Tag Archives: Nikon D90

On The Road To Teton Valley

Somehow it always starts with the drama of clouds painting “Look here! Look here!” highlights on the middle ground.

Quick! Get the camera!

By the time the [easyazon_link asin=”B001ENOZY4″ locale=”US” new_window=”default” nofollow=”default” tag=”rickandkathy-20″ add_to_cart=”default” cloaking=”default” localization=”default” popups=”default”]Nikon D90[/easyazon_link]is ridin’ high on the console between the seats, we’re sunk: once again, we realize the Road Trip Muse has bullied in and is insisting on some overdue personal attention.

She knows we’re suckers for the challenge of getting the shot at 80 mph, straining to get above the side rear view mirror, telephone poles, traffic lights, big honkin’ trucks that get in the way right at the last second…

… and she plays with our mutually eclectic sensibilities of what makes for an interesting image.

We’re a good team. Rick drives and occasionally hollers, “Get that one!” I bounce around in the front seat like Ruprecht the Monkey Girl, twisting myself into unnatural positions to try to get just the right angle.

Sometimes, The Source is just Rick, after 12 miles of outrageously bumpy and undulating road construction, quipping “Well, at least the road guys have a sense of humor.”

But sometimes, the Muse herself delivers a fly-by composition so intensely pure and correct that it if I miss it, I have failed to do my part in something important and irreplaceable.

It can be simply an image we wouldn’t normally see in our 9-5 Silicon Valley world.

Or it can be a surrealistically perfect moment that is usually only visible in other people’s lives. Or in slow motion in the movies. Or Napa.

But that’s what it’s like on the road to Teton Valley.

You get a plein air painter’s dream at sunset…

… followed by twilight in Targhee National Forest, 12 minutes from home, and the dreamscape collusion of your [easyazon_link asin=”B001ET5U92″ locale=”US” new_window=”default” nofollow=”default” tag=”rickandkathy-20″ add_to_cart=”default” cloaking=”default” localization=”default” popups=”default”]D90[/easyazon_link], the Muse, and the deer that decided to bound the other way.

Surf Dancer

I love the rapid fire capability in our Nikon D90.

For one thing, it sounds really cool–chuckshoock, chuckshoock, chuckshoock–and makes me feel like a real photographer, as opposed to just playing one on the beach.

But the bigger reason is that as storyscapers, we need all the visual nuances of a tale that are available to us. And there are certain “rapid shot” subjects that we’d miss if we didn’t have that option.

For instance, check out the child on the right and the dad.

They were no doubt engaged in deep and meaningful dialogue, but there wasn’t much of a physical nature going on there, other than maybe serving as a static cautionary tale about mismatched pant leg hem heights.

If it had just been those two, I could have easily used the click…wait… image review… wait… refocus, and… click of my Canon G10. It would still have been a cool shot, and I wouldn’t have missed anything.

(And I apologize in advance if you are now fixated on that single skinny ankle. You may have to go back to the top and start over by specifically focusing on the girls. Sorry.)

However, the completely airborne little bean on the left?

With prancers and poodles and princesses, if ya snooze, ya lose, baby.

There are some moves that are just too precious to miss…

… and moments of exultation that flash and are gone before you can blink.

Our dancer must have the metabolism of a super-caffeinated gerbil.

Maybe we were indirectly involved in what had unfolded. That little Nikon “chuckshoock” in the wind is sometimes all it takes to alert a budding star that someone’s watching.

See that glance over her shoulder? It was, in fact, a question:

“Didja catch all that?”

I caught it, Sweetie.

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Soft Rime Frost = Magic

Take some of this…

… and add some of this, well-chilled.

Stand back…

Then grab your camera, and start out on your belly on your living room floor with the door to the side deck open, and marvel over “Old Lilac Tree, Revisited.”