t as much as give it to me rather I asked for it. As P mentioned I probably made all brown people the world over proud and upped my weirdness factor at work by asking for the little critter. My boss had come across him nestled in his kid’s clothes, unfortunately when the clothes were already on the kid (he lives up in the mountains so this wasn’t as surprising a discovery as it seems, well unless you were the kid).

The boss wasn’t really fond of the scorpion, especially since it had nicked the kid a couple of times. Luckily it was only a baby so obviously didn’t have as much venom in its system so no long term damage had been done. This story of course made me aware that in addition to rattlesnakes, cougars and mentally retarded mule deer I had one more creature to keep a wary eye out for on my site visits (as if I needed another threat to my well being).

On inquiring, surprisingly without any raised eyebrows, as to what in tarnation I was going to do with the scorpion the boss was somewhat mollified by hearing that I was going to kill him and take some macro photographs. Now before the animal lovers get on my case, the boss was going to kill the scorpion already so I was just taking on the sin for him. Also I really, really wanted to take some good macro shots of the little bugger…and since it’s a scorpion…I wasn’t really going to do it while it was alive. You know with that sting and all.

So I spent the day with the scorpion perambulating eerily around its jar on a shelf in my office before I took it home. I scheduled the shoot for Sunday following my whale watching trip and let P know to grab me some Kenko extension tubes while I jury rigged a temporary lightbox. The scorpion appeared to have kicked the bucket as he lay motionless in his jar and staid like that for a couple of days.

Sunday dawned and just to make sure that the scorp as dead I poured some water into the jar. To my surprise he immediately arched his back and scrabbled his legs. But it was brief and then he was still, lying in his watery grave as I assumed. Note I know this sounds cruel but I didn’t really have a choice. Remember that weirdness index at the office I was talking about? Well one of the reasons I figure so highly on that is because every time a spider shows up in the office, while everybody is ready to splat it I’m usually to be found on my knees wasting valuable client billable time rescuing it and setting it free outside. So there, I kill with great reluctance!

P rolled over and we had a quiet smoke on the balcony and then experimented with the lightbox, minimum focusing distances, lighting and all that jazz that us aspiring photographers like to talk endlessly about. After a few shots of cigarette packs and miniature cologne/perfume bottles we decided to bring out the main show. Using a pair of tweezers I fished the scorpion out and placed him in the lightbox. P and I noted with some interest that it seemed to be a bit ‘twitchy.’

So there I was taking pictures of the ‘dead’ scorpion moving his little claws around when it suddenly dawned on us that maybe he wasn’t really dead. For one thing he was starting to look mighty alert and aggressive, which is something dead animals rarely do. Loathe to end our photo session I suggested P take over with the camera and I would empty the jar and bring it back just in case the scorpion got more active.

Of course as luck would have it as soon as I walked out of the room the scorpion decided to leg it, obviously emboldened by P’s lack of experience with creepy crawlys. All I could hear as I hurriedly threw out the water in the jar was P’s rather frantic, slightly high pitched entreaties for me to come back as he was ill-equipped both physically and mentally to handle a scorpion. I re-entered the room to find that the scorpion had disappeared behind the TV stand that we had set up our mini studio on. 

A conundrum if I ever came across one. Especially because this was a baby scorpion and the prospect of spending the next year growing old with a scorpion wandering around my room was not a prospect that I was looking forward to. The only thing worse that I could think of at that moment was the possibility of growing old with the last ex. Spurred on by this cheerful thought I bade P spare himself and I put myself in harms way. After all I was the older and more experienced of us two. The first thing that I noticed behind the TV stand apart from a plethora of wires was an old towel that had made its way behind there. Figuring the best thing to do would be to remove that I cautiously fished it out. This was when I made a rather startling discovery.

It appears that scorpions can fly. A fact that I was far from happy to discover as it suddenly the scorpion flew out from the towel, missed my leg by a whisker and landed on the carpet. Needless to say I was shocked. But being the inherent woodsman that I am I quickly recovered, grabbed the jar and trapped the scorpion. P and I had another smoke, this time a bit shakily after all the excitement and debated how to go ahead killing the scorpion. 

I had read that nail remover imbued cotton wool works on insects but I searched high and low and couldn’t find any. We decided to compromise with the miniature perfume bottles and poured them out on cotton balls and placed them in the jar. I’m not sure who suffered more from that exercise though, us or the scorpion. He didn’t seem to like the perfume that we provided much and as P was leaving he was still spiritedly attacking the cotton wool. When I checked on him last he appeared to be dead so now I just have to extricate my sinuses and then pull him out for the photoshoot…maybe sometime this coming weekend.

Of course now every time I’m out on a site not only do I have to be wary of rattlesnakes (which at least rattle) and panthers (which are fairly large)…now I have to look out for flying scorpions. How one protects oneself against that I know not…

There she blows again… 

It may have been a side effect of waking up so early on a Saturday morning that a decidedly odd version of that infamous Sixpence none the Richer was playing in my head. It’s been awfully long time since I’ve woken up late on a Saturday in my own bed…and in fact it looks like it’s going to be awhile until I get to in the near future. The fact that I was hauling my congested self out of bed at six in the morning to see the mightiest animal that has ever existed on the planet may have also had something to do with the bizarre lyrics.

Actually early mornings are starting to grow on me, especially those that I wake up sans hangover and with an exciting day to come. The throaty growl outside indicated N had turned up in his Z, about 15 minutes early which was very un Sri Lankan off him. We scarfed down some McDees breakfast while I gave my camera equipment a final look see. 

Body…check

4 gig card (would prove to be horrendously slow)…check

1 gig card (high speed)…check

1 gig card (high speed)…at P’s…I reckon I should start renting him rental for that.

2 gig card (high speed)…forget…dammit

zip lock bag jury rig (necessary to keep spray off my lovely L lens)…check

batteries (useless performance for some reason)…check

And it was off to Santa Barbara to meet S, J and this chap whose name escapes me but who I’ve pegged in my head as the seasick chap (now I don’t have to explain that do I?). The Condor Express which was to take us out into the Channel and traverse Santa Cruz island was an impressive sight in the early morning light. I yawned, chewed on 10 altoids to keep my sore throat at bay and climbed on board. We all, being the chandyias that we are decided to go to the bow and stand in the full might of the wind as the Express tried to prove exactly how high speed it was.

It was exhilarating, if a bit chilly. The boat bounced through some moderate chop and the back kicking spray somehow miraculously missed us and drenched a rather surprised girl next to us to the bone. Laughing at her (discreetly) and sympathising with the seasick chap, who almost immediately felt dizzy and had to sit down, N and I enjoyed clearing our lungs and lowering our core body temperatures. After awhile we were both a bit cold and bored, but neither of course wanted to admit this to the other. So we stood and froze until finally the captain yelled out “there she blows.” 

Now if I was a blue whale and I heard that yelled out, I would most probably lift my skirts around my ankles and skoot (or whatever whales do) and with good cause because for the last couple of decades that cry was usually followed by a booming sound and a curious burning itch followed I’m going to guess by incomprehensible pain as the harpoon grenade explodes. It is somewhat scary that we puny humans almost managed to wipe out the largest living creature that has ever lived in the course of a few score years, from around 300,000 prewhaling to less than 5,000 now.

The first whale we saw was a pretty young though and thankfully must not have experienced the niceties of the whaling industry. The experience of watching a whale is almost like that of elephants in Yala. The whale breathes on the surface for awhile, entertaining us with its spouts and then with a graceful arch of its back and a goodbye wave of its tailfins goes down deep. We would then wait out the whale until he surfaces anywhere from a few 100 feet to half a mile yonder. The sort of like the safari jeeps in Yala the boat is gunned to where the whale is languishing and the cycle is repeated….well…maybe in hindsight it not very similar to watching elephants in Yala. 

The trip was a fascinating way to spend four hours, a bunch of Dall’s porpoises came by to check the boat out and left without posing for my camera and then we did a perambulation around the island of Santa Cruz. I’m not sure if anybody out there is as geeky as me, but I was quietly excited to see this island close up because of a book I loved as kid, the Island of the Blue Dolphins in which the main character was marooned on one of the Channel Islands. The book was actually based on a true story and looking at that island I could only think that being marooned on such a god forsaken place would suck…there was not a single tree to be seen. I personally like palm trees to be present if I get marooned on an island.

The trip back to shore was dramatic to say the least. We were initially joined by what seemed like a couple of hundred dolphins which took a break from lunching on some bait fish to come leaping over to play with the boat. I’ve decided to petition whoever is in charge of reincarnations that once I die, I want to be reborn as a dolphin. Seriously it just looks like they have so much fun. The speed at which they flew through and out of the water was breathtaking and with such little body movement. N and I couldn’t keep our cameras straight and I almost beamed a little kid in the head taking what seemed like a couple of hundred pictures of the dolphins. 

As if that wasn’t enough excitement there turned up not one, not two but three blue whales. And these guys were not juveniles. That was one of the few times that I have felt true awe in my life. The majesty was just unexplainable, all we could see was the grey backs as they came up to breath but the sheer size was inescapable. There were two males fighting over a female, the female leading and the males following (thus proving that even with a brain the size of a small car, common sense does not prevail). All three gave us a fascinating show with their habit of arching their backs excessively during their preliminary breaths and then on their penultimate breath heading down with a languorous wave of their huge flippers. It truly was a sight I felt privileged to see and that’s no hyperbole.

As we saw the last tail fin whip out of the water and the boat started heading back to shore I looked behind. Seasick chap had his head between his knees and seemed to have missed everything. Poor guy…and that silly song was still in my head.

Is pretty bloody steep…and P and I have been in the thick of it. Little did we know that his innocent comment to me at Lanka Fest when we met only for the second time, asking if he could assist me at my next shoot would have lead to where we are now. 

From a small outing to Santa Monica for some street shooting we moved onto an abortive attempt at being ‘official’ photographers for the Lanka Day at Santa Monica. Though this didn’t go as planned we still had a blast, P especially got some winning shots with N’s Xti and my 70-200mm F4 L. Then through the usual Sri Lankan randomness we got our first ‘gig’ which we initially thought was to assist the photographer handling the Iraj and Ranidu concert in Long Beach. We were both perturbed to turn up and be told by A that he was too busy with organizational headaches and we were essentially on our own. A conundrum since I had never shot with a flash before and P hadn’t either. 

Some pointers, much experimentation and a Canon 5D in P’s hands and we were off, working the crowd, running around in front of the stage, behind the stage and all sorts. It was all learning on the fly as never before…in the deep end with nary a life vest to be seen. P came off the better man and he got some absolutely amazing shots, I seemed to lose my mojo somewhere as the cheap batteries that had come packaged with my 430ex started packing up. A desperate rush to get workable batteries threw me completely off my dial and though I managed a few decent shots I washed out. But then one must fail to learn to succeed I thought as I consoled myself with the few good shots and admired (a bit enviously to be true) the brilliant stuff that P had shot.

What neither of us had really bargained for was the vast amounts of post-processing, backing up and watermarking that producing the final package that was required involved. Also once the ball started rolling it didn’t stop with a party starter friend of mine calling me up and requesting my presence at a club in Sunset to shoot Lucid Dreams for a 30 minute set. With some valuable lessons in mind such as shooting in RAW, a greater understanding of the M mode and some high capacity batteries the two of us headed down to the Roxy last Friday, P with my 17-40L in hand and me with my 50mm 1.8.

Never have I had such an adrenaline filled 30 minutes (well I have but not for awhile). Once the boys got on stage and started rapping both of us were in the crowd, on stage, ducking and weaving, composing, recomposing, chimping, changing shutter speeds, dialing up and down on our flashes and shuttering away. I still have little idea about what their music was about because I was on my own high. Over 300 pictures in 30 minutes and my arms were aching from constant moving around trying to get that perfect image, Paper with his hat on, the girls in the crowd, Love crooning away, everything had to be immortalized.
 

The crowd going wild

There was a moment of humour once their set was done, I took a picture of the above two fine young ladies and moved over to have a quick chat. The Asian one asked how she could get copies of the pictures to which I graciously responded by handing her my card and telling her to drop me a mail. As I was going to take a few more pictures of them and close the deal P bumbled in like an eager puppy, tongue practically lolling out, handing out cards and flashing like crazy. Kids I tell you, completely ruined my set-up…but eh…not a big deal and it gives me something to take the piss out of him every now and then. 

Of course as usual post processing was a bitch and has to be stuck in between work, gym, getting my car maintained, a sorry excuse for a social life, recovering from hangovers and of course sleep. We finally got some pictures out to C today and he wants us for another show in Malibu. On top of that we have other gigs on the way, the Red Bull Air Races on Saturday in San Diego and all kinds of fun things in the pipeline.

When the ball is rolling, gotta keep it going.

A millisecond later and this would have been an absolutely beautiful image. I still like it though!

Not exactly the way I wanted to enjoy the weekend. I was looking forward to using a dream boat of a 400mm L Prime. Unfortunately the carpets were being cleaned and the stairs were wet. Something I forgot for a minute second, minute enough for the world to suddenly turn topsy turvy in front of my eyes. My monopod attempted to take a chunk out of my arm, my butt received a buffing that was not intended and the 400mm tried to replace my spinal cord. I did however manage to stop myself before I reached P and catapulted him through my front door. Which as it was closed would have been a relatively painful experience.

The worst part about the experience was that the lens I had rented was busted. Actually the filter was busted and was jammed in so tight I couldn’t take it off. Thank the munchkins I did in fact get the damage waiver so I’m off the hook for the damage. Now I’m going spend the rest of the weekend icing my bum.

Whoo! I’m absolutely knackered and for some strange reason have sandpit in my ears. It was a pretty hot day at Woodley Park where I for the first time was an official event photographer and carrying around my gear, running hither and dither from 9.30 in the morning until 7.30 in the evening really poofed me out. Lanka Fest was an awesome event thrown by a non-profit called Paalama. I was very excited and hugely nervous about having for the first time having to fulfill someone’s expectations in a largely uncontrolled environment and drove to the ground with my stomach churning (my head was spinning a bit as well but that was probably due to waking up at an ungodly hour on a day off).

The day itself was a blast, cricket both softball and leather and some lady’s (cricket that is) thrown in there as well, food stalls, including one thrown by Ruki from the ever dependable Curry Bowl and performances by Dancers for Sri Lanka (I think that’s what they were called) and a lovely young lady called Kavi (oh yeah why you’re reading this click here and vote for the girl on the list!). I spent a lot of time running around, had a run-in with P and G which resulted in an uproarious session of laughter over a slightly inappropriate but unwitting comment I made to an uncle about his (at the time, 3 years ago) 15 year old daughter without knowing the connection between him and her. I also made a few friends, a couple of photographers and some people who are in the in on the local volunteer scene. 

I learnt some valuable lessons. For one never, ever experiment with new technique on a job. I tried to use a bit of fill flash but my inexperience with going full manual (a necessity when using fill flash) made it unfeasible in the completely uncontrolled situations I was in. I still trust my in-camera meter too much and don’t check histograms enough. I also do silly, stupid things like forget to switch the autofocus on my lens back on.

I learnt that in a situation like that be aware of what I am good at and do that. Shoot wide open and concentrate on working the shots. Oh yeah I also really need to interact with people more and give them more direction when asking them to pose. A note to self to bring extra batteries so I can let my subjects ‘chimp’ a bit and help build a dialogue up. Well I guess there’s always another chance, I just hope I got some photographs that will fulfill the organizer’s requirements and I get to do it again soon.

A picture of one of my family friend I took on break (the rest of my work belongs to the organizers. Absolutely adorable, adorable kid!