Home > Personal > West, North, East, but not South

West, North, East, but not South

October 6, 2006

I walked up and down the East side of the road, waiting for the sun to rise and listening to the humming noise from the telephone pole next to me.  Putting my hands on it I could feel it vibrating as if a diesel engine were running in the ground just beneath its foundation.  All the poles were doing this; the cold wires contract to become like titanic guitar strings, vibrating with the energy pouring out to farmhouses and grain silos, and back into the ground.  I held my camera in my armpit, trying to keep the battery warm.


Then…

…and stood shivering as the first rays finally swept across the fields like a painter’s brush to the West:

North-East:

North:

And then South, straight up the road where two farm houses balanced across the hilltop from each other like square dancers, sharply outlined in the new sunlight.  Raising my camera the sixth time, I pressed the button to zoom and…

BATTERY EXHAUSTED

…just before the screen went black.

This is one reason why WeeDram uses purely mechanical cameras with film, which holds a latent image waiting for the bath of chemicals to awaken the picture to view.

Oh well, I guess it’s no different from running out of film, or discovering only later that the diaphram leaves have begun to stick, so all the pictures are overexposed.  At very least I’ll darn well charge the battery before going out the next time.

Categories: Personal
  1. Abhilasha
    October 6, 2006 at 14:58 | #1

    I actually have bought a spare battery for my camera for the very same reason….

    The last time I ran out of batteries, there was a beautiful rainbow accross the sky.. !!

  2. October 6, 2006 at 20:51 | #2

    Yes, I have had my share of similar failures due to too little film, etc.  And some of my cameras are electro-mechanical, so if the battery is exhausted you have limited options, such as only one available shutter speed.  And the XA, as you know is electronic, so with a dead battery no exposures are possible.  But then, the little battery that powers the little wonder is tiny, cheap (maybe $1.50 at most, half that for good shoppers), and powers the camera through hundreds of exposures, at least it seems.

    Oh, and it (the XA) just returned from a CLA, fully refreshed with DOF-applied cork grip still intact.  That’s right, a camera of 20+ years is good to go another 20.  :lol:

    Wonderful photos, BTW, evoking memories of other dawn photo sessions we shared.

  3. Mrs SEB
    October 6, 2006 at 21:32 | #3

    LOL, damn battery:-)  Beautiful pictures!

  4. October 7, 2006 at 08:03 | #4

    Nice shots. It has been a while since I have been in grain country. Here in my part of Florida we never see the grain elevators nor get the smell and the hustle and bustle of harvest.

  5. October 7, 2006 at 12:28 | #5

    Very beautiful pictures.  Kinda sucks you had wait all that time for the battery to run out.  I guess that gets a big time Homer DOH!!!!! ;-P

    I still need to get a digital camera, but I might have to wait another year now.  Oh well, I still have my camera phone which takes decent pictures.

  6. October 7, 2006 at 18:01 | #6

    Guyk:  There is something about the smells around the grain elevators, in the fields, isn’t there?  While I am thoroughly divorced from the Midwest now, those smells, and those of an impending thunderstorm or a humid summer night are supremely evocative.

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