Tag: Phavorite Photos

Phavorite Photos: Odonata Porn

By Joe Berk

You might be wondering if we are switching to an x-rated site.  We are not. I just happened to be out and about with my camera when the above photo op emerged and I grabbed it.  I think it is probably one of the best nature shots I ever grabbed, although I have similar one with a couple of raccoons but that’s a photo for another Phavorite Photos blog.

We were out servicing a water treatment site in California’s Yucca Valley.  In those days I was lugging around a real tank of a camera:  The Nikon F5.  It was Nikon’s top of the line film camera when film still ruled.  The camera was huge and it weighed a ton, and I compounded the felony by mounting a 180mm Sigma macro lens on it.  I had ridden my Suzuki TL 1000S there (I could fit the camera and it’s lens into my tail bag).  The best thing about that job was that I could combine a lot of extra-curricular into my work, like motorcycle rides and photography.

Back to the Odanata story.  Odonata is the entomological classification for three groups of insects.  One of those groups includes dragonflies, and the dragonflies were out in force that fine California day.  And I was lucky to have brought that 180mm Sigma macro lens with me.  It was perfect for the photo ops that presented themselves that day.  I tried pictures in flight, but I had no luck.  When the painted ladies stopped on a twig or a weed or a branch, though, I was in Fat City.   I dropped the film off at our local Costco (they still sold and processed film in those days), I did a little shopping (I love Costco), and an hour later, they were ready.  The photo guy told me it was very unusual to see photos this “perfect.”  I took the compliment.   The pictures looked good on the 4×6 prints; they looked even better on my computer.

Both the F5 and the 180mm Sigma lens have gone down the road.  Digital took over from film, I went full bore into the digital world, and I found the 180mm Sigma macro lens wasn’t good for much else besides fornicating dragonflies.   Today I use a Sigma 50mm macro for all my closeup work (it’s about as perfect a lens as I’ve ever used for macrophotography), and my cameras are either Nikon’s D810, the D3300, or my cell phone.

Earlier Phavorite Photos?  You bet!  Click on each to get their story.

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Phavorite Photos: Wenchuan Woman

There are photogenic people in Wenchuan.  One is the Wenchuan man I described in a previous Phavorite Photos blog, and another is the young lady shown in the large photo above.  For lack of a better name, I’ll call her Apple Annie.  Some of you folks my age or older might remember the 1961 feel-good film A Pocketful of Miracles, in which Bette Davis played a character named Apple Annie.

Bette Davis has nothing on our Wenchuan Apple Annie.  After Gresh and I got out of the Wenchuan police station (we had to register as foreigners), we were walking along a main street through Wenchuan.   Apple Annie was selling fruits and vegetables on the sidewalk, and somehow her bushel full of apples tipped over.  Before you could say “Oh, no!” in Mandarin, apples literally rolled into four lanes of busy Wenchuan traffic.  That’s when our pocketful of miracles occurred:  Traffic absolutely stopped, Gresh hopped into the street before Annie or I realized what had happened, and then we jumped in, too, along with a bunch of other Chinese good Samaritans.   As traffic patiently waited (not one horn honked), we recovered every one of Annie’s apples.  She gave Gresh and I one as a small thank you, along with the beautiful smile you see above.

In 2008, Wenchuan had one of the largest earthquakes in recorded history (a magnitude 8.0 quake), and between 65,000 to 80,000 people died.  Something like 80% of the buildings in Wenchuan collapsed.

Some of the damaged buildings were left standing as a tribute to Wenchuan’s victims.  We saw those.  People are resilient, perhaps even more so in Wenchuan.  You can read more about what we saw in Wenchuan and elsewhere in China in Riding China.

Earlier Phavorite Photos?  You bet!  Click on each to get their story.

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Phavorite Photos: Alone in China

We were somewhere in China approaching Aba after leaving the Tibetan Plateau, and somehow it was just Gresh, Sergeant Zuo, and me.  I can’t remember why we were separated from the rest of our group.  Honking along at a brisk pace and blitzing through one area after another, the photo ops were flying by and I wanted to capture at least some of them with my Nikon.

I finally caught up with Zuo and Gresh and flagged them over.  I asked if I could go back a mile or two and they said they would wait.  We had passed a Buddhist temple with a gold roof.  The overcast skies, the green mountains, the asphalt, my orange and muddy RX3…all the colors clicked.  I needed to commit that memory to the SD card.

When I turned around, I was surprised at how long it took to return to the spot you see above (I think we were on China’s G317 highway, but it might have been the G213).  Then I felt fear:  What if Gresh and Zuo didn’t wait for me?  I don’t speak the language, I had no cell coverage, and I wouldn’t be able to find my way back to wherever.  It was like being in outer space. It was just one of those crazy psycho unreasonable moments that sometimes hits when you realize you’re not in control of the situation.  I snapped a few photos, they looked good enough on the camera’s display, and I wound out the RX3 to get back to my compañeros as quickly as possible.  They had waited.  I was in clover.

About a month later as we approached Beijing some of the street signs were in both Chinese and English, and it was obvious Beijing was directly ahead.  Gresh told me he felt better because if we had to we could find our way home.  I guess I wasn’t the only one having those “out in the boonies” feelings.  It happens.

Earlier Phavorite Photos?  You bet!  Click on each to get their story.

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