A Visual Thing Happened on the Way to the Hospital

San Diego — Well, tomorrow is the big day.  That is the day I go into the body shop to receive a new shoulder.  I can tell you I am looking SOOOOOO forward to not having the pain even when I lift my arm to write or pick up a camera.

Since I have to be there at 0-dark thirty I thought it best to do a dry run to get a sense of where the hospital is and how long it will take to get there.  It is on Coronado so over the bridge and, amazingly, we drove right to it.  Well, that was altogether too easy.  So I decided to drive around and see if anything leapt out at me to shoot.

Sure enough, along the ocean side coming toward the Hotel Del from the north I saw a stretch of beach that reminded me of the beaches along Cape Cod with a row or two of blown sand filled with grasses and weeds leading to the ocean.  The grasses are all different but it had such a similar feel I pulled over to take a shot.  I push my students to work a scene over with different views, angles, lenses, points of view, etc.  So it seemed reasonable to show a few shots from my doing the same thing.  All of these were shot from a standing position of about a 2-yard circle.

The first shot is with a 17-40mm set at 27mm.

It had a nice sense of the beach but on the horizon to the right of this shot was Point Loma with the Cabrillo Lighthouse.  So I got out the 24mm TS-E lens for a shot and took this second image.  In the top shot i stood as tall as possible to get a lot of the first sand row.  In the one below I bent down closer to the grass.

While standing there I could not help but notice the seed heads on the grasses that were blowing in the onshore breeze since they were such a major part of the two shots above.  Looking close revealed a world of detail so with a 65mm MP-E lens I focussed at 2X on one of the heads.  Enlarged here is it many times life size.

I was fascinated that at this range what appear to be single items became multiple objects with interesting detail like the little “hairs” on the stalk.  Look again at either of the top two shots to see one of the seed heads that this shot is from.  Yes, yes, I know it is a little soft, trying to focus that lens hand held with a bum shoulder in the wind is something I might have pulled off years ago but not today.  But I included it to show the potential of what was available in this one small spot.

Meantime, on the ground at my feet, countless seed pods and seeds have floated down and formed a downy layer of fluff around the rocks.  For this, a 180mm macro allowed me to get a sense of the abstract, almost star-like or fire-works-like patterns formed there.

Well, OK time to put up the camera gear, and get my “kit” together for the few days in the hospital.  See you all on the other side of that little adventure.

Advertisement