The Valley Oak

About two years ago Miranda suggested I try showing my photos at a gallery. I wasn't too keen on the idea at first. But having gone to many exhibits over the years for the Enterprise I often thought I could put together a better show than most of the ones I was covering. So I put together a few photos and took them to the International House here in Davis. The director there was a former writer for the paper and she thought it was a good idea, too. The art committee liked my photos but thought I didn't have a good enough theme for a show. Even though I thought most of the shows I had seen had pretty cheesy statements about how all the works tied together I understood this was the artsy thing to do.

So I gave up on the gallery thing and kept shooting what I thought looked good. I had an idea a trend might appear, but tried not to focus on it and let it emerge on it's own. What I found is that whenever I would head out on a short photo adventure I'd find my mind thinking back to that old valley oak off Pole Line road that fell before I found the time to really appreciate it. It was really strange how one tree (or former tree, I suppose) affected not only my photos but also my whole attitude towards life and the chances we are given during it.

After a recent assignment chasing feral cats around Woodland I took a scenic route home into the fields north of town. It was raining at the time and though the wet weather wasn't the best for photos it did help create a new scenic view for my photography. An old, solitary Valley Oak minding an ag field had partially collapsed in that last round of storms. I set out to take advantage of this opportunity right away.

Since the tree was east of the closest road it wasn't going to be a great sunset tree like the old one. Nope this was a sunriser and this time of year the sun rises at 5:43 in the morning. I set the alarm for 5:15, drove 20 minutes north of the house and waited.

She didn't disappoint. Although I think I'll head back and try to put the sun right on the tip of the broken branch.

Just up the road was another very tall and weathered old tree. The sunflower field in front of it wasn't in bloom yet but still looked nice.


And again silhouetted


When I was on my scenic drive this tree in a tomato field was my original motivation for a return at sunrise. I thought the low sun would highlight the plants but leave the dirt channels dark.


In the same field as that one was a group of three. I didn't think they were that interesting at first but after editing the photos I like this group better than the single one.

The mangled canopy of the center tree balanced by the more symmetrical outside trees and aligned nearly perfectly with the tomato rows, I couldn't have designed it better myself.

On the drive to those trees I spotted one more in that area that required a closer look.

I think this photo is pretty good now but those plants around the tree are all sunflowers that should be coming into bloom any day now. Those gentle arms dangling down to a field of sunflowers is going to make a great photo and hopefully help bring together a collection of timeless Valley Oaks that will be worthy of a gallery showing someday.

Small World

When you're two and a half feet tall and just learning to walk your view or the world is pretty limited. Little trips into the front yard can be a huge deal. The small scale things most of us take for granted like twigs and leaves are still new and exciting to a young observer.


And when you're the father of said young observer, husband of a full time college student, and avid photographer your photography view of the world also becomes a lot smaller. No more road trips on a whim or disappearing for hours on countryside bike rides.

Fortunately this year the spring rains led to a heavy bloom of flowers in our front yard. It was a treat for both of us young explorers. Abby enjoyed the marigolds because she could pull of the petals easily. I liked them because they made for simple subjects. I call this one 'Curly'

a fresh bloom and grass seeds

even the dying ones looked good to us and the aphids

With flowers on my mind and in many other yards around town my new little photography world was definitely in bloom. (bad pun, I know)

flowers and ladybugs, everybody's favorites

Now that Miranda is done with school for the summer she and I are hoping these photos will be the beginning of a new part of my photo business. I bought a new large format printer that can print on canvas and we're thinking of starting a shop on Etsy.com to sell small and medium canvas wrap. The mirrored image to make the wraps almost look cooler than the wrap itself.

Hopefully, like Abby's small world, my photography will continue to grow while still enjoying the little discoveries along the way.

Fog

Last summer Jonathan Edwards (the reporter for The Enterprise, not the adulterous presidential candidate) and I took a flight with a UC Davis pilot as he brought a teenager to a camp in Fresno for kids with burn injuries. While flying in a small plane along the central valley foothills on a 100º day wasn't fun for my stomach being able to see both the Golden Gate and Mt Shasta at the same time or into Yosemite Valley from the air was a lot of fun for my eyes.

For all the grand sights to see around northern California what caught my eye the most was right outside Davis. Just south of town, in the middle of an ag field, was a half collapsed old barn or farmhouse. With its slanted old shingle roof and surrounded by overgrown old farm equipment it looked like the perfect subject for a photo.

Now that I knew what to look for I could spot the old building from the I80 overpass just before the downtown exit. I searched it out on google maps and found the levy road that would take me most of the way to it. I just had to wait for the right time to go.

With only one morning assignment and a fog that thickened as the day went on Saturday turned out to be the perfect time to go. I loaded up the backpack with my 'artsy' lenses, hopped on the crusty old mt bike, and headed south. The fog was thick enough that I couldn't see the building which was less than a 1/4 mile off the dirt levy road. I cut down off the road into the dirt path between fields. Not only did I pick the muddiest path to ride but I also ended up one field away from where I wanted to be. I hiked across the dirt clods of the plowed field and used my bike as a stepping stone to cross the 5 foot irrigation channel. Two lessons learned here: walking or biking thru mud is a good aerobic exercise and don't wear the new shoes when mud may be involved.

The old barn was cool but wasn't as exciting as I'd hoped.




When searching on google maps I also saw the a field east of the old barn peppered with a few oaks. I couldn't pass up this iconic image of Yolo and Solano counties. A flock of blackbirds was working its way around the field and I moved into position to line them up with an old tree.

Same field, looking north along the fence line

Utility pole across the field to the west of tree.


South of that first oak was a cluster trees including two standing dead trees. Their skeletal remains made for a nice contrast with the living trees nearby.

These trees looked as if they'd been put in place on purpose. They balanced and framed the scene so well.


On the way back to the levy a couple more oaks in a field of grass seedlings.

This last photo I think was my favorite for the day. Placing the camera almost on the ground and using vignetting from a wide open aperture gave it the feel of an old, large format photo. Sounds like a good reason to dig out my old large format camera and wait for good time to go back.

A Daughter

I've been planning this blog post for over four months now. Everyday thinking a little bit and planning the profound statements I was going to make about my discoveries in fatherhood. I meant to write this at two weeks, then three weeks, and then one month. At first there wasn't a whole lot to write about. Sure we had a rough go the first few days in the hospital. And having someone completely dependent on me when I frequently can't depend on myself required a whole change of thinking. But as bad as it sounds to say it baby time was almost a chore.

Then around six or seven weeks life with Abby took a noticeable turn on, of all places, the changing table. What was once a crying session so intense she could barely breath and beads of sweat covered her forehead suddenly became happy time to play with her feet and reach for the curtains. She also started to respond to questions and smile at familiar faces. While she'd always made good eye contact and smiled a lot, you could tell there was some thought behind her responses now. Knowing all the love we'd given her was finally loving us back was just the inspiration needed for a great blog post.

So why didn't I blog about all this two and a half months ago? In the time it takes to write a post there's a good chance I'd miss something.

In 19 weeks Abby has gone from a little bundle of joy who mostly slept and pooped


to an inquisitive and exceptionally cheerful little person.


Her squinty-eyed, chubby cheek smile can interrupt even the most serious conversation


and her big blue eyes are a constant source of amazement to her brown eyed parents.



For 35 years and 9 days I was free. Free to eat what I wanted when I wanted it. Free to sleep when I wanted. Free to take random road trips thru the southwest and free to update my blog when I wanted. While I did give up a little bit of freedom for friends and family, and shared a little bit more over the past three wonderful years with Miranda, in the end I did what made me happy. But nothing has made me happier than the daughter who now dominates my life.

Vacationeering

Every year in May I get the same warning from work; I've maxed out my total vacation time and will lose the next year's accruement if I don't use up some time soon. Usually this leaves me scrambling to find three to four weeks of road trips and photo expeditions. Those adventures could easily fill three to four blog posts. But as one can see from the time since my last posting this year's vacation experience was a little different.

With a beautiful baby girl on the way and an eight-months pregnant wife who probably shouldn't be forced to ride thru obscure, windy, wilderness backroads I decided to keep this vacation close to home. In fact it was all at home, for four weeks. Sounds a little boring, or relaxing depending on your point of view, but it was exactly the time I needed to finish a project worthy of a good blog post.

After a few days of drawing up some plans, and being a little lazy as any good vacationer should, I headed up to the lumber yard to pick up some hardwood...


and started making a mess of the garage.



I took a few breaks to do some painting inside the house. Here's Dexter helping me show off the homemade stenciling in the nursery


The beginning woodworking class I had taken on campus a couple years ago made building projects seem easy. But tackling corner joinery for the first time without any training chewed up a whole week of the vacation. And little did I know that after meticulously cutting everything down to a hundredth of an inch the hardest part would be trying to put them together before the glue hardened, which can happen very fast on 100º+ days.


I pieced together a frame...


and tested everything to make sure it all fit.


Somehow I actually measured everything right. I guess some of that money I gave UC Davis for an engineering degree payed off. The original plan was to paint the dresser white to match the crib we bought. I almost felt bad painting over some of the nice grain on the wood..


but seeing the final product in all white left no doubt it was the correct decision



It might not be as beautiful as Multnomah Falls in Oregon or Bryce Canyon in Utah but it was a rewarding and useful vacation that Abby will hopefully be able to cherish for a long time to come.

Of course, being a dedicated photographer I still found time to take a few photos worth sharing from the past couple months as well as building furniture.

In late May we were still getting rain here in NorCal and I wanted to incorporate those skies with the agriculture here in the county. I was on my way to this freshly planted tomato field near Conaway Ranch...



when nature surprised me with a rainbow over the growing corn fields I had photographed earlier.



Yolo county almost looks like Hawaii in that shot, something you really can't say too often. I few days later, while bored at a rivercats game, I was treated to another kind of rainbow. I was lucky enough to look up after a jet has passed high overhead, its contrail leaving a shadow on the clouds below it that were creating the sun halo, a very strange thing to see.



Of course my favorite thing about Rivercats games are the Saturday fireworks. The trusty photo near the bridge:



Wanting to try something different I headed out again the following week when they were doing Friday and Saturday fireworks. On Friday I tried a shot along the river further away from the bridge...


but really didn't like it. So Saturday, July 3rd I tried a really different angle, to shoot the fireworks from Davis. Miranda tagged along since we wouldn't be going too far and we headed into the fields east of town. Those were still just a little too far away so we went to the edge of the causeway and set up on top of the levee. For some reason several other places decided to have fireworks on the 3rd of July, too. So we got to sit and watch two distant shows in Sac and another, closer one in Woodland while waiting for the Rivercats game to end. Despite the mosquitos it was a fun place to sit and watch the show and the city skyline.

Wheat and Sun

As anyone who reads this blog knows I have a little infatuation with sunsets. From hanging out on campouts and cookouts to climbing the roof of our old house in Suisun or finding a beach in Monterey on the day of my engagement just to watch the last light of the day, many great memories have been made under the setting sun. They are both astronomical and artistic, spiritual and scientific. A wonderful coincidence of time and space that greets us everyday. They are the ultimate subject for photographers who live to be at the right place at the right time.

For many years in Davis that right place was a field on the northeast side of town, just between Pole Line Rd and the old cannery. The field was home to one of the most unique and magnificent trees in the world. I would frequently drive or ride past the gnarled and weathered old Valley Oak, occasionally at sunset, and think about what a great photo she would make. But I always had someplace to be, too busy to stop and enjoy the moment. There would be time to come back and admire its majesty. Then one day there wasn't. Her end had come during a wet and windy late winter storm. As her time on earth had run out, so had my chance for time with her. And at that time, it was the awakening I needed to help reinvigorate my photography teaching me that time is precious and I should seize every opportunity I can. In a sense the death of the tree gave birth to this era in my photography (I know, it's like, whoa, that's deep man)

Over three years later I still find myself riding out to that field around sundown hoping a new old tree has sprung up. The tree is gone but the photogenic old barn is still there. I really should take advantage of it while it's still standing.



The field where the tree stood is still cool but exploiting a few deficiencies in my very expensive optics helps make up for the lack of a strong subject.





Here is the old tree from the one and only time I stopped to take a picture of her back in 1999.



There's no telling how many great sunsets she witnessed.

Changes Afoot

As most of you who read this blog know my life has changed a lot since my last post. I've married a great girl and together we are expecting another great little girl to join our family. Combine the search for American made baby products with the usual uptick in work that comes with spring and I haven't had time to get out and take photos for myself in a while.

Last week I did a short bike ride around Wildhorse golf course to check out the burrowing owls. Mostly they were just hanging out next to their burrow but when a dad came by with his dog off leash it scared one of the owls up into a small tree nearby.


In the field just to the east of the golf course and the owls a northern harrier was being harassed by a red winged blackbird as it cruised low to the ground.



The bike ride was supposed to be a short one as Mir and I had some shopping to do but the clouds told me to hang out just a bit longer. A small creek near the owl dens set up a nice foreground for the sunset.



The reflections in the creek were a good enough show by themselves.



Last friday evening I had an assignment out past Rumsey. While I wasn't excited about the 50 mile drive, each way, I figured it would be a good opportunity to check out the scenery around the county. I found a nice old oak in the middle of a field near Madison and, with a young crescent moon following the sunset, I trekked through the dirt to try and capture it.



Yesterday, after an assignment in Woodland, I again took advantage of a drive through the country and stopped at a freshly planted corn field. Clouds from the passing storm and vignetting from a large aperture helped set up a moody shot.



Not having to travel very far for cool photos has made life a little easier. And, as if on cue, a pair of white tailed kites have set up a nest in a tree three houses down from us. Now I barely have to leave my front porch to get cool photos.



The thing I'm looking forward to most, though, is when I will have a beautiful new subject to shoot every day here in our house.
Someday soon.