Capturing Lightning

It's amazing how a vacation designed to be all about relaxing and doing nothing has such little free time. And there has been very little time for photography. But late afternoon thunderstorms that appeared across the Everglades slowly worked their way out to sea last night, creating a great opportunity to attempt to capture lightning out over the ocean. Having never really tried to catch lighting bolts, I was apprehensive and unsure of a technique. While I got lucky with a couple of great captures, I was dissappointed to find out that my focus was ever-so-slightly off.



This shot was taken on a tripod at f3.5. I triggered the shot with a shutter release and the shutter was open for 3:55. If you look closely, you will notice several tiny streaks in the top righthand corner of the frame. Those are stars revealed by the retreating storms that blurred with the long shutter. A near miss at best, it leaves me with another lesson learned and another opportunity to wonder "what if". But with luck, Mother Nature will give me another chance or two while I am here.

A Somewhat Different Place

So it’s vacation time. On Saturday, we piled in the car and drove eight hours to Pineland, Florida. From there, we climbed onto a boat for a twenty minute ride to North Captiva Island. It’s an amazing place, different in so many aspects from anywhere I’ve ever been. There are no cars, but there are phones and lights. And thankfully, air-conditioning as it is very hot and humid.

For the last two days, I’ve spent most of my time lying on the beach cooking in the hot sun, reading, and listening to my iPod. The water is flat and calm here. The shore is covered with seashells. There are sea otter, dolphin, and some really large tortoise. And the only place to buy anything has $4 cans of Pringles, $40 pies, beer, and not much else.

I haven’t had much time for photography. At dusk both nights, I’ve snapped a few photos of the sea oats and setting sun. A tripod, the right combination of clouds and sunset, and a graduated neutral density filter can do wonders for slamdunk brilliant colors. Unfortunately, my attempt at capturing lightning last night during the apparently obligatory thunderstorm didn’t work out so well. Chances are, I will get another opportunity.

For some reason, I’ve been struggling to concentrate on reading today. Smeared in sunscreen lying next to the Gulf of Mexico is a great place for thinking deep thoughts. That can be a good thing or a bad thing. I found myself listening to a lot of blues and dissecting some intricate stuff like the Dave Matthews Band that I can only wish I could play. Dave Matthew’s music is oddly timed, intricate, and sometimes difficult to understand. Fitting music, I suppose.

There’s an island nearby called Cabbage Key. A restaurant there claims to be the source of Jimmy Buffet’s Cheeseburger in Paradise. True Parrotheads and even people like me with Google know that the idea for Buffet’s song about “lettuce, tomato, Heinz 57, and French Fried potatos” was birthed in the Tortolas, not southwest Florida. Nonetheless, it reminds me of my favorite Buffet song, A Pirate Looks at Forty. Considering I have a month and a half until I reach the big “four-oh”, it’s hard to image that there’s ever been a better written song about introspection, mistakes and “what if”.

It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since I swam in the Gulf of Mexico. So much has changed. And so much is still the same. There’s another afternoon storm blowing in from across the Everglades. I think I’ll go make a margarita and watch it come across the island while I listen to Jimmy Buffet's simple but oh so accurate words.

A Strange Stimulus

An amazing transformation seems to be occurring around the country. The fluffy-clouded euphoria of “Obamination” seems to be clearing. Cutting through the obfuscation of campaign promises and mandates seemingly delivered by a Democratic landslide is the reality that America has taken on vast oceans of debt in the short tenure of the Obama administration with little or nothing to show for it. Folks rooting for both sides of the aisle are starting to realize that affordable energy and quality healthcare are in jeopardy if Obama and congressional leaders get their way. And, the hundreds of thousands of jobs to be “created or saved” have not appeared. A little digging has revealed some odd truths about the truckloads of stimulus money being heaped on the problem.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that $80 million of the $787 billion Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds went to the National Endowment for the Arts. That was news to me and probably would be news to most Americans, if they ever heard about it. Orchestras, ballet companies, theaters, and film houses around the country—okay, truthfully a large number of them were in New York and San Francisco—got checks for $25k or $50k.

But the aspect of the story that will create the most rancor, assuming the information makes the mainstream news, is that the bucks went to fund projects that would certainly embarrass the congressmen who approved them. For example, San Francisco’s Frameline film house, which received 50,000 taxpayer dollars, recently released Thundercrack, billed as “the world’s only underground, kinky art porno horror film, complete with four men, three women, and a gorilla.” You just can’t make this stuff up. And then there is “The Symmetry Project”, a “study of the body's central axis” which apparently amounts to two nude people writhing on the floor.

It’s difficult to read about the recent exploits of the NEA and not remember photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. While Mapplethorpe received free publicity for his work, the NEA got hammered, and rightfully so, for funding his Cincinnati photography exhibit which included images of bullwhips installed in places where nothing was designed to be inserted and some misdirected urine. Speaking of urine, Andres Serrano’s photo of a crucifix submerged in the artist’s “own” brought national anger when Americans found out that NEA funds partially paid for a $15,000 award for Seranno’s “art”.

Perhaps a relevant side note to this story seems to be the long-standing battle of what is “art”. This goes beyond what constitutes a masterpiece. Americans seem to forever live in the shadow of our puritanical founding. The same images that capture some primordial imaginations also threaten the mores etched in us.

The arts are important. Funding the arts to provide opportunities for artists is important. Now maybe I’d see it differently if the NEA had sent me a big check to photograph the cast of Thundercrack. Whether it’s art or porn or something somewhere in between, forcing me to pay for it with my tax dollars is something I certainly can’t appreciate.