by Mary Oliver
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
My Mom and John got me a Hoya R72 infrared filter for my birthday (exactly what I wanted… how did they know?). Here are some of my first efforts.
The R72 blocks most of the visible light, only letting the near infrared light into the camera. The filter looks almost black to they eye… Because the light is mostly blocked, the camera must be set to a long exposure and a wide aperture for the pictures to come out (these are with a 4 second exposure at f4.0). Because of the long exposure, a tripod is needed.
The most obvious effect is that foliage comes out looking white, as it reflects the most infrared light. Other things come out looking ethereal, too!
The island is in Fairmont Park, and the photo was manipulated in PhotoShop to switch the red and blue channels. The Second photo is the Riverside courthouse… this one is pretty much how it comes out of the camera. The last is the Riverside theater… I played a little in PS to get this look.
One thing you may notice is that the photos show a pretty distinct flare in the center of each picture. This is due to the cheap lens that came with the camera and its crappy coatings. I have identified an inexpensive lens that does not have this problem; I plan on buying it so I can keep playing.
Pretty neat stuff…
Ok, so the strangest thing happened today… I was depositing my paycheck at the bank, and as I was leaving I noticed something in the planter. I looked closely, and it was a couple of Morel mushrooms! I was totally shocked; this is the middle of suburban Riverside after all. I looked around more carefully, and there were a ton of them growing in the planter! I got my bag out and started collecting, and ended up with about 1 pound of decent sized mushrooms. I’ll be going back over the next week and seeing if more sprout up. I am surprised that no one noticed them before me… this place gets a lot of traffic.
I imported this tracklog file into Google Earth. You can see March Air Force Base in the lower right, and Lake Matthews on the left center.
Just clip it off as you go!
)
"The romantic high ideals that people have about art are moronic. Art is a disease and a curse if you do it for the right reasons." - The Artist
