Monthly Archives: February 2006

I Have a Pass!

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One of my favorite things in life is to have a pass.

I don’t buy a Golden Eagle pass strictly for the financial benefits if you visit a lot of parks, but more because I just love being able to drive up to one of those gated entrances at a National Park and state proudly “I have a pass!” There’s usually a tense moment before the guard realizes I’m not dangerous, just a little special, and he relaxes his grip on his Taser. Then the gate raises and I can drive on through.

Friday brought both cold weather and high winds to the Portland area. While on the way to work, the MAX train I was on lost power. A strong gust of wind had apparently caused problems with the lines that supply power to the trains.

The TriMet driver had us all disembark and walk back towards the Sunset Transit Center where we could board buses to our final destination. On the way back, there’s a short tunnel you have to walk through. As our group started into the tunnel, it triggered an alarm and a recorded voice boomed out “Halt! You are entering an unauthorized area! The authorities have been notified and are on the way.” While I didn’t have a pass, the TriMet folks were with us, so I knew there wasn’t any danger.

Or at least not much danger, part of me couldn’t shake the thought that Vice President Cheney was going to pop out of a dark corner shouting “Terrorists! Terrorists!” BlAM! BLAM! BLAM! and the bullets start flying.

I got to work almost an hour later than normal, and the ride home at the end of the day was also a long one, but at least I did have the small satisfaction of having permission to go where I wasn’t supposed to go.

Confessions of a Pixel Peeper

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American alligator eating a crab near sunrise at Huntington Beach State Park

The world of photography is full of long running and tiresome debates — I think some people get into photography strictly for the debates. The problem is, like most debates in life, people tend to gravitate towards the extremes and the valid points on both sides are lost in a sea of hyperbole.

One of the oldest is this old chestnut: “Which is more important, the photographer or the equipment?” The purists trot out the same tired cliche, “Give Ansel Adams a disposable camera and he’ll take better pictures than the average photographer with the best equipment available.” Which is both true and beside the point. Obviously the photographer is the most important element of the artistic side, but just because equipment isn’t the most important, doesn’t mean that it isn’t important.

An artist will understand the limitations of his tools and work within their limits to create the best result possible, so the purists are on the right track with their Ansel analogy. But a better question to ask is why didn’t Ansel shoot with a disposable camera? It’s the job of the artist to choose the appropriate tools, because your tools will define the limitations you have to work with.

The advent of digital photography has introduced new tiresome debates. One of which is: “Which is more important, the picture that you print or the quality of the picture viewed onscreen at 100%?”

The purists proudly stick out their chests and announce “The print!” They derisively label anyone who wants to view their pictures at 100% pixel detail on their monitors as pixel peepers or measurebators. People who can’t see the forest for the trees.

I have a confession to make: I’m a pixel peeper.

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I’m A Little Slow

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Rough-skinned newt

In J.R.R. Tolkien’s little known trilogy The Lord of the Rings, there’s a passage where the wizard Gandalf is forced to take the fellowship through the Mines of Moria. It is a passage they take only as a last resort, as the dwarves who once mined Moria have abandoned it. The dwarves dug and dug into the earth, creating spectacular rooms in the rock. But one day they dug too deep and unleashed a great evil into the world.

It’s a passage I’ve been thinking about lately as somehow, sometime during the past couple of years, I dug too deep. The world can rest easy, I’ve unleashed no flaming demons from the depths of hell. But something has awakened. I don’t know why, but it has, and the question now is what to do about it.

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