Tuesday, June 23, 2009

A Chair with Wings

That's what riding on the scooter feels like sometimes - like I'm in a magical chair that has wings. I don't know if it's the frame of mind I'm in sometimes that gives me that particular feeling, but when it hits I nearly giggle with boyish glee. When I was a kid my mom was the overprotective type who thought that anything wilder than the merry-go-round was too risky a ride at the amusement park. I couldn't wait till I could go to a park with a school group without her to get my first taste of a roller coaster. Now, all these years later, the scooter gives me a thrill not unlike being in the first seat of the coaster, especially on a hill when it feel like I'm soaring! Though I've never been in a plane yet, if they started making scooters that could fly I'd be one of the first in line to get one.


Now that I have the new, quick to set up tripod I'm seeing more pictures to be made than before. I was just turning around in this parking lot when the lines of the pipe railing on the ramp caught my eye in a pleasing way.


When it comes to composition I don't think I'll ever get it right. In theory I know that I'm rarely supposed to put the main feature in the center of a photo, and I'm supposed to consider that the eye tends to follow lines downward. Thus, there was probably a better place for me to position myself in this shot. I just don't know where that would be nor why.

I scoot past this fire truck often in my travels to and from running errands close to the house. It's been parked in front of the local junk yard for weeks now but I can't imagine that it's to be junked because it's in beautiful condition. It reminds me of the ladder trucks of my youth which had bigger than life looks about them and the cherry red finish is one of my favorite shades of red. God forbid that it's going to be added to the city's fleet and repainted with the awful whitewash that all the other municipal vehicles sport.


My very first shot of myself with the new tripod was exactly like this except with me standing to the left of the scooter. It was, on paper, the picture I planned to use here, but I had a look on my face as if I'd been constipated for days and was about to blow.

Looking suspiciously like some medieval torture device this wheel stands in a farmer's field in central Pennsylvania. I pass it each time I head west for one of my weekend get-aways. Any guesses as to what it's for? Other than for extracting confessions out of heretics I don't have a clue.




2 comments:

Doug Klassen said...

"When it comes to composition I don't think I'll ever get it right."

Highly recommended reading is the Ansel Adams book "The Making of Forty Photographs." One of the memorable parts for me was when Adams had stopped to photograph a fence post he found interesting. Despite the his best efforts to find the right angle, composition, or whatever, Adams said "The fence post refused to be photographed" and he put away his equipment. If the master can not always find the shot then the rest of us get a little leeway too.

Doug

cpa3485 said...

When it comes to pictures, I know I have little patience for composition and thought. I usually just point and shoot, which probably shows up in the quality of the pics.
And as to that last picture, it does appear to be a bit ominous. Maybe it's a listening device for the NSA that listens to phone calls and blog posts in the never ending search for terrorists. (should I have said that here?)