|
King's X - "Black Like Sunday" (2003 - Insideout Records) Another amazing album from one of my favorite bands.... My Photographs You like photos? I love taking them. Click here, if you wanna see some of my work
Is a photo missing on an older entry? Click here to find it at Photogra!  The Other Links Favorites and Rings are now here!
The life you save might be mine!
|
Friday, Dec. 05, 2003 - 6:11 p.m. The callout came at 10:40 p.m. last night. I had been �sleeping� (if you can call it that) for about 30 minutes. Why didn�t I try to go to sleep any earlier? Because the last forecast I had (8 p.m.) only mentioned a 30% chance of snow accumulation. And it also stated that the snow wouldn�t start until 3 am (precipitation was falling as very light rain at 10 p.m.) So I had to make it all night without sleep. When I first came in, the assignment was 2 routes for each driver (impossible to do, when the snow finally started falling). I think they just wanted a presence, after the late callout last Friday. Since rain was falling, I couldn�t just park alongside the road and wait for the changeover. My routes were the two north ones, meaning I would be the first to see the change. It came about 12 pm. Snow fell for 2 hours before it started sticking to the pavement. When it did, the routes turned to slush/icy messes in a matter of minutes. I called the temporary lead worker on my radio, and asked for another driver. By the time they woke up the needed drivers and had them on the routes, it was almost 3 am. That means there were two hours of dangerous roads, half of them unattended, before salt was spread on every route. I unloaded two truckloads on my route alone by 6:30 am. I also had several short periods of time where I had to pull to the shoulder and close my eyes for 5 or so minutes, just to stay alert enough to stay on the road. It�s hard enough to stay awake after being up for 24 hours. It�s damn near impossible when snow is falling so quickly that you can�t tell if you are still on the road�. Anyway- I am still alive, and that is always a good thing. The snow last night was very wet (8-1 ratio, which is very high), and did a very nice job of �flocking� everything that was exposed to it overnight. I knew that it would all be gone by the time I woke up this afternoon (and it was), so I took a few photos in my back yard before I turned in this morning. This is the first real snow Jay-dog has seen, and I think he liked it. He ran up and down the hillside, grabbing mouths full of the wet snow and tossing it into the air. I tried my best to capture this on Smart Media, but his reaction time was faster than mine at 7:45 this morning. This is about the best view I captured:
The wet snow sat gently on both the trees in the yard :
and on the rings of my many tomato cages:
I switched the last one to black and white, but the tones were so muted this morning, you can hardly tell the difference in the final frame� A quick photo tip, for users of any type of camera: I learned this one several years ago, and thought I would pass it on to y�all� If you plan on shooting photos of snow, your camera�s automatic sensors will read the lighting as too bright due to all of the �white� light. This will cause all of your photos to turn out underexposed, sometimes to the point where your photos look like you took them after the sun had set. The way to avoid this problem it to take advantage of the manual setting on your camera. On a film camera, do whatever your camera takes to read the exposure settings that your sensor reads (half-depressing the shutter does this on my Cannon Rebel). Note what it read, then set your camera to its manual setting, and decrease either your shutter speed or fstops by 2 or 3 settings. This allows the film to be exposed long enough to get the right amount of light through the lens. On an advanced digital camera, you follow the steps above. On a simpler model (like the ones I now own), you can go to manual, and then set the light exposure to +3 or + 5. This works for my Fuji pretty well. And the nice thing is, you get to see right away if the exposure time was long enough. Not that I am an expert at photography (by any measure), but this tip has improved my snow-based photos by a large degree. And I think you know how many opportunities I have to take photos of snow, don�t you?
 powered by SignMyGuestbook.com
Have You Read These?
A hot day for a wedding...9:26 p.m. - Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2009 So bad - but so funny, too.10:33 p.m. - Saturday, Jun. 13, 2009 Evil Black Walnut Tree from Hell!- times up!6:41 a.m. - Thursday, Apr. 23, 2009 My next door neighbor was on the Today Show?8:57 p.m. - Tuesday, Mar. 31, 2009 This qualifies as a "oh crap!" moment:9:55 p.m. - Monday, Mar. 30, 2009 Back to top
|
