SET YOURSELF A DRIFT
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Have you ever set yourself adrift with a macro lens? It sounds like a Jules Verne movie, but it's not. It's more fun because you can have your own unique experience, reaching new horizons in minutes without ever leaving your own yard. In fact, you can get to the outer reaches and back without missing a day at work, though your mind may take you a little longer to return.
Years ago I had just such a trip. It was March, and the drifts of snow in the front yard were melting, shrinking, and re-freezing, leaving the surface full of bumps and nicks and crevasses. It's funny how often I had walked out of my own yard without knowing the worlds I was leaving behind. That's exactly what I did that morning--put on my jacket, locked the door behind me, and walked out to the car. I thought idly about how it wouldn't be long before the snow would be gone, and remembered how, as a kid, I had liked to slice into the last drift in the shade of the house and spread it out in the sun, just to help spring along a little faster. Now it was Tuesday, and the previous Sunday I had been out on a field trip with my class. One of my students had stretched out on the snow and used a telephoto lens at ground level. I had always been convinced that good photographs, like charity, begin at home. I had told my classes to start with the familiar things around them and practice composition. Occasionally, I had explored with my camera around the yard, but never had I thought of getting involved with a snowbank!
It was a bright, clear morning, and I noticed the sunlight dancing off the ridges of crusty ice.
"Now's the time to have a look. That snow pile won't be there much longer."
I turned around in my tracks (I don't believe in keeping the walk clean, so there are always tracks) and grabbed my macro lens, I also grabbed a plastic tarp because the snowbank was on the verge of melting, and it certainly would with the additional heat from my hot little body eager with anticipation. Down I went with the macro lens focused at minimum distance. I lay on my stomach and peered through the viewfinder. Then I soared! I was transported into another time, another galaxy, to the Lost City of Light! I inched forward with the camera, and an entirely new drama unfolded. The adrenalin rushed from screaming down on the steepest roller coaster would pale in comparison to my excitement! I was launched, drifting through light years of time and space. Forms of indescribable beauty surfaced, floated by and evaporated into mist. There was no time to analyze, only to experience.
"Oh my God, I'm supposed to be back on Earth for a 10:30 appointment!" I had promised myself just a quick look before leaving, and an hour had vanished at the speed of light. I dashed into the house, phoned my disappointed date, canceled a second commitment that day, and returned to my travels.
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Within seconds, I was again humming through the universe with my macro lens, staring face-to-face with Perfection. For the remainder of the day, I was on Universal time. My heart sang out with happiness; my soul exploded with joy. My neck became stiff and sore from craning to see through the viewfinder, but I ignored it and interrupted the voyage only long enough to change film.
And what a trip! I saw strange ghost-like shapes conversing in a forum, a picnic table of ice at which sat the sculptures of a mouse, an anteater, and a kangaroo. As I shifted slightly, the mouse donned a flamboyant hat of sunflowers in full bloom. There were sunfishes, and sunspots, and sundogs doing a sun dance, and sun city bathed in sunshine! And so it went. One or two extension tubes with the macro lens helped to magnify the magnificent forms--gardens of perfectly carved sculptures glistening and shimmering in the March sun.
As I explored, I became conscious of changes in the light, its direction and warmth, and the accompanying play of shadows. In the late afternoon, the sculptures lost their silver sheen and took on a rich golden glow. I opted to skip dinner and stay for the evening display. The light golden glow turned into delicate forms, molded from solid gold. And then as I watched in bewilderment, a golden light appeared in the sky-- a large, well-defined disk descending from the upper frame. Could it be? Yes. I looked up to discover the sun had dropped so low, it was beginning to appear in the viewfinder. It was veiled by a hazy western sky, and showed up extremely large through the macro lens and two extension tubes. Although the sun was completely out-of-focus, the edges of the sphere were sharp and matched the well-defined edges of nature's art objects. I moved into high gear, and made many exposures in the twenty minutes before the sun dropped behind even more muted and mysterious, until it totally disappeared. And with it the magic vanished. The hour struck seven and before me lay a plain old snowbank, slightly smaller than it had been that morning. I was exhausted, but happier than I could remember being for a long time. I walked into the house with fifteen falls of exposed film.
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The next day, I was up early to watch the dawn break over the Lost City. The sun was much brighter on the horizon, and gave a whole new radiant effect. Today would be a whole new day of exploring and discovery. I remained there all day and tried a number of new techniques. I could create my own colorful effects with refraction filters. I did several series with the spectral star, the Andromeda, the rainbow spot, and the pulsator. With the same snow pile, no more than three meters long, I made images with an entirely different look. Star Wars laser beams, colorful northern lights, rainbows over the Lost City and colors that burst forth through the glistening diamonds. I discovered that I needed to make almost all the exposures at the largest aperture, for several reasons. The wide-open aperture and close focus produced a shallow depth of field that allowed large areas of the picture to go radically out of focus. |
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Recording the bright light refracted by the icy shapes gave many of the pictures their whimsical quality. Pictures made at smaller apertures looked a lot more like a "plain old snow bank", because greater portions were in focus. Also, the wide-open lens produced perfect circles of reflected light, whereas the light flare took on the hexagonal shapes of the smaller lens opening. Out-of-focus areas took on a smaller, crisper shape instead of producing galaxies of time and space that made the images so exciting. Because the sunlight reflected on the icy snow was so bright, it was difficult to shoot wide open. For most exposures, I shot with Kodachrome 25 film, at 1/1000 sec., using f/3.5, the largest aperture on my macro lens. Occasionally, I had to use a neutral density filter to reduce the intensity of the light. The great advantage of working with a wide-open lens is that what you see is what you get. It makes the whole experience of exploring that exciting world largely a non-technical one. |
The main difficulty with technique is getting low enough to see through the viewfinder at ground level. Eventually, I discovered the right-angle attachment to the viewfinder, so that I could explore more unorthodox angles, such as shooting up into the noon sun from below the ice ridges. As I developed my technique, I found it a benefit to shovel a clearing, spread the tarp, and burrow in for another session.
By far, the most important lesson I learned was the importance of achieving camera angles that are almost into the sun. The flare is brighter, contrastier, and thus better defined. Contrary to many forms of nature close ups, snowbank photography requires bright sunshine. Caution must be exercised when photographing near or into the sun. Throwing the sun well out of focus helps to reduce its brightness, but still you should not look directly at it in the middle of the day. If you are aware of the camera angle, you can avoid inadvertently pointing the camera directly at it. Many outstanding images can be made without the sun actually appearing in the picture.
I have found that there are only a few days in the spring that lend themselves to snowbank photography. Corn snow is the type that has the chunky, pebble-like surface so conductive to this photography. The snow has begun to melt and has re-frozen. Water droplets have formed, then hardened. The snow is malleable, so you can force it into chunks for easier accessibility, or crusty enough to be set up vertically on its edge.
By noon on the third day, the snowbank was a large puddle. The Lost City of Light was literally lost, but I was radiant. I had a thousand pictures and an unforgettable experience.
I cannot possibly say which experience gives me more satisfaction: making the pictures or viewing the slides, but it doesn't matter. The slides are a reminder of many happy hours spent in a world unto itself. It's the kind of photography that picks you up by the bootstraps of your imagination, transports you to the faraway places of your mind and sets you down again wondering what hit you. Isn't it time for your spring journey? It may be as close as your own front doorstep. The Lost City of Light is calling you, and don't forget to take your camera along to prove that you really were there!