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Full Circle Home. . .
Hello my friends.
Yes, it has been a while. I
have been overcoming the
'champagne problem' of outgrowing my email program
because it couldn't house all the people who have joined us on our
shared journey. If you are reading this it means I figured it all out, I'm back
in the driver's seat, and ready to hit the road.
When I last left you we were in
beautiful Boulder, Colorado
with my colorful friends.
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In this email I want to show you one
more extraordinary event
that happened on my way to Boulder and complete the circle back to
California
through the remarkable American
West.
As I crossed the Wyoming border
the last rays
of sunlight were creating long shadows across the open prairie.
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I got off the highway and headed down a dirt road
toward a wind farm in hopes of finding a picture in the last
light of day.
The sun had set as I set up my tripod for
the first shot of the scene. The clouds were still above the
curvature of the rotating earth.
Soon, they too, could no longer see the
sun.
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With my camera on the tripod, I made four
different shots using the same exposure.
With each exposure I increased the
amount of time the shutter
was open and made the opening of the
aperture smaller.
The same amount of light was hitting
the light sensitive sensor.
Everything stationary in the scene stayed the same. Every time
I slowed down the shutter,
the blades of the turbines had more time to speed
across the sensor.
With each shot, the image of
these massive sculptures became more
resplendent.
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I stayed well into the night witnessing this wonder.
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After stopping in Boulder to see
friends, I drove to Evergreen to see my sister Eileen.
I stopped at the Genesee exit on I-70 to take a long look at The Front Range.
This was the same exit that I would
take to go to my parents' house on Lookout Mountain
and the place I lived for the last six months of my father's life.
I walked to the middle of the
overpass and recalled that this was also the place
where a local TV crew interviewed me during a snowstorm in the dark.
They were there reporting on the storm
for the 10:00 news.
The reporter thought it would make an interesting "color piece" to go
with the severe storm story.
After getting me "miked
up" he asked, "What in the world are you doing out here?"
I looked in the camera and said, 'The only real trick to get a good picture
is to take a picture in a way that hasn't been seen before.
Sometimes that means just getting a different point of view.
You get above or below the subject to get a different angle.
Sometimes it means just taking a picture when nobody else would bother to stop
to get the shot.'
The reporter said, "That's
great. That's all we need."
Then he stepped in front of the camera and said,
"This certainly qualifies as one of those times."
I forgot to mention that sometimes all you have
to do is push the button
when the world looks as pretty as a postcard.
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By this time in the trip I had already been
on the road for more than a week
and welcomed a little rest and
relaxation.
Eileen's is always the place I call home when I visit Colorado.
She and her husband Jake, who I think of as a brother, always greet
me with open arms.
I love waking up in "my" room and looking
out the window
at our deer neighbors.
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"The kids," Ellie and Hoss, also add to the homey
feeling.
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After a week with family and friends
it was time to hit the road home.
I left at night under a full moon. The first
picture was taken on Hwy 93 leaving Boulder.
I waited until the moon entered the
clouds and for a car that was coming toward me to pass
so that the moon wouldn't burn out and there would only be tail lights creating the red
streaks during the 30 second exposure.
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A couple of hundred miles down the road
I stopped to say "Hi!"
to the moon
and the Colorado River.
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I reached Green River, Utah
before the sun or
the truckers had risen
for their respective journeys across the landscape.
Under an abandoned gas station sign
I had an epiphany about the nature of the universe:
It is the darkness that shows us the light of the stars.
And, what is a star but
simply a massive amount
of dark matter gathered together so
closely
that it explodes into light.
It is only a view found in time
that distinguishes one form of energy from another.
I used to love waking up in Green River,
rolling out of bed and seeing the beautiful girl I'd always visit when I came
through town. She always looked especially good bathed in the soft warm morning light.
About a year
ago I went by her place and found her gone. I asked the owner of the motel where
she went and he told me that because they no longer had a pool he sent her off to get
made up in a Western outfit. I looked forward to seeing her in her new getup. I
know I am personalizing an object and I know it sounds funny, but when I stopped to see her I
was shocked. It wasn't her. The face that I had known, loved, photographed, and
fantasized about for years, was replaced by someone who I had never met. It felt awkward. This new one just didn't
speak to me. I recalled Buddha's last words, "All compound things decay. Strive on with diligence." I let go of my compounded thoughts
and got back on the highway.
The motel got its name, "Robber's Roost,"
because of the name given to the complex maze
of canyons that was the
hiding place for the likes of Butch Cassidy,
The Sundance Kid and the rest of the outlaw
gang known as The Wild Bunch. |
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I wondered if the scenic overlook sign
planners overlooked the irony
of these two signs appearing together.
I got off
the highway to get a closer look at
the dynamic Western landscape.
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When I stopped at a truck-stop outside Salt
Lake City I noticed a blue and white semi-truck surrounded by a flock of sea
gulls under a blue and white sky.
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After taking a picture, I met the
benefactor of the birds, Harjit.
He breaks bread with his feathered friends each
time he passes through.
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By the time I reached Battle
Mountain, Nevada, low clouds were billowing above me.
On ground
level the air was perfectly still.
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For the next three hours the air stayed still
while the clouds rolled over the hillsides
and splashes of sunlight raced across
the open desert.
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As it got dark it began to rain.
I drove to Lovelock, Nevada and cashed in for the day.
I got up while it was still dark and
found my way home
after being gone for one glorious
month.
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Thanks for joining me on this most
memorable adventure.
I appreciate your company and think
of you often when I stop to take a picture.
The book I am creating is really coming along.
All the pictures are picked and the
words are almost written.
It is rather like driving down the
open road.
I just move from page to page
and let the picture in front of me form words in my head.
Having you with me helps me see how
I see.
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I'll
leave you with a bit of love left by one of our fellow
travelers.
 Jerry
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| Life is a book and he
who never travels reads only a page.
~ Thomas Aquinas
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