Nick Cave’s “Murder Ballads” has been in the CD player for a few days now. Maybe not the best for a nice ride in the country, or perhaps perfect for the burned –out barn offering partial shelter for two broken down RVs tarped and strewing extension cords into the adjacent shack. I passed several similar scenes in new terrain.
It wasn’t totally new. I had been on this gravel washboard before, a year ago, short a couple weeks. I have been trying to find it again, unsuccessful until today, just like the roll of 35mm slide film that holds scenes from the last time I was there. There is a woods.
Yet, I’m out to take more photos of burnings, and there are quite a few happening as I drive. Although I am in the forest, I can smell the grass fires.
The road leaves the woods into the woods’ future, a clear-cut, and soon I am back into grass fields. The burns are older, browner, and therefore I am not motivated to stop. Plus, I am on a ridge of switchbacks. Shortly thereafter I am on familiar two-lane blacktop and head in the direction that can eventually lead home.
I am still on a ridge. There are panoramas everywhere but I am heading west into the late afternoon sun. As I round a corner I see a turnout, and below and behind the turnout I see wisps of smoke. I pull over to find that I am too late to get shots of a fire some 500 feet below me. It now smolders. How cool would that have been? I gently kick myself for the series of photos from which the above one is part. As it turns out, lousy shots too. I snap off a few more just for good measure and head off. It’s getting near picking time.
Fires continue to burn in all directions.
I am not satisfied with anything I have shot on this pass, even though I have snapped off quite a few. And now, as more smoke fills the air, it will be difficult to get any pictures that are not hazy. It occurs to me that this project may have run its course, redundant, yet the prospect of this being the last year for such burnings makes me turn off onto yet another side road. Posterity.
The last two have promise. I’ll go out again tomorrow.
9 comments:
I agree that the last two have definite promise. I also like the texture shown in the haystack image. (There should be a way to incorporate the word 'needle' to make a dumb joke, but I'm not going there).
As an aside, some html tags have shown in the last few posts. Maybe you don't see them because you have a mac? Does anyone else see it?
Yup, MOJO.
They come through Bloglines also.
As always, thanks for the compliments on the work. I am not always quick with the gratitude, so please know that it is constant.
My Blogger started acting odd a week or so ago. When I cut and paste from Word I get this weird html stuff at the head of the text. I delete it but still get some html gobblty-gook warning when I try to publish. I ignore it and then have to edit the post to redo paragraphs.
Also, my Blogger like to default to html instead of "Compose" in the tabs for some reason. As always, I am clueless about these things. I am going to try to drag the text next to see if that makes a difference.
Anyway, thanks for the heads up. Any suggestions?
Don't have any suggestions, and not complaining. Just thought maybe it was someting a Mac didn't see. No biggie.
Ah, aussie Nick Cave. Now there's a happy chappy! I discovered him when The Screaming Jets covered a song of his:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3ZJNyOb4Do&feature=related
FG
1. My mac sees no tags.
2. My rss feed for this blog has stopped updating. Have to come here and check manually.
3. Yes, the texture in the bales was amazing.
bastin - check your "settings" in blogger. Under settings, check the global settings area.
Old editor might be best if you use Word and What You See Is What You Get
(WYSIWYG)
Then on the edit page, sure enough, the compose tab.
Checked my settings and had Old Settings and since that apparently ain't doing the trick, I switch to new-fangled with all them attractive bells and whistles. Post forthcoming.
That did it. It took this post and cleaned it up, so to speak. Everything be cool, my man.
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